Catherine Coulter the Sherbrooke Series Novels 6-10 (9781101562123)

by Coulter, Catherine

  She blinked up at him. “I’m not really sure. It’s just that I saw Jason without his shirt on, and I fell off the cliff.”

  Alec Carrick didn’t need to ask which cliff.

  “Oh dear. I’ve never even thought to do anything like that before. I was getting used to his face, and that’s taken some doing, I can tell you that, but then to see him from his head to his waist—it was like a blow to the belly.”

  Alec Carrick closed his eyes a moment. He’d learned all about blows to the belly at age thirteen.

  “Baron Sherard,” Jason said, his shirt buttoned to his throat, his jacket buttoned as well, looking ridiculous in the heat. “Welcome to Lyon’s Gate. We weren’t expecting you.”

  “No, I planned a surprise,” Alec said slowly, eyeing the young man who’d left scores of female hearts cracked when he’d steamed away from Baltimore to return home.

  “I apologize, sir, for this particular surprise. I swear to you this hasn’t happened before, and it won’t happen again.”

  A gentleman, Alec thought, he was a gentleman, taking the blame off his daughter’s head. As for Hallie, she was staring at Jason like the village idiot, lust still blooming bright on her cheeks, still glazing her eyes.

  “Hallie,” her father said, “I would like some tea. Go into the house, fetch Angela, and Jason and I will be coming along soon.”

  Both men watched Hallie walk slowly back toward the house, head down. It soon became obvious she was talking to herself. She waved her right hand, which meant she’d made a good point and the other part of her brain had to accept it.

  “She’ll lose this argument.”

  That brought Alec up short. “You know what she’s doing?”

  Jason shrugged. “She was arguing with herself about me once. I was relieved that the side of her who’d taken my part that day, won. She didn’t bash me on the head. Sir, about what you saw—”

  “Yes?”

  “As I said, this has never happened before. It happened this time because I was forking that damned hay, and it’s really warm this morning. I just didn’t think. I took my shirt off. I’m sorry.”

  Alec Carrick stood not three feet from Jason, his arms crossed over his chest, legs spread. He looked perfectly capable of drawing a pistol and shooting Jason between the eyes.

  “Would you like to tell me why one of my daughter’s hands was straying down to your belly?”

  Jason nearly shuddered, felt again quite clearly those long fingers of hers on his flesh, tangling in his hair. He’d wanted to jerk and quake. “No, sir, both hands were around my neck except for the very shortest of moments. I swear to you I hardly noticed her hand. Or her fingers.”

  That was a lie of the first order, but Alec didn’t nail him. “Thank God you didn’t or I imagine my daughter—what’s this? Oh yes, the stable lads have returned from exercising the horses. No one was about. That’s fortunate. I hate to ask myself what my daughter would have done if the stable lads were in the stables. Would she have controlled herself? As a father, I pray so. Shall we continue this at the house?”

  “Certainly.” Suddenly, Jason grinned. “I wonder what Cook will do when she sees you.”

  An eyebrow went up as the baron strode next to him. “Why the devil should your cook do anything?”

  “If she swoons at the sight of you, my lord, do catch her, else we won’t eat well for dinner.”

  Cook looked at both gentlemen, standing side by side, and burst into a vaguely Italian aria, both hands clasped over her breast. She never stopped singing as she skipped back to the kitchen, an amazing sight, given her bulk.

  “Heavenly groats, Miss Hallie, and me poor whirling eyes, this is too much bounty for a simple female. Two perfect gentlemen, both of them standing right here in our house, right next to each other. Are you perhaps Master Jason’s older brother, sir? Oh my, did Cook swoon?”

  “Cook sang,” Hallie said. “Actually, she is still singing. This is my father, Martha, Baron Sherard.”

  “Lawks, sir, ye—you—can’t be a father. You’re a god.”

  CHAPTER 30

  That evening, after a delicious dinner of turbot of lobster with peas and asparagus and a savory roast saddle of mutton, Cook delivered up a chocolate cream for dessert to make the angels sing.

