“Probably so,” Jason said, and found himself staring at his brother, and his soon-to-be sister-in-law. Imagine, Corrie Tybourne-Barrett, a sister-in-law.
James found that his arms went around his betrothed very naturally. Well, he’d hugged her since she was three years old, that wasn’t so unusual. She felt good against him. He closed his eyes a moment and breathed her in. He was used to her scent, would have known it was her in a dark room, but now there was a light overlay of jasmine. “Your perfume?” he said against her hair. “I like it.”
“Your mother gave it to me, said your Aunt Sophie swore by it, claimed it worked on your Uncle Ryder from fifty feet. She claimed he always came running, like a hound after the fox.”
“Ah. I think I could chase you down. When I caught you, I wonder what I would do to you? Sniff you, I suppose, to make sure you’re the right fox, but then? Hmmm. There’s always the back of your knees.
“Now, you should probably release me, Corrie. There are two other people in the room and all this affection might give them a headache.”
She leaned back in his arms to look up at him. “A headache? Why on earth would seeing me clutching you like the last slice of cinnamon bread give anyone a headache?”
“Jealousy,” he said, and without thought, he kissed the tip of her nose. He set her away from him. “Willicombe,” he said to the three occupants in the room, two of them paying not a whit of attention, “is bringing tea. Jason? Judith? Listen to me now. Tea is coming.”
Corrie heard a giggle and peered around James to see Judith McCrae throwing pencils at Jason.
“Whatever did he say to invite the attack, Judith? Good shot, right in the chest. Pencils could be dangerous, I suppose, so you’d best be careful.”
Judith, holding a final pencil between her fingers, ready to dart it at Jason, turned, grinning. “This fellow, standing here all straight and tall, looking more dangerous than a kilted Highlander, tells me that it is hazardous for me not to wear a necklace. Without it, a man doesn’t have any justification.”
Corrie was on the point of asking what that meant when Willicombe entered, looking in each corner of the drawing room, as was his habit, before clearing his throat and saying, “Cook has prepared some nutty buns. She apologizes that they aren’t the Twyley Grange cinnamon bread, but the men she hired to steal the recipe ended up being bribed and gorging themselves on the real item and falling into a swoon.” He beamed at them. “A room of young people who are looking at each other with such affection. Such a tepid word, affection. Perhaps it is more along the line of fondness and warmth, at least I hope it is more, since two of you are now being fitted for leg irons,” and Willicombe raised a questioning brow at Jason, who picked a pencil up off the floor and hurled it at him.
“Leg irons,” James muttered. “I begin to believe Willicombe as much a misogynist as Petrie.” Corrie poured tea and Judith passed out the nutty buns. James said, “Our grandmother adores these nutty buns. Oh dear, Corrie, you will have to gird your loins; she’s nasty, she will malign you, given no encouragement at all, but you know that, she’s gone at you often enough. But now that you’ll be one of the family-it doesn’t bear thinking about how she will treat you.”
Judith stopped chewing her bun. “Your grandmother will be unkind to Corrie? How very odd. Why ever for?”
Jason laughed. “You don’t know our grandmother, Judith. She dislikes every female who’s ever had the misfortune to swim into her pond, including our mother, including her own daughter, including Corrie, who is, I understand, an abomination or something of the sort.”
Corrie shuddered. James patted her hand, and said, his voice thoughtful and low, “I’ve been thinking that maybe we should live in a lovely house I own in Kent.”
“Where did you get a house in Kent?”
“It’s one of father’s lesser houses, one built by the first Viscount Hammersmith.”
She took a bite of her nutty bun and licked her lips. “Where is it?”
“Near the village of Lindley Dale, right on the Elsey River.”
She finished off her bun, licked her lips again, this time James watching her tongue, wanting suddenly to lick her. Her throat, her left elbow, her belly-he had to get hold of himself.
She said, “Does it have a name?”
“Yes. Primrose House. It’s not big and grand like Northcliffe Hall, but it would be ours, hopefully for a very long time since I don’t wish to see either my father or my mother depart this earth until the next century.”
Corrie simply couldn’t imagine living with this man. Living with him at Primrose House. Just the two of them. Goodness, she was used to living with Aunt Maybella and Uncle Simon.
Living with James? She thought of her last kiss and his tongue in her mouth, licked her lips again, met his eyes, and flushed to her hairline.
“I believe,” James said slowly, his eyes on her mouth, “that I want to know exactly what you’re thinking.”
At that moment, Willicombe ran into the room. “My lord, Master Jason, come quickly! Quickly!”
Corrie beat all of them out of the drawing room. She ran through the open front door, stopped short on the top step, and stared.
There was her soon-to-be father-in-law standing over an unconscious man wrapped in a huge black cloak, rubbing his fist, Remie standing near, his right foot planted on the back of another man, this one burly and unkempt, who was moaning and twitching.
Douglas looked up and grinned. He rubbed his fist again and said, “That was fun.”
James and Jason ran to their father and Remie, and stared down at the two men. James said, “Who are these men, sir? Do you know them?”
“Oh no,” Douglas said cheerfully. “Remie spotted them lurking across the square.”
“Aye,” said Remie. “His lordship decided we’d let them come to us, which they did, the bloody fools. Your father thinks we’ll have a nice chat when the bastards get their brains working again.” He kicked the man, who moaned again, shuddered, then didn’t move.
Douglas leaned down and hauled the man he’d flattened to his feet. He slapped his face, once, twice, shook him. “Come on, open your eyes and look me in the face.” He shook him again.
There was a sudden blur of movement. Without thought, Jason knocked Remie out of the way, kicked out with his foot and knocked the gun out of the man’s hand who’d just come around a bush, that gun aimed at the earl. He grabbed the man’s hair, lifted his head, and sent his fist into his jaw.
He looked up at his father. “He came very fast. That makes three of them now. James, are these three the same men who kidnapped you?”
James shook his head. “I’ve never seen these three before.”
The man Douglas still had about the neck said in a whine that made Corrie want to kick him, “We ain’t meant nothin’, milord, jess wanted to snag a couple of groats.”
Remie said as he dusted off his livery, “I think I would like to speak to these two, my lord, maybe open up their heads a little, see what falls out.”
“We’ll both do it, Remie.”
A boy’s voice said from behind Judith, “I seen ’em, milord, speaking to a cove, er, man, over on the other side of the square. A big man, wot was, er, were wearing a hat and a greatcoat.”
James turned to Freddie, whose English had improved within the past week, although he’d heard the boy muttering that “wot were wrong wi’ the way I speaks anyways,” when he’d been informed that he was going to be educated. It was Willicombe who taught Freddie two hours a day.
“Well done, Freddie. Let’s you and I go over to where you spotted this man and see if we can find any clues.”
“Lawks,” said Freddie, and patted his trousers, straightened his sleeve, presented James a proud pose in his beautiful new livery. “Let’s be off then, my lord. We’ll find somethin’, er, something.”