“I cannot very well call my daughter a blockhead and knock her in the jaw, now can I?”

“You’ve called me a blockhead many times.”

Alec Carrick sighed. “I forgot.”

“Listen, Papa, he was helpless, he was polite, there was nothing he could do except maybe kick me away. Besides, all the stable lads were out with the horses. Angela won’t tell anyone, will you?”

“Certainly not, my dear, but you know these things have a way of oozing out of cracks in the walls.”

“No,” Hallie said. “No, it’s not possible.”

“Hallie, go to bed,” Jason said. “Sir, it’s quite a lovely night. Would you like to see Piccola prance around the paddock? It is one of her favorite pastimes.”

“Prancing on a moonlit night?”

Hallie said, “She refuses to prance if the sky isn’t clear. I don’t want to go to bed. I want to speak to my father, set his mind on the right road, assure him that if anyone did happen to see anything at all, I would bury him under the willow tree.”

Alec Carrick walked to his daughter, clamped his hand over her mouth, and said quietly into her ear, “There will be no bodies buried anywhere. You will not open your mouth again. You will go upstairs and you will stay there.”

Angela took Hallie’s arm. “It’s one of those times when the ground isn’t firm enough to stand on, my dear. Come along.”

Five minutes later, Alec Carrick was smoking a cheroot and thinking about this very odd day. He said as he watched the smoke curl up into the clear night sky, “My daughter is one of the most self-contained individuals I have ever known. Even when she was small, she looked at those around her with a dispassionate eye. However, she was not at all dispassionate today in the stables.”

Jason had never seen her dispassionate, indeed, did not recognize this woman her father spoke of. Hallie, dispassionate? Never. He said, “It is true, sir, what I told you. Nothing like that has ever happened before. I would not dishonor your daughter.”

“No, the shock on your face, the desperation, was as stark as the white moon. The initial letters my daughter wrote to her mother and me after the both of you wanted Lyon ’s Gate-she was quite ready to tear your head from your body. When she wrote of your male beauty, I could picture the sneer on her face. What do you think of my daughter, Jason?”

“She has more guts than brains.”

Baron Sherard nodded, remained silent.

“This is something that shouldn’t have happened, my lord. I never wish to wed, you see.”

Alec said slowly, “I heard rumors to that effect, rumors that you’d exiled yourself from England, spent nearly five years of your life living with the Wyndhams. You did this because of a woman?”

Jason shook his head.

“I had heard you were shot, nearly died. I will admit, I wondered what happened.”

“I didn’t die.”

Alec Carrick waited.

Jason said, “It’s been over a long time, yet when I close my eyes it seems just a moment ago. I was responsible for the near-murder of my father and brother.”

“How can that be?”

Jason shrugged. “It was a bad time. Know that I was the one responsible for it.”

Alec let it go. “I repeat, Jason, what do you think of my daughter?”

Jason looked out of the paddock, listened to Henry’s low, soft voice as he spoke to Piccola, who was lightly tapping one hoof against the ground. Moonlight washed over the two of them, made the white paddock fence look like a painting. “This is my home. When I first saw Lyon ’s Gate, I knew it would be mine, that I would live my life here and race and breed horses.”

“My daughter felt the same way.”

“Yes, I came to realize that. I will tell you that my family, because they love me, tried to get rid of her, but she never faltered. Thus we have this partnership of sorts. It has been difficult, I won’t lie to you, my lord. Your daughter is lovely, she is bright, she works until she’s cross-eyed, and she can walk into a room of people and bring laughter or create chaos. We have yelled at each other, nearly come to blows, all in the past two months, including the day I first saw her. Both of us have learned to bend a bit. Did you know that Lord Renfrew was in the neighborhood?”

“That ass? Did she hurt him?”

“It was close, but she decided to laugh instead, at how stupid she’d been. Do you know what really angered her? Evidently, in addition to bedding another woman during their betrothal, the buffoon lied to her about his age.”

Alec Carrick threw back his head and laughed at the moon. Piccola raised her head and whinnied. She broke away from Henry and began to dance around the paddock, coming nearer and nearer to where Jason and Hallie’s father stood, booted feet on the wooden railing. Her eyes never left the baron’s face.

Jason said, “I hadn’t realized Piccola liked laughter so much.”

Alec said slowly, smiling toward Piccola, “After she found out about Renfrew, my daughter told me she never intended to marry. She said she didn’t have good judgment in selecting gentlemen. I reminded her that she was only eighteen years old, and what could she expect in the way of seeing behind the masks people wear?”

“You’re never smarter in your life than when you’re eighteen,” Jason said.

“I assume you’re right. It’s been too long for me to remember. Now, so you’ll know how serious she was, Hallie wanted to make a blood oath with one of her brothers that she would never wed. Her brother was eleven years old and would do anything she said. I put a stop to it before she could cut her palm with a knife.

“After turning down a good half dozen gentlemen, four of the six quite satisfactory, I believed her.”

“Hallie and I suffer from the same bad judgment in potential mates.”

“I see. I think it’s time you told me a bit of what happened, Jason.”

Jason saw no hope for it. He said slowly, “Unlike Lord Renfrew, this very smart and beautiful young lady did nothing so paltry as lie about her age. She was a monster and I never saw it. As a result of my poor judgment, she nearly killed my father, and her brother nearly killed my twin.

“The fact is, I am not good husband material, my lord, because I can’t imagine ever trusting a female again in my life. I couldn’t give a wife what she’d deserve. I couldn’t make her happy.”

“Because of this lack you see in yourself.”

Jason nodded. “It’s there and it’s deep, part of me now, and a wife would come to resent me, even hate me.”

Baron Sherard said nothing more. He patted Piccola’s nose, remembering how she’d struggled to stand after her mother had finally birthed her six years before at Carrick Grange. He watched her prance about in the paddock beneath the moonlight. He smiled. Youth, he thought, was always such a serious business. There was a lot to think about. He wondered what the earl and countess of Northcliffe thought of his daughter. Had they known what would very probably happen if two young, healthy people were put together like this?

Jason was lying on his back, his head pillowed on his arms, staring up at the shadowy ceiling. Moonlight poured through the open window. The air was still and sweet. Sleep was a million miles away.

He watched the doorknob turn slowly. In an instant, his body was poised to fight. The door opened quietly.

A halo of candlelight appeared. “Jason? Are you asleep?”

“It’s after midnight. Of course I’m asleep, you twit. What do you want, Hallie? Don’t you take another step. You will not come in here, not with your father sleeping twenty feet down the corridor. Go away.”

She slipped through and quietly closed the door. “When I was little, I practiced walking on cat feet since I excelled at eavesdropping. The only person who would ever hear me was my stepmother. She told me it was a good skill to develop but I must promise not to use it on her. I never did.”

“I heard you. Go away.”