Sherbrooke Twins

He arrived at Number 27 Great Little Street and rapped the bronze lion’s-head knocker.

A red-faced butler took one look at him and quickly stepped back. “Please hurry, my lord, before it is too late! I don’t know what to do.”

James ran past the butler’s flapping hand up the stairs and through the wide double doors into the Ambrose drawing room. He came to a halt in the doorway, scared to his toes, to find Corrie standing in the middle of the room, garbed in the most hideous gown he’d ever seen. It was pale blue, lace sewn nearly to her ears, row upon row of flounces sewn on the bottom portion, and sleeves the size of ca

James shut the door in the butler’s face. He was at her side in a moment, grabbing up her hand that fell out of that huge sleeve. “Corrie, what the devil is the matter?”

She swiped the back of her right hand over her eyes and gave him the most pathetic look he’d ever seen from her. Another tear trickled over her cheek to drip off her chin.

“Corrie, for God’s sake, what’s happened?”

She drew a deep breath, focused on his face, and sneered. “Why nothing, you fool.”

He shook her. “What is wrong, damn you? The butler was really scared.”

“All right, all right, stop shaking me. If you would know the truth, I’m practicing.”

He dropped his hands. “Practicing what?”

“You’ll just keep digging and prodding, won’t you? Very well. Aunt Maybella said I must know how to turn down the scores of young gentlemen who will be proposing to me right and left. She said to think of something sad and it would make me cry. She said that gentlemen are most profoundly affected by a lady’s tears. They would believe that I am desolate to refuse to marry them. There, are you satisfied?”

He was staring down at her, dumbfounded. The tears had certainly worked on him, and the butler. He said, “You will not gain a single proposal wearing a gown like that.”

Her tears dried up in a flash. Her mouth seamed shut. “Aunt Maybella said it is very fine. Your mother selected the pattern and the fabric and my maid sewed it.”

“In that case, you have to know that it is very bad indeed.”

She stood there, trying to close the huge mouths of the sleeves, but they’d been stiffened and didn’t move.

James wanted to laugh, but he wasn’t a total clod. “Listen, Corrie, my father is going to take you tomorrow to Madame Jourdan. She will fix you up.”

“Do I really look that bad?”

Sometimes the truth was good. On the other hand, sometimes the truth needlessly devastated. “No. But listen to me. London is a vastly different place. Look at me. I’m not wearing breeches, a shirt open at my throat. Not here.”

“I like you better in breeches and an open shirt.”

“Well, that’s not going to happen here in London. Now, my mother wants you to come back with me for a visit. Er, do you perhaps have something else you can wear?”

CHAPTER NINE

Men and women, women and men. It will never work.

ERICA JONG

I AM THE jewel of Arabie… I am the jewel of Arabie… It was her litany, spoken over and over from the moment she stepped in the carriage with Aunt Maybella to come to the Ranleagh ball just two streets away on Putnam Square, although she wasn’t entirely certain what the jewel of Arabie actually was. She’d thought it ridiculous to take a carriage until she’d tottered down the front stairs in a pair of lovely high-heeled white satin slippers.

She might indeed look fine, but the fact was that if Willie Marker tried to kiss her again, she wouldn’t be able to run after him and smack him in the head. No, she’d either stumble over her feet or collapse in a dead faint because she couldn’t breathe.

On the other hand, she could kick him with a deadly heel.

On the second other hand, Willie Marker was an idiot she didn’t have to worry about here in London.

No, her only worry here was to snag a husband, and if that meant looking fine through exquisite torture, her aunt was fully prepared to bring out an iron maiden. Maybella, looking very pleased, had patted her hand and told her a lady’s lot wasn’t an easy one. And what was one to say to that?

Who wanted a husband anyway? She’d rather have a white poodle on her lap when she drove herself down Bond Street smiling graciously at all the gentlemen swooning at the sight of her.

She saw a lady throw her head back and laugh at something a gentleman said. What could a man possibly say to make a woman laugh with such gusto?

Corrie had been looking around the Ranleagh ballroom, near to bursting with scores of laughing, beautiful people who had to be roasting it was so warm this evening, but it didn’t seem to phase any of them. They waltzed and laughed and flirted and drank champagne while she stood, nailed to the spot, so frightened she knew she was going to erupt in hives.

She was wedged between James’s mother and her Aunt Maybella, and weren’t they having just the finest time, speaking to other ladies who floated by on lovely heeled slippers, some of which were more than two inches off the ground. And all the gentlemen, crooning over Lady Alexandra’s lovely hand, whispering wicked things not an inch from her lovely ear. She heard her Aunt Maybella titter.

Both her aunt and Lady Alexandra appeared to take it all in stride, indeed, blossoming, as if this was the way things were done, and evidently they were.

If she were wise, she would watch and listen and imitate.

She was convinced she’d been introduced to every lady who wasn’t on the dance floor, and said her practiced niceties to such a polished degree that she heard one lady say under her breath to James’s mother that she was a prettily behaved girl. As opposed to what? She’d practiced in front of a mirror until she was fluent in politeness. She smiled and nodded and recited, trying to sound spontaneous, difficult after you’d said the same things twelve times.

By the time she’d danced with six young gentlemen in forty-five minutes, she couldn’t believe she’d been such a twit to be scared. There was only one Willie Marker in the lot, but at least he was nicely dressed and his hands weren’t dirty. All her aunt could talk about was finding her a right and proper husband, not one that was after things other than a wife, and thus because you never knew what lurked beneath a nice set of shoulders, Corrie was to be very vigilant. Since Corrie had no idea what those other things could possibly be, she was suspicious of every gentleman who asked her to dance until she reached the fourth, Jonathan Vallante, whose eyes bugged out just a bit, and made her laugh. Looking out over the ballroom, she realized this was like one of the big country fairs, except there were no pickpockets lurking and none of these people had to count their money. She saw a man with two gold front teeth. There was another lady with three chins and a lovely diamond necklace that looked in danger of choking her. Corrie realized that if you stripped off all the jewels, loosened all the stays, these beautiful people were much like the ones at home.

She hadn’t danced in seven minutes, and she wanted to dance again, she loved to dance, she’d discovered, and so where were all these young gentlemen? She tapped the heel of one slipper. She was restless. She’d only attracted six of them. Surely there were more than a measly half dozen. She wanted a long line of gentlemen, queuing right in front of her, peering around each other to get a better view of her.

Then her ears perked up.

The duchess of Brabante was saying to James’s mama, “There are the twins, just coming into the ballroom. Ah, what exquisite and delightful boys, Alexandra. You’ve done so very well. What a thrill it must be for you now that they are all so splendidly grown up, watching all the young ladies and their mamas dogging them, hanging on to their every word. Why, I saw one young lady swoon at James’s feet. I was hoping he’d let her fall, but no, James is a gentleman, and before her elbow hit the floor, he caught her. He gave her a scare though, and I thought that was smart of him.