James nodded. “August it is. Funny how both your twin and I share the same name.”
Jason nodded. “It made me feel quite odd for a good six months saying my brother’s name to another man’s face.” He searched both their faces now, faces that had become so dear to him over the years. “I don’t know if I’ve really told you how very much you mean to me, you and the children. I am of no blood relation to you, but you didn’t hesitate to make me part of your family, to teach me. And you, Jessie, to beat the dirt off my heels in racing, laughing merrily all the while, no concern at all to the continued bruising of my fragile male self.”
“That’s because James has the biggest fragile male self in all of Baltimore, and yours is paltry in comparison.”
James said, “We won’t talk about huge female selves. Now, Jason, you became part of the family very quickly, but the rest of that is nonsense. Everything we had to teach you, you learned in the first year. You are magic with horses, they respond to you on an almost human level. It’s as if they know you’re there for them, that you will do whatever they need.” James shrugged. “It’s difficult to put into words, but I know any horse racing or breeding you do in England will be a success.”
Jason stared at him, nonplussed.
“That’s right, Jason,” Jessie said. “Now, when you go back, where do you plan to settle?”
“Near Eastbourne, near my father’s home, Northcliffe Hall. Since my father forced my grandmother to move into the Dower House five years ago, James and Corrie and their twins stayed on at Northcliffe.” He paused a moment, gave James a crooked smile. “So that you will understand why my grandmother’s absence from the great house made such a difference, let me say that knowing your mother, James, has made me feel like I never left my grandmother. Undoubtedly my grandmother’s removal was an unadulterated blessing. She was very unpleasant to my mother and to Corrie.”
“Oh dear,” Jessie said with some awe. “Your grandmother is like my mother-in-law?”
“Yes, but she never tried to be subtle like Wilhelmina. She was always a hammer, went after her victims with a good deal of enthusiasm.”
Jessie said matter-of-factly, “We are very grateful we only have to see her once a week. She’s always hated me, as if you didn’t guess that immediately, Jason. She says these horrible things, all thinly disguised to sound innocuous. Sometimes I just wish she’d shoot it all out, like your grandmother evidently does.”
James laughed. “Actually, you’d have to be a blockhead not to understand that you’re being insulted down to your toes.”
Jason said, “Like Wilhelmina, my grandmother hates every woman in the family. The only female she isn’t rude to is my aunt Melissande.” He paused a moment. “I desperately want to see my parents again. I want to see my brother and Corrie, and my nephews. And the funny thing is that it just came upon me early this morning—”
Jessie’s right eyebrow went straight up. “Before or after you left Lucinda’s house?”
“Before, actually,” Jason said, his voice and expression suddenly smooth and austere. “She was rather surprised when I bounded out of bed like Satan was on my heels.”
“We will miss you, Jason,” Jessie said as she took her husband’s hand. “But we’ll all be together again in August. Not long at all.”
She smiled up at her husband, blinked back tears, then walked into Jason’s arms. “I always wished I had a brother and God finally gave me one.”
“He gave me a brother too,” James Wyndham said. “One with honor, immense goodwill, and a brain. Whatever happened all those years ago, Jase, it’s time to let it go.”
Jason didn’t say a word.
James quickly added, realizing that Jason wasn’t yet ready to let anything go, “I just wish you weren’t so bloody handsome.”
Jessie leaned back in Jason’s arms, laughing. “It’s true, all the females between the ages of fifteen and one hundred follow you, Jason. Don’t even try to deny it. You would not believe how many ladies have cornered me, every word out of their mouths about you. Oh yes, they all want to be my best friends and visit me.” She turned to her husband. “As I said at breakfast, Jason is first, then Alec Carrick. Hmm, I wonder what Alec thinks about that.”
Jason said on a sigh, “I wish you would believe me that Alec, like me, thinks it’s a bloody nuisance. Who cares about a face anyway?”
That was so stupid, Jessie didn’t say anything.
