“You are certainly nosy, my lord.”
“He’s trying to keep me from pulling you off that brute’s back and throwing you in that horse trough, Miss Carrick.”
“It’s empty.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You just try it, Jason Sherbrooke. Charlemagne would pound his hooves into your belly.”
James cleared his throat. “I believe you were going to tell me about your step-siblings, Miss Carrick.”
“Very well. Go ahead and protect him. He probably needs it. He is on the puny side, isn’t he?” Since both men looked at her like she was a moron, which maybe she was in this particular instance, Hallie gave it up. “Very well, my father and mother are building very few sailing vessels now. It’s all steamships, and that is a very different thing indeed. Can you imagine, it takes only two weeks to voyage from Baltimore to Portsmouth on a steamship? It was closer to six weeks when I was a little girl.”
“Progress is everywhere,” James said to his twin. “There are gaslights in most all the public buildings in London now.”
“ London is behind. Gaslights are simply everywhere in Baltimore, my father tells me,” Hallie said. Since all she got for that remark was a raised eyebrow from James, she continued. “If you must know, my lord, I have one stepbrother, Dev, only thirteen, but I know he will be a very accomplished shipbuilder by the time he’s twenty. My oldest stepbrother, Carson, will run the company one day, and my youngest stepbrother, Eric, is only ten but still, he’s sailing mad. My sister, Louisa, wants to write novels. However, she’s only nine years old, a bit early to know if her stories will improve.”
Jason said. “I know your step-siblings. They are friends with the Wyndham children. Whenever I was close by, Louisa would spin a tale for me. She always told me she wanted me to be the hero of all her novels, and that there would be at least one hundred since she planned to write until she croaks over her quill at the turn of the century. She’ll have me perform deeds of derring-do and rescue ladies from villains, starting with her, she hopes, when she grows up.”
Hallie rolled her yes. “Louisa doesn’t know any villains. The thought of my father letting a villain get near her is about as likely as a week passing in England without rain.”
“A novelist, Louisa has given me to understand, can spin villains out of red yarn if she wishes to.”
She looked him up and down. “I must write Louisa about losing her perspective over a pretty face, wide shoulders, and a flat belly.”
CHAPTER 6
“I thought I was a dolt.”
Not even a second passed before she said, “That’s true enough, but Louisa is small for her age and simply doesn’t recognize it as yet.”
Jason laughed at that quick, clean shot, and smiled, thinking of Jessie Wyndham.
Hallie felt a glow in her own belly at that laugh and smile. “I’m the only one in the family who prefers four-legged transportation to rudders and wood. I sailed all my life until I came to live year-round in England. Let me tell you, I’ve run my uncle’s stables for two years now. It’s time I went out on my own, that’s what my uncle finally told me since I was tired of waltzing with chinless young men and lecherous old men who wanted to stare down my gown.”
Jason said, “Ha. Did you get your uncle drunk?”
“There was no need to. I had his sons tell him it was time. I’m not stupid. I got them on my side two years ago.”
“I should have known. Given that they’re young and impressionable, they were easy targets.” Jason turned to his brother. “This is the typical behavior of an American female, James. Yes, yes, I know you’re English, but you were raised in America for much of the time, and that’s what counts.”
“That’s not true. I spent my first five years traveling the world with my father.”
Jason ignored her. “James, American girls plot and scheme and simper and wheedle, all with equal facility. They are a scary lot, particularly those with a modicum of intellect and a pocket full of groats. In Miss Carrick’s case, evidently her father has allowed her to dip deep into his pockets. Did I forget to mention spoiled? Another American female trait. Hopefully she isn’t instructing our English girls on how to-” He stalled, Judith’s face so clear in his brain that he wanted to pound his head with a rock to get her out.
“Trust me, Mr. Sherbrooke, your English girls don’t need any assistance from me. The way they can freeze you in place with only a raised eyebrow-” She shuddered. “They are very much in control, your English girls.”
James, who had seen the sudden pallor on his twin’s face, wanted to tell him not to think about the girl who’d betrayed him, who’d betrayed all of them, but he knew he couldn’t. He said, all bland and easy, “So all the gentlemen in London bored you, Miss Carrick?”
“Yes, they bored me senseless, my lord. I told my uncle that I had no intention of marrying, no intention of returning to America or moving in permanently into Carrick Grange, and that announcement helped spur him toward agreement to my buying my own property. Naturally he hied himself off to his study to write my father, but my father won’t interfere.”
“I can see why your uncle would resign himself,” Jason said. “Since you haven’t managed to find yourself a husband and are well on your way to your dotage, he doesn’t want you hanging about Ravensworth. How many seasons have you had? Five? Six? Of course if your father is providing a big dowry, it wouldn’t matter if you were sixty, without a tooth in your mouth. Some fool would be on his knees begging you to make him the happiest of men.”
“Not so far into my dotage as you are, Mr. Sherbrooke. May I ask why you bothered to come home? I heard you were content to live with James and Jessie Wyndham and raise their children.”
“Didn’t you say I only thought about sleeping with women and racing?”
“That too.” She frowned as she patted her horse’s neck, keeping him calm. Charlemagne loved to fight or gallop with the wind, he didn’t care which. She knew he was keeping a hopeful eye on the two Sherbrooke horses, hoping she’d let him go kick them into the fodder bin. She let him rear up on his back legs, fling his great head from side to side, and give a very fine show.
“See to your horse, Miss Carrick,” Jason said, “else the gentlemen will have to rescue you.”
“As if I would ever expect one of your ilk to rescue me.” She sneered.
James felt as if he’d been pulled back in time. He burst out laughing, couldn’t help himself. It was a Corrie sneer, one she’d perfected more than seven years before and used with flawless timing to make him so angry his eyes crossed. He wondered if his twin would fall for it, turn purple in the face, yank her off her horse, and wallop her butt.
But Jason merely sneered back at her, a sneer more potent than hers. He’d learned that in America? “Listen to me, Miss Carrick,” Jason said slowly, as if speaking to the village idiot, “I plan to buy Lyon ’s Gate. It will be mine. Go away.”
“We will see about that, won’t we?” Hallie Carrick wheeled Charlemagne about, let him rear up and paw the air one more time. She smiled as he bugled a clear challenge to Bad Boy and Dodger, whose eyes were rolling, on the brink of pulling free of their tethers.
Jason spoke in a low quiet voice and both horses calmed.
“Wait,” James said. “Where are you staying? Surely Ravensworth is too far a ride for you today.”
“I am staying at the vicarage in Glenclose-on-Rowan with Reverend Tysen Sherbrooke and his wife.” She struck a pose. “Why, I do believe they’re your aunt and uncle.”
Jason stood there, shaking his head back and forth. “No, that isn’t possible. Why ever would they have you there? Rory wrote me from Oxford, not above a month ago, so even he’s not at home any longer, and there are no spinsters your age-”