“Yes,” Hallie said, staring at the old man with his sharp blue eyes and his flowing thick white hair. “I saw a painting of Moses once. I would accept your Ten Commandments before I would accept his, Hollis.”
Hollis gave her a lovely smile, showing a mouth still filled with sufficient teeth to chew his mutton.
Jason, serious as a judge, said, “James and I believed he was God. You never corrected us, Hollis.”
“You and his lordship never disobeyed me when you believed I could smite you both with but a flick of my finger.”
“James and I feared more than smiting, Hollis. We feared you would give us pustules all over our bodies.”
Hollis looked thoughtful. “Pustules. Hmm. That never occurred to me. I suppose it is too late now?”
“It’s perfect for the twins. Ah, would you please see to Miss Carrick’s maid, Martha? I will take care of the disposition of Miss Carrick.”
Hollis, who’d been studying Hallie, said in a low voice that Hallie could hear perfectly well, “You will not cause her bodily harm, will you Master Jason?”
“You mean as in tossing her into Reever Lake? No, I’m too tired to do away with her today.”
He heard a gasp from young Martha and smiled down at her. “I won’t strangle your mistress. Don’t worry.”
Hallie said, “I’ll tell you when to worry, Martha. Go with Hollis now.” She watched small Martha walk very slowly up the stone steps next to the ancient butler, her hand ready to steady him if he faltered. Both Hallie and Jason saw Martha look up at him, and heard her whisper, “Ye’re glorious, Mr. Hollis, meybe even more than glorious.”
Hallie laughed, couldn’t help herself. She was still very nervous. “And here I wondered if Martha and I would suit.”
“Since she makes you laugh, she’ll suit you well enough.”
“I didn’t meet Hollis when I came here after Melissa and Leo’s wedding.”
“I believe he was in his bed nursing a cold. He is quite well now, thank God.”
When Hollis and Martha had negotiated the steps and disappeared into the house, she looked up at Jason. “I don’t know about glorious, but you are a beaut. Such a pity that you know it too well.”
An eyebrow shot up. “You are something of a beaut yourself, Miss Carrick. However, unlike you, I am not vain. I do not array myself in such a way to draw attention to my attributes.”
“And what would you do if you wished to draw attention?”
She had him, and she knew it. She grinned up at him shamelessly. “You really couldn’t push your chest up and out, now could you? Hmm. As for rice powder on your face, I daresay you’d sweat it off in the middle of your first waltz.”
He quickly took the opening she gave him. “And ladies don’t sweat off their rice powder?”
“Certainly not. Ladies are made of fine porcelain, not porous mud.”
Since that was exactly what he felt like at the moment, Jason threw back his head and laughed. He realized in that moment he’d missed that fast brain of hers, not to mention her tongue.
“Ravensworth Abbey is as grand as Northcliffe Hall, but it’s very different. You have a beautiful home.”
“Lyon’s Gate is now my home.”
“Our home, Mr. Sherbrooke. Our home.” She lightly patted his white sleeve. “Twenty-eight minutes. Not even half an hour and your fate is decided.”
“Please believe me, Miss Carrick, I would rather share a house with you than one day be the master here.”
She noticed then that he wasn’t dressed like a son of the house. Odd that she hadn’t noticed how sweaty and dirty he was, his old boots scuffed, his white shirt open at the neck and a bit down his chest, and she wasn’t about to stare, not when all that lovely dirt meant he’d been at Lyon’s Gate and she hadn’t. “You’ve been spending the past three days at Lyon’s Gate, haven’t you?” Her voice rose an octave. “What have you done?”
He’d have to have been dead not to hear the outrage, and was tempted to string her along. No, better not, since her eyes were already bulging in her head. Besides, his precious mother might hear her shouting at him and come down and shoot her. “Nothing you would disapprove of,” he said mildly. “I hired three men from the village to help me clean out the stables. We nearly finished today. I’ve already spoken to the man who will decide what is necessary to repair the house and he and his workers will begin tomorrow. You can speak to them then. Oh yes, my mother sent over a half-dozen gardeners, who are all pulling the ivy from the house and getting rid of the weeds. It begins to look much better.”
