"SEIGNEUR," HIS MOTHER SAID, HER WHISPERY VOICE drifting from the parlor as Trev attempted to pass the door unnoticed.
He halted. Most mothers rebuked their sons by their full names when they were in hot water, but Trev had simply been "Seigneur" since he was old enough to dread the word. He knew he should have left by the stable gate, but he'd hoped the nurse had escorted his mother upstairs and back to bed by now.
He considered feigning that he had not heard, but Callie was already stepping past him. She had lured Hubert to the rear of the property and established him comfortably in the closed stable, surrounded by ample hay spiked with scattered pieces of Bath buns to keep him occupied. Trev had feared that the bull would bellow again if she left him, but she claimed the hay and buns would be sufficient distraction for the moment. They'd left Callie's mount with him and tied Major Sturgeon's horse again at the garden gate. Now, as Trev paused, plotting how best to abscond before he was obliged to explain himself, she took his sleeve and called, "He's right here, Madame." She gave him a little tug toward the parlor door.
Trev made an accusing face at her. She knew perfectly well what that "Seigneur" portended for him. He could bear any number of whippings from his grandfather, but to have his gentle maman call him on the carpet was more excruciating by far. Callie gave him a pert glance and a mock curtsy. She turned back as if to join Cook in the wrecked kitchen, but the grim-faced nurse appeared at the parlor door.
"Madame wishes to speak to my lady also, if she would extend the honor," she said in a stern voice.
"Hah," Trev said softly. He smirked and gave a bow as he gestured for Callie to precede him.
She shook her head quickly, but he took her elbow and used his superior height and leverage to grossly unfair advantage, ushering her bodily through the parlor door ahead of him. Then he stood with her in front of him like a shield.
"You may go upstairs, thank you, Nurse," the duchesse said mildly. "And close the parlor door, if you please." She waited until the nurse had shut the door with an offended rattle. Then she broke into an impish smile. "I fear she is very much… shocked… at this household."
"I'd better speak to her directly," Trev said, seeing a chance of escape. "We can't afford to lose such an excellent woman." He turned toward the door, ignoring Callie's clinging hand and accusing look at his desertion.
"Seigneur!" His mother stopped him. "I believe that I can soothe her… pelt-or is it feathers?"
"Feathers, ma'am," Callie said in a small voice.
"Thank you, my dear. Please sit down. I can do that soothing of feathers well enough myself. I wish to speak to you, Trevelyan. Before I expire of curiosity, and have no need of any nurse."
Callie sank into in the nearest chair, gripping her fingers nervously. Trev determined to take some control of the interrogation, since it appeared to be inevitable. "Very well, Maman," he said briskly. "What would you like to know? It's about the bull, I suppose."
"Yes. The bull. And the constable. And the bandage of your hand. And the much shouting, and your coat… torn, and the dog… and… a scurrilous fellow running about… whom I never saw before… in my life!" She panted a bit at the end of this list, overcoming a cough.
"Scurrilous? That would be Major Sturgeon," Trev said blandly.
"I think she means that other fellow," Callie said, sitting up straight. "I saw him too, Madame." She gave Trev a sideways look. "And Major Sturgeon is not precisely scurrilous."
"I beg your pardon, my lady." Trev was not altogether pleased to hear her defend the major, even mildly. "I thought he was persecuting you. But I notice that you arrived in his company this morning. Do you like him better now?"
"He was helping me to find Hubert."
Trev would have liked to inquire further into just how that came to pass, but he deemed it wiser to steer the topic away from Sturgeon and any other reason the constable might be calling at Dove House. Hubert was one thing; a warrant for his arrest was another. "So kind of him," Trev said, dismissing the major with a sardonic glance at Callie. "I suppose I must explain why the bull was in the house, Maman. It was to protect Lady Callista's reputation."
"My reputation!" Callie gasped.
He bowed to her. "You'll recall that you said you didn't wish for anyone to suppose you had stolen him back from Colonel Davenport."
"Well, no, I don't wish for anyone to suppose that, but that isn't why he was in the kitchen!"
"Then why was he in the kitchen?" Trev asked.
"Because you led him in there, I must suppose."
"And why would I do that?"
"To keep the constable from finding him with you, I presume!" she responded indignantly.
"And why did I have him with me?"
"You said you had tried to purchase him from Colonel Davenport," she said. "But I don't know why you had him-"
"Yes!" Trev interrupted triumphantly. "Why did I attempt to purchase him?"
She blinked, shaking her head. "Well-you said you wished to-I thought-you implied that-" She bit her lip. "I thought you wished to give him back to me."
"There, you see?" Trev said.
She looked utterly bewildered. "See what?"
"I did it for you, my lady. I wished to please you."
"Well done, Seigneur," his mother said. "Our brains are quite cooked now."
