She heard it again. A noise coming from the window. Good heavens, this was the second time. When Corrie crept toward the window, a poker in her hand, she saw it start to slowly inch upward.
She watched her brother-in-law ease the window up far enough so he could swing his leg over the sill and climb in.
“I was hoping for a villain this time,” she said, and gave him a hand. “I was armed and ready.”
“Thank you for putting down the poker, Corrie. I’m sorry to come in through your window again, I know it’s late.”
“Not that late. I felled poor James. That’s him, snoring from the bed.”
She sounded quite proud of herself. Jason touched his fingertips to her cheek. “I’ll wake up the sluggard. He doesn’t deserve to sleep.”
Jason shook his brother’s shoulder. “Wake up, you pathetic excuse for a man.”
James, as was his wont, opened his eyes without hesitation, and focused instantly and clearly on his brother’s annoyed face above him. “I feel very fine,” he said, and smiled.
“You don’t deserve to, damn you. Get up, my world has ended and you’re lying here, thinking about how wonderful life is. You don’t bloody deserve it.”
James, still light in the head and heart, said, “All that?”
“What’s wrong, Jason? What’s happened?”
Jason looked with a good deal of affection at his sister-in-law, whose white hand clutched his sleeve, her worry for him shining in her eyes, though in the dim light it was hard to know for sure. “You look ever so nice with your hair all wild around your face, Corrie.”
James bolted upright. “Don’t you admire her, you dog. Damn you, you’ve got a wife of your own. Step away from her before I flatten you.”
“What’s wrong, Jason?”
“I’ve left Lyon’s Gate,” Jason said, and stepped back from his sister-in-law because he knew when his brother was serious. He slid down to the floor, leaned his head back against the wall, closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around his bent knees.
James pulled on his dressing gown, eyed his wife’s revealing nightgown, and said, “Get back into bed, Corrie. I don’t want Jason to get any ideas.”
“Ideas? How could he possibly be thinking about me and this lovely peach nightgown when he’s left his home?” Corrie lit some candles, then slipped back into bed, drew a deep breath. “You’ve left Hallie?”
Jason said, not looking up, “The nightgown is lovely, Corrie, but I’m not thinking about you under it. My life is ripped apart. I meant to go sleep in the stables, but I came here instead. I don’t know what to do.”
James patted his wife’s cheek, tucked more covers over her, then pulled his twin to his feet. “Let’s go downstairs and have a brandy. You can tell me what’s happened.”
“Do you know if heated brandy is good, James?”
When the brothers stepped into James’s estate room, it was to see their father pouring each of them a snifter of brandy. He was wearing a dark blue dressing gown whose elbows were worn nearly through. “So,” Douglas said, trying to sound calm, when in fact, his heart was racing, and he was terrified, “why, Jason, did you leave your home in the middle of the night, and your wife of not yet a month?”
James said, “Actually, it’s not all that late, not even midnight yet.”
“Don’t make me shoot you, James,” his father said.
Jason gulped down the brandy and fell to coughing. When he finally caught his breath, his father poured him more. “Slowly this time. Get ahold of yourself. Tell us what’s happened.”
“I don’t think brandy needs to be heated. My belly is on fire. It’s Hallie.”
Both Douglas and James remained silent.
Jason sipped at his brandy. “I’m very sorry to break in on you like this, but I just didn’t know where else to go. Well, like I said, I was going to sleep in the stable, but I was afraid Petrie would come with me.”
Douglas said, “What did Hallie do?”
Jason sipped brandy.
“What did she do?”