“Mother, what are you doing?”
“Ah, James, I’m praying this miracle doesn’t disappear with the arrival of nightfall.”
Douglas said, “If the miracle fades away, I’ll do my best to cheer you up tonight.”
His boys looked at each other, then down at their boots, not a word coming out of their mouths.
That evening, after dinner, the weather continued warm, a sickle moon hanging high in the sky. Jason walked into the east garden where all the naked male and female statues cavorted in timeless pleasure. Strangely enough, he was thinking of the last race he’d run against Jessie Wyndham. He’d been on Dodger, she on Rialto ’s son, Balthazar. Dodger’s head was down, he was dead serious, focused on the finish line in the distance. With not more than twenty feet to go, Jason turned to look over his shoulder to see exactly where Balthazar was. His heart fell to his boots. Jessie wasn’t on his back. Oh God, she’d fallen. Jason, terrified she was hurt or even dead, immediately wheeled Dodger about only to hear Jessie laugh. Laugh? He watched numbly as she hoisted herself back straight in the saddle, dug her heels into Balthazar’s sleek sides and galloped past him, over the finish line a moment later. She whipped a rearing Balthazar around and called out between shouts of laughter, “Jason, I’m sorry to do that to you, but Balthazar can’t bear to lose a race. He stops eating. Once he nearly died he was so distressed over a loss at the McFarly racetrack. I had to do something.”
And Jason said mildly, “It’s no problem at all, Jessie. That was an excellent trick.”
“I’ve been doing it since I was twelve. I’ve never had to fling myself sideways with you before. I’m surprised James didn’t warn you.”
“No, James never said a thing.”
“I wonder why the children kept mum.”
“There was no reason for anyone to warn me since I’ve never before beaten you in a race.”
She’d given him a fat smile and nodded, recognition that if she hadn’t done him dirty, he would have won. When she dismounted, praising Balthazar, Jason rode up to her, smiling, and let Dodger at him. He bit Balthazar’s flank, hard. Dodger hadn’t been as philosophical about the dirty trick.
He was smiling absently as he looked up at Corrie’s favorite statue, a kneeling man frozen for all eternity between a woman’s legs.
He turned quickly when he heard a gasp. “Hallie. You found your way in here.” She didn’t look at him, only stared around at the various statues.
Jason said, “There are fifteen statues. Each, I suppose you could say, with a different approach to the theme. I believe it was my great-grandfather who brought them back from Greece.”
She didn’t say a single word. Her eyes did not waver.
He pointed up at the statue. “Most women prefer this one, once they are married, but only if their husbands aren’t clods.”
She looked more closely and blanched. “Oh dear, what is he doing?” Her voice shook, but she didn’t look away from the statues. Jason said, his hand on her arm, “Come along.” When she still didn’t move, he grabbed her hand and pulled her away. He left the east gardens, still pulling her back toward the glass doors that opened into his father’s-no, James’s-estate room.
“No, no, please, Jason, please, let’s not go in yet.”
“You shouldn’t be looking at those statues. You’re too young and too ignorant.” He said nothing more, merely looked down at her, his arms crossed over his chest. He watched her tongue rub over her bottom lip.
“I’m not young nor am I particularly ignorant, but I will be honest here. It was difficult to break myself away.”
“You’d still be there, staring up, your mouth open, if I hadn’t dragged you away.”
“Probably true. Please, don’t go in yet. I wanted to talk to you, and it’s not about the statues.”
A elegant brow went up.
She was scuffing her slipper against a small rock.
Finally, after the silence dragged out, he sighed. “Spit it out, Miss Carrick.”
Her head came up and she said, all stiff and cold, “Please don’t call me Miss Carrick in that awful formal voice again. You’ve called me Hallie for a good week now.”
“Ah, the princess gives a direct order.”
She wrung her hands. “No, I didn’t mean that, truly, I only meant that when you speak in that tone it makes me feel lower than a slug. I hate it when you use my last name like you despise me so much you don’t even want to acknowledge Hallie.”
