ACCORDING TO HOARY TRADITION, THE YEW TREE outside Callie's window had been planted at the behest of Edward I. She had never had reason to doubt this fact-its girth was a full twelve feet round, and the thick old branches were gnarled and scarred enough to have seen six hundred years. They had certainly witnessed a visit by Henry Tudor to the abbey that had once stood in place of Shelford Hall, and been singed by the f lames of Cromwell's troops. Two elopements, a sermon preached by John Wesley, and a murky incident involving the tenth countess, which could have been an attempt at burglary, an abduction, or a practical joke-all were on the list of known escapades in which the old tree had played a role.
There were a few escapades in its more recent past that were not a matter of public record. Callie was already certain, without even trying to peer down through the moaning and whipping branches, exactly who was waiting at the foot of the ancient yew. The sharp double click of two pebbles, and then the raucous howl of a tomcat: she should not remember that signal at all, but she had recognized it from a dead sleep it seemed, her eyes springing open at the first rattle against the glass. She was out of bed and pulling on her dressing gown before the hoarse yowl died away.
She paused before she pulled open the shutters, putting her palms to her face. Woken so suddenly, she could barely gather her wits. Her cheeks were hot, her heart thumping. Surely he did not truly suppose she would climb out of her window now. At the age of seven and twenty. A spinster. In this weather!
The yowl came again, insistently. She drew a breath and folded the inside shutters back, kneeling on the window seat. Through the glass, she could see only swaying black shapes of branches in the night outside. The dark mass of the yew obscured everything else. The tomcat called a third time, ending on a muff led human note, almost a plea. Callie made a small moan and pushed open the window.
Chilly air f lowed in, sprinkled with icy drops. The damp, musty scent of the yew enveloped her as she leaned out. She could not see the ground. "Go away!" she hissed. "For pity's sake, are you mad?"
"Callie." He pitched his voice low, just loud enough to be heard over the rushing sound of the branches and the wind. "I need help."
She squinted down, gripping the wet windowsill. She had expected him to laugh and urge her to join him on some ridiculous exploit.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I can't go…" The rest of his reply was lost amid a gust of wind in the branches. "Would you…" Only snatches of words reached her. "…my mother. I need…"
She could not make out more. In the murk, she could just barely discern a pale shape that might have been his face. But there was distress in his voice, not taunt or coaxing. "What is it? What's happened?"
He made no reply to that, or if he did she couldn't hear it. She sat back on the window seat, pulling her dressing gown tight about her waist. Trev had never come asking for help, not this way. It was some crisis with his mother. And she could not blame him for coming to her window instead of sending a message. He wouldn't want to wake the staff, or involve Dolly, not at this time of night. Callie wasn't eager to do so herself.
She leaned out again. The branch nearest her window, the big one with the special crook where she had always taken the first step, was impossible to see. And really, she had no intention of climbing down from her window-it was simply beyond the pale.
She thought of telling him to meet her at the cow barn, but one of her farm lads would be sleeping there. The boxwood maze would be miserable on a night like this. The gamekeeper would be on alert for poachers in the wood, and a groom was always on night duty in the stables.
Truly, the range of possibilities had not altered much in the past nine years.
She cupped her hands around her mouth and called down as softly as she could. "The carriage house."
"Bless you!" he responded instantly. The vague shape below her vanished.
Callie wore her oilskin overcoat and work boots. She had made her way out the servants' entrance, locking the door behind her, prepared to say that she was going to tend the orphan calf if she'd encountered any of the staff. But no one stirred, not even the hall boy snoring on his cot by Dolly's bell.
It was all too easy, as it had always been. She should have been born a housebreaker.
The door to the carriage house was closed. She could see enough by the light of the lowering clouds to let herself in, but it was utterly black inside.
"Trev?" she whispered. "Are you here?"
She heard the carriage springs squeak with some sudden move.
"Callie?" His voice sounded muff led and shocked.
"Of course," she said. She had no idea why he had mounted into the carriage itself. "What's happened? Is it your mother?"
There were more sounds, and then the creak of the door opening. "Callie. You didn't have to come out."