Jason paused, then hugged Jessie again. “The thing is, I always wanted a sister. And do you know what? You have hair just as red as my mother’s, and though your eyes are green and hers are blue, there is a great resemblance between you. She’s the most beautiful woman I know.” Jason touched his hand to her fiery red hair, a thick braided rope falling halfway down her back. “If, that is, beautiful faces make any difference at all.” He paused a moment, and his eyes darkened. “Thank you. Thank you both so very much for bringing me back to life.”
CHAPTER 2
Northcliffe Hall
Near Eastbourne, Southern England
Jason guided Dodger toward the Dower House at the end of the lane. It was a good three hundred feet from Northcliffe Hall, far enough away, Corrie had written, so that his grandmother couldn’t flounce in, wreak havoc, and flounce out, grinning with her few remaining teeth. His grandmother was an amazing eighty years old, even older than Hollis. He wanted to see her, hug her, and thank the Lord she was still here to be nasty. Perhaps great quantities of vinegar kept a person healthy.
His father had written just prior to Jason’s departure from Baltimore that Hollis still had a surfeit of both hair and teeth. Jason was simply grateful that Hollis, like his grandmother, was still alive.
Jason tethered Dodger, who was so happy to be home that he couldn’t stop tossing his head and sniffing the air. Jason hugged his neck, and the horse whinnied. He’d withstood the two-week voyage well. “You, old man, have more heart and fortitude than any other horse in the world.” He looked at the ivy-covered Queen Anne–style house and the beautiful garden surrounding it, which he knew was probably tended by his mother. The windows sparkled in the mid-afternoon sunlight, and there was an air of contentment about the place. He wondered if his grandmother had ever breathed a word of thanks. He doubted it.
He smiled when he hit the brass knocker against the thick oak door.
He couldn’t believe it when Hollis opened the front door. The old man stared at him, clutched his chest, and whispered, “Oh dear, is it really you, Master Jason? After all these years, is it really you? Oh my dear boy, oh my precious boy, you’re finally home.” Hollis threw himself into Jason’s arms.
Hollis was so much smaller, Jason realized with shock, holding the old man as gently as he could. He’d known Hollis his entire life; indeed, his father had known him nearly all his life as well. Hollis had strength in those old thin arms of his, thank God.
He breathed in the old man’s scent, the same scent as it had been all twenty-nine of his years on this earth, a mixture of lemons and honey wax, and said, “Ah, Hollis, I have missed you. I received your weekly letters, just like from my brother and from my mother and father. Corrie too. I’m sorry it took me so very long to begin to really answer them, but—”
The old man cupped Jason’s face in his hands. “It’s all right. You will not feel guilty about it, you will not apologize. You’ve been answering my letters for three years now. That was enough.”
Jason felt guilt rip at his throat, but he saw such love and understanding in Hollis’s wise old eyes that he nodded instead of throwing himself at Hollis’s feet. “Do you know Corrie has been penning letters from my nephews?” He drew in a big breath, then hugged the old man again. “I’m home, Hollis, I’m home now, for good.”
“Hollis! What is this? Who is here? I allow you to bring me nutty buns when you take your afternoon constitutional, but look what you’ve done—you’ve let someone follow you. You’re handing over my nutty buns to some riffraff, aren’t y
ou, Hollis? What absolute gall.”
Jason recognized that sour old voice. “Some things never change.” He grinned as Hollis stepped back, rolled eyes that held both infinite acceptance and a great deal of amusement, and called out, “Madam, your grandson is here, not to steal your nutty buns, he assures me, but to visit you.”
“James is here? Why on earth is James here? That wife of his tries to keep him away, I know she does. She’s a disgrace, that silly girl, like her mother-in-law, that hussy who’s married to my Douglas and refuses to look old like she’s supposed to.”
Jason looked up to see his grandmother walking slowly and carefully toward the front door, using a highly polished cane with a lovely hummingbird knob. He could see her pink scalp through her snow-white hair, all done up in tightly crimped little curls.
“It’s not James, Grandmother. It’s me.” Jason walked to the old woman whose eyes still shone brightly with both intelligence and malice.
She stopped dead in her tracks and stared at him. “Jason—You’re not James pretending to be Jason, are you? I haven’t lost my final wit, have I? Is it really you?”
