as she said in the gentlest voice he’d ever heard from her in his life, “You’ve forgiven yourself, boy?”
He looked down at that cantankerous old face, and instead of vinegar all he saw was a wealth of concern and love, and it was for him. He couldn’t take it in, no more than he could begin to explain why he’d wanted to stop here first, to see her. He’d received two letters from her a year, one near his birthday and one near Christmas.
“You told your father and your brother not to come see you,” she said, still patting his cheek. “And then you wrote only niggardly excuses for letters for a very long time.”
“I wasn’t ready.”
“Answer me, Jason. Have you forgiven yourself?”
“Forgiven myself?”
“Yes, that’s it exactly. For some reason no one can fathom, except for James, who claimed he understood even as he knew you were dead wrong, you blamed yourself for what happened. It’s nonsense, of course. It’s probably an excuse for immense self-pity since you’re a man, and the good Lord knows that men love to wallow in self-pity, lap it up like cats do milk. Do it so that the women who have the misfortune to love them will spend endless amounts of time to reassure them and to stroke their brows-”
“-and pour tea down their gullets and overlook their indiscretions,” Hollis said. “I believe I’ve learned the litany.”
“Ha! You are a great deal too smart, Hollis,” the old woman said, and tried to hit him with her cane.
Now this was more like the grandmother Jason remembered. He gave her a huge grin. “Do you have any brandy to pour down my gullet, Grandmother?”
“Yes, but I daresay you’d rather have one of my nutty buns. You were riding by, weren’t you, and you smelled them wafting out the window, although the windows are supposed to be shut tight to keep out the noxious vapors.”
“Actually,” Jason said, “I didn’t smell the nutty buns. I haven’t smelled a nutty bun in five years. I came because I wanted to see you. Er, may I have a nutty bun now that I’m here and the nutty buns are here as well?”
She actually took several moments to weigh this-he could see it in her bright old eyes.
She yelled, “Hollis, you old stick, bring the nutty buns to the drawing room! Yes, my boy, I’ve decided that if there are at least a half-dozen, then yes, you may have one too. Hollis, your bony old self was just here. Where have you gone now? Are you doddering somewhere? Trying to stuff a nutty bun down your gullet? I’ll wager you are since you think I’ll not say anything since my precious boy is finally home.” Her grin was bright with spite as she spoke.
The grin fell away as she looked back up at Jason. “So you don’t wish to answer me, do you? That’s all right for now. Perhaps it’s too soon for you to realize what’s in your heart.”
Hollis, who had just entered the hall carrying the brandy, was having trouble believing his eyes. His mistress was treating Jason with more affection than she’d ever treated anyone in her entire life. He’d heard what she’d said, and was outraged. “You will allow Master Jason to eat one of your nutty buns, madam? You have never before offered me a nutty bun.”
The dowager countess looked him up and down. “I have always counted the nutty buns you bring me, knowing that it’s always supposed to be half a dozen, but there rarely are. I know you many times filch one for yourself. Don’t try to deny it, Hollis.” The old lady finally nodded, a curl of silver hair falling over her forehead. “Very well, Hollis, I will not berate you today. Look at your face-it’s begun to look like a starving monk’s, more than you did just last week when you deigned to come visit me with one nutty bun missing from that lovely covered plate. Hmm. You may also have a nutty bun, but get them now or I will rescind my offer.” The old woman released Jason, tapped her cane a couple of times, a prelude, Jason thought, to her tottering off to the drawing room.
Jason watched Hollis, stately and tall, those old shoulders as square as they’d been when Jason had left, walk down the hallway into the nether regions of the house to get the nutty buns. He heard him muttering how miracles did happen, that it appeared he would have one of the dowager’s nutty buns before he croaked it. Jason wondered if Hollis realized that two maids were hovering just beyond the staircase, ready for any assistance should he require it, asked or unasked for.
Jason said grandly, “Grandmother, may I offer you my arm?”
“Certainly, my boy. It has to be better than hanging on to Hollis. That old man is as weedy as a dormouse.”
CHAPTER 3
Silence hung heavy in the drawing room that evening. Tension swirled in the air, thick with bone-deep concern, unspoken worries, and unasked questions. Then Corrie appeared in the doorway carrying a freshly scrubbed twin under each arm, their beautiful small faces alight with excitement and shock because it was so very late and they weren’t in their beds, Nanny snoring not six feet away from them.
“Uncle Jason, it’s us again!” Douglas Simon Sherbrooke, older than his twin by exactly eleven minutes, broke free of his mother and ran as fast as his legs could carry him to Jason, who caught the little boy when he leapt into the air in his general direction.
“I see that it is,” Jason said, nuzzling Douglas ’s neck. He smelled just like Alice Wyndham, after her evening bath. He felt tears well up. He looked down to see Everett Plessante Sherbrooke tugging at his trouser leg, ready to yell or burst into tears, Jason couldn’t tell which. He scooped up the little boy and held both of them close, letting them pat his face, give him wet kisses and talk nonstop, words that weren’t really words but rather twin-talk bursting out of those small mouths, just like the incomprehensible language he and James had shared.
Douglas drew back and said, “Everyone said you looked just like Papa and Aunt Melissande, but you don’t, Uncle Jason.”
“That’s true, Douglas. I don’t look exactly like your papa, but it’s close, don’t you think, Everett?”
The other impossibly beautiful little face scrunched up in thought. Everett then announced, “No, Uncle Jason, you look like yourself, and you look like me too. Not Douglas -he looks like Papa. Yes, that’s it, you look like me.” And that little face wore the same wicked look Jason had seen on his mother Corrie’s face.
Douglas said, after another wet kiss on the right side of his uncle Jason’s neck, “Grandpapa can’t stand that I look like Papa and Aunt Melissande. She always brings Everett and me little almond cookies when she visits. Grandpapa says blessed hell, he’ll never be free of
Jason heard his father groan, his mother laugh. He turned to his father, brow raised. “Cursing, in front of this little scamp?”
“He’s got ears as sharp as you and James had when you were his age,” Douglas Sherbrooke, the earl of Northcliffe said, and poked his wife in her ribs. “Be quiet, Alex. I don’t believe a lad can be too young to learn of the Sherbrooke curse.”
“I agree,” Corrie said. “No, don’t you dare disagree with me, James Sherbrooke. Blessed hell is always your prelude when you’re ready to cut loose.” She grinned over at Jason. “He gets mad at me-only the good Lord could possibly understand why-and I know he wants to throw me out a window, but he has to make do with blessed hell and stomp out of the room.”
“A monstrous lie,” James said, then loudly cleared his throat when his two little boys turned wide eyes to him. “Jason, do you want me to liberate you from at least one of those imps?”
Both imps wrapped their arms more tightly around Jason’s neck, nearly choking him. Jason shook his head. “Not yet. All right, lads, can we settle ourselves down for a moment or do you want me to dance you around the drawing room? Your grandmama can play a waltz on the piano, if you like.”
“Let’s dance!” Douglas shouted, his feet kicking out.
“I want to waltz too,” Everett shouted in Jason’s other ear. “What’s waltz?”
There was laughter in the air now, the awful deadening stress and anxiety swept under the carpet, at least for the time being. To Jason, it felt wonderful. He began to waltz slowly about the drawing room, tightening his hold