  It was still light outside, so the draperies in the drawing room weren’t pulled, and several windows were open to the sweet night air.

  Hallie poured her father tea, added a dollop of cream, just as he liked it, and handed it to him. She could still smell Jason on her skin. How was that possible, since she’d bathed before dinner? Her hand trembled. She couldn’t think about Jason, at least not now. Her father was telling an amusing story, she had to pay attention. She said, “So what did Genny do to this Mr. Pauley?”

  Alec laughed. “I believe she asked him if he played the piano, which he did, of course—she’d found that out before she asked the question. She then patted his hand and told him despite the fact that playing the piano, just like painting watercolors or sewing samplers, was a distinctly female pursuit, she still believed he looked manly enough, well, perhaps not quite as manly as he could if he eschewed the piano keys, for say, billiards and cheroots. He looked at me, studied himself for a moment in the mirror, coughed, then asked her very politely to design his yacht.”

  Jason, who knew Genny Carrick, Lady Sherard, nodded when Hallie said, “I never saw her back down from a fight. And she’s so smooth. I still get so mad I want to spit nails in a man’s face when he tells me I’m too pretty to be out in the mud.”

  Alec said, “Genny was the same as you at one time. However, since she married me, she’s learned to deal with businessmen with far more finesse.”

  “That’s because if she could deal with you she could deal with the devil himself.”

  Alec laughed and toasted her with his teacup.

  Angela said to Jason, “Baroness Sherard taught Hallie to stand firm when the ground was firm enough to stand upon, otherwise, she was to step back quickly.”

  Alec Carrick looked at his watch, looked at his daughter, and rose. “I believe Jason and I will have a short conversation. If you ladies will excuse us.”

  Hallie jumped to her feet. “Oh no, Papa, don’t you dare take him outside and shoot him or break his head. He didn’t do anything. It was all me. I attacked him. I nearly knocked him over I wanted to get to him so quickly. You cannot blame him, it isn’t fair.”

  “I cannot very well call my daughter a blockhead and knock her in the jaw, now can I?”

  “You’ve called me a blockhead many times.”

  Alec Carrick sighed. “I forgot.”

  “Listen, Papa, he was helpless, he was polite, there was nothing he could do except maybe kick me away. Besides, all the stable lads were out with the horses. Angela won’t tell anyone, will you?”

  “Certainly not, my dear, but you know these things have a way of oozing out of cracks in the walls.”

  “No,” Hallie said. “No, it’s not possible.”

  “Hallie, go to bed,” Jason said. “Sir, it’s quite a lovely night. Would you like to see Piccola prance around the paddock? It is one of her favorite pastimes.”

  “Prancing on a moonlit night?”

  Hallie said, “She refuses to prance if the sky isn’t clear. I don’t want to go to bed. I want to speak to my father, set his mind on the right road, assure him that if anyone did happen to see anything at all, I would bury him under the willow tree.”

  Alec Carrick walked to his daughter, clamped his hand over her mouth, and said quietly into her ear, “There will be no bodies buried anywhere. You will not open your mouth again. You will go upstairs and you will stay there.”

  Angela took Hallie’s arm. “It’s one of those times when the ground isn’t firm enough to stand on, my dear. Come along.”

  Five minutes later, Alec Carrick was smoking a cheroot and thinking about this very odd day. He said as he watched the smoke curl up into the clear night sky, �
�My daughter is one of the most self-contained individuals I have ever known. Even when she was small, she looked at those around her with a dispassionate eye. However, she was not at all dispassionate today in the stables.”

  Jason had never seen her dispassionate, indeed, did not recognize this woman her father spoke of. Hallie, dispassionate? Never. He said, “It is true, sir, what I told you. Nothing like that has ever happened before. I would not dishonor your daughter.”

  “No, the shock on your face, the desperation, was as stark as the white moon. The initial letters my daughter wrote to her mother and me after the both of you wanted Lyon’s Gate—she was quite ready to tear your head from your body. When she wrote of your male beauty, I could picture the sneer on her face. What do you think of my daughter, Jason?”

