head.
Jason appeared distracted. “Yes, Angela, lovely.”
Hallie licked some gooseberry jam off her toast, looked at him, and sneered. “What is this? You wish to run away in the morning?”
Jason tapped his fork on the plate, picked up a slice of bacon and ate it. He rose. “I have work to do,” he said, and was gone.
“The young master seems to have a lot on his mind,” Angela said. “Perhaps Petrie will know what’s going on.”
“Petrie is a clam when it comes to Jason. As wily and subtle as I am, even I couldn’t get a thing out of him.”
“Perhaps Petrie needs a more mature hand, one that makes a lovely fist.”
“Hmm. I never thought about threatening him,” Hallie said.
“I will begin with wearing a soft glove over the fist.” Angela left the breakfast room humming.
Hallie looked down the short expanse of breakfast table and saw that Jason had left most of the food on his plate. What the devil was wrong with him? He seemed jumpy lately, as if, somehow, he were in some kind of distress. This wasn’t good. She had to find out what was going on with him. After Angela was done with Petrie, Hallie would push her own gloved fist in his face.
But Petrie was nowhere to be found. As for Jason, Lorry, their new jockey, told her, he’d ridden off in the old gig.
An hour later, nearly high noon, Hallie dressed in one of her split skirts, grinned down at her reflection in her shiny boots, and took herself to the stables. There was always so much to be done.
There were only two mares in the paddocks, both asleep where they stood, their tails flicking gently. It was later than she’d thought. All the lads were out exercising the horses. She walked around the corner of the stable and stopped dead in her tracks. Jason was forking hay into the back of an open wagon, his movement rhythmic and graceful.
He wasn’t wearing his shirt. In point of fact, he was naked from the top of his head all the way to his waist, well, perhaps even a bit lower than that. There was a line of hair that trailed beneath the waist of his trousers. She saw a faint line of sweat. He paused a moment, and stretched.
She nearly expired on the spot.
Jason walked back into the stable. She walked quickly after him, not even realizing that her feet were moving. She came to a stop in the open doorway, heard the mares whinny, watched him stroke each nose as he gave each mare a sugar cube.
When he wiped his palms on his breeches, he turned, whistling, and froze. He hadn’t heard her, hadn’t known she was anywhere near. She was standing not six feet from him, her arms at her sides, staring at him like a halfwit. “How is your head?”
“My head? Oh, fine.” She gulped, trying to bring her eyes to his face, which was always a treat, but unable to this time. “Just fine. Lorry said you had left in the gig.”
“I had to deliver two saddles to the blacksmith in Hawley.”
“That’s nice. The gooseberry jam Cook made you for breakfast was wonderful.”
“Well, yes, it was. Hallie-” He scratched his chest-his bare chest. He hadn’t realized he’d taken his shirt off. Bright sunlight shone through the open stable doors, and he saw it on a tree stump twenty feet away. He looked toward the shirt, back at her face. “Hallie,” he said again. “My shirt-let me fetch it.”
“You don’t need to do that. I’ve seen men without their shirts before.”
“Why don’t you go back to the house? Or I can go back to the house and pick up my shirt on the way.”
“Actually, the only man I saw without his shirt on was my father. He grabbed his shirt really fast so I didn’t see all that much, which is a pity since he is so beautiful and a girl needs to know what’s what. I have younger brothers-I bathed them, went swimming with them-but to be honest here, that’s not really the same thing.”
“No, it’s not. If would be best if you turned around now.”
“That isn’t necessary, Jason. You are very lovely to look at.”
“Do you think you could look me in the face when you say that?”
She began walking toward him. The mares whinnied. Jason stood nailed to the spot. When she was no more than three feet from him, she hurled herself at him, threw her arms around his neck, and pressed close.
She nearly knocked him over backward. He grabbed her arms, tried to peel her off him, but it was no good, she was strong and determined. He couldn’t believe he was panting, but he was. “Hallie, for God’s sake, you’ve got to stop, you’ve got to get hold of yourself-” He felt the length of her hard against him. “No,” he said into her mouth. Oh God, her mouth was so very soft and her breath tasted sweet. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life, but Jason kept his arms stiff against his sides. One of her hands stroked down his chest. His breath whooshed out when her finger slipped beneath the waist of his trousers. She didn’t know what she was doing, she couldn’t know. No, he wouldn’t seduce her, no, it wasn’t going to happen, he refused-
“What the hell is going on here?”
A man’s voice, sharp, appalled, a voice vaguely familiar, a voice he’d heard before, but not here, not in England. Oh God, that voice was from Baltimore. That was a father’s voice, a voice ripe for murder.
Hallie’s father’s voice. Baron Sherard. Bloody hell and back.
“Hallie, step away from the man.”
She turned to Lot ’s wife. Her breathing was hard and fast, but she didn’t move, if anything, she pressed closer, warm, soft, all of her pressed so close, too close, and her father was spitting distance away. “Er, Father?” She sounded out of breath, like she was walking on a tightrope and was going to fall at any moment, like she wanted to fall, and-
“Yes. Hallie, I’m your father, and I’m here, not more than eight feet behind you. I want you to listen to me now. Take your arms from around Jason’s neck. Do it now. Step back.”
“It’s hard,” she whispered, breathing in the scent of his flesh. “Very hard, Papa. He doesn’t have a shirt on.”
“I can see that. Step back, Hallie. You can do it, I know you can.”
She felt her father’s hand on her arm, tugging her, but still, it was so difficult. Slowly, she managed to put an inch between herself and Jason, then two. She wanted to weep at the distance.
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