Hallie chewed this over a moment, nodded. “All right. You are lucky you didn’t paint any rooms, Mr. Sherbrooke.”
“Paint, you say? I was picturing a lovely bright crimson for the drawing room, perhaps one wall a pale blue. What do you think?”
She looked up into those incredible lavender eyes of his and said, “You surprise me, sir. An excellent choice. And lovely crimson draperies, don’t you think? Or perhaps the pale blue?”
“Crimson, with thick braided gold tassels looping them up. Velvet would be utterly charming. How nice. We should have no arguments at all.” He offered her his arm. “Let me take you inside to greet everyone. I imagine they should be assembled by now.”
She laughed as she walked beside him up the steps. “May we leave early tomorrow to go to Lyon’s Gate? I want to see everything.”
She was as excited as he was. He hated it that she lusted after Lyon’s Gate as much as he did.
He called out, “Hello, Mother. Look who’s arrived.”
Alex stood just inside the imposing front door, eyeing the young woman who’d had the gall to ruin her son’s dream. She knew her duty, gulped once, and presented a smile. Sometimes being well bred was the very devil. “Miss Carrick. How very lovely to see you again.”
Hallie curtsied. “Thank you, ma’am, for having me. It is very kind of you.”
What to say when she’d really had no choice in the matter? Best to keep her mouth shut.
Hallie gave her a shameless grin. “I do hope you don’t have a gun behind your back.”
Alex felt an unwanted tug of liking. “Hmm. Be very deferential to me, Miss Carrick, nod in modest agreement at everything I say, and you might survive.”
“Sorry, Mother. Even if she tried, I can’t see that happening,” Jason said.
“In that case, then you must come into the drawing room, Miss Carrick. My dear mother-in-law, Lady Lydia, the dowager countess of Northcliffe, is here for her weekly visit. You can meet her and have a lovely cup of tea.”
Jason groaned.
Hallie looked suddenly wary.
Jason tried to catch his mother’s eye, but she’d taken Hallie’s arm and was steering her in a straight line toward the drawing room. He’d rather be tossed on the back of a wild two-year-old, with no bridle, perhaps even boiled in oil. A firing squad was a good option.
His grandmother hated every female in the known universe except for his aunt Melissande, including his mother and Corrie, and that was why his father had finally moved her into the dowager house at the end of the lane five years before.
He said from behind them, “Mother, perhaps you should reconsider this particular course of action. She’s a lamb to the slaughter.”
“Nonsense. You are a bit on the dirty side, dearest, but your grandmother won’t mind. And Miss Carrick surely is a well-enough behaved girl to sail smoothly through, don’t you think?”
“No. Miss Carrick, do you know Wilhelmina Wyndham?”
“Oh dear.”
CHAPTER 14
Jason would rather empty chamber pots than walk into that drawing room with the tethered goat, but he simply couldn’t leave Miss Carrick to his grandmother alone and unarmed. It would be too cruel. Not that his presence would make much difference. She would be crushed by that malicious aged tongue; his grandmother would look at Hallie and see fresh meat. Odd how she never turned her cannon on either him or James or his father. Just t
hose unfortunate enough to be female.
Jason saw Corrie seated in a wing chair, James standing behind her, his hand lightly on her shoulder, doubtless to keep her from leaping up and kicking over his grandmother’s chair when she started shooting insults.
His grandmother’s eyes lit up when she saw him. “Dear Jason, what a sight you are, my boy, but that certainly isn’t important, now is it? What’s a little dirt in the flow of time? Come and give me a big kiss.”
Jason grinned at the old woman, leaned down and kissed her parchment cheek. She lightly touched his hair and whispered, “I have some nutty buns Hollis brought me this morning. Come later and I will share them with you.” Jason gripped her veiny old hands and whispered back that indeed he would.
When he stepped back, the dowager countess looked up to see her daughter-in-law, the red-haired hussy, gripping the arm of a young lady she’d never laid eyes on before.
Jason saw it in her eyes as clearly as if she’d spoken aloud: new prey, bring me new prey.