  “She has more guts than brains.”

  Baron Sherard nodded, remained silent.

  “This is something that shouldn’t have happened, my lord. I never wish to wed, you see.”

  Alec said slowly, “I heard rumors to that effect, rumors that you’d exiled yourself from England, spent nearly five years of your life living with the Wyndhams. You did this because of a woman?”

  Jason shook his head.

  “I had heard you were shot, nearly died. I will admit, I wondered what happened.”

  “I didn’t die.”

  Alec Carrick waited.

  Jason said, “It’s been over a long time, yet when I close my eyes it seems just a moment ago. I was responsible for the near-murder of my father and brother.”

  “How can that be?”

  Jason shrugged. “It was a bad time. Know that I was the one responsible for it.”

  Alec let it go. “I repeat, Jason, what do you think of my daughter?”

  Jason looked out of the paddock, listened to Henry’s low, soft voice as he spoke to Piccola, who was lightly tapping one hoof against the ground. Moonlight washed over the two of them, made the white paddock fence look like a painting. “This is my home. When I first saw Lyon’s Gate, I knew it would be mine, that I would live my life here and race and breed horses.”

  “My daughter felt the same way.”

  “Yes, I came to realize that. I will tell you that my family, because they love me, tried to get rid of her, but she never faltered. Thus we have this partnership of sorts. It has been difficult, I won’t lie to you, my lord. Your daughter is lovely, she is bright, she works until she’s cross-eyed, and she can walk into a room of people and bring laughter or create chaos. We have yelled at each other, nearly come to blows, all in the past two months, including the day I first saw her. Both of us have learned to bend a bit. Did you know that Lord Renfrew was in the neighborhood?”

  “That ass? Did she hurt him?”

  “It was close, but she decided to laugh instead, at how stupid she’d been. Do you know what really angered her? Evidently, in addition to bedding another woman during their betrothal, the buffoon lied to her about his age.”

  Alec Carrick threw back his head and laughed at the moon. Piccola raised her head and whinnied. She broke away from Henry and began to dance around the paddock, coming nearer and nearer to where Jason and Hallie’s father stood, booted feet on the wooden railing. Her eyes never left the baron’s face.

  Jason said, “I hadn’t realized Piccola liked laughter so much.”

  Alec said slowly, smiling toward Piccola, “After she found out about Renfrew, my daughter told me she never intended to marry. She said she didn’t have good judgment in selecting gentlemen. I reminded her that she was only eighteen years old, and what could she expect in the way of seeing behind the masks people wear?”

  “You’re never smarter in your life than when you’re eighteen,” Jason said.

  “I assume you’re right. It’s been too long for me to remember. Now, so you’ll know how serious she was, Hallie wanted to make a blood oath with one of her brothers that she would never wed. Her brother was eleven years old and would do anything she said. I put a stop to it before she could cut her palm with a knife.

  “After turning down a good half dozen gentlemen, four of the six quite satisfactory, I believed her.”

  “Hallie and I suffer from the same bad judgment in potential mates.”

  “I see. I think it’s time you told me a bit of what happened, Jason.”

  Jason saw no hope for it. He said slowly, “Unlike Lord Renfrew, this very smart and beautiful young lady did nothing so paltry as lie about her age. She was a monster and I never saw it. As a result of my poor judgment, she nearly killed my father, and her brother nearly killed my twin.

  “The fact is, I am not good husband material, my lord, because I can’t imagine ever trusting a female again in my life. I couldn’t give a wife what she’d deserve. I couldn’t make her happy.”

  “Because of this lack you see in yourself.”

  Jason nodded. “It’s there and it’s deep, part of me now, and a wife would come to resent me, even hate me.”

  Baron Sherard said nothing more. He patted Piccola’s nose, remembering how she’d struggled to stand after her mother had finally birthed her six years before at Carrick Grange. He watched her prance about in the paddock beneath the moonlight. He smiled. Youth, he thought, was always such a serious business. There was a lot to think about. He wondered what the earl and countess of Northcliffe thought of his daughter. Had they known what would very probably happen if two young, healthy people were put together like this?

