The Sherbrooke Series Novels 1-5 Read Free Page A

now long lost. Her eyes were a vivid sky blue, clear as the day was gray and filled with humor and intelligence. All of his siblings had the Sherbrooke blue eyes and the thick light hair, though Sinjun’s was lighter and filled with sunlight. All except him.
    Douglas was the changeling, his eyes as dark as sin, his old nanny had happily told him many years before, aye, and he looked like a heathen Celt, all dark and swarthy, his black hair making him look like the master of the cloven hoof himself.
    When he was very young, he’d overheard his father accusing his mother of cuckolding him, for his son looked like no Sherbrooke in either their painted or recorded history. His mother, Douglas recalled, had apologized profusely for what she accepted as her error in the production of this, the implausibleSherbrooke heir. Ryder was fond of telling Douglas that it was this un-Sherbrooke appearance that made everyone obey him instantly, for it made him appear so austere and forbidding.
    But as Douglas looked at his sister, his expression wasn’t at all severe. She was wearing buckskins, as was he, a loose white shirt, and a light brown leather vest. Their mother, he knew, would shriek like a banshee when and if she saw her young daughter thusly attired. Of course, their mother was always shrieking about something.
    “What were you studying?”
    “It isn’t important. You’re worrying again, aren’t you?”
    “Someone must since our government doesn’t seem to want to concern itself with our protection. Napoleon has the best trained and the most seasoned soldiers in all of Europe, and they want to defeat us badly.”
    “Is it true that Fox will return and rout Addington?”
    “He is ill, I hear, and the time isn’t yet ripe enough for him to oust Addington. He is as misguided and as liberal as Addington, but at least he is a leader and not indecisive. I fancy you know as much as I do about the situation.” He was well used to his sister’s precociousness—not that precisely, but her erudition, the interest in issues and subjects that should have been years beyond her, things that would leave most gentlemen and ladies blank-faced with disinterest. And she seemed to understand him better than either of his brothers or his mother or the myriad of Sherbrooke relatives. He loved her very much.
    “No, you’re wrong,” she said now. “You must have seen a lot when you went to London last week andspoke to all those men. You haven’t yet told me the latest mood in the war ministry. Another thing, Douglas, you’ve armed all the men on our farms and some in the villages as well. You’ve drilled them over and over again.” On the heels of her very adult appraisal, she giggled like the young girl she was, saying, “It was so funny watching Mr. Dalton pretending to beat away the Frogs with that gnarly stick!”
    “He was best at retreating and hiding. I’d rather have trained his wife. Now she would be the kind of mean-boned soldier the French would fear.”
    Sinjun said abruptly, her light blue eyes taking on a gray hue, “I saw the Virgin Bride last night.”
    “I overheard you telling your friends. Your audience was most appreciative, albeit so gullible it was embarrassing. But, my dear girl, it is all nonsense, and you know it. You must have eaten turnips for dinner and it turned your dreams to phantoms.”
    “Actually I was reading in the library.”
    “Oh? I pray you won’t tell your mother if you chance to peruse my Greek plays. Her reaction staggers the brain.”
    She smiled, distracted. “I read them all two years ago, Douglas.”
    He smacked his palm to his forehead. “I should have known.”
    “I think the most interesting one was called Lysistrata, but I didn’t understand how the ladies could expect their husbands to just stop fighting just because they threatened to—”
    “Yes, I know what the ladies did,” he said quickly, both appalled and amused. He eyed her, wondering if he should attempt some