“Who are you?”
Alex dropped Hallie’s arm. “This is the young lady who is moving into the neighborhood, Mother-in-law. I fear”—she cleared her throat—“that is, it appears she will be staying with us for a while. Isn’t she lovely? Don’t you think she’s beautifully gowned? And observe how gracefully she moves. Miss Carrick, this is Lady Lydia, the earl’s mother.”
“Well, come here, girl, and let me look at you.”
There was a moment of stark silence in the drawing room. Hallie saw that everyone was staring from her to the old woman, and not breathing.
She looked at the little old lady, with her shiny pink scalp showing through her white hair, and couldn’t imagine her being the least bit like Wilhelmina Wyndham. Surely not; Jason was joking with her. Lady Lydia was by no means frail, nor did she have the look of a placid old lady to have her hand patted and pillows settled behind her ancient back. She looked as substantial and solid as Hallie’s mare, Piccola, and surely that wasn’t a bad thing. On the other hand, Piccola could bite her and whip her with her tail at the same time. The dowager’s old eyes gleamed, her mouth opened, and suddenly out of Hallie’s mouth came, “Do you remember the French Revolution, my lady?”
Lady Lydia froze. “The what, girl?”
“When the French people rose up against the king and queen and guillotined them?”
Lady Lydia studied that lovely young face for a very long time before saying quietly, “I remember it like yesterday. None of us could believe the French rabble had locked their king and queen in the Conciergerie. There were reports the king and queen would go to the guillotine. We waited, wondering how such a thing could come to pass. And then one day they cut off the king’s head.
“I remember so many people tried to save the queen after that, but you know, she’d become quite dotty toward the end, and the final escape failed. She insisted on the coach stopping so she could smell some flowers. Do you know something else, girl? I also remember Waterloo.”
“Did you ever meet the duke of Wellington, ma’am?” As she spoke, Hallie sat down on the foot cushion at Lady Lydia’s feet.
“Certainly, a clever man is Arthur Wellesley. When he returned to London in the summer of 1815, he was fêted every evening; ladies threw themselves at him, gentlemen wanted the honor of being seen with him. So much gaiety, and such relief that the monster was finally vanquished.”
Hallie leaned up. “It must be so wonderful to have lived as long as you have, through so many amazing happenings, and you know the duke of Wellington. Did you also know George III before he went mad?”
“Oh yes. There were rumors, of course, but in 1788, it was finally announced that the king’s reason had flown the royal head. George got better, but of course, the illness struck him again until finally it never left him. Poor man, shamed by his son and heir, but his queen, Charlotte, ah, such strength she had. Such a pity, such a pity.”
“I cannot imagine being as old as you are. You are so very lucky.”
Lady Lydia would have liked to arch an eyebrow, but she didn’t have any left. “No one has said anything like that to me before. Hmm. I’ve never looked at all my decades in precisely that light. My daughter-in-law is right. Your gown is lovely even with those ridiculous big sleeves that make you six feet wide.”
“At least they fit at the wrist now. You wore those lovely Regency gowns that fit up high and fell straight to the ground.”
“Aye, they were lovely, all that light muslin, no corsets or petticoats to weigh you down, but so many ladies caught dreadful colds because they wore so little. At least today you won’t catch an inflammation of the lung. Hmm. I find it unusual that you know how to dress since you don’t appear to have a husband to select your gowns for you, like these two.”
“I have a fine sense of style, ma’am. Thank you for remarking upon it.”
Alex was utterly baffled, as were the rest of the people in the room. There was utter silence save for Hallie and the dowager’s low voices. The door opened and Douglas came striding in, evidently on a mission to save Miss Carrick. Alex grabbed his sleeve. “Don’t move,” she whispered. “I can’t believe this, but you’re not needed.” Douglas looked at Miss Carrick, and saw his mother’s hand lightly caressing her green sleeve. He froze as had everyone else in the drawing room, his jaw dropped.
Lady Lydia looked over and smiled at her eldest son. “My darling boy, have the red-haired girl pour the tea. At least she’s learned how I take it now.”