“Yes, it is.” He strode quickly to her because she looked to be weaving a bit with shock. He took her very gently into his arms, realized she was even more frail than Hollis. Her old bones felt as if they could easily snap in a strong wind. He felt her dry seamed mouth kiss his neck, then he drew back, and looked down into his grandmother’s face, lines scored around her mouth, downward, naturally, since she was always berating everyone around her, never smiling. To his immense pleasure, that seamed old mouth parted in a smile. She kept smiling as she patted his face. “My beautiful Jason,” she said, and she kissed his neck again. Her look was suddenly searching as she said in the gentlest voice he’d ever heard from her in his life, “You’ve forgiven yourself, boy?”
He looked down at that cantankerous old face, and instead of vinegar all he saw was a wealth of concern and love, and it was for him. He couldn’t take it in, no more than he could begin to explain why he’d wanted to stop here first, to see her. He’d received two letters from her a year, one near his birthday and one near Christmas.
“You told your father and your brother not to come see you,” she said, still patting his cheek. “And then you wrote only niggardly excuses for letters for a very long time.”
“I wasn’t ready.”
“Answer me, Jason. Have you forgiven yourself?”
“Forgiven myself?”
“Yes, that’s it exactly. For some reason no one can fathom, except for James, who claimed he understood even as he knew you were dead wrong, you blamed yourself for what happened. It’s nonsense, of course. It’s probably an excuse for immense self-pity since you’re a man, and the good Lord knows that men love to wallow in self-pity, lap it up like cats do milk. Do it so that the women who have the misfortune to love them will spend endless amounts of time to reassure them and to stroke their brows—”
“—and pour tea down their gullets and overlook their indiscretions,” Hollis said. “I believe I’ve learned the litany.”
“Ha! You are a great deal too smart, Hollis,” the old woman said, and tried to hit him with her cane.
Now this was more like the grandmother Jason remembered. He gave her a huge grin. “Do you have any brandy to pour down my gullet, Grandmother?”
“Yes, but I daresay you’d rather have one of my nutty buns. You were riding by, weren’t you, and you smelled them wafting out the window, although the windows are supposed to be shut tight to keep out the noxious vapors.”
“Actually,” Jason said, “I didn’t smell the nutty buns. I haven’t smelled a nutty bun in five years. I came because I wanted to see you. Er, may I have a nutty bun now that I’m here and the nutty buns are here as well?”
She actually took several moments to weigh this—he could see it in her bright old eyes.
She yelled, “Hollis, you old stick, bring the nutty buns to the drawing room! Yes, my boy, I’ve decided that if there are at least a half-dozen, then yes, you may have one too. Hollis, your bony old self was just here. Where have you gone now? Are you doddering somewhere? Trying to stuff a nutty bun down your gullet? I’ll wager you are since you think I’ll not say anything since my precious boy is finally home.” Her grin was bright with spite as she spoke.
The grin fell away as she looked back up at Jason. “So you don’t wish to answer me, do you? That’s all right for now. Perhaps it’s too soon for you to realize what’s in your heart.”
Hollis, who had just entered the hall carrying the brandy, was having trouble believing his eyes. His mistress was treating Jason with more affection than she’d ever treated anyone in her entire life. He’d heard what she’d said, and was outraged. “You will allow Master Jason to eat one of your nutty buns, madam? You have never before offered me a nutty bun.”
The dowager countess looked him up and down. “I have always counted the nutty buns you bring me, knowing that it’s always supposed to be half a dozen, but there rarely are. I know you many times filch one for yourself. Don’t try to deny it, Hollis.” The old lady finally nodded, a curl of silver hair falling over her forehead. “Very well, Hollis, I will not berate you today. Look at your face—it’s begun to look like a starving monk’s, more than you did just last week when you deigned to come visit me with one nutty bun missing from that lovely covered plate. Hmm. You may also have a nutty bun, but get them now or I will rescind my offer.” The old woman released Jason, tapped her cane a couple of times, a prelude, Jason thought, to her tottering off to the drawing room.
