Lyons Gate

CHAPTER 2

Jason guided Dodger toward the Dower House at the end of the lane. It was a good three hundred feet from Northcliffe Hall, far enough away, Corrie had written, so that his grandmother couldn’t flounce in, wreak havoc, and flounce out, grinning with her few remaining teeth. His grandmother was an amazing eighty years old, even older than Hollis. He wanted to see her, hug her, and thank the Lord she was still here to be nasty. Perhaps great quantities of vinegar kept a person healthy.

His father had written just prior to Jason’s departure from Baltimore that Hollis still had a surfeit of both hair and teeth. Jason was simply grateful that Hollis, like his grandmother, was still alive.

Jason tethered Dodger, who was so happy to be home that he couldn’t stop tossing his head and sniffing the air. Jason hugged his neck, and the horse whinnied. He’d withstood the two-week voyage well. “You, old man, have more heart and fortitude than any other horse in the world.” He looked at the ivy-covered Queen Anne-style house and the beautiful garden surrounding it, which he knew was probably tended by his mother. The windows sparkled in the mid-afternoon sunlight, and there was an air of contentment about the place. He wondered if his grandmother had ever breathed a word of thanks. He doubted it.

He smiled when he hit the brass knocker against the thick oak door.

He couldn’t believe it when Hollis opened the front door. The old man stared at him, clutched his chest, and whispered, “Oh dear, is it really you, Master Jason? After all these years, is it really you? Oh my dear boy, oh my precious boy, you’re finally home.” Hollis threw himself into Jason’s arms.

Hollis was so much smaller, Jason realized with shock, holding the old man as gently as he could. He’d known Hollis his entire life; indeed, his father had known him nearly all his life as well. Hollis had strength in those old thin arms of his, thank God.

He breathed in the old man’s scent, the same scent as it had been all twenty-nine of his years on this earth, a mixture of lemons and honey wax, and said, “Ah, Hollis, I have missed you. I received your weekly letters, just like from my brother and from my mother and father. Corrie too. I’m sorry it took me so very long to begin to really answer them, but-”

The old man cupped Jason’s face in his hands. “It’s all right. You will not feel guilty about it, you will not apologize. You’ve been answering my letters for three years now. That was enough.”

Jason felt guilt rip at his throat, but he saw such love and understanding in Hollis’s wise old eyes that he nodded instead of throwing himself at Hollis’s feet. “Do you know Corrie has been penning letters from my nephews?” He drew in a big breath, then hugged the old man again. “I’m home, Hollis, I’m home now, for good.”

“Hollis! What is this? Who is here? I allow you to bring me nutty buns when you take your afternoon constitutional, but look what you’ve done-you’ve let someone follow you. You’re handing over my nutty buns to some riffraff, aren’t you, Hollis? What absolute gall.”

Jason recognized that sour old voice. “Some things never change.” He grinned as Hollis stepped back, rolled eyes that held both infinite acceptance and a great deal of amusement, and called out, “Madam, your grandson is here, not to steal your nutty buns, he assures me, but to visit you.”

“James is here? Why on earth is James here? That wife of his tries to keep him away, I know she does. She’s a disgrace, that silly girl, like her mother-in-law, that hussy who’s married to my Douglas and refuses to look old like she’s supposed to.”

Jason looked up to see his grandmother walking slowly and carefully toward the front door, using a highly polished cane with a lovely hummingbird knob. He could see her pink scalp through her snow-white hair, all done up in tightly crimped little curls.

“It’s not James, Grandmother. It’s me.” Jason walked to the old woman whose eyes still shone brightly with both intelligence and malice.

She stopped dead in her tracks and stared at him. “Jason-You’re not James pretending to be Jason, are you? I haven’t lost my final wit, have I? Is it really you?”

“Yes, it is.” He strode quickly to her because she looked to be weaving a bit with shock. He took her very gently into his arms, realized she was even more frail than Hollis. Her old bones felt as if they could easily snap in a strong wind. He felt her dry seamed mouth kiss his neck, then he drew back, and looked down into his grandmother’s face, lines scored around her mouth, downward, naturally, since she was always berating everyone around her, never smiling. To his immense pleasure, that seamed old mouth parted in a smile. She kept smiling as she patted his face. “My beautiful Jason,” she said, and she kissed his neck again. Her look was suddenly searching 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.”