The Sherbrooke Bride by Catherine Coulter Page B

carefully on the side table, nodded to his cousin, picked up a candle, and strode from the library.
    â€œDouglas! Wait! You don’t understand. For God’s sake, come back here!”
    But Douglas wasn’t about to stop. He heard Tony coming after him and quickened his pace. A mistake, that’s what all this was, no, it was a wicked joke, a joke worthy of Ryder . . . no . . . something else. He heard his cousin on the stairs behind him as he turned into the eastern corridor. He ran down the long hall to the master suite at the end. He pulled open the double doors, dashed inside, then slammed them closed behind him, and quickly turned the key.
    He looked toward his bed, holding his candle high. The covers were as smooth as when he’d left Northcliffe Hall two weeks before. The bed was empty.
    He walked to the dais and stood there staring down at that damned empty bed. He’d dreamed of this bed. Not empty like it was now. No, he’d dreamed of Melissande lying on her back in the middle, her arms open, inviting him to come to her.
    He turned, furious, nearly beyond understanding anything. He looked toward the adjoining door and realized he was being a fool. Naturally she wouldn’t be in his bed, she would be in the countess’s bedchamber next to his. He was a stranger to her, somewhat, and it wouldn’t be proper for her to be in his bed, at least not yet. Not until he had, as her husband, formally fetched her into his bed.
    He flung open the door to the adjoining bedchamber. This room was smaller, its furnishings soft and very female; this was the room visited by the resident ghost who didn’t exist and never had existed except in bored or fevered female minds. He saw that the bed covers were rumpled. But this bed was also empty. It was then he saw her. It was a girl and she was standing in the shadows, wearing a long white gown that covered her from her chin to her toes. He couldn’t see her all that clearly, but he knew that she was very pale, and clearly startled. And was it fear he saw as well? Fear of him?
    Hell, she should be afraid, he thought, and took two steps forward. She wasn’t Melissande. She was a bloody stranger and she had the gall to be here in his wife’s bedchamber, standing there as if she belonged, staring at him as if he were an intruder at the least, perhaps even a murderer. He stopped dead in his tracks. “Who the devil are you?”
    He sounded very calm, which surprised him no end. He was shaking on the outside, his gut cramping on the inside, and he quickly set down the candle on the stand beside the bed.
    â€œI asked you who you are. What the hell are you doing in here? Where is Melissande?”
    â€œMelissande is down the hall, in the west wing. The bedchamber is called the Green Cube, I believe.”
    Her voice was scared—high, thin, and reedy.
    â€œI don’t know you. Why are you here?”
    The girl stepped forward, and he saw her square her shoulders. In the dim candlelight he saw that she was small, slight of build, and her hair was a rich dark red, long and waving down her back and over her shoulders.
    â€œI was sleeping here.”
    â€œYou aren’t Melissande.”
    â€œNo,” she said. “I’m Alexandra. I’m actually your wife.”
    He laughed then, and it was an ugly raw sound, holding disbelief and utter incredulity. “You can’t be my wife, sweetheart, for I’ve never seen you in my life. I believe you must be one of Tony’s wives or perhaps one of his many mistresses.”
    â€œYou have seen me before, my lord, it’s just that you don’t remember me. I was only fifteen at the time and you saw only my sister.”
    â€œYes, and I married your sister.”
    There was loud pounding on the door in Douglas’s bedchamber. He could hear Tony working the doorknob frantically. Douglas looked up, hearing Tony shout, “Douglas, open this