Catherine Coulter - Lyons Gate

“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.”

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.”