Catherine Coulter - Lyons Gate

He smiled down at her. “It’s better this way, Miss Carrick. Lyon ’s Gate is a grand property, its potential can be reached only by a strong man who has a vision. I am that man, Miss Carrick.”

“Your foot is bleeding, Mr. Sherbrooke. Brought low by a twig. Some strong man you are.”

Jason reached out his hand and lightly touched his fingertips to her chin. A firm, very stubborn chin. “Give it up, Miss Carrick. Go back to Ravensworth. Buy something there.”

“Good night, Mr. Sherbrooke. If I am found dead beneath one of Mary Rose’s honeysuckle vines, you can be certain you or one of your family members will be blamed for it.”

“Oh, were any of us to resort to that, you would simply disappear, Miss Carrick. Don’t forget that herring barrel.” He gave her a small salute and walked back into the vicarage, trying not to limp even when he stepped on another sharp twig.

Jason didn’t return to Northcliffe Hall. He rode directly back to London in clothes he borrowed from his twin.

When everyone arrived at the Sherbrooke town house late afternoon of the following day, he was waiting for them in the drawing room.

He wasn’t all that surprised when Hallie Carrick ran into the drawing room ahead of everyone, her right hand fisted, blood in her eyes.

He managed to catch her fist before it landed. “You miserable sot.” She managed to twist her hand free and hit him in the belly. He grunted as he grabbed both wrists.

She stood on her tiptoes, right in his face, squirming and tugging, but he wasn’t about to let her go again. “You paltry cretin, you puling weasel-let go of me so I can hove your ribs in!”

“I might be paltry and puling, but I’m not stupid. I’m not about to let you get loose again, Miss Carrick.”

“Let me at you, let me have more leverage, and I’ll send my fist into your liver.”

Corrie said, “She’s been muttering all the way to London about the most satisfying ways to kill you, Jason. Even my best conversational efforts didn’t deter her from quite innovative murder schemes, including stuffing you in a herring barrel and sailing you off some place on the other side of the planet.” Corrie paused a moment, tapped her fingertips against her chin, and sighed. “But you know, Hallie, in the end, you’ve let me down.”

Hallie jerked around at that. “What do you mean let you down?”

“You obviously are not acquainted with boxing science. When all’s said and done, you hit him like a girl-a straight shot, nothing subtle, nothing surprising at all.”

James said, “I hesitate to insert myself in the middle of this battlefield, but how the devil do you know anything about boxing science, Corrie?”

“I followed you and Jason to a boxing match near Chelmsley when I was twelve. You, Jason, and a half dozen wild young men from Oxford came down to get debauched and lose your groats on some sweating idiot trying to kill another sweating idiot.”

Douglas said, “You never saw her, James? You never knew about this until now?”

“She was always sneaky,” James said. He raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Thank you, God, for not letting all the gentlemen present realize she was a girl. You were wearing your britches, weren’t you?”

“Yes, naturally. I even won a pound betting on the very sweaty man-now what was his name? Crutcher, I believe. I wagered on him because he had longer arms. I figured that gave him the advantage.”

“You’re right,” Jason said, “Crutcher was his name. No, Miss Carrick, don’t try to knock me into the fireplace again. That’s better, hold still. Your wrists are staying right where they are. I bet on him too, Corrie. Won a hundred pounds off Quin Parker. I’d never even seen a hundred pounds before that day. James tried to extort a share, but I hid my booty.”

James said, “I searched your room at least three different times looking for that money. Where did you hide it?”

“In the gardens, not a foot from Corrie’s favorite statue.”

“Oh dear, how do you know which is my favorite statue, Jason?”

“It’s every female’s favorite statue,” Jason said.

Jason and James’s mother, Alex, said kindly to Hallie even as her husband gave her an astonished look, “They are large, very nicely carved statues of men and women in an unclothed state, very artistic, naturally, and I suppose you would say their subject matter is explicit. They were brought over by one of my husband’s ancestors in the last century.”

“Explicit what?” Hallie asked.

“I’ll show them to you, Hallie,” Corrie said. “They are vastly educational.”

“But how?”

“Well, they show you all the ways that a man and a woman can be intimate-”

“Intimate?” Hallie asked, her voice lower, vibrating with interest. “What do you mean ‘intimate’?”

“Well-oh dear, perhaps we’d best not discuss that here.”

Jason rolled his eyes.

