Jason, Hallie, and Angela didn’t arrive home until nearly three o’clock in the morning. Both Martha and Petrie were in the drawing room, Petrie, head thrown back on the back of the sofa, snoring, Martha huddled in a chair, one stockinged toe sticking out from beneath her gown.

When they walked into the drawing room, Martha jerked up and yelled, “Tell us everything!”

Petrie’s nostrils pinched as he jerked awake, and he nearly stumbled off his feet he jumped up so quickly. He was quick to wave his nanny’s finger at her. “Martha, a lady’s maid doesn’t demand gossip from her mistress. You will lower your head and inquire if Miss Hallie wishes to have you remove her stockings.”

Angela said, “Goodness, Petrie, isn’t that rather indelicate of you? Martha, after you have assisted Hallie, do come to my bedchamber. I appear to have more buttons than fingers to do the task.”

“I will, Miss Angela.” Martha whirled around on Petrie, hands on hips, “As for you, Mr. Stump-Chops, don’t you tell me what to do with Miss Hallie’s stockings. It pains Master Jason to hear such private matters spoken of in his drawing room.”

“Actually, I believe Jason is standing in my half of the drawing room,” Hallie said.

“But-”

Jason raised his hand. “Be quiet, Petrie, let it go. No, no more from either of you. No, Martha, heel.” Jason turned to Hallie and Angela. “You see? I put a stop to the hilarity just as you asked.”

“Hilarity?” Petrie said. “Hilarity is not at all the thing in a gentleman’s household.”

“All we need,” Angela said, “is Cook to complete the picture.”

“But, Master Jason,” Petrie began, knowing he had an important point if only he could find the ears to hear it.

“No, Petrie. We’ll tell both of you everything in the morning. Everyone to bed now. Petrie, you’re with me.”

“Martha,” Hallie said, “I will tell you all about Mr. Charles Grandison, who will probably be visiting us in not more than seven hours from now.”

“What a lovely name,” Martha said. “Is he a gentleman wot-what-looks like his name like Master Jason does?”

“Indeed. Master Jason said Charles Grandison was ruthless when it came to all the scoundrels and the corruption in the racing world. So much money involved, you see.”

“We are going to be more ruthless, more feared even than Charles Grandison,” Jason said. “We will make anyone who tries to hurt our horses or cheat or threaten us, pay so great a price they’ll never try it again.”

“And our reputation will spread.” She rubbed her hands together. “My father taught me how to bring a man to the ground with very little effort.”

“Very little effort? Do I wish to know what you’re talking about?”

“Well, it involves my knee, Jason. My father said a man couldn’t bear that sort of pain, whatever that means.”

Jason and Petrie looked appalled.

Martha said, “Well, more power to a lady’s knee, I say. Now, Miss Hallie, it’s very late. Time for me to see to you and Miss Angela.”

Jason said, “I, as well, learned a lot with the Wyndhams in Baltimore. Americans can stand more pain, and they don’t whine as much, I found. Jessie asked me to exercise desperate measures on three occasions as I recall.”

Hallie said, “What kind of desperate measures?”

“A competitor bribed a stable lad to poison one of the Wyndham horses. I made him walk through downtown Baltimore -it wasn’t raining, as I recall-carrying the tub of the poisoned grain he would have fed Rialto. Every three steps he had to announce what he’d tried to do.”

Hallie nodded in approval. “I heard from my father that you once sliced a jockey’s face with your whip when he was going to stick a knife in your horse’s neck.”

“Nearly to the bone.”

“My father also said you nabbed another jockey as he was coming out of Mrs. O’Toole’s tavern and beat the stuffing out of him for trying to shoot you off your horse in a race the week before.”

Jason smiled at the memory, flexed his fingers without conscious thought. “I should have waited until he’d sobered up. It would have been more fun.”

“Just so,” Hallie said. “No one will go against us more than once.”

“Heavenly groats, Miss Hallie,” Martha was heard to whisper as she walked between her mistress and Miss Angela up the staircase, “this is so exciting. Do ye-you-think you’ll have to resort to some of these desperate measures Master Jason was talking about?”

“It’s possible,” Hallie said, as serious as a nun wielding a three-pronged whip.

“And yer-your-knee, Miss Hallie. I want to hear all about your knee.”

“That thought would make the blood move swiftly through a man’s heart, wouldn’t it?” Angela said, as she lightly patted the very feminine white lace over her bosom.

CHAPTER 27

Charles Grandison said, “I want to buy Piccola. She’s magnificent. I’ll pay you very well for her, Jason.”

“She’s not my mare to sell.”

“Ah, so Miss Carrick is her owner. A lady enjoys having lovely things-”

“I’ve noticed that gentlemen enjoy lovely things as well,” Hallie said, coming around the corner. She strode, Jason thought, like a boy with more arrogance than brains. What would Charles make of that? What would he say if he noticed her gown was really a pair of fat-legged trousers? Ah, and the shine on her boots.

Hallie patted Piccola’s forehead while she nuzzled a carrot off Hallie’s palm. “She will win me many more races before she retires, my lord. Unfortunately, we have no horses for sale at this time. We’ve not been in business all that long.”

Jason said, “James and Jessie Wyndham will be visiting in August. They’re bringing us stock they’ve selected themselves.”

“Yes,” Hallie said. “Come see us in September.”

“I will,” Charles said. “It will interest me to see what an American considers good breeding and racing stock. Ah, Miss Carrick, Lord Brinkley told me about the shine on your boots. Said his man Old Fudds still couldn’t get it just right.”

“Practice,” Hallie said.

“That is true of most things, I’ve found,” Charles said, and turned to Jason. “You’ve begun well, Jason.”

“Thank you,” Hallie said.

Charles Grandison laughed. “I would like to meet this misogynist butler who stole Elgin ’s hat and cane.”

It was later, over Cook’s lovely tea and gingerbread that Hallie asked, “Lord Carlisle-”

“Call me, Charles, please.”

She smiled, inclined her head. “Have you and Lord Renfrew known each other long?”

“ Elgin is horse mad,” Charles said. “He has asked me to assist him in buying quality horseflesh.”

“It is an expensive undertaking,” Jason said, and chewed a raisin Cook had put in the gingerbread.

“Oh, you don’t think Elgin has enough pounds in his pockets?”

“I really don’t know,” Jason said. “Nor do I really care.”

“I suppose you told Jason, Miss Carrick, that Lord Renfrew would very much like to marry you?”

“No, I did not tell him that. Why would I?”

“He is your partner, ma’am. Were you to wed Lord Renfrew, why then, it would be he who would deal with Jason here and your horses.”

“I hadn’t realized that marriage went hand in hand with incompetence. Marriage would make me stupid, then?”

“A lady as lovely as you are could be as stupid as a chamber pot and it wouldn’t matter.”

Jason, in mid-drink, spewed the tea out of his mouth and began coughing. Hallie walked to him and smacked him hard on the back. He finally caught his breath. He grinned up at her. “Ah, thank you for the brute assistance.”

“I have four young siblings. One is always prepared to do anything, including cauterizing a wound. Now, Lord Carlisle, about Lord Renfrew.”

“Charles, please.”

Hallie picked up her teacup and saluted him, and yet again she inclined her head. “I don’t suppose Lord Renfrew asked you to come to Lyon ’s Gate to, er, soften me up a bit?”