And Jason said mildly, “It’s no problem at all, Jessie. That was an excellent trick.”
“I’ve been doing it since I was twelve. I’ve never had to fling myself sideways with you before. I’m surprised James didn’t warn you.”
“No, James never said a thing.”
“I wonder why the children kept mum.”
“There was no reason for anyone to warn me since I’ve never before beaten you in a race.”
She’d given him a fat smile and nodded, recognition that if she hadn’t done him dirty, he would have won. When she dismounted, praising Balthazar, Jason rode up to her, smiling, and let Dodger at him. He bit Balthazar’s flank, hard. Dodger hadn’t been as philosophical about the dirty trick.
He was smiling absently as he looked up at Corrie’s favorite statue, a kneeling man frozen for all eternity between a woman’s legs.
He turned quickly when he heard a gasp. “Hallie. You found your way in here.” She didn’t look at him, only stared around at the various statues.
Jason said, “There are fifteen statues. Each, I suppose you could say, with a different approach to the theme. I believe it was my great-grandfather who brought them back from Greece.”
She didn’t say a single word. Her eyes did not waver.
He pointed up at the statue. “Most women prefer this one, once they are married, but only if their husbands aren’t clods.”
She looked more closely and blanched. “Oh dear, what is he doing?” Her voice shook, but she didn’t look away from the statues. Jason said, his hand on her arm, “Come along.” When she still didn’t move, he grabbed her hand and pulled her away. He left the east gardens, still pulling her back toward the glass doors that opened into his father’s-no, James’s-estate room.
“No, no, please, Jason, please, let’s not go in yet.”
“You shouldn’t be looking at those statues. You’re too young and too ignorant.” He said nothing more, merely looked down at her, his arms crossed over his chest. He watched her tongue rub over her bottom lip.
“I’m not young nor am I particularly ignorant, but I will be honest here. It was difficult to break myself away.”
“You’d still be there, staring up, your mouth open, if I hadn’t dragged you away.”
“Probably true. Please, don’t go in yet. I wanted to talk to you, and it’s not about the statues.”
A elegant brow went up.
She was scuffing her slipper against a small rock.
Finally, after the silence dragged out, he sighed. “Spit it out, Miss Carrick.”
Her head came up and she said, all stiff and cold, “Please don’t call me Miss Carrick in that awful formal voice again. You’ve called me Hallie for a good week now.”
“Ah, the princess gives a direct order.”
She wrung her hands. “No, I didn’t mean that, truly, I only meant that when you speak in that tone it makes me feel lower than a slug. I hate it when you use my last name like you despise me so much you don’t even want to acknowledge Hallie.”
Jason leaned back against a sessile oak tree older than his grandmother, arms folded over his chest, and waited.
“I wanted to talk to you-All right, I really wanted to apologize. I was wrong to speak like that about Mrs. Dickers. It was such a shock to know that you and she-”
“You’re ruining it, Miss Carrick.”
Hallie sucked in her breath. “You can freeze someone with that voice.”
“Yes. I learned it from my father. James as well.”
“Don’t you see? She’s so much older than I am, and I simply couldn’t imagine you and she were, well-”
“This is getting better and better. How long do you plan to make excuses for yourself?”
She took a step toward him, reached out her hand, then dropped it again at her side. “We’re going to have to live together, Jason. I can’t live with you freezing me like this, like you’re still angry, perhaps still disgusted with me. Oh, very well, I’ll spit it out like you want. No more excuses. What I said was mean, it was petty, I’m a horrible person. Are you content now?”
“Hmm,” he said, turned on his heel, opened the door to the estate room and disappeared inside. She stared after him, angry that he’d walked away and wanting to fall to her knees and beg him to forgive her.
Jason turned back to see her still standing where he’d left her, her face pale in the moonlight. He called out, “If I were a man who wished to marry, something I will never wish to do again in this lifetime, I would be strongly inclined toward Eliza Dickers. She is warm and kind and very funny.” He didn’t look back again.
And she wasn’t.
Well, all right, so perhaps she wasn’t warm and kind and funny all the time. She doubted strongly that Eliza Dickers was either. How could one be all those good things all the time? Surely even Mrs. Dickers had moments of pettiness. A pity her husband was dead, or he could be consulted. Surely she’d occasionally called him a bonehead or a fleabrain.
Hallie turned and walked back to the east gardens. It took her a while to find the entrance even though she’d already been in there. She supposed it made sense to keep these awesome statues well hidden. She wondered at what age James and Jason had found them. She stood in front of the married woman’s favorite statue-if the husband wasn’t a clod-whatever that meant.
The fact was, she was a jealous bitch. She shook her head. No, she wasn’t jealous, that was ridiculous, she was simply a bitch, no jealousy involved. She had imagined he’d bedded every woman he’d wanted to in Baltimore, that Eliza Dickers had been one of many. But maybe there hadn’t been a long line of women, and that he, like a sultan, had to merely crook a finger to the one he wanted for the night. Maybe she’d been wrong about him, and he only shared himself with Eliza Dickers. He was certainly fond of her. But the fact of it was, he was so beautiful, so finely fashioned, she couldn’t imagine him not taking what was offered. After all, he was a man, and her stepmother, Genny, had told her candidly that every man Hallie met would think of little else other than bedding her, that it was simply the way of the species, and that they couldn’t help themselves. But Jason, he’d never shown any lecherous tendencies around her, and how could that be? Surely she was pretty enough to warrant at least one interested look, wasn’t she? Perhaps he was simply very good at hiding what apparently all men wanted.
“You’re a fool, my girl,” she said, looking up at the woman lying on her back, her mouth open on some sort of scream. Why was she screaming? Was the man hurting her? A woman would willingly allow her husband to embarrass and hurt her?
She continued to study the statue. The man’s mouth was where she couldn’t imagine a man’s mouth being anywhere near, particularly not all settled in like he appeared to be.
Well, no matter. Jason Sherbrooke never wanted to marry. That was good. That was fine with her because she didn’t want to marry either, ever.
She ran back to the Hall, aware that she was feeling warm, but not all over. No, not all over at all.
She found Martha curled up in her chair, sound asleep. She’d told her to go to bed, but naturally she hadn’t. Hallie led Martha into the dressing room where she slept, took off her shoes and covered her. She’d worked as hard as any of the women, jumping around, exclaiming over this and that, happy as a lark.
Hallie wondered, as she lay in bed that night, exactly what had happened to Jason five years before.
CHAPTER 17
Two mornings later, all the male workers moved the furniture from the very clean stables into the house. They grunted and carped, stretched and sweated, but were stoic and nicely silent when Hallie asked them to move a piece more than once. Hallie seemed to be enjoying herself, so Jason didn’t say a word until he walked into the room as she directed the men to move the main sofa in front of the windows. He stared. Hallie called out, all delighted, “Yes, that is perfect, simply perfect. Thank you. Now, I’m thinking a chair should sit in front of the fireplace, perhaps that lovely brocade wing chair that Master Jason likes so very much. No reason to be cold, is there? Of course it’s very warm now since it’s summer. Oh, hello, Jason. What do you think, should the chair still be in front of the fireplace so visitors will know that they’ll be warm when the cold hits?”