His little girl, he could see her all of five years old, sitting cross-legged and barefoot on the quarterdeck of his brigantine, practicing her knots, clad in denim dungarees, a straw tarpaulin hat covering her head. Dear God, here she was nearly twenty-one years old and her eyes were glazed with lust. It was hard for a father to accept, but no matter, it was up to him to remain cool and calm, to remain in control, to save his daughter from herself. He cleared his throat. At least she wasn’t pressed against Jason Sherbrooke like a second shirt any longer. He cleared his throat again, this time for himself. “First, you will tell me why you’re plastered against Jason Sherbrooke.”

Hallie licked her bottom lip. Her father saw that tongue of hers and knew to his toes that if he’d been five minutes later, Jason would have had her naked under him on the stable floor. Or she would have had Jason naked and on his back on the stable floor. His little girl had tied the best rolling hitch on board his ship, but that little girl was no more.

“Jason,” he said, never taking his eyes off his daughter’s face, “go get your shirt and jacket on.”

Jason nodded.

Alec Carrick took his daughter’s arms and pulled her slowly against him. “Hello, sweetheart. May I say you’re always surprising me?”

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.”

“No, I could see that you were completely involved in what you were doing. Could you tell me exactly what you were doing, Hallie? What you were planning to do?”

She blinked up at him. “I’m not really sure. It’s just that I saw Jason without his shirt on, and I fell off the cliff.”

Alec Carrick didn’t need to ask which cliff.

“Oh dear. I’ve never even thought to do anything like that before. I was getting used to his face, and that’s taken some doing, I can tell you that, but then to see him from his head to his waist-it was like a blow to the belly.”

Alec Carrick closed his eyes a moment. He’d learned all about blows to the belly at age thirteen.

“Baron Sherard,” Jason said, his shirt buttoned to his throat, his jacket buttoned as well, looking ridiculous in the heat. “Welcome to Lyon ’s Gate. We weren’t expecting you.”

“No, I planned a surprise,” Alec said slowly, eyeing the young man who’d left scores of female hearts cracked when he’d steamed away from Baltimore to return home.

“I apologize, sir, for this particular surprise. I swear to you this hasn’t happened before, and it won’t happen again.”

A gentleman, Alec thought, he was a gentleman, taking the blame off his daughter’s head. As for Hallie, she was staring at Jason like the village idiot, lust still blooming bright on her cheeks, still glazing her eyes.

“Hallie,” her father said, “I would like some tea. Go into the house, fetch Angela, and Jason and I will be coming along soon.”

Both men watched Hallie walk slowly back toward the house, head down. It soon became obvious she was talking to herself. She waved her right hand, which meant she’d made a good point and the other part of her brain had to accept it.

“She’ll lose this argument.”

That brought Alec up short. “You know what she’s doing?”

Jason shrugged. “She was arguing with herself about me once. I was relieved that the side of her who’d taken my part that day, won. She didn’t bash me on the head. Sir, about what you saw-”

“Yes?”

“As I said, this has never happened before. It happened this time because I was forking that damned hay, and it’s really warm this morning. I just didn’t think. I took my shirt off. I’m sorry.”

Alec Carrick stood not three feet from Jason, his arms crossed over his chest, legs spread. He looked perfectly capable of drawing a pistol and shooting Jason between the eyes.

“Would you like to tell me why one of my daughter’s hands was straying down to your belly?”

Jason nearly shuddered, felt again quite clearly those long fingers of hers on his flesh, tangling in his hair. He’d wanted to jerk and quake. “No, sir, both hands were around my neck except for the very shortest of moments. I swear to you I hardly noticed her hand. Or her fingers.”

That was a lie of the first order, but Alec didn’t nail him. “Thank God you didn’t or I imagine my daughter-what’s this? Oh yes, the stable lads have returned from exercising the horses. No one was about. That’s fortunate. I hate to ask myself what my daughter would have done if the stable lads were in the stables. Would she have controlled herself? As a father, I pray so. Shall we continue this at the house?”

“Certainly.” Suddenly, Jason grinned. “I wonder what Cook will do when she sees you.”

An eyebrow went up as the baron strode next to him. “Why the devil should your cook do anything?”

“If she swoons at the sight of you, my lord, do catch her, else we won’t eat well for dinner.”

Cook looked at both gentlemen, standing side by side, and burst into a vaguely Italian aria, both hands clasped over her breast. She never stopped singing as she skipped back to the kitchen, an amazing sight, given her bulk.

“Heavenly groats, Miss Hallie, and me poor whirling eyes, this is too much bounty for a simple female. Two perfect gentlemen, both of them standing right here in our house, right next to each other. Are you perhaps Master Jason’s older brother, sir? Oh my, did Cook swoon?”

“Cook sang,” Hallie said. “Actually, she is still singing. This is my father, Martha, Baron Sherard.”

“Lawks, sir, ye-you-can’t be a father. You’re a god.”

CHAPTER 30

That evening, after a delicious dinner of turbot of lobster with peas and asparagus and a savory roast saddle of mutton, Cook delivered up a chocolate cream for dessert to make the angels sing.

It was still light outside, so the draperies in the drawing room weren’t pulled, and several windows were open to the sweet night air.

Hallie poured her father tea, added a dollop of cream, just as he liked it, and handed it to him. She could still smell Jason on her skin. How was that possible, since she’d bathed before dinner? Her hand trembled. She couldn’t think about Jason, at least not now. Her father was telling an amusing story, she had to pay attention. She said, “So what did Genny do to this Mr. Pauley?”

Alec laughed. “I believe she asked him if he played the piano, which he did, of course-she’d found that out before she asked the question. She then patted his hand and told him despite the fact that playing the piano, just like painting watercolors or sewing samplers, was a distinctly female pursuit, she still believed he looked manly enough, well, perhaps not quite as manly as he could if he eschewed the piano keys, for say, billiards and cheroots. He looked at me, studied himself for a moment in the mirror, coughed, then asked her very politely to design his yacht.”

Jason, who knew Genny Carrick, Lady Sherard, nodded when Hallie said, “I never saw her back down from a fight. And she’s so smooth. I still get so mad I want to spit nails in a man’s face when he tells me I’m too pretty to be out in the mud.”

Alec said, “Genny was the same as you at one time. However, since she married me, she’s learned to deal with businessmen with far more finesse.”

“That’s because if she could deal with you she could deal with the devil himself.”

Alec laughed and toasted her with his teacup.

Angela said to Jason, “Baroness Sherard taught Hallie to stand firm when the ground was firm enough to stand upon, otherwise, she was to step back quickly.”

Alec Carrick looked at his watch, looked at his daughter, and rose. “I believe Jason and I will have a short conversation. If you ladies will excuse us.”

Hallie jumped to her feet. “Oh no, Papa, don’t you dare take him outside and shoot him or break his head. He didn’t do anything. It was all me. I attacked him. I nearly knocked him over I wanted to get to him so quickly. You cannot blame him, it isn’t fair.”