Jason leaned back against a sessile oak tree older than his grandmother, arms folded over his chest, and waited.
“I wanted to talk to you-All right, I really wanted to apologize. I was wrong to speak like that about Mrs. Dickers. It was such a shock to know that you and she-”
“You’re ruining it, Miss Carrick.”
Hallie sucked in her breath. “You can freeze someone with that voice.”
“Yes. I learned it from my father. James as well.”
“Don’t you see? She’s so much older than I am, and I simply couldn’t imagine you and she were, well-”
“This is getting better and better. How long do you plan to make excuses for yourself?”
She took a step toward him, reached out her hand, then dropped it again at her side. “We’re going to have to live together, Jason. I can’t live with you freezing me like this, like you’re still angry, perhaps still disgusted with me. Oh, very well, I’ll spit it out like you want. No more excuses. What I said was mean, it was petty, I’m a horrible person. Are you content now?”
“Hmm,” he said, turned on his heel, opened the door to the estate room and disappeared inside. She stared after him, angry that he’d walked away and wanting to fall to her knees and beg him to forgive her.
Jason turned back to see her still standing where he’d left her, her face pale in the moonlight. He called out, “If I were a man who wished to marry, something I will never wish to do again in this lifetime, I would be strongly inclined toward Eliza Dickers. She is warm and kind and very funny.” He didn’t look back again.
And she wasn’t.
Well, all right, so perhaps she wasn’t warm and kind and funny all the time. She doubted strongly that Eliza Dickers was either. How could one be all those good things all the time? Surely even Mrs. Dickers had moments of pettiness. A pity her husband was dead, or he could be consulted. Surely she’d occasionally called him a bonehead or a fleabrain.
Hallie turned and walked back to the east gardens. It took her a while to find the entrance even though she’d already been in there. She supposed it made sense to keep these awesome statues well hidden. She wondered at what age James and Jason had found them. She stood in front of the married woman’s favorite statue-if the husband wasn’t a clod-whatever that meant.
The fact was, she was a jealous bitch. She shook her head. No, she wasn’t jealous, that was ridiculous, she was simply a bitch, no jealousy involved. She had imagined he’d bedded every woman he’d wanted to in Baltimore, that Eliza Dickers had been one of many. But maybe there hadn’t been a long line of women, and that he, like a sultan, had to merely crook a finger to the one he wanted for the night. Maybe she’d been wrong about him, and he only shared himself with Eliza Dickers. He was certainly fond of her. But the fact of it was, he was so beautiful, so finely fashioned, she couldn’t imagine him not taking what was offered. After all, he was a man, and her stepmother, Genny, had told her candidly that every man Hallie met would think of little else other than bedding her, that it was simply the way of the species, and that they couldn’t help themselves. But Jason, he’d never shown any lecherous tendencies around her, and how could that be? Surely she was pretty enough to warrant at least one interested look, wasn’t she? Perhaps he was simply very good at hiding what apparently all men wanted.
“You’re a fool, my girl,” she said, looking up at the woman lying on her back, her mouth open on some sort of scream. Why was she screaming? Was the man hurting her? A woman would willingly allow h
er husband to embarrass and hurt her?
She continued to study the statue. The man’s mouth was where she couldn’t imagine a man’s mouth being anywhere near, particularly not all settled in like he appeared to be.
Well, no matter. Jason Sherbrooke never wanted to marry. That was good. That was fine with her because she didn’t want to marry either, ever.
She ran back to the Hall, aware that she was feeling warm, but not all over. No, not all over at all.
She found Martha curled up in her chair, sound asleep. She’d told her to go to bed, but naturally she hadn’t. Hallie led Martha into the dressing room where she slept, took off her shoes and covered her. She’d worked as hard as any of the women, jumping around, exclaiming over this and that, happy as a lark.
Hallie wondered, as she lay in bed that night, exactly what had happened to Jason five years before.
