“Master Jason, you may drop her back down on me, if you wish, sir. I don’t mind, the pain in my cracked head is nothing. Her breath is very sweet, it has quite left me wondering what has happened. I am adrift, waiting for enlightenment.”
Martha shrieked, tried to kick him.
Hallie said, “Martha, thank you for standing up for me. Now, both you and Petrie take yourselves back to bed.” She paused a moment, staring down at Petrie, who hadn’t moved and who looked both baffled and appalled, his dark hair standing in clumps on his head where Martha’s strong fingers had nearly pulled them out. “You will go back to your own bed, Petrie. You will think of no other bed except yours. You will not think of Martha’s sweet breath. All is well. We are no longer arguing. Master Jason simply wanted some brandy. Perhaps you know. Can one heat brandy?”
Petrie said, “Well, back in 1769, it’s said that old Lord Brandon was suffering from an ague. His valet, an ancestor of mine, heated him a snifter of brandy over a small hob in the fireplace. It was told me by my mother that the heated brandy made him well within a half hour.”
“I’m going to sleep with Henry in the stable,” Jason said, and marched toward the front door.
“You won’t be happy walking out there barefooted,” Hallie called after him. “Petrie, why don’t you fetch your master’s boots, put on your own as well, and the two of you can snuggle down together in the warm straw on either side of poor Henry.” Hallie smiled at both of them impartially, and walked toward the kitchen. “Jason? In case your mood changes, I will take a very close look at the kitchen table.”
Jason was dressed and on Dodger’s bare back within ten minutes.
CHAPTER 39
Corrie rubbed the cramp in her leg. She never should have let James arrange her in such a position, ah, but it had been such fun. She rubbed some more. She’d swear she had never used that particular muscle in her life. Perhaps she should rub in some of her mother-in-law’s special warming cream that seeped to your bones.
She heard something. She froze, cramp forgotten, instantly as still as James, who was lying on his back, breathing deeply in sleep, nearly dead, he’d told her before falling on his back, an angel’s smile on his face.
She heard it again. A noise coming from the window. Good heavens, this was the second time. When Corrie crept toward the window, a poker in her hand, she saw it start to slowly inch upward.
She watched her brother-in-law ease the window up far enough so he could swing his leg over the sill and climb in.
“I was hoping for a villain this time,” she said, and gave him a hand. “I was armed and ready.”
“Thank you for putting down the poker, Corrie. I’m sorry to come in through your window again, I know it’s late.”
“Not that late. I felled poor James. That’s him, snoring from the bed.”
She sounded quite proud of herself. Jason touched his fingertips to her cheek. “I’ll wake up the sluggard. He doesn’t deserve to sleep.”
Jason shook his brother’s shoulder. “Wake up, you pathetic excuse for a man.”
James, as was his wont, opened his eyes without hesitation, and focused instantly and clearly on his brother’s annoyed face above him. “I feel very fine,” he said, and smiled.
“You don’t deserve to, damn you. Get up, my world has ended and you’re lying here, thinking about how wonderful life is. You don’t bloody deserve it.”
James, still light in the head and heart, said, “All that?”
“What’s wrong, Jason? What’s happened?”
Jason looked with a good deal of affection at his sister-in-law, whose white hand clutched his sleeve, her worry for him shining in her eyes, though in the dim light it was hard to know for sure. “You look ever so nice with your hair all wild around your face, Corrie.”
James bolted upright. “Don’t you admire her, you dog. Damn you, you’ve got a wife of your own. Step away from her before I flatten you.”
“What’s wrong, Jason?”
“I’ve left Lyon ’s Gate,” Jason said, and stepped back from his sister-in-law because he knew when his brother was serious. He slid down to the floor, leaned his head back against the wall, closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around his bent knees.
James pulled on his dressing gown, eyed his wife’s revealing nightgown, and said, “Get back into bed, Corrie. I don’t want Jason to get any ideas.”
“Ideas? How could he possibly be thinking about me and this lovely peach nightgown when he’s left his home?” Corrie lit some candles, then slipped back into bed, drew a deep breath. “You’ve left Hallie?”
Jason said, not looking up, “The nightgown is lovely, Corrie, but I’m not thinking about you under it. My life is ripped apart. I meant to go sleep in the stables, but I came here instead. I don’t know what to do.”
James patted his wife’s cheek, tucked more covers over her, then pulled his twin to his feet. “Let’s go downstairs and have a brandy. You can tell me what’s happened.”
“Do you know if heated brandy is good, James?”
When the brothers stepped into James’s estate room, it was to see their father pouring each of them a snifter of brandy. He was wearing a dark blue dressing gown whose elbows were worn nearly through. “So,” Douglas said, trying to sound calm, when in fact, his heart was racing, and he was terrified, “why, Jason, did you leave your home in the middle of the night, and your wife of not yet a month?”
James said, “Actually, it’s not all that late, not even midnight yet.”
“Don’t make me shoot you, James,” his father said.
Jason gulped down the brandy and fell to coughing. When he finally caught his breath, his father poured him more. “Slowly this time. Get ahold of yourself. Tell us what’s happened.”
“I don’t think brandy needs to be heated. My belly is on fire. It’s Hallie.”
Both Douglas and James remained silent.
Jason sipped at his brandy. “I’m very sorry to break in on you like this, but I just didn’t know where else to go. Well, like I said, I was going to sleep in the stable, but I was afraid Petrie would come with me.”
Douglas said, “What did Hallie do?”
Jason sipped brandy.
“What did she do?”
“She laughed at me.”
“I don’t understand,” James said slowly. “What did she laugh at you about?”
“She wanted me to tell her what happened five years ago, and so I did. She made light of it! Dammit, all three of us still live with that awful time.”
James said, “The gall. Here I was growing fond of her. I thought she was nice, filled with kindness.”
“She is, usually.”
“No, she’s obviously cruel,” James said, and shook his head. “Hard, that’s what she is, and unfeeling.”
Douglas nodded. “Indeed. I trust you set her straight, Jason. I am very disappointed in her. I believe I will ride to Lyon ’s Gate right now, and give her a piece of my mind.”
“I’ll go with you, Papa,” James said. “I’d like to shake her, tell her she doesn’t understand what really happened, how it smote you to your toes, Jason, how deeply you feel about it, and your part in it.”
“She had the nerve to say that any part I had in it I should have gotten over by now.”
“What a coldhearted creature,” Douglas said. “I’m very sorry you had to marry her, Jason. I’ve wondered if perhaps she took advantage of you because she knew her father was there, knew perhaps he was even on his way into the stable.”
Jason drank more brandy. “No, she didn’t know her father was there. She simply couldn’t help herself.”
“Well, no matter. Yes, I’ll go over right now and set her straight about things. I won’t have her hurting you when you’re so very hurt already.”