“I hadn’t really thought about it,” she said slowly. “This has all happened so quickly. There must be some spare relative hanging about who could come to Lyon ’s Gate to live with me. My aunt Arielle is sure to know of someone.”
“How about my grandmother?”
“I didn’t meet her, but isn’t she dreadfully old?”
“Not beyond her eightieth year. She would refuse in any case. She doesn’t like ladies, except my aunt Melissande. I was joking with you. However, finding a chaperone won’t be a problem since you’re not moving to Lyon ’s Gate.”
“I wish you would give it up, Mr. Sherbrooke. I bought the property from the actual owner. It’s done.”
“I have a feeling that Thomas will prefer the sale going through his solicitor.”
“Why?”
“Because the money that goes to Mr. Clark might be a bit more safely hidden from creditors than if it went directly to Thomas Hoverton. Hmm, I wonder what Thomas will have to say if that is true?”
“No, that can’t be right. You made that up. The money goes to Thomas in any case.”
“We will see, won’t we? Go to bed, Miss Carrick.” He towered over her. “Jessie Wyndham is taller than you are.”
“These things happen. Perhaps James Wyndham is taller than you. We grow big in America.”
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.
CHAPTER 9
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.