Martha said, “Well, more power to a lady’s knee, I say. Now, Miss Hallie, it’s very late. Time for me to see to you and Miss Angela.”
Jason said, “I, as well, learned a lot with the Wyndhams in Baltimore. Americans can stand more pain, and they don’t whine as much, I found. Jessie asked me to exercise desperate measures on three occasions as I recall.”
Hallie said, “What kind of desperate measures?”
“A competitor bribed a stable lad to poison one of the Wyndham horses. I made him walk through downtown Baltimore -it wasn’t raining, as I recall-carrying the tub of the poisoned grain he would have fed Rialto. Every three steps he had to announce what he’d tried to do.”
Hallie nodded in approval. “I heard from my father that you once sliced a jockey’s face with your whip when he was going to stick a knife in your horse’s neck.”
“Nearly to the bone.”
“My father also said you nabbed another jockey as he was coming out of Mrs. O’Toole’s tavern and beat the stuffing out of him for trying to shoot you off your horse in a race the week before.”
Jason smiled at the memory, flexed his fingers without conscious thought. “I should have waited until he’d sobered up. It would have been more fun.”
“Just so,” Hallie said. “No one will go against us more than once.”
“Heavenly groats, Miss Hallie,” Martha was heard to whisper as she walked between her mistress and Miss Angela up the staircase, “this is so exciting. Do ye-you-think you’ll have to resort to some of these desperate measures Master Jason was talking about?”
“It’s possible,” Hallie said, as serious as a nun wielding a three-pronged whip.
“And yer-your-knee, Miss Hallie. I want to hear all about your knee.”
“That thought would make the blood move swiftly through a man’s heart, wouldn’t it?” Angela said, as she lightly patted the very feminine white lace over her bosom.
CHAPTER 27
Charles Grandison said, “I want to buy Piccola. She’s magnificent. I’ll pay you very well for her, Jason.”
“She’s not my mare to sell.”
“Ah, so Miss Carrick is her owner. A lady enjoys having lovely things-”
“I’ve noticed that gentlemen enjoy lovely things as well,” Hallie said, coming around the corner. She strode, Jason thought, like a boy with more arrogance than brains. What would Charles make of that? What would he say if he noticed her gown was really a pair of fat-legged trousers? Ah, and the shine on her boots.
Hallie patted Piccola’s forehead while she nuzzled a carrot off Hallie’s palm. “She will win me many more races before she retires, my lord. Unfortunately, we have no horses for sale at this time. We’ve not been in business all that long.”
Jason said, “James and Jessie Wyndham will be visiting in August. They’re bringing us stock they’ve selected themselves.”
“Yes,” Hallie said. “Come see us in September.”
“I will,” Charles said. “It will interest me to see what an American considers good breeding and racing stock. Ah, Miss Carrick, Lord Brinkley told me about the shine on your boots. Said his man Old Fudds still couldn’t get it just right.”
“Practice,” Hallie said.
“That is true of most things, I’ve found,” Charles said, and turned to Jason. “You’ve begun well, Jason.”
“Thank you,” Hallie said.
Charles Grandison laughed. “I would like to meet this misogynist butler who stole Elgin ’s hat and cane.”
It was later, over Cook’s lovely tea and gingerbread that Hallie asked, “Lord Carlisle-”
“Call me, Charles, please.”
She smiled, inclined her head. “Have you and Lord Renfrew known each other long?”
“ Elgin is horse mad,” Charles said. “He has asked me to assist him in buying quality horseflesh.”
“It is an expensive undertaking,” Jason said, and chewed a raisin Cook had put in the gingerbread.
“Oh, you don’t think Elgin has enough pounds in his pockets?”
“I really don’t know,” Jason said. “Nor do I really care.”
“I suppose you told Jason, Miss Carrick, that Lord Renfrew would very much like to marry you?”
“No, I did not tell him that. Why would I?”
“He is your partner, ma’am. Were you to wed Lord Renfrew, why then, it would be he who would deal with Jason here and your horses.”
“I hadn’t realized that marriage went hand in hand with incompetence. Marriage would make me stupid, then?”
“A lady as lovely as you are could be as stupid as a chamber pot and it wouldn’t matter.”
Jason, in mid-drink, spewed the tea out of his mouth and began coughing. Hallie walked to him and smacked him hard on the back. He finally caught his breath. He grinned up at her. “Ah, thank you for the brute assistance.”
“I have four young siblings. One is always prepared to do anything, including cauterizing a wound. Now, Lord Carlisle, about Lord Renfrew.”
“Charles, please.”
Hallie picked up her teacup and saluted him, and yet again she inclined her head. “I don’t suppose Lord Renfrew asked you to come to Lyon ’s Gate to, er, soften me up a bit?”
“I scarcely know the gentleman.”
“You and he are of an age,” Hallie said.
“Surely he is older.”
“I don’t believe so, unless he lied to me. I believe Lord Renfrew is thirty-one years old.”
“Hmm. Yes, Elgin lied. It is a nasty thing, a lie, but some feel compelled to do it, particularly when the young lady is of tender years.”
“I’m no longer tender, sir.”
A very handsome dark brow arched up. Charles looked toward Jason, then back at her. “You must take care, Miss Carrick, this young gentleman here is known for his prowess with the fair sex. Tender or no, it has never mattered. Why, stories are legend about-”
“I’ve been gone five years, Charles. The legends are good and dead.”
“But new ones are well begun in Baltimore,” Hallie said. “So many females running toward him in the rain, bumping umbrellas.”
Charles burst out laughing. “Good God, I can picture that.”
Hallie said, “I, myself, sir, saved Jason from a bevy of eager ladies at the ball last evening. Their strategy-a lovely narrow wedge headed by a very determined young lady-was excellent, but I was faster.”
Jason rose. “All of this must be amusing to the two of you. I, however, have work to do, work that will make me sweaty and dirty and completely unappetizing to the fairer sex.”
“Not Cook.”
Lord Carlisle’s lovely eyebrow went up again. “Cook? What is this?”
Hallie said, “Cook swoons whenever she sees Jason. He’s caught her twice now, one time she took him to the floor. When he is at the table, we eat very well indeed. If not, why, both Mrs. Tewksbury and I lose flesh.”
Jason threw up his hands and walked out. Hallie, without pause, said, “It took me long enough to arouse him. Thank you for your assistance, sir. Now, you will tell me what is going on with Lord Renfrew. There is no reason for Jason to have to suffer through another recital of the man’s mental and moral failures. He told you our history, I presume?”
Charles nodded slowly. “He told me he was foolish, that he didn’t realize the value of the precious jewel in his very hand.”
“Surely you’re making that up. Elgin really said such an idiotic thing?”
“Well, perhaps not. It’s difficult to know, Miss Carrick, whether to flatter, to soften, or to spit things right out into the open.”
“Spit, please, sir.”
“Only if you will call me Charles.”
“No, I don’t know you well enough yet. Please don’t ask me until sometime next week, if, that is, you’re still in the neighborhood.”
“You wound me, Miss Carrick.”
“I doubt that. Like Jason, I have a lot of work to do.”
Charles finished off his tea, sighed, and sat back in his chair, legs stretched in front of him. “ Elgin ’s father drank, his mother took lovers-he had a very difficult family-”