“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.

“We should have brought blankets,” Jason said and vigorously rubbed his arms with his hands. In addition to being cold, he was beginning to think the ground was a graveyard of rocks. James considered this warm?

“You’ve become soft in your years away,” James said. “This is the first perfectly clear night we’ve had since you arrived home. Would you look at Orion’s Belt, Jase-it looks like diamonds sparkling.”

They were lying atop the cliff above the Poe Valley, James’s favorite star-gazing place. Jason said, “You’ve been showing me Orion’s Belt since we were six years old. I remember you used the word sparkling each and every time.”

“And I remember I nearly had to tie you down so you would hold still long enough. At least you’re nice and quiet now, except for the complaining.”

“If I don’t move, maybe I won’t freeze to death.”

James laughed, came up to a sitting position, and turned to look down at his brother, lying on his back, his head now pillowed on his crossed arms. “Jase, are you certain you want to actually share your house and your stables with this girl? You scarcely know her. She could be a harridan.”

“She is.” Jason’s face was calm, and he looked nothing more than sleepy.

“You’re telling me that you’re knowingly going to share a house with a disagreeable female who will make your life miserable?”

“That’s it. Think of it as an arranged marriage.” Jason came up to clasp his arms around his legs. “What other choice do I have?”

“You tried to buy her out?”

“Oh yes. She very nearly gulleted me.” Jason suddenly smacked the side of his head. “Come to think of it, maybe I could still have her kidnapped and taken to the West Indies. What do you think?”

“Mother wanted to send her farther away. She’d do it now in a flash. I remember Father left the room, telling her over his shoulder that he believed there was a ship in port bound for Charlotte Amalie.”

Jason laughed. “She would. He would.” He rubbed his arms again. “Come to think of it though, Hallie’d probably be running the island within five years. Damn, James, I can’t believe you think this is warm. Has my blood thinned that much being in America?”

“It would appear so. However, you were bred from hardy English stock, you’ll get used to it again. I’m wondering what Miss Carrick’s aunt and uncle-not to mention her father-will think about this arrangement, sharing a house with a man who isn’t her husband.”

“If there’s one thing Miss Carrick does well, it’s argue. Interesting you should bring up the earl of Ravensworth. I don’t believe she plans to tell her aunt and uncle until we’ve actually split the house in half, her far-removed great-cousin Mrs. Tewksbury is installed, and the three of us have moved in. A fait accompli, as it were.”

“She’s not twenty-one until the end of the year. I suppose her aunt and uncle could order her to move back to Ravensworth Abbey.”

Jason arched his left eyebrow. “That is possibly the stupidest thing you’ve said since I’ve been home, James. Can you honestly imagine giving Miss Carrick orders to do anything she doesn’t want to?”

“Well, where do her aunt and uncle think she is?”

“I believe she’s allowing them to assume she’s still with Melissa’s parents in London. I don’t suppose they realize that Melissa’s parents have already returned north. And now we’ll have Miss Carrick for a guest until Lyon ’s Gate is ready for us. She arrives tomorrow.”

James brooded on that awhile, then said, “Speaking of Melissa and Leo, did I look as besotted as Leo when I married Corrie?”

“No, nothing like that.”

James moaned. “Don’t ever say that in Corrie’s hearing. She’d lock me in a small room with the twins.”

“You looked like you wanted to rip off that lovely wedding gown she was wearing and take her right there in the central aisle of the church.”

James’s head jerked around to face his brother, an eyebrow arched a good inch. “Well, then. You can tell her that.” He paused a moment, took the plunge. “That was a time, wasn’t it?”

Jason said nothing, continued to rub his arms.

James felt his brother withdraw, though he didn’t move a muscle. He backed off. “All right, you puny lad, let’s go home. I don’t want you whining to Mother that I tried to freeze you to death.”

After the twins rose and dusted themselves off, James took one final long look at the heavens. Jason felt the pull of it in his brother, something he couldn’t begin to understand. On the other hand, present James with a stud farm to run and he’d probably stare at you, baffled.

James said as he mounted Bad Boy, “Corrie is wonderful, Jason. She’s a brick, you can always count on her, and the good Lord knows she makes me laugh. She gets along famously with Mother, Father adores her, only Grandmother maligns her, but that doesn’t upset her overly. Do you know that she and I lie on the cliff looking up at Andromeda and find myself blessing all the stars that circumstances threw us together?”

“I heard the two of you yelling this morning.”

“She does have a knack for making me so mad I want to lock her in her armoire. In the next instant, I’ve got her pressed against the wall and she’s got her legs around my waist and-Well never mind the details. Hmm. I’ll never forget over a dinner of buttocks of beef she thanked Father for educating me so splendidly.”