“And you appreciate that, don’t you, Mother?”
What was going on here? Hallie wondered. Lady Lydia’s mouth was a tight seam. At the earl’s continued silence, she nodded. “Yes, I am most appreciative.” She turned back to Hallie. “Are you here to marry Jason? My poor precious boy is in need of a good steady girl, a strong girl with nerves of oak. Yes, that is probably the most important requirement of his wife.”
“Why, ma’am? Is he of such a delicate disposition?”
“Oh no, it’s entirely something else. Well, are your nerves strong as a carriage wheel?”
“Yes, ma’am. But why?”
“Both my beautiful grandsons are gentlemen to their quite well-shaped feet, more’s the pity. Jason’s wife must be able to protect him from all the hussies who continually hunt him down with the intent of taking advantage of him.” She shot a look over at Corrie, who was staring fixedly at her, her mouth open. “What is the matter with you, Coriander? You look like a landed trout. It is not attractive. It will give your husband a disgust of you.”
Corrie shut her mouth.
Lady Lydia said to Hallie, “My James’s wife is many things, Miss Carrick, but I will say this for her, she’s strong as the stoutest oak branch. James rarely goes about without her. He knows she will protect him. She has learned to throw herself in front of him when ladies hurl themselves in his path to gain his attention. Coriander tells him his attention is all he will ever bestow, and then only if the female in question has gained her fiftieth summer.”
Jason said, “Grandmother, Miss Carrick is not here to marry me. We barely know each other.”
“I believe the best marriages begin with the exchange of names, nothing more,” said the dowager. “Look at you, my dearest boy, no female with eyes in her head would not try to hunt you down. Poor James now—”
The earl cleared his throat loudly.
“Humph,” said the dowager.
Jason didn’t understand why she hadn’t yet blasted Hallie, but since no one had drunk any tea as of yet there was time for her to change her mind and decide Hallie was an encroaching hussy, like his mother.
“Then why are you so dirty, my boy, if you weren’t chasing her all about the grounds?”
“And she caught me several times and dirtied me up?”
“That’s it, yes.”
“Sorry, Grandmother. You know I bought Lyon’s Gate. I was working there today. I had no time to change my clothes. Forgive me.”
“You w
ere working like a common laborer?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Lady Lydia accepted a cup of tea from her daughter-in-law. Douglas watched her shake it around in the cup for a moment, saw that she wanted desperately to complain about it, but she knew if she did, she would not be invited back until the hussy herself invited her back, and she could be dead by that time. Hollis passed a lovely large tray filled with scones, lemon tarts, tiny seed cakes, and small cucumber and ham sandwiches, sliced into myriad shapes.
Jason saw Miss Carrick place her tea and plate containing two lemon tarts on the floor beside her. She looked perfectly content to remain at his grandmother’s feet. Just you wait, he wanted to tell her, just you wait until she decides your hair is brassy, or those lovely eyes of yours are sly, or God knew what else.
The dowager sipped her tea, grimaced only a little bit, then announced, “No matter Coriander’s faults, and they are multitudinous, she has presented James with two lovely boys, the very image of his beautiful aunt Melissande, who should have been wedded to—”
Douglas cleared his throat, watched his mother poke a tart into her mouth and chew it vigorously, and said, “Jason, you have the look of a contented man. Tell me how everything is going at Lyon’s Gate.”
Jason sat forward, clasped his hands between his knees, forgot that he was dirty and smelled of dried sweat, forgot that Hallie would be living with him and that she was half owner of Lyon’s Gate, and said, “Oh yes. I want you to come over soon, Grandmother, and tell me what you think of my home. The stables are a perfect size, and once we got them all cleared out and cleaned up, we could see the excellent workmanship.” He continued to speak, and everyone smiled at him, nodded, asked questions. It was as if no one else in the room existed except Jason, Hallie thought, eyeing him. Not a word about her, but she’d quickly realized that no one wanted to shock the dowager. And, of course, he’d just gotten home after being away for a very long time. Were they all afraid he would leave again? This time for good? So no one said anything to bruise his tender feelings?