“Amen,” said Corrie’s husband. “Forget about the statues.”

Hallie said, “They’re naked, you say? The male statues?”

“Well, yes,” Alex said.

“Hmm. You can show me these statues, Corrie-I don’t suppose the weasel here compares favorably to them?”

“Actually, truth be told, the statues don’t compare favorably to the weasel. Or to James.”

“Enough!” Jason roared.

Hallie jerked, found that he hadn’t let up on his grip at all, and said, “I’ll wager you dug up the one hundred pounds as soon as you could and lost it all in twenty minutes in a gaming hell.”

Douglas said, “My sons only visited a gaming hell once, Miss Carrick, and that was with me, their father, when they were seventeen.”

Alex said, “Goodness, Douglas, you never told me about that. How I should have liked to have seen it. I could have dressed in a pair of Corrie’s britches, perhaps worn a mask, sipped on brandy-”

“It was pretty bad, Mother,” James said. “Men were drunk as loons, wagering huge amounts of money as if they didn’t have a care in the world. The place smelled, to be blunt about it. As for the man who owned the hell, he looked like he’d willingly shove a knife in your belly if you didn’t pay up your losses.”

Corrie said to her father-in-law, “That was quite brilliant, sir. You did it as a lesson.”

Douglas nodded. “The unknown is a powerful lure. Strip away the mystery and you see the rot beneath. As I recall, my own father took me to a notorious hell when I was about that age.”

Alex said on a sigh, “I don’t think it ever occurred to my father to take Melissande or me on an educational experience like that one. I’ll wager there were gaming hells in York, don’t you think, Douglas?”

“Lord give me strength,” Douglas said, eyes heavenward.

Hallie jerked once more on her wrists, but Jason’s hold was still unbreakable. “This is all well and good, all these educational lessons, my lord, but may we get back to business?”

“What business?” James asked. “Oh, sorry, I forgot. You want to kill my brother.”

“No,” she wailed, “I want my stud farm! It’s mine, it belongs to me, I paid good money for it right into the cupped open hands of the owner himself, not his smarmy solicitor.”

“Before we return to that subject,” the earl said, “I’m curious about what you did with the money, Jason.”

“Do you know,” Jason said slowly, “I forgot about it. I think it still must be buried there.”

“You forgot one hundred pounds?” Hallie said. “That’s impossible. A young man never forgets his money, even one like you with more looks than brains.”

“Excellent,” Corrie said. “Hallie, you’ve regained your sense of humor.”

Hallie wanted to leap on Corrie, but Jason kept tight hold of her wrists. He did give her enough freedom so she could shake one fist in Corrie’s direction. “You have the unmitigated gall to make fun of me?”

Corrie said, unruffled as a sleeping hen, “Not at all. You still want to flatten Jason? I’ll teach you to box, Miss Carrick. What do you say to that?”

James’s eyes, like his father’s, went heavenward. “She saw one boxing match when she was twelve and now she’s going to give lessons?”

“Well,” Douglas said. “I gave her lessons. And your mother as well.” He gave a pirate’s grin to his slack-jawed sons.

Jason tightened his grip even more, shot his father an appalled look. “Now, Miss Carrick, enough reminiscing, though it has brought revelations that have shaken my poor brother to his toes. You never saw Corrie in britches. Now, Corrie is right. Simple hits in the gut show no real depth of boxing science.”

Hallie said, “I merely wanted to get your attention. Murder comes later.”

The earl, who now stood with his shoulders against the mantel, arms crossed over his chest, said, “I wonder where Willicombe is. He should be in here pouring tea down our gullets and-”

“My lord! Ah, Master Jason is home as well. What a delight, what a brave new day it is. Just see how the sun is now pouring in through the large window to shine upon your returned face. I say, Master Jason, why are you holding that young lady by her wrists?”

“Willicombe, this girl wants to lay me out. Her name is Miss Hallie Carrick.”

“Shall I fetch Remie to deal with her, Master Jason?”

“Not yet, Willicombe, I’m currently holding my own.”

Willicombe turned to Alex. “Refreshments, my lady?”

“Whatever cook can put together would be fine, Willicombe. How is Remie?”

“He pines, my lady, pines until he has become thin as a chicken’s leg. Trilby is a lady’s maid and she knows all the tricks from her mistress on how to make a young man sweat.” He shook his head as he left the drawing room.