She paused in consternation. "I thought you needed help."
She heard him moving on the steps, and then suddenly he bumped against her in the dark. He sucked in a swift, sharp breath and then touched her arm, resting his fingers there as if to steady himself.
"You're not hurt, are you?" she asked, uncertain of the sounds.
"Ah," he mumbled. "A little."
She could smell strong drink on his breath, some thing she had never noticed with Trev before, though it was common enough among the older gentlemen of her acquaintance.
"I only need a place to sleep," he said, enunciating his words carefully. "I can sleep in the carriage."
"What's happened?" She pulled off her gloves and fumbled in the deep pocket of her overcoat where she always kept a cache of useful items. "What have you done to hurt yourself?"
He blinked and squinted at the f lare of her brim stone match. "I fell."
"Fell?" She peered at him. He was holding his hand up against his chest. Even in the f lickering light she could see that it was badly swollen. He had a bloody cut on the side of his jaw.
"From my horse," he said, standing back from her. He leaned against the carriage wheel. "I'd… rather not go back to Dove House just now. Need a place to rest until morning."
She could see that his coat was torn at the collar, and his neck cloth hung down in complete disarray. She frowned, trying to discern if he had any other injury.
"I don't want Maman to see me like this," he said thickly.
"I suppose-yes." She looked at him in consterna tion. "It might frighten her."
He ran his good hand through his hair, disheveling it even further. "The doctor from London attended her this morning."
"What did he say?"
The light f lickered, casting shadows on his face. "He said she has a week or two, perhaps." His voice was not quite even. "A month at most."
Callie tilted her head. "I'm sorry," she said softly.
The match went out. They stood in the dark. She could hear him breathing almost as if he were laughing. "God damn it," he said. "God damn me to hell. I ought to shoot myself."
"Nonsense," she said stoutly. "You've only had too much drink. No wonder you took a tumble. You'd no business going mounted, not in this state." She fished again in her pocket for a candle stub. "Let me look at your hand. I'm sure once it's bound up, and you're set to rights, your mother won't be upset to see you. Did you take any other hurt?"
"No," he said. He paused. "I don't know. A little bruising. I may have cracked a rib."
She touched the candle to another match. "I'd best send a boy for the surgeon."
"No," he said strongly. "No surgeons."
"Only to bind you up. I won't let him bleed you."
"No surgeon," he said.
"But-"
"I haven't taken any serious hurt." He scowled, turning from her candle. "If I can just rest a few hours, I'll be off in the morning."
She held the light over a metal trunk. "Sit down. Let me see your hand."
He blew out a breath of air and sat. Callie set the candle stub in a rusty sconce and sat down beside him. He allowed her to open his fingers and moved each of them in turn for her. She was no surgeon, but she had dealt with enough animal injuries to have a good deal of experience in judging their extent. He tensed a little, especially when she pressed gently at the swollen joints along his fist, but made no sharp move.
"I don't think you've broken anything," she said. "But it would be best to bind your fingers. There will be some bandages in the carriage boot."
She left him sitting on the trunk and felt about in the dark boot for the horse supplies, returning with scissors and cloth. As she bent over and wrapped his hand, she could feel his breath move softly against her temple and hair.
She tied off the bandage tightly and cut the ends. Then she straightened, standing between him and the carriage. It loomed behind her like a huge and awkward keepsake, a ponderous memento, as if a hidden package of love letters had suddenly mush roomed into an elephant, standing there swinging its trunk back and forth with gauche shyness.
"Well!" she said brightly. "Another adventure."
He remained sitting, his head turned a little aside as he looked up at her. "Another adventure," he said with a smile that held no humor. He closed his bound fist, holding it up against his shoulder.
"Does it hurt when you breathe? You think you might have cracked a rib?"
"I'm all right. Thank you, this helps a good deal."
"There's little enough I can do, if you won't see the surgeon."
"I'm all right, Callie. Sit down with me for a moment."
She felt her pulse beating faster. But he appeared more distracted than amorous, which made her ashamed that she was feeling quite animated by his company in the middle of the night in highly improper circumstances. She sat down, her oilskin rustling.