He turned to his mother. "And you also, Maman," he said. "I thought you would like it if I did something to make Lady Callista happy."
The two women in his life both looked at him with their lips pursed, one with resentment and the other with dry amusement. "I see," his mother said.
"Well, I do not," Callie said. "Why is Hubert dyed black, if you were only trying to buy him back for me?"
"I must censure myself for that," Trev said, standing with his hands clasped behind his back, the better to look solemn and responsible. "I didn't call on Colonel Davenport myself, as I was preoccupied with my mother's situation." He glanced at Callie, to see if she would allow that as a defense. When she gave a little nod, acknowledging it, he continued. "So I delegated a… a gentleman of Jock's acquaintance, with full powers of negotiation to deal with the colonel. I told him to purchase the bull at any price. I may have said to bring him to me under any circumstances. I was perhaps unwise in my choice of words. Or my choice of an agent."
"Oh," Callie said. "Oh! Could this be the sharper who offered Colonel Davenport a huge sum for Hubert?"
"Quite probably. Almost certainly. You see, Lady Callie," he said, with an air of hurt dignity, "it was not to use him for baiting."
She cast her eyes down. "I never really thought you would do that."
"Thank you." Trev cleared his throat. "I'm obliged to you. But it seems that, after being-ah- dismissed from the colonel's presence, in a rather abrupt manner, with the word that the bull was not for sale at any price, my agent discovered the animal wandering free on the road. Being a brainless but determined fellow, he saw this as an opportunity to convey Hubert to me, taking care to disguise him first by dyeing him a false color. And so, Maman-" He nodded toward his mother. "We are now in a fix."
"But of course," she said, looking up at him appre ciatively. "I am in awe of the… greatness of… this fix. What do you propose to do?"
"We must give Hubert back, ma'am," Callie said. "I can't keep him, I'm afraid, though I very much wish I could."
His mother seemed to ponder this, studying Callie. "My son told me of this ridiculous card game where he was gambled away."
Callie gave a small shrug. "It could not be helped. Hubert didn't really belong to me."
His mother reached out to touch Callie's hand. "I'm so sorry, my lady. I know you… love the good creature. And I commend you well, Trevelyan-that you try to buy him again for Lady Callista. But it is-yes-a fix." She sat back, giving Callie a sidelong glance. "So you will do… what Trevelyan says, then? My son is so clever to fix a fix, you know?"
"Do what?" Callie asked with a note of suspicion.
"The cattle show… up to Hereford," the duchesse said. "I heard a little. It sounds to me like an… excel lent plan."
"Oh no, ma'am, that will never do. I promise you. I would not dare to take Hubert to a show while he's in this state!"
"Then what will you do with him?" his mother asked innocently.
Callie clutched her hands together. She opened her mouth and then closed it.
"I do believe that if he… remains here… he will be discovered from his… great bellow. It is a fine bellow, but… very loud."
"Yes," Callie said wretchedly. "I fear so. Perhaps-" She turned to Trev with a helpless look. "Perhaps I could stay here and try to keep him quiet."
"Until he sheds the dye?" Trev shook his head. "We'd never manage to hide him here that long. But I think I may have a likelier notion. It'll require a bit of nerve, but it ensures that Lady Callista wouldn't be accused of trickery and cuts short the whole imbroglio to a few days instead of weeks."
"Nerve?" Callie asked dubiously.
"Ah, but nerve is what Trevelyan has in abun dance," his mother said, with an approving nod. "Prudence-now that is a house of another color."
"'Horse,' Maman," Trev said. "A horse of another color."
"A horse, then. What is this… scheme, mon chère?"
Trev paced to the window, looking out before he drew the curtains. Sturgeon's mount was still tied to the post. Jock and Barton seemed to have succeeded admirably in keeping the major and his minion at bay, but there was no saying when the reprieve would be over. Trev turned back to the darkened room. "We mean to get Hubert back to the colonel, yes? And I suggested that we pass him off as an imported animal and perhaps promote a contest as a diversionary course, which would do for a short time. Then-after it's been widely seen that she has no part in bringing him to the show, we'll have Lady Callista observe him there, 'recognize' him under the dye, and declare his true identity, with a suitable show of shock and dismay of course, at which time he can be handed over to his rightful owner, dye and all."
"Brilliant!" exclaimed his mother, overcoming a cough.
"Absurd!" Callie squeaked. "You mean for me to identify him? In front of everyone? I couldn't!"
"Why not? You'd only have to say the truth, that this is Hubert, and he's been dyed. You're in the clear. Let the others decide how he came to be that way. I'll make sure no one finds out."
"But-" She looked as if she might faint in her chair. "In front of everyone!"
"That would be best. It would make it convincing."
