Lyons Gate

“Consider it the wages of sin.” He stood beside her, pulled the covers to her chin, and realized his arms were still warm from her breasts. He frowned. Everything, he’d learned, was temporary in life, and sometimes, like now, it was a damned nuisance.

He was backing away from her bed again.

“What is the matter with you, Jason? Are you going out again?”

“What? Oh, no, I’m going to bed. I added a bit of laudanum to the tea. You should be asleep in two minutes. Don’t worry about anything.” And he was gone from her bedchamber, closing the door quietly after him. She heard his boots in the corridor.

She was asleep, belly and head calm, within the next minute.

It was a hot morning in July. Jason could smell the freshly scythed grass from the open breakfast-room window. It filled him with contentment, that, and the fact that there were now six mares in the stables, hopefully all of them pregnant, all of them sent by friends or friends of friends or friends of relatives.

“Isn’t it nice having such lovely big families?” Angela said at the breakfast table. “This is a note from your aunt Arielle, Hallie. She writes that the duke of Portsmouth will be contacting you and Jason about two mares to be covered by Dodger. He also wants to breed his favorite stallion with Piccola next year.” Angela raised her head.

Jason appeared distracted. “Yes, Angela, lovely.”

Hallie licked some gooseberry jam off her toast, looked at him, and sneered. “What is this? You wish to run away in the morning?”

Jason tapped his fork on the plate, picked up a slice of bacon and ate it. He rose. “I have work to do,” he said, and was gone.

“The young master seems to have a lot on his mind,” Angela said. “Perhaps Petrie will know what’s going on.”

“Petrie is a clam when it comes to Jason. As wily and subtle as I am, even I couldn’t get a thing out of him.”

“Perhaps Petrie needs a more mature hand, one that makes a lovely fist.”

“Hmm. I never thought about threatening him,” Hallie said.

“I will begin with wearing a soft glove over the fist.” Angela left the breakfast room humming.

Hallie looked down the short expanse of breakfast table and saw that Jason had left most of the food on his plate. What the devil was wrong with him? He seemed jumpy lately, as if, somehow, he were in some kind of distress. This wasn’t good. She had to find out what was going on with him. After Angela was done with Petrie, Hallie would push her own gloved fist in his face.

But Petrie was nowhere to be found. As for Jason, Lorry, their new jockey, told her, he’d ridden off in the old gig.

An hour later, nearly high noon, Hallie dressed in one of her split skirts, gri

There were only two mares in the paddocks, both asleep where they stood, their tails flicking gently. It was later than she’d thought. All the lads were out exercising the horses. She walked around the corner of the stable and stopped dead in her tracks. Jason was forking hay into the back of an open wagon, his movement rhythmic and graceful.

He wasn’t wearing his shirt. In point of fact, he was naked from the top of his head all the way to his waist, well, perhaps even a bit lower than that. There was a line of hair that trailed beneath the waist of his trousers. She saw a faint line of sweat. He paused a moment, and stretched.

She nearly expired on the spot.

Jason walked back into the stable. She walked quickly after him, not even realizing that her feet were moving. She came to a stop in the open doorway, heard the mares whi

When he wiped his palms on his breeches, he turned, whistling, and froze. He hadn’t heard her, hadn’t known she was anywhere near. She was standing not six feet from him, her arms at her sides, staring at him like a halfwit. “How is your head?”

“My head? Oh, fine.” She gulped, trying to bring her eyes to his face, which was always a treat, but unable to this time. “Just fine. Lorry said you had left in the gig.”

“I had to deliver two saddles to the blacksmith in Hawley.”

“That’s nice. The gooseberry jam Cook made you for breakfast was wonderful.”

“Well, yes, it was. Hallie-” He scratched his chest-his bare chest. He hadn’t realized he’d taken his shirt off. Bright sunlight shone through the open stable doors, and he saw it on a tree stump twenty feet away. He looked toward the shirt, back at her face. “Hallie,” he said again. “My shirt-let me fetch it.”

“You don’t need to do that. I’ve seen men without their shirts before.”

“Why don’t you go back to the house? Or I can go back to the house and pick up my shirt on the way.”

“Actually, the only man I saw without his shirt on was my father. He grabbed his shirt really fast so I didn’t see all that much, which is a pity since he is so beautiful and a girl needs to know what’s what. I have younger brothers-I bathed them, went swimming with them-but to be honest here, that’s not really the same thing.”

“No, it’s not. If would be best if you turned around now.”

“That isn’t necessary, Jason. You are very lovely to look at.”

“Do you think you could look me in the face when you say that?”

She began walking toward him. The mares whi

She nearly knocked him over backward. He grabbed her arms, tried to peel her off him, but it was no good, she was strong and determined. He couldn’t believe he was panting, but he was. “Hallie, for God’s sake, you’ve got to stop, you’ve got to get hold of yourself-” He felt the length of her hard against him. “No,” he said into her mouth. Oh God, her mouth was so very soft and her breath tasted sweet. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life, but Jason kept his arms stiff against his sides. One of her hands stroked down his chest. His breath whooshed out when her finger slipped beneath the waist of his trousers. She didn’t know what she was doing, she couldn’t know. No, he wouldn’t seduce her, no, it wasn’t going to happen, he refused-

“What the hell is going on here?”

A man’s voice, sharp, appalled, a voice vaguely familiar, a voice he’d heard before, but not here, not in England. Oh God, that voice was from Baltimore. That was a father’s voice, a voice ripe for murder.

Hallie’s father’s voice. Baron Sherard. Bloody hell and back.

“Hallie, step away from the man.”

She turned to Lot ’s wife. Her breathing was hard and fast, but she didn’t move, if anything, she pressed closer, warm, soft, all of her pressed so close, too close, and her father was spitting distance away. “Er, Father?” She sounded out of breath, like she was walking on a tightrope and was going to fall at any moment, like she wanted to fall, and-

“Yes. Hallie, I’m your father, and I’m here, not more than eight feet behind you. I want you to listen to me now. Take your arms from around Jason’s neck. Do it now. Step back.”

“It’s hard,” she whispered, breathing in the scent of his flesh. “Very hard, Papa. He doesn’t have a shirt on.”

“I can see that. Step back, Hallie. You can do it, I know you can.”

She felt her father’s hand on her arm, tugging her, but still, it was so difficult. Slowly, she managed to put an inch between herself and Jason, then two. She wanted to weep at the distance.

Her father was here, not three inches behind her, his hand on her arm. Sanity returned with a solid thunk. She turned. “Papa? You’re here at Lyon ’s Gate? I mean, you’re here at this specific time, which is really very unfortunate for me. Should you like to come to the house for a cup of tea?”