For a few moments, they were both silent. Callie watched the gleam and sway of light on the black carriage paint. Several layers of fabric and oilcloth separated them, but not enough to prevent her feeling the solid shape of his shoulder against her arm. She wriggled her toes inside her work boots. They were cold, but her cheeks felt f lushed.
Unexpectedly he took her hand, locking it within his. He lifted it and bent his head and pressed his mouth to her fingers. She watched him in astonish ment, feeling as if it were some other lady sitting in her place with his lips and cheek resting against her hand.
"I have to leave Shelford now, Callie," he said.
She blinked. "Leave?"
"I can't go back to Dove House. Would you-could I ask you to call on my mother? And tell her…"
He stopped, as if he could not think of what he wanted to say.
"You have to leave now?" Callie repeated stupidly. "What do you mean?"
He gave a short laugh and kissed her hand. "I'd rather not explain. I'm a brainless bastard, will that suffice?"
She was bewildered. "But… how long will you be gone?"
"For good," he said roughly.
"Oh." She stared at him.
"I've had one adventure too many, I'm afraid."
"But… I don't understand. You must leave Shelford now?"
"Perhaps you'll understand tomorrow, or the next day."
She remembered suddenly that she had written to Major Sturgeon, giving him permission to call on her tomorrow if he wished. She opened her fingers. Trev let her go.
She had thought, while she was penning her stiff invitation to the major, that Trev would be certain to hear of it eventually. Without precisely hoping that he would be angry or jealous, she had indulged in a lengthy reverie in which the news had brought him rushing to Shelford Hall to propose to her, perhaps after knocking Major Sturgeon down at the door.
Now Trev said he was leaving. And while it would have been rather pleasant to imagine this had something to do with her-that he had heard she was entertaining a f lattering proposal, and was withdrawing his presence forever because of a broken heart, that was not only preposterous but clearly would be far more devastating in reality that she could have imagined. A sense of quiet panic rose in her.
"You can't leave your mother now," she said. "I can't believe you must leave now."
He made an unhappy sound. "Will you tell her that I was called suddenly to Monceaux? Or London. To my agent there. Tell her I'll be back soon."
"But you said you aren't coming back."
He did not answer. Callie stared at his profile in dawning comprehension.
"You want me to lie to her," she said.
"No." He sat back and gave a slight laugh. "No, I misspoke myself. I shouldn't have asked such a thing. A gentleman should tell his own lies."
Callie stood up. "Something terrible has happened." Her voice quivered. "What is it?"
He rose with her, so close that she could smell the damp scent of his skin. "Nothing terrible has happened yet."
She felt his arm slip about her waist. It seemed unreal, as if she stood in a dream where nothing made sense. "Yet?" She felt close to tears. "You're going back to France?"
"It doesn't matter." He leaned his forehead down, resting it against hers. "Would you let me steal a kiss before I go?"
"Why?" she whispered, her voice breaking.
"Because my mother says I love you." His lips grazed her temple lightly.
Callie made a small painful sound. "Oh, of course." She stood back, holding her chin up. "The way the chaperones say I have a very nice smile, and can't understand why I never took. Why do you have to go away?"
His arms tightened, drawing her back to him. He bent his head and kissed her lips, his skin warm and a little rough against hers. "Callie, do you remember this?"
She was breathing deeply, poised between anger and weeping and disbelief. But the brush of his mouth on hers made her close her eyes, all the daydreams of years past coming real. This was Trevelyan, the only man who had ever touched her this way, who had ever made her want to be touched this way. It had all long ago faded into reverie, deep and dangerous and hidden in a secret corner of her mind, as far away as if she had only imagined it.
He was very real now. Very masculine, scented of drink and wood smoke and sweet tobacco like the gentlemen when they returned from hunting or supper at a club. And more than that-the special, particular scent of Trev himself, different from anyone else, fixed in her mind with a certainty that she had not known she possessed until she recognized it again.