  Jason was lying on his back, his head pillowed on his arms, staring up at the shadowy ceiling. Moonlight poured through the open window. The air was still and sweet. Sleep was a million miles away.

  He watched the doorknob turn slowly. In an instant, his body was poised to fight. The door opened quietly.

  A halo of candlelight appeared. “Jason? Are you asleep?”

  “It’s after midnight. Of course I’m asleep, you twit. What do you want, Hallie? Don’t you take another step. You will not come in here, not with your father sleeping twenty feet down the corridor. Go away.”

  She slipped through and quietly closed the door. “When I was little, I practiced walking on cat feet since I excelled at eavesdropping. The only person who would ever hear me was my stepmother. She told me it was a good skill to develop but I must promise not to use it on her. I never did.”

  “I heard you. Go away.”

  “Jason, I’m not going to jump you again,” she said, and she sounded both mortified and excited. She tossed her hair behind her, long thick hair, which he had no intention of thinking about, how it would feel rubbing against his cheek, a curtain over his belly.

  “Stay there, Hallie. I have no nightshirt on.”

  “Really? You don’t sleep in a nightshirt? Yes, I remember Corrie saying something about that. Do you know the moon is flooding through that window, Jason? If I come only five steps closer, I’ll be able—”

  “If you come one step closer, I’ll personally throw you out that window. It’s a nice drop to the ground.”

  “All right, all right, I’ll not move from this spot. Tell me, did my father try to break your arm?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Do you know what my father is thinking? He wouldn’t tell me a thing, patted my cheek, bid me good night, and walked away. And here I’ve known him all my life.”

  “I saw you slide your right foot forward. Step back, Hallie.”

  She took a very small step back. He saw she was barefoot. “If my father didn’t hit you, then I know what he wants, Jason, but believe me, you don’t have to agree. What happened was my fault, I’ve told him so a good dozen times. He says nothing, only looks patient. I wish he would believe that no one could possibly know. It’s as if it simply never happened. Poof, it’s gone.”

  Jason sighed. “Nothing’s gone. He’s your father. That makes all the difference in the world. I don’t think there’s going to be any choice here, Hallie.” He gave a short laugh. “At least our questionable partnership will be over.” />
  “No, don’t say it. I wanted to apologize to you for what I did, though I don’t remember thinking anything at all while I was doing it.”

  “Usually it’s gentlemen who lose their wits and can think only of getting a woman flat on her back.”

  “I hadn’t gotten that far,” she said. “I mean, your shirt was off and that gave me quite a lot to think about. When my hand made that very brief foray down your chest, well, perhaps I did think that getting you out of your trousers might be a very nice thing.” She paused, took a sideways step. “You’re out of your britches now.”

  He sat up.

  She stared at him.

  He pulled the sheet around him, then a blanket up over his shoulders, pulling it together over his chest, like a shawl.

  Alec Carrick said from the doorway, “Hallie, I cannot believe you are here. Have you no sense at all?”

  “Is that you, Papa? Oh dear, I believe it is. I’m not touching him. See, I’m at least seven feet away from his bed.”

  “Did you count the bloody feet?”

  “Well, yes, perhaps I did, and how fast it would take me to cover those feet if I ran. Papa, I’m only here to make Jason tell me what you said to him. See, he’s all covered up. He’s safe.”

  Alec Carrick laughed, couldn’t help himself. “You’re going to chase him out of his own house if you’re not careful, Hallie.”

  “He’s been chasing himself away lately,” she said to her father. “We’d be speaking, then he’d up and leave and not come back until dawn. I know it was dawn the other night because I was nearly awake, and so I told him.”

  “I see,” Alec Carrick said. “How often does Jason simply leave like that?”

  “He’s left a good half dozen times. Never a warning, he ups and leaves.”

  Jason wanted to dump her into the horse trough. “My lord, nothing would have happened here, nothing at all.”

  “I believe you. So you left, did you? How long do you think you could have kept that up, Jason?”