Catherine Coulter: Lyons Gate

“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-”

“Leo Sherbrooke is marrying a dear friend of mine, Miss Melissa Breckenridge. I’m supporting her to the altar on Saturday, and that’s why I’m visiting the vicarage.”

“You make it sound like you’re going to have to carry her.”

“No, Melissa is actually a blithering idiot when it comes to Leo. She’ll probably be running, skirts held high, to get to him as fast as she can. I will precede her, strewing rose petals from Mary Rose’s garden, all the while praying that Melissa doesn’t gallop over me to get to her groom. Whilst I’m strewing, I will marvel at the stupidity of girls giving over all their freedom, not to mention their money, to a man.”

“Their father’s money,” Jason said.

“Jessie Wyndham would surely shoot you if you said that in her hearing. As would my stepmother.”

“That’s true,” Jason said, surprising her. “There are exceptions, albeit very few.”

James’s eyebrow arched. “I take it you don’t care for Leo?”

Jason said, “I think Miss Carrick would like to serve all men up in the same soup, chopped into small pieces.”

She gave him a considering sneer. “Very small pieces. However, for a man, Leo isn’t all that bad. I wouldn’t care to deal with him every day of my life, but I’m not the one who has to marry him. If he follows in his father’s footsteps, at least he won’t run to fat or lose his teeth, and that’s saying something. Perhaps he laughs as much as his father as well. All in all, I suppose I must admit that if one has to be shackled in leg irons, Leo just might be one of the best of the lot.”

James said, “Leo is more stubborn than his hound Greybeard. Does your friend know that?”

“I don’t know, but I imagine it’s too late to tell her now. She wouldn’t believe me. Or if she did, she would doubtless believe it charming.”

“Greybeard also sleeps with Leo.”

“Oh dear, Greybeard is rather large.”

“Indeed,” said James. “I see conflict on the near horizon.”

“Surely Leo would rather sleep with his new wife than his old dog.”

“For a while, at least,” Jason said, cynicism dripping from his mouth.

James said, “So Leo is all right, as is my uncle Tysen. I assume you also admire your father and uncle?”

“Well, yes, I suppose I must.”

James said, “Well, then, it seems to me you can hardly say we’re a bad species.”

“You have made a good point, my lord, but the fact is, you could be a rotter and I just don’t know it yet. But experience with your twin here suggests that a girl-spinster-better tread warily around him or suffer the consequences.”

“What consequences?” Jason asked.

He’d stumped her, both James and Jason saw that he’d left her with not a word to fire back. She opened her mouth, closed it. She looked at Jason like she wanted to ride her beast right over him. She finally managed to get out, “To my mind, calling men a species grants them too much importance.”

“That was paltry, Miss Carrick,” Jason said, a potent sneer on his mouth. “Let me ask you, what man hurt you so badly that you’ve painted every one of us with your manure-covered brush?”

She froze in the saddle. Jason watched her force herself to ease, force herself back in control. It was amazing how quickly she got hold of herself again. What he’d said had hit close to home. So, there had been a man who’d hurt her. Would she screech at him like a fishwife? What came out of her mouth was, “I found out about this property from your uncle Tysen. He was telling us about Squire Squid and how he’d spent so much money on the stables and paddocks. And Leo chimed in about the son, Thomas, who was a wastrel and a bully, and how he wanted to sell out to pay off all his creditors. Leo brought me here yesterday and I knew the moment I saw the stables I wanted it. He also agreed to escort me here today, but since he is a man, and since today he managed to drag Melissa along, he clearly had other things on his mind. Since Melissa would try to shoot the moon out of the heavens if Leo wanted it, you can be certain that he’s hauled her off to some private place in the woods to frolic.”

“Frolic?” Jason’s eyebrow was up, the sneer sharp. “What a blurry, watery-as-soup word that is, fit only for females who don’t like to speak clearly and to the point.” An infinitesimal pause, then, “Or they can’t be any clearer since they don’t know what they’re talking about.”

James eyed his twin. What was going on here? Well, it had been five years, and Jason had been living in a foreign country. Perhaps men in America insulted women in this fashion?

James cleared his throat, bringing both sets of eyes toward him. “The house is a disaster. Surely you don’t wish to be bothered with such a moldering ruin.”

“Who cares? It’s the stables, the paddocks, this beautiful breeding room and birthing stall that are important. Did you see the tack room? I will be able to work there with my head stable lad.”

Jason wanted to tell her he’d shoot her between the eyes before he’d let her buy Lyon ’s Gate, but instead, he turned to his brother. “Let’s go. I intend to buy this property immediately. You, Miss Carrick, are out of luck. Good day, ma’am.”

“We’ll just see about that, Mr. Sherbrooke,” she called over her shoulder as she galloped off down the drive.

“Leo getting married? I can’t imagine Leo married,” Jason said, laughing.

“I suppose no one mentioned it in their letters to you. You haven’t seen him in five years, Jase. He’s as horse-mad as you are, spent the last three years up at Rothermere stud with the Hawksburys.”

“Have you met the girl he’s going to marry? This Melissa who’s mad for him?”

“She’s quite charming, really. Very different as girls go, you could say. I hadn’t met her friend here, though.”

“Even being British by birth, she still acts like an American, more’s the pity. That means what I said before-she’s brash, overconfident, doesn’t know when to back down… Well, that’s neither here nor there.”

“She’s very beautiful.”

Jason shrugged. “Why isn’t Leo trying to buy this property? How old is Leo now?”

“About our age, maybe a bit younger. Actually, Leo has his eye on a stud up near Yorkshire, near Rothermere and his future wife’s family. Oh yes, we’re all going to the vicarage Saturday for the wedding, spending the night there, which ought to be an experience given that Uncle Ryder is bringing all the Beloved Ones. We’ll be piled to the rafters. Oh yes, Uncle Tysen is marrying Leo and Melissa.”

Jason had turned to watch Hallie Carrick ride away, that fat braid of hers flopping up and down against her back. She rode well, damn her. Could be she rode as well as Jessie Wyndham.

“I’m leaving for London within the hour. I will have this property. I will see Thomas Hoverton myself. It will be done before that girl can begin to sort out a plan of action.”

James doubled over in laughter. “This is simply too rich. Corrie isn’t going to believe this.”

He was still laughing when the two of them walked into Northcliffe Hall, Jason’s boots pounding up the front staircase to get himself packed and off to London.

Twenty minutes later when Jason was riding down the wide Northcliffe drive, James shouted, “Don’t forget to be at the vicarage on Saturday.”