“I remember your father and his antics,” Douglas said. He didn’t add that he’d believed Conyon Grandison had been more incompetent than evil, which was the only reason he hadn’t been hung.
Charles said, “Just so, sir. To my dying day I will rejoice that my father didn’t manage to shoot that bullet into Miles Sinifer’s head.” He turned, bowed to Alex. “I spent many hours convincing my sister she didn’t want to fling herself from her mare’s back on the off-chance that James here would catch her before she landed on a yew bush. She’s expecting her third child now. Screamers, the first two are.”
He was too charming, Hallie thought, watching him joke with Angela and the countess. She sipped at Lady Grimsby’s champagne punch, potent enough to knock a girl on her bottom and not care. She watched Charles Grandison, Lord Carlisle, bend over Lady Lydia’s ancient veiny wrist and treat her to an intimate smile to make her remaining teeth tingle.
“Who is Miles Sinifer?” Hallie asked.
“Ah, a gentleman who tried to seduce my mother. My father picked up his gun and shot it from no more than three feet from Miles’s head. As I said, thank God he missed.”
Where the devil had Charles been, James wondered, watching the man he and Jason had always admired make his way charmingly from lady to lady at their table. Until he got to Corrie. He stilled. James knew when a man was looking at a woman with lust in his eyes. James stiffened in his chair, but said pleasantly enough, “Keep away from her, Charles. I’m younger, stronger, and meaner than you. Unlike your father, I wouldn’t miss.”
“This is your Viscountess, James? The innocent young girl who saved you from kidnappers and herself from Devlin Monroe?”
“Oh goodness,” Corrie said. “I haven’t seen Devlin in far too long. He is well? He is married? Does he still avoid the sun?”
Charles Grandison laughed and took Corrie’s chair when she slid over onto her husband’s lap to make room for him.
“Devlin quite likes all those whispers about his being a vampire, all naturally behind polite hands. I believe you were the one who started it—”
“Perhaps I was the first to say vampire out loud,” Corrie said, “but Devlin always admired his pallor. Now, you, sir, and my husband have known each other for a very long time, have you not?”
“Since he tried to beat my gelding, Horatio, in an impromptu race. James was riding his pony, Jason cheering him on. They were five years old as I recall, and I was an ancient eleven or twelve.”
“In that case, please call me Corrie. I miss Devlin and his pale face. He was quite amusing.” She sighed and James wanted to smack her. Instead, he eased beneath her gown and slid his hand up her leg.
Always the charmer, Jason thought, content to sit back and watch Charles charm his family, but what was he doing here? He appeared to know Lord Renfrew, and surely that wasn’t in his favor. Charles had been racing mad as a boy, and now owned one of the largest racing stables in northern England. It was heard he would shut himself in his bedchamber for three days and nights if he lost a race, which wasn’t that often. No one tried to cheat Charles or poison his horses, or cripple his jockeys—the price Charles made the miscreant pay was too high. And that, Jason decided in that moment, was the reputation he was going to nurture as well. Maybe his would even be more fearful.
Jason, Hallie, and Angela didn’t arrive home until nearly three o’clock in the morning. Both Martha and Petrie were in the drawing room, Petrie, head thrown back on the back of the sofa, snoring, Martha huddled in a chair, one stockinged toe sticking out from beneath her gown.
When they walked into the drawing room, Martha jerked up and yelled, “Tell us everything!”
Petrie’s nostrils pinched as he jerked awake, and he nearly stumbled off his feet he jumped up so quickly. He was quick to wave his nanny’s finger at her. “Martha, a lady’s maid doesn’t demand gossip from her mistress. You will lower your head and inquire if Miss Hallie wishes to have you remove her stockings.”
Angela said, “Goodness, Petrie, isn’t that rather indelicate of you? Martha, after you have assisted Hallie, do come to my bedchamber. I appear to have more buttons than fingers to do the task.”
“I will, Miss Angela.” Martha whirled around on Petrie, hands on hips, “As for you, Mr. Stump-Chops, don’t you tell me what to do with Miss Hallie’s stockings. It pains Master Jason to hear such private matters spoken of in his drawing room.”
“Actually, I believe Jason is standing in my half of the drawing room,” Hallie said.
“But—”
Jason raised his hand. “Be quiet, Petrie, let it go. No, no more from either of you. No, Martha, heel.” Jason turned to Hallie and Angela. “You see? I put a stop to the hilarity just as you asked.”
“Hilarity?” Petrie said. “Hilarity is not at all the thing in a gentleman’s household.”