CHAPTER 17
Two mornings later, all the male workers moved the furniture from the very clean stables into the house. They grunted and carped, stretched and sweated, but were stoic and nicely silent when Hallie asked them to move a piece more than once. Hallie seemed to be enjoying herself, so Jason didn’t say a word until he walked into the room as she directed the men to move the main sofa in front of the windows. He stared. Hallie called out, all delighted, “Yes, that is perfect, simply perfect. Thank you. Now, I’m thinking a chair should sit in front of the fireplace, perhaps that lovely brocade wing chair that Master Jason likes so very much. No reason to be cold, is there? Of course it’s very warm now since it’s summer. Oh, hello, Jason. What do you think, should the chair still be in front of the fireplace so visitors will know that they’ll be warm when the cold hits?”
He was amazed and disbelieving, at what she had wrought, but he said in a straightforward voice, “There is something to be said for reassuring visitors, but I’m thinking the sofa and chair should be together, don’t you?”
“But there isn’t enough room in front of the windows for both.”
“Well then, why don’t we try the sofa and chair somewhere else. Perhaps to the left side of the fireplace.”
Hallie heard one of the men say to another, “It’s about time the master got involved. The next thing she’d want us to do is block the doorway with a hassock.”
“Of course I wouldn’t want a hassock in the doorway. A hassock can’t be separated from its chair. Everyone knows that.”
The men shuffled their feet. They didn’t notice the twinkle in her eye.
“They didn’t mean anything, Hallie,” Jason said. “However, you do have some rather curious notions about furniture placement.”
Hallie sighed deeply. “The truth is, my father and Genny quite despaired of me six years ago when I tried to redecorate my own bedchamber. I selected lovely colors and furniture, but when it came to placement, I put my bed with its back to the one big window. At least I sometimes recognize when the furniture is placed correctly.” She sighed and stood in the doorway.
After Jason had finished with the downstairs furniture, the men grinning, he said to Hallie, “Should we let Cousin Angela make decisions about her own bedchamber and sitting room?”
“After she sees what you’ve done, she’ll probably beg you to do it for her.”
“All right, I’ll arrange her furniture. If she doesn’t like it, I’ll change it myself. Now, don’t whine and act pathetic. Everyone has things they can do and things they can’t do.”
“Oh yes? What can’t you do?”
He stroked his fingertips over his chin. After a very long march of moments, he said, “Do you know, I’ll have to keep thinking about that.”
She said something under her breath and stomped away.
“What did you say?”
She mumbled something else, something rather unpleasant, he fancied, about his antecedents. She turned at the front door to see him grinning after her, a lovely white-toothed grin that made her want to both smack him in the head and fling him to the ground. Now, where had that come from? So she flung him to the ground-what would she do then? She’d kiss him until he swooned, that’s what she’d do. How long, she wondered, eyes glazed, would it take him to swoon? Oh dear. She kept walking.
After Cousin Angela’s bedchamber and sitting room were charmingly arranged, Jason went back downstairs to see Hallie standing in the open doorway looking off at something in the distance. He called to her, “Come back in, Hallie. Let’s take one final look.”
“A storm is coming. Do you know when it will hit?” When he stood next to her, she pointed.
“Any minute now. Those are fast clouds and black as a pit. Come, let’s look at our handiwork.”
He’d even done a perfect job in her bedchamber. She started to sigh, but refused to give him the satisfaction. They walked into each of the other rooms, Jason telling her what an excellent job she’d done selecting the fabrics and design of the draperies. It didn’t take long before she was smiling and nodding.
“Didn’t you select the hallway carpet?”
She beamed. “Isn’t it lovely? It won’t show much dirt.”
“No, indeed.” If someone had told him he would like a dark yellow rug with dark green vines, he would have puked, but oddly, it looked lovely running the distance of the corridor.
When they looked into Jason’s bedchamber, at the opposite end of the house from hers, Hallie said, “And this carpet you selected is very distinctive. Very masculine.”
“In short, very manly.” Actually, it was a lovely Aubusson his father had selected for him.