He kissed her. She began to feel that sensation he had always made her feel-as if she would lose herself in some sweet, aching fall toward oblivion as long as he held her this way. He made a sound low in his throat, an echo of intense pleasure. It seemed so implausible, so impossible to believe that he could feel it too. Yet he kissed her deeply, pressing her to him. She could feel the stiff binding round his fingers, just touching the back of her neck, a strange reality of starched cotton amid the dreamlike dimness.
He leaned his shoulders against the great wheel of the carriage, drawing her off balance to him, kissing her throat and her temple and her hair. Through the oilskin coat and thin protection of her night rail, her whole body touched his. She felt wildly outside all bounds of decency and civilization. All her forbidden daydreams were concentrated in Trev, in this shadow love and outlaw fancy, waiting just beyond the fence of her everyday life. She reached up and put her hands to each side of his face. It had been no more than memories, never something to depend upon or believe could come true. Only this was true-that she stood here in the dark with a man who was going away, as he had always been going away, always receding into remembrance and dreams.
"Wicked Callie," he said against the corner of her lips. "You shouldn't consort with drunken Frenchmen in the middle of the night."
She made a small whimper as he grazed her ear with his teeth. She gripped her fingers in his hair and pulled him closer.
His mouth hovered over hers. "I dream about you all the time," he murmured, his voice a little slurred. "Do you know that?"
"About me?" She slipped her hands down and held his coat, squeezing it in her fingers. "I don't believe you."
"I know," he said. "Damn it all."
"You say these things-"
"I know. I know I do. But some of them are true."
She forced herself to stand back a little, trying to be composed. "I don't even think you're real. I don't think this is real."
He let go of a sigh and stroked his bandaged finger tips lightly across her hair. "If only it weren't. Maybe then my hand wouldn't feel as if a camel just stepped on it."
It was almost a relief to recall his accident. "You think the horse trod on you?"
"The horse should have kicked me in the head," he said. "I deserve it."
"Yes," she said, biting her lip. "I think you do if you leave Shelford now."
He slid his hands down to her waist, following the shape of her. "You'd better go back, wicked Callie in your boots and nightclothes, before I do something to deserve worse than that."
She knew what he meant. She thought of her room and her bed, warm and dry and safe. It was only a brief walk through the wind and rain, and a million miles away. Her whole body seemed to glow under his touch.
He drew her hard to him suddenly, opening his mouth over hers with a rough invasion. For an instant she was full of the delicious, smoky, sandalwood taste of him. She was seventeen again, and she was dying again, that infinite plunge into his kiss and his body pressed to hers, so familiar and so unknown.
He set her away as abruptly as he had kissed her. "Enough," he muttered. The f licker of the candle shadowed his eyes. "Give me a few hours' sleep now, and then I'll be on my way."
Callie gazed at him. As unlikely as it seemed to believe he was here, it was more impossible to believe that in a moment he would be gone from her life again. She hugged herself, shaking her head slowly, as if to clear her brain.
His lip curled. "You didn't suppose I'd be any less a cad than the rest of them, did you?" he said harshly. "Your father was right. You're well out of a connec tion with me, Lady Callista. I assure you it won't be long before you thank him for the second time."
She stood numbly, unable to summon any words amid the welter of feelings. She turned away and then turned back for a moment, as if to ask a question, but she could think of no question that he had not already answered with perfect clarity. In the dimness, all she could see was his rigid face, with that same expression of bitter disdain that he'd worn when her father hit him.
"Don't look at me as if I've swindled you," he snapped. "It's a dream. It was always a dream. Go back to the house." He took a step toward her. "Get out of here, you silly wretch, before we both regret it."
She turned and ran, her face and body hot with emotion, the way she had run before.
He was right, of course. It was a dream and always had been-another castle in the sky, dusted with just enough reality to make it more vivid and persistent than the rest of her foolish daydreams, her fanciful visions of being beautiful or adventurous or admirable in any number of highly unlikely ways.