“All we need,” Angela said, “is Cook to complete the picture.”
“But, Master Jason,” Petrie began, knowing he had an important point if only he could find the ears to hear it.
“No, Petrie. We’ll tell both of you everything in the morning. Everyone to bed now. Petrie, you’re with me.”
“Martha,” Hallie said, “I will tell you all about Mr. Charles Grandison, who will probably be visiting us in not more than seven hours from now.”
“What a lovely name,” Martha said. “Is he a gentleman wot—what—looks like his name like Master Jason does?”
“Indeed. Master Jason said Charles Grandison was ruthless when it came to all the scoundrels and the corruption in the racing world. So much money involved, you see.”
“We are going to be more ruthless, more feared even than Charles Grandison,” Jason said. “We will make anyone who tries to hurt our horses or cheat or threaten us, pay so great a price they’ll never try it again.”
“And our reputation will spread.” She rubbed her hands together. “My father taught me how to bring a man to the ground with very little effort.”
“Very little effort? Do I wish to know what you’re talking about?”
“Well, it involves my knee, Jason. My father said a man couldn’t bear that sort of pain, whatever that means.”
Jason and Petrie looked appalled.
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 yo
ur 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—”
“You will not make excuses for him. Elgin Sloane is a man, he must be held responsible for his actions. That he obviously believed me to have less mental aptitude than a cow—well, now, that’s a painful tonic to swallow. However, when I discovered the truth, I would have shot an arrow through his gullet if I’d had my bow with me.”
“As I said, Miss Carrick,” Charles said, “Elgin made some bad decisions, decisions he bitterly regrets. He has changed. He has grown into his years, although it has taken him longer to grow since he lied about his age.”
“How old is Lord Renfrew?”
“I know for a fact that he is thirty-three.”
She laughed, simply couldn’t help herself. “Twenty-four months, he lied about twenty-four months. He believed that to an eighteen-year-old-girl head over boots in love, twenty-four months would make a difference?”
“One never knows about females. My own wife was a mystery to me until the day she died. I see you are still feeling the pain of the blow he struck you.”
“What blow was that?”
“What he did isn’t all that dishonorable, Miss Carrick. Elgin desperately needed money to restore his uncle’s estates. The old man was a wastrel, unworthy of his lands and title. Elgin knew he would have to make the ultimate sacrifice.”
“The ultimate sacrifice,” Hallie repeated slowly, savoring the words. “I had no idea I had achieved such status. That’s the only blow he told you about?”
“Good grief, there’s another?”
“Indeed. The thing is, Lord Renfrew was bedding another woman at the sa
me time of our betrothal.”
Charles winced. “I can see why he wouldn’t want to admit that to me. That does make him appear in a rather stupid light, doesn’t it?”
“Oh yes. Now, you can’t buy my mare and you can’t push Lord Renfrew’s suit. You’ve drunk your tea. Would you like to leave now, sir? Perhaps take Lord Renfrew’s hat and cane to him?”
Charles slowly rose. “I knew that messengers were always kicked, yet still I came. That second blow, he didn’t tell me about that one. Next time I will know better.”
“Lord Renfrew must have a hold on you, to actually convince you to come here. To be his emissary, that is certainly sinking oneself very low.”
“Oh yes, certainly he has a lovely hold over me. If he didn’t, can you possibly imagine I would be here to push the nitwit’s suit with you?”
She laughed, felt a tug of liking. “What is the hold he has on you?”
“I don’t believe I’ll tell you that, Miss Carrick. May I call you Hallie?”
“No. Perhaps next week. If there is a next week, which, given the company you keep, is highly unlikely. Jason and I are very busy. I do not like to have to spend time sipping tea when there are stalls to muck out.”
“A lovely thought, that,” he said. He walked to her, his stride strong and graceful, making Hallie wonder just who Charles Grandison was. He collected her hand, turned it over and kissed her wrist. “Such soft skin,” he said.
“If you lick me, I shall kick you out the front door.”
He laughed. “Oh, no, I don’t lick a lady’s flesh, at least not in the drawing room, Miss Carrick. It has no finesse, only the value of shock. I dislike such artifice.”
She wondered what he was thinking when he mounted the lovely gray Andalusian gelding held by Crispin, their youngest stable lad, all of thirteen, and watched him accept Lord Renfrew’s hat and cane from Petrie. She watched him ride the Andalusian through the open gates and down the drive. An excellent riding horse—proud, agile, calm. She wondered what his name was. She wondered what hold Lord Renfrew held over Charles Grandison.