Lyon's Gate (Sherbrooke Brides 9)

Hallie paced the width of the estate room, a small, thoroughly masculine room of rich brown leather with a mahogany desk and matching bookshelves. Both Douglas and Jason watched her. She stopped at the window and shook a fist in the direction of Mr. Chartley’s rented house. “He’s a scoundrel, no bet

ter than Thomas Hoverton. He’s sold the property to two people.”

“No,” Douglas said. “He sold two people each a half a property.”

“Well, yes, he did, but—”

“It was very clever of him. You, Miss Carrick, placed him in an utterly untenable position.”

“No, it was you who did that, sir. I simply played the same cards. You threatened to exterminate the poor man and his poor daughter if he didn’t roll over like a dead dog and do exactly what you said. I merely followed your example, and look at what it has brought us.” She waved the deed and the draft on the Bank of England in his face. Her own face fell then, and she sat down hard in one of Douglas’s big leather chairs and put her face in her hands.

Jason said to his father, “I’m gratified. She didn’t pull an elegant stiletto out of her sleeve and plunge it through your arm.”

Hallie’s head jerked up. “I didn’t think of that. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get my knife. But there is a problem. These sleeves are so blasted big you can’t hide anything in them. A knife would clatter to the floor.”

“Don’t move, Miss Carrick,” Douglas said. It was his turn to pace the room, his eyes on his boots. He stopped, turned to face the two young people. “I suggest we think of Mr. Chartley as an agent of fate.

“The fact is, the both of you now own Lyon’s Gate. I further suggest you both sit down like the two adults you are, and figure out how you’re going to make this work. I hesitate to destroy Mr. Chartley, given his ingenious solution.” Douglas walked to the door, then turned to face them. “Miss Carrick, using my tactics on Mr. Chartley was an excellent strategy. You are a woman of backbone. I must admit that Jason and I were both gloating last night, not blatantly, naturally, since that would be rude.”

“I knew you were gloating.”

But the earl was gone.

“Quietly gloating,” Jason said, frowning at the empty doorway. He heard his father’s boot steps receding down the corridor toward the front of the town house. His father was a smart man. Jason eyed Hallie Carrick. “What the devil are we to do?”

“Sign over your half to me. I will pay you for it, naturally. I will even give you a profit.”

“You managed to get more money from your bankers?”

“Oh yes. I went to Mr. Billingsley’s house on Berkeley Square. Mr. Billingsley tried to hem and haw, but his wife has known me since I was born. She told him to hie himself into his study and write me out a bank draft. I was smart, she said, and wasn’t my father always telling him how very smart I was?”

“Sometimes I don’t like fate,” Jason said. “I’m going riding in the park. Hopefully I will gain some inspiration from the swans in the Serpentine.”

It was dinnertime on that drizzling May evening when Jason opened his bedchamber door to find Hallie Carrick standing there, her fist up to knock, a determined look on her face. “Mr. Sherbrooke, I have a solution. You will sleep in the stables. We can fashion a lovely suite of rooms there for you off the tack room. It will be no problem. You can take your meals with me in the house.”

He didn’t move, didn’t look away from her. “No.”

“We can’t very well share the same bloody house, you know that.”

“You can have the stables then. You can have your meals with me in the big house.”

“If you were to inhabit the big house, you wouldn’t do a thing to make it beautiful again. I will get rid of the mildew, I will put new draperies on the windows and new carpets on the floors. I will buff those floors and replace what is necessary to replace.”

“Wherever did you get this blighted notion that men don’t care about their surroundings?”

“My stepmother told me that men would be perfectly content to live in a cave. Throw them a meaty bone and give them—Well, never mind that. The stables are perfect for you.”

At his hoisted eyebrow, she said, “Very well. Step back.”

She nearly walked over him, her hand out, pressing against his chest. He backed up in her wake. She came to a stop in the middle of his bedchamber and waved her hands. “Just look. A monk could be living in here. The only reason this lovely room isn’t covered with dust and muddy boot prints is because of the servants’ diligence. This is pathetic, Mr. Sherbrooke. This is how Lyon’s Gate would continue to look were you to live in the big house.”

“May I remind you that I haven’t been here in five years, Miss Carrick?” He should tell her that he’d selected most of the furnishings for the Wyndhams, chosen the fabrics for the new drawing room draperies, and arranged every single interior item.

She thought he was defeated, and she laughed. “I’m right, admit it. You will do just fine in the stables, Mr. Sherbrooke.” She nearly danced out of his bedchamber. Jason stood in the middle of the room, his arms crossed over his chest, wondering what was going to happen next.

CHAPTER 12

Northcliffe Hall