“Waltz?”
“Yes, my lord. With his uncle.”
At that moment, they heard a loud yell.
“He is rather insistent,” said Mrs. Macklin over another yell that made James’s left eye twitch.
Corrie said, “You waltz very well, Eliza. Why don’t you take him for a spin around the nursery?”
“Master Everett says I’m not man enough to do it right,” said Mrs. Macklin.
“Oh dear,” Corrie said. “It’s begun already?”
“Master Everett says my feet don’t cover enough ground.”
Jason was laughing. “Well, who can play the piano whilst I dance with Everett?”
His mother appeared in the doorway, Willicombe behind her, a large silver tray on his arms. Alex said, “I’ll do it. Goodness, Everett’s gotten bigger in the last day and a half.”
“We’re off then to the music room. Mrs. Macklin, what about his brother?”
“Master Douglas is currently chewing on Wilson’s bone and the puppy is trying to drag it away from him.”
Corrie said, “He is only seven weeks old, a Dandie Dinmont terrier, so ugly and precious all you want is to hug him until he creaks. Wilson and Douglas are good friends.”
“More ugly than precious,” James said. “But he fits quite nicely against my neck at night.”
Mrs. Macklin said, “I’m sorry, my lord, but Wilson slept against my neck last night.”
“Well, Wilson is in a new house,” Corrie said. “We’ll see whose neck he seeks out tonight.”
“Unfortunately,” the earl said, “it would appear that Douglas also likes to eat from the puppy’s bowl.”
“Oh dear,” Mrs. Macklin said, “and here I hid Wilson’s bowl underneath Everett’s bed.”
Smacked in the face at the same time by both the absurd and the ridiculous, Jason thought as he hauled Everett off to the music room, the little boy kicking his legs and waving his arms and singing at the top of his lungs in Jason’s right ear. James and Corrie went with Mrs. Macklin to pull the bone out of Douglas’s mouth all while slipping the new puppy another one. Neither of them doubted Douglas would be waltzing with his uncle in under five minutes.
As for Hallie Carrick, she was upstairs in a lovely bedchamber, changing into her oldest clothes.
CHAPTER 10
When Hallie appeared thirty minutes later, a single valise clutched in her hand, a lovely dark blue cloak over her shoulders, Willicombe, the Sherbrooke butler, sent his lovesick nephew Remie to inform Jason, who gave Everett and Douglas over to their grandfather for the next waltz. Jason came into the entrance hall where Hallie was giving instructions to Remie, who stood frozen with horror.
“Just a moment, Miss Carrick,” Jason said. “I’ll need to change before we can leave.”
She whipped around. “You think you’re coming with me, Mr. Sherbrooke? You think you’ll stomp this blighter’s liver before I can? No, you stay here and beg and plead with this Mr. Chartley whilst I go fetch our money from Thomas Hoverton. When I return I’ll see to Mr. Chartley. In the meanwhile, don’t you dare let this man fleece you, do you hear me?”
“You’re thinking like an American,” he said, picking a spot of lint off his sleeve, suppressing a smile.
“What do you mean by that snide remark?” He saw her right hand tighten into a lovely fist.
“Oh, I don’t know. How about you’re exhibiting a marked lack of subtlety? Or you’re simply forging ahead without pausing even a moment to think things through? There’s no need to boil over with rage.”
A lovely arched eyebrow went high.
Remie took two quick steps back, hoping to escape.
Jason said, “There’s no reason to go haring off after Thomas Hoverton right now. If you still wish to go after him once I’ve told you some things, why, I’ll be forced to accompany you.”