James bolted upright. “Don’t you admire her, you dog. Damn you, you’ve got a wife of your own. Step away from her before I flatten you.”
“What’s wrong, Jason?”
“I’ve left Lyon ’s Gate,” Jason said, and stepped back from his sister-in-law because he knew when his brother was serious. He slid down to the floor, leaned his head back against the wall, closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around his bent knees.
James pulled on his dressing gown, eyed his wife’s revealing nightgown, and said, “Get back into bed, Corrie. I don’t want Jason to get any ideas.”
“Ideas? How could he possibly be thinking about me and this lovely peach nightgown when he’s left his home?” Corrie lit some candles, then slipped back into bed, drew a deep breath. “You’ve left Hallie?”
Jason said, not looking up, “The nightgown is lovely, Corrie, but I’m not thinking about you under it. My life is ripped apart. I meant to go sleep in the stables, but I came here instead. I don’t know what to do.”
James patted his wife’s cheek, tucked more covers over her, then pulled his twin to his feet. “Let’s go downstairs and have a brandy. You can tell me what’s happened.”
“Do you know if heated brandy is good, James?”
When the brothers stepped into James’s estate room, it was to see their father pouring each of them a snifter of brandy. He was wearing a dark blue dressing gown whose elbows were worn nearly through. “So,” Douglas said, trying to sound calm, when in fact, his heart was racing, and he was terrified, “why, Jason, did you leave your home in the middle of the night, and your wife of not yet a month?”
James said, “Actually, it’s not all that late, not even midnight yet.”
“Don’t make me shoot you, James,” his father said.
Jason gulped down the brandy and fell to coughing. When he finally caught his breath, his father poured him more. “Slowly this time. Get ahold of yourself. Tell us what’s happened.”
“I don’t think brandy needs to be heated. My belly is on fire. It’s Hallie.”
Both Douglas and James remained silent.
Jason sipped at his brandy. “I’m very sorry to break in on you like this, but I just didn’t know where else to go. Well, like I said, I was going to sleep in the stable, but I was afraid Petrie would come with me.”
Douglas said, “What did Hallie do?”
Jason sipped brandy.
“What did she do?”
“She laughed at me.”
“I don’t understand,” James said slowly. “What did she laugh at you about?”
“She wanted me to tell her what happened five years ago, and so I did. She made light of it! Dammit, all three of us still live with that awful time.”
James said, “The gall. Here I was growing fond of her. I thought she was nice, filled with kindness.”
“She is, usually.”
“No, she’s obviously cruel,” James said, and shook his head. “Hard, that’s what she is, and unfeeling.”
Douglas nodded. “Indeed. I trust you set her straight, Jason. I am very disappointed in her. I believe I will ride to Lyon ’s Gate right now, and give her a piece of my mind.”
“I’ll go with you, Papa,” James said. “I’d like to shake her, tell her she doesn’t understand what really happened, how it smote you to your toes, Jason, how deeply you feel about it, and your part in it.”
“She had the nerve to say that any part I had in it I should have gotten over by now.”
“What a coldhearted creature,” Douglas said. “I’m very sorry you had to marry her, Jason. I’ve wondered if perhaps she took advantage of you because she knew her father was there, knew perhaps he was even on his way into the stable.”
Jason drank more brandy. “No, she didn’t know her father was there. She simply couldn’t help herself.”
“Well, no matter. Yes, I’ll go over right now and set her straight about things. I won’t have her hurting you when you’re so very hurt already.”
“I told her how I was such a fool, how Judith pulled me in so effortlessly, that she’d won. You know what Hallie said? She said Judith didn’t win, how could she when she was dead?”
James said, sipping his brandy, “I’ve never looked at it in exactly that light. Fact is, Jase, she did fool you- fooled the rest of us for that matter, and surely that makes all of us dupes-but I certainly understand how you would feel more like a fool, more like a failure and a loser, than the rest of us. I want to go with you, Father. Hallie needs to be thrashed.”
“More brandy, Jason?”
Jason frowned as he stuck out his snifter to his father. “She didn’t call me a failure or a loser. I tried to explain it to her, but you know Hallie, she’s able to weave in and out of a conversation. She was talking about Judith’s spirit hanging about, about how her spirit must be so pleased that she was still controlling my life. That isn’t true, dammit!”
“Of course it’s not,” Douglas said. “Imagine, a woman dead for five years still controlling someone’s thoughts and actions. It’s absurd.”
“Well, yes, it is. It’s just that I-Oh hell, Father, you could have died. Do you hear me? You could have died! How can I ever forget my role in that?”
“But I didn’t, Jason, you’re the one who could have died.”
“Well I didn’t either, but that’s neither here nor there. Do you know she asked if you’d ever lied to me?”
“I don’t believe I have,” Douglas said. “Hmm. Well, perhaps I did when you were a lad and you wondered why your mother had yelled in the gazebo-”
James would cut his brain out before he’d think about that. He nodded. “Yes, I would lie to Douglas and Everett as well.”
“The point is, you haven’t ever lied to me about anything important, and so I told her. Then she had the cheek to tell me I believed you had lied to me-my own father.”
“Why is that?”
“She said it was obvious I hadn’t believed you when you told me I wasn’t to take the blame, and thus I did believe you’d lied to me.”
“Hmm,” said Douglas. “Fact is, Jason, she’s right. You didn’t believe me. I hate to say it, but Hallie did nail that one.”
“It’s not that I didn’t believe you, Papa, it’s just that you could have so easily died and so could you, James, and it was all my fault, no one else’s. It hit me between the eyes it was so clear. How could I deny something so obvious? You love me, damn you, and that’s why you-well all right, I didn’t accept your words, I couldn’t because I knew you said them because you loved me.”
Douglas said, “Even though I’d like to clout Hallie, let me be honest here. The fact is, Jason, you just admitted it yourself-you didn’t believe me. Perhaps you simply weren’t able to, but you wounded me, Jason, deeply, I’ll admit it.”
“Still,” James said, “she shouldn’t have said such a cruel thing about a son disbelieving his father, a father he admits never lied to him. I hope you set her straight, Jase.”
“Yes, certainly. About what exactly?”
Douglas said, “That’s all right. Don’t tease yourself any more about it. Truth is, I’ve lived every day for the past five years worrying about you. I can still feel the wet of your blood against my palm. There was so much blood, Jason, and it was you who were bleeding-my son, who was a damned hero. I remember exactly how I felt, how all of us felt, when you were so ill, when we listened to your every breath, praying it wouldn’t be your last. That sort of fear is corrosive, it burns into your gut and your heart.” Douglas paused a moment, then said quietly, “You weren’t the only one to suffer, Jason. Corrie killed two people. It’s a tremendous burden she must carry the rest of her life, even though she would never regret what she did. She still has occasional nightmares. We, all of us, live with the past, Jason, you more than any of us. Perhaps it’s time all of us consigned that wretched time to the ether. It’s time we all let it go.”
“I can’t,” Jason said, then paused. “Hallie said once that the only good she ever saw in remembering a painful event was that it might keep you from doing the same stupid thing again. But it’s so much more than that. Damnation-nightmares? I’m very sorry about that. Poor Corrie, in addition to being a fool, I’m selfish. I didn’t consider anyone except myself. Oh hell.”
