The Sherbrooke Bride Read Online Free

Earl of Northcliffe. Even Father wrote of her once.”
    â€œI know, but you can be certain I shan’t write a word about that nonexistent phantom. It is drivel and all reported by hysterical females. You can be certain that your Virgin Bride will end her ceaseless meanderings with me. Doubtless all our ancestors did their recounting during long winters, when they were bored and sought to amuse themselves and their families.”
    Sinjun merely shook her head at him, touching her fingers to his coat sleeve. “There is no reasoning with you. Did I tell you? My friends—Eleanor and Lucy Wiggins—they’re both in love with you. They whisper and giggle and say in the most nauseating way imaginable that they would swoon if only you wouldsmile at them.” Then, after that girlish confidence, she added, “You are a natural leader, Douglas, and you made a difference in the army just as you’re making a difference here. And I did see the Virgin Bride.”
    â€œI hope that may be true. As for you, too many turnips and lewd Greek plays. Oh, and give Eleanor and Lucy another couple of years and it will be Ryder who will draw their female swoons and sighs.”
    â€œOh dear,” Sinjun said, her brow furrowing. “You must make Ryder promise not to seduce them for he’ll find it an easy task because they’re so silly.” Sinjun fell silent for Douglas was obviously distracted again.
    He was thinking that he would protect what was his just as had his long-ago ancestor, Baron Sanderleigh, who had saved Northcliffe from the Roundhead armies and managed through his superior guile to convince Cromwell of his family’s support, and after him, Charles II. Throughout the succeeding generations, the Sherbrookes had continued to refine the fine art of guile to keep themselves and their lands intact. They had provided mistresses of great mental aptitude and physical endowment to kings and ministers, they had excelled in diplomacy, and they had served in the army. It was rumored that Queen Anne had been in love with a Sherbrooke general, a younger son. All in all, they had enriched themselves and kept Northcliffe safe.
    He shook his head, backing farther away from the cliff edge. There’d been a recent storm and the ground wasn’t all that solid beneath his feet. He warned Sinjun, then fell into abstraction again as he sat on an outcropping of rocks.
    â€œThey won’t leave you alone, Douglas.”
    â€œI know,” he said, not bothering to pretend ignorance. “Damn, but they’re right and I’ve been a stubborn bas—fool. I have to marry and I have to impregnate my wife. One thing I learned in the army is that life is more fragile than the wings of a butterfly.”
    â€œYes, and it is your child who must be the future Earl of Northcliffe. I love Ryder dearly, as do you but he doesn’t want the title. He wants to laugh and love his way through life, not spend it with a bailiff poring over account books or hearing the farmers complain about the leaks in their roofs. He doesn’t care about all the pomp and dignities and the knee-bending. His is not a serious nature.” She grinned and shook her head, scuffing the toe of her riding boot against a rock. “That is, his is not a serious nature about earl sorts of things. Other things are different, of course.”
    â€œWhat the devil does that mean?”
    Sinjun just smiled and shrugged.
    Douglas realized in that instant that he’d made his mind up; more than that, he also knew whom he would marry. Ryder had himself brought her up during their meeting. The girl he’d fancied three years before, the beautiful and glorious Lady Melissande, daughter of the Duke of Beresford, who had wanted him and had cried when he’d left and hurled names at his head for what she’d seen as his betrayal. But three years before, he’d been committed to the army, committed to destroying