Callie realized she had worn her muddy boots into her bedchamber and kicked them off. Being right about dreams did not buy Trev any gratitude from her. She tore off the wet oilskin and threw it on the f loor. She hated gentlemen. She hated every single one of them, the ones who had jilted her and the ones who had not. They were useless, hopeless, impossible, and mean. He said he was a cad like all the rest, and she heartily agreed. Doubtless he had a wife already, or perhaps a dozen, and mistresses by the score back in France, all of them beautiful and charming and never at a loss for words. Women adored Trev, all sorts of women threw themselves at him, she had no doubt, and the least of them would be more appealing than Callie on a good day.
She lay facedown on her bed, not quite sobbing into her pillow, but huffing rather brokenly while she envisioned herself running them all through with a hay fork. She would have nothing more to do with gentlemen, or any other people for that matter. She would go and live with her animals, so that she wouldn't have to speak to anyone ever again. Residing under a hayrick in the fields, with only the cattle for company, would be a perfectly blissful existence in Callie's view. She could not imagine how she had ever considered any other arrangement.
She plumped up her pillow and beat at it. Indeed, she really didn't like people at all. She didn't like to make conversation or be looked at or have friends. It was all painful and hopeless, and it would be worse when she lived with Hermey and everyone pitied her the more because she was a useless spinster sister who had been jilted three times.
No-she loved Hermey-but she couldn't bear it. She refused to do it. She would become a hermit instead, or possibly a witch, and frighten little children by haunting some dark wood with her moans. She would adopt a large-brimmed black hat, the more out of fashion the better, and encourage a great number of cats to hang about her.
No one would wonder at this in Shelford. Everyone here would perfectly comprehend that she preferred animals to people. Particularly to gentlemen. Most particularly to French gentlemen. They could all join Bonaparte on that island of his at the ends of the earth, and very happily she hoped they would be there, drinking good claret and singing " La Marseillaise," while she lived out her life under a stump.
She fell asleep contemplating these joyful plans, her pillow soaked in tears.
Major Sturgeon stood very stiff ly beside the mantel piece in the lesser drawing room. Instead of his uniform, he had worn a dark green coat with exceptionally high collar points, so that his entire jaw was swathed in linen. Even so, his clothing could not obscure a great bruise and swelling that made his mouth and left eye appear oddly crooked.
Callie sat beside the garden window, as distant from him as was possible, which was not very distant in the modest chamber. She should have received him in the more formal atmosphere of the pink drawing room, but there was no fire laid there before Lady Shelford's afternoon calling hours. Major Sturgeon had answered Callie's invitation with unnerving promptness, appearing at an hour of the morning that her father would have called encroaching. Taken by surprise, Callie had managed to clutch Hermey and pull her bodily to join them in spite of her sister's whispered protests.
They had entered in a rather clumsy stumble, but Callie managed to give the major a brief curtsy and introduce her sister. He bowed, with a narrowing of his eyes that could have been a wince of pain or an expression of delight. After the exchange of greetings, Callie and Hermey seated themselves. They all three fell into an awkward silence.
Callie found that it was difficult to ignore his swathed and swollen jaw. She racked her brain for some polite conversation, but all she could think of to say was, "Do you have the toothache?"
Hermey gave her an exasperated glance and broke the uncomfortable moment herself. "I'm very pleased to meet a longtime acquaintance of my sister's," she said.
"I'm grateful for the honor, Lady Hermione," he said, sounding as if his tongue were not quite working properly. "Your sister extends me more favor than I deserve." He bowed again toward Callie, with something that would probably have been a warm smile if it had not appeared to cause him considerable discomfort. "I apologize for my appearance. I took a fall from my horse."
"I'm so sorry to hear it," Hermey said. She looked at Callie expectantly.
Realizing that she could not avoid her turn, Callie said, "The horses seem rambunctious of late."
"Do they?" Hermey smoothed her skirt. "It must be the weather."
Another silence stretched to painful proportions. Hermey maintained a tranquil smile as she gazed into the distance, making it clear that she would offer no further aid.
"The gentlemen appear to have taken a consider able mauling too," Callie added, at a loss for any other subject.
"Merely a scratch," the major said, an understate ment of substantial proportions. "I wished so anxiously to see you, Lady Callista, that I allowed myself to imagine my appearance was not so shocking as I fear it must appear."