The floors were buffed to a high shine, the furniture and fabrics light, making all the rooms look airier and larger.
When at last they walked into the drawing room, Callie discovered her throat was tight.
“What’s wrong? You still want the chair in front of the fireplace?”
“Oh, no, it’s just that this is my first home.” She blinked up at him. “My very own first home.” She whooped, grabbed Jason, and soon they were waltzing around the room and out into the entryway. They were laughing, then suddenly Jason stopped in his tracks. Hallie, looking up at him, saw something close to panic on his face, and quick as could be, she locked her arms around his neck. She was still waltzing in place when she went up on her tiptoes and kissed him.
For an instant, he kissed her back. Then suddenly, he grabbed her hands and pulled them away from his neck. “No, no, Hallie, I will not dishonor you nor will I-Never mind, you’re a lady.” He paled, something akin to terror dilating his beautiful eyes, turned on his heel and left the house, nearly at a dead run.
It began to rain, hard.
After dinner, their final evening at Northcliffe Hall, Hallie found Corrie in the nursery, softly singing a lullaby to the twins, who lay like two small spoons, front to back. Hallie watched her lean down and kiss both of them, then pull a light cover over them. She straightened to see Hallie at her elbow. “Goodness, I didn’t hear you. What are you doing here, Hallie? Ah, aren’t they absolute loves?”
Hallie said, “I’ve been watching them. Their fingers fell out of their mouths when they fell asleep.”
“Yes, that’s always the giveaway. They’ve tried to fool me into thinking they’re asleep, but it’s the fingers that do them in. James will be here in a moment. What is it? There’s nothing wrong, is there?”
“Oh no. Well, perhaps. Could I speak to you for a moment, Corrie?”
Now, this was interesting, Corrie thought, as she motioned Hallie into a small sitting room down the corridor that overlooked the spectacular back gardens. They heard a man’s step in the corridor. “That’s James. He’ll probably pick both boys up and rock them. They always smile at him in their sleep when he rocks them. Now, tell me what this is all about.”
Hallie sat forward in her chair, realized she wasn’t certain how to introduce the subject of Jason and what exactly had happened five years before. What came out of her mouth was, “Jason said the statue where the man is kneeling between the woman
’s legs is your favorite. He also said it was every married woman’s favorite so long as her husband wasn’t a clod.”
Corrie’s left eyebrow shot up. She laughed, couldn’t help it. “Well, that’s the truth. Oh, I see, forgive me. You don’t understand. But didn’t you look closely?”
“Well, no, not really. It looked to me like the woman was screaming. It looked to me as if that sort of married thing was painful for the woman.”
Corrie stared at a young woman who was only two years younger than she. Well, she’d be ignorant as dirt herself if she hadn’t married James. And thank the good Lord, James wasn’t a clod. She grinned. “No, there’s no pain involved. When you decide to marry, I promise I’ll have James make certain the man you’ve chosen knows what he’s doing. That’s all I’m going to say about it.”
Hallie sucked in a deep breath. “That isn’t really what I wanted to ask you. The thing is, well, do you think you could tell me exactly what happened five years ago? Why Jason swears he’ll never marry?”
Corrie’s face tightened, she tightened all over. She hated thinking of that awful time, and the memories were always there. She saw that Hallie wasn’t asking out of simple curiosity, that there was something else at work. But what? Corrie said, “Was it spoken of in Baltimore? What do you know?”
“In Baltimore there were rumors that Jason and James had loved the same woman and she’d chosen James.” Hallie shrugged. “He gambled too much, he angered his father, anything you can think of. People talk and gossip because they must, I suppose. All Jason told me was that the girl he loved betrayed him and he was responsible for nearly getting his father and brother killed.”
“I see.” Corrie fell silent. “I’m surprised Jason said that much to you.”
“At the time, I told him that my betrothed was with another woman. I suppose Jason told me what he did to make me feel better.”
Corrie was astonished. “You’re joking, surely. This idiot man was your future husband and he betrayed you?”
Lyons Gate tb-9 Page 12