Jason watched Hollis, stately and tall, those old shoulders as square as they’d been when Jason had left, walk down the hallway into the nether regions of the house to get the nutty buns. He heard him muttering how miracles did happen, that it appeared he would have one of the dowager’s nutty buns before he croaked it. Jason wondered if Hollis realized that two maids were hovering just beyond the staircase, ready for any assistance should he require it, asked or unasked for.
Jason said grandly, “Grandmother, may I offer you my arm?”
“Certainly, my boy. It has to be better than hanging on to Hollis. That old man is as weedy as a dormouse.”
CHAPTER 3
Northcliffe Hall
Silence hung heavy in the drawing room that evening. Tension swirled in the air, thick with bone-deep concern, unspoken worries, and unasked questions. Then Corrie appeared in the doorway carrying a freshly scrubbed twin under each arm, their beautiful small faces alight with excitement and shock because it was so very late and they weren’t in their beds, Nanny snoring not six feet away from them.
“Uncle Jason, it’s us again!” Douglas Simon Sherbrooke, older than his twin by exactly eleven minutes, broke free of his mother and ran as fast as his legs could carry him to Jason, who caught the little boy when he leapt into the air in his general direction.
“I see that it is,” Jason said, nuzzling Douglas’s neck. He smelled just like Alice Wyndham, after her evening bath. He felt tears well up. He looked down to see Everett Plessante Sherbrooke tugging at his trouser leg, ready to yell or burst into tears, Jason couldn’t tell which. He scooped up the little boy and held both of them close, letting them pat his face, give him wet kisses and talk nonstop, words that weren’t really words but rather twin-talk bursting out of those small mouths, just like the incomprehensible language he and James had shared.
Douglas drew back and said, “Everyone said you looked just like Papa and Aunt Melissande, but you don’t, Uncle Jason.”
“That’s true, Douglas. I don’t look exactly like your papa, but it’s close, don’t you think, Everett?”
The other impossibly beautiful little face scrunched up in thought. Everett then announced, “No, Uncle Jason, you look like yourself, and you look like me too. Not Douglas—he looks like Papa. Yes, that’s it, you look like me.” And that little face wore the same wicked look Jason had seen on his mother Corrie’s face.
&n
bsp; Douglas said, after another wet kiss on the right side of his uncle Jason’s neck, “Grandpapa can’t stand that I look like Papa and Aunt Melissande. She always brings Everett and me little almond cookies when she visits. Grandpapa says blessed hell, he’ll never be free of The Face. What’s The Face, Uncle Jason?”
Jason heard his father groan, his mother laugh. He turned to his father, brow raised. “Cursing, in front of this little scamp?”
“He’s got ears as sharp as you and James had when you were his age,” Douglas Sherbrooke, the earl of Northcliffe said, and poked his wife in her ribs. “Be quiet, Alex. I don’t believe a lad can be too young to learn of the Sherbrooke curse.”
“I agree,” Corrie said. “No, don’t you dare disagree with me, James Sherbrooke. Blessed hell is always your prelude when you’re ready to cut loose.” She grinned over at Jason. “He gets mad at me—only the good Lord could possibly understand why—and I know he wants to throw me out a window, but he has to make do with blessed hell and stomp out of the room.”
“A monstrous lie,” James said, then loudly cleared his throat when his two little boys turned wide eyes to him. “Jason, do you want me to liberate you from at least one of those imps?”
Both imps wrapped their arms more tightly around Jason’s neck, nearly choking him. Jason shook his head. “Not yet. All right, lads, can we settle ourselves down for a moment or do you want me to dance you around the drawing room? Your grandmama can play a waltz on the piano, if you like.”
“Let’s dance!” Douglas shouted, his feet kicking out.
“I want to waltz too,” Everett shouted in Jason’s other ear. “What’s waltz?”
There was laughter in the air now, the awful deadening stress and anxiety swept under the carpet, at least for the time being. To Jason, it felt wonderful. He began to waltz slowly about the drawing room, tightening his hold on the squirming little bodies, kissing their ears and their chins, and watched his mother pick up her skirts and walk quickly to the piano where she soon was playing a waltz he’d heard at a ball in Baltimore some two months before.
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