Callie looked down at her hands clasped in her lap. He must be in great need of money. And since Trev, in spite of kissing her and informing her that his mother said he loved her, had shown more inclination to f lee to France than to propose, the major seemed to be her only remaining hope to avoid either billeting herself upon Hermey and Sir Thomas for life, living out her days under the whip of Lady Shelford's sharp tongue, or residing permanently under a pile of hay.
She was quite certain that Major Sturgeon intended to sacrifice himself on the Altar of Mammon and offer for her hand again. There was no other discernible reason for him to call on her. Heiresses must be thin on the ground in London this year.
The new Earl of Shelford appeared at the open door. Callie jumped to her feet, startled to find her cousin abroad and fully dressed at this hour. She performed introductions again, vexed to discover a slight quiver of apprehension in her voice. She hoped he would not ring for his wife. If anyone could drive Major Sturgeon off, it would be her ladyship. Though in truth, Callie wouldn't have been ungrateful for that. Caught between wishing to be rid of him and the apparent necessity of marrying him, Callie subsided into confusion and sat down again.
Lord Shelford was eagerly cordial to the major, as he was to everyone. He rang for coffee, complaining that Callie had overlooked this obligatory aid to any gentleman's comfort. The officer apologized again for his appearance and informed Lord Shelford of his spill from the horse. While his lordship expressed dismay and sympathy, Callie mused on the coincidence of two gentlemen, out of the very small number of gentlemen of her acquaintance, falling from horses within the same few hours. Perhaps they had collided with one another.
"Ah, I'm charged with a message from Colonel Davenport to you, sir," the major said in a slurred voice to Lord Shelford. "That bull of yours has got loose from its paddock. He asks you to keep a lookout. He thinks it may have an idea of wandering home."
"Hubert, do you mean?" Callie looked up. "Hubert is loose?"
"I don't know how he's called," the major said. "The bullock that Davenport won from his lordship in a wager, as I understand."
"Oh yes," Lord Shelford said uncomfortably. "That bullock. He's wandered off? Dear me. I suppose he will come here, yes. Nothing more likely." He cast a nervous glance at Callie.
"How long has he been out?" she asked sharply, standing up.
"Only since last night." The major turned toward her, keeping his neck stiff. "The lad fed him in the evening and found the fence broke right through when he went out at dawn. Davenport's put out several of his men to search. He's a little apprehen sive, since he had an inquiry from some low fellow the other day to purchase the animal. He turned it down f lat, of course, but the man was offering an enormous sum."
"A low fellow?" Callie frowned. "What sort of fellow?"
Major Sturgeon cleared his throat. "I don't know if you are aware, Lady Callista, of the men they call sharpers. The colonel is slightly concerned, since he's had word that some celebrated fighting dog has come into the county in the past week. It's unlikely, of course, but with the sort of sum the fellow claimed to be offering, undoubtedly he had some idea of arranging a match for the betting crowd."
"A match?" Callie exclaimed. "Dear God, do you mean a baiting?"
"Nothing of the sort," the new earl cried. "Nonsense! Davenport's the magistrate; he won't allow any of that sort of thing hereabouts. Calm yourself, my dear. Oh please, don't look so frightened!"
"I am frightened!" Callie started for the door. "We must discover him. John, never mind that." She passed the footman carrying a tray of coffee. "Leave it here; my horse is to be readied instantly. I'll be down in five minutes."
"You're going to search, my lady?" Major Sturgeon was a step behind her. "May I have the honor of aiding you?"
"Yes, yes, of course," she said distractedly. "The more eyes the better. Are you mounted?"
"The groom is walking my horse."
"I hope it doesn't throw you again," she said. "If it does, I must leave you. We've lost hours already."
"You may abandon me bleeding on the road," he said. "I can see that this bull is of the foremost importance."
"He's my finest calf!" she said, leaving him in the corridor as she mounted the stairs. "And my best friend too. I should never have let him be taken off, never! Stupid wagers. Stupid gentlemen!" She hiked her skirt and pounded up the steps, wrinkling her nose. "I detest the whole lot of you!"