She gave a little moan, shaking her head. Trev couldn't help but smile as he watched her struggle with the idea. It appealed to him, this scheme, now that he had formed it in his mind-though he had the wit to keep some of the riskier details to himself until she was committed beyond recall. He resisted the urge to pull her up to him and kiss her into acquiescence, holding her cheeks between his hands and breathing his recklessness into her-a persuasion he'd used more than once in the past.
He would have kissed her now, but for his mother's presence. Not that it would shock his maman. Oh no-it was that she would be all too delighted.
"Come, you admitted to me that you've had no adventures lately," he said to Callie. "It'll be amusing."
She steepled her hands and pressed her fingertips to her chin, looking at him wide-eyed. In the dim light she was pretty and delicate, like a small white f lower peeking out from under the shade of showier plants. Trev felt such a rush of love that it was almost a pain in his chest and throat-he had to grip his bruised hand into a fist and drown the feeling in sharp physical hurt, mill it down like an opponent in a brutal match.
"A lark," he said with a smile and a shrug. "Like the old days."
"Oh, did you make larks with Lady Callista-in the old days?" his mother inquired, lifting her eyebrows.
"One or two," he said casually. "Long ago, Maman. Sometimes we took an outing. A-ah-a supplement to her lessons in French."
"That is alarming… news," she said, not appearing to be at all alarmed. "I must hope you did not lead my lady to… assist you in any of your regrettable… pranks."
"Regrettable! Come, do you call releasing a baboon amongst a crowd of spectators at a cockpit regrettable?"
"Trevelyan!" his mother said. "You didn't involve Lady Callista with… a cockpit, I pray!"
"I had no choice," he said gravely. "She was in charge of freeing the birds while everyone else was distracted."
Callie gave a stif led giggle behind her gloves. "Yes, I was, ma'am," she admitted, lowering her hands. "But no one noticed me, I assure you."
His mother looked at her with interest. "And what… became of the baboon?"
"Oh, Trevelyan made sure he was all right," Callie said. "They had been going to make the creature fight with a poor little monkey, but they both got away."
Trev chuckled. "A fine chase those two led us!"
"Oh yes. If not for that peculiar old gentleman you knew, no one would ever have caught them. But he was a marvelous handler of monkeys! It was quite astonishing, ma'am. He coaxed the baboon right down from a cottage roof!"
His mother nodded wisely. "How fortunate that my son… acquaints himself with marvelous… handlers of monkeys."
"Indeed it was, ma'am," Callie agreed. "But Trev was used to know all sorts of…" She trailed off suddenly, looking conscious.
"Riffraff?" his maman supplied in a helpful tone.
"The old fellow was perfectly respectable, I promise you." Trev gave Callie a wink. "For a gypsy, at any rate. I daresay they're dancing for coins to this day with him."
Callie smiled up at him warmly. He cleared his throat, having provided his maman with far more fodder for her impossible hopes than was prudent, and added regretfully, "But it's true, my lady-I suppose you could not consider such an unseemly trick now."
"Seigneur!" his mother chided. She leaned on the arm of her chair, looking less vigorous than she had a few moments earlier. But she said with staunch effort, "Lady Callista… is not… so poor-hearted… as that, I am sure."
Callie observed his mother with a worried expression. "But I am poor-hearted. Oh my. But I suppose…"
"It's in a humanitarian cause," Trev offered when she hesitated.
She glanced askance at him. "What humanitarian cause?"
"To save my skin."
"Ah," his mother said, breathing with difficulty. She was clearly losing strength. "I do hope you will… rescue his… shameless skin, my lady. As a particular favor… to me."
Callie sat still, an array of emotions passing in f leet succession across her face. Then she stood up. "Yes, ma'am. I'll do what I can. But will you give me permission to ring for the nurse and lie down now?"
The duchesse smiled feebly. "Yes, I think that might be… wise."
"I don't see how this can possibly succeed," Callie said, tossing more hay into Hubert's pile. She put down the pitchfork and dusted her gloves. "How is a drover to walk him to Hereford, out and about on the public roads where everyone can see?"
"You say he'll do anything for Bath buns?" Trev's voice came to her hollowly through the spaces between the boards in the loft.
She looked up, squinting against a little fall of straw. "I believe he would," she admitted. "Particularly if they're stuffed with white currants."
"Then I'll get him there."
She wished to argue, but now that she had agreed to this outlandish scheme he seemed to be exceptionally reticent about the particulars, a circumstance which only heightened her anxiety. "And when he arrives?" she asked. "What then?"
"That puts me in mind of something," he said, his disembodied voice still muff led. "Do you have a chamber bespoke in Hereford?"
"Yes. We always stay at the Green Dragon."
"Where is it?"
"It's just in the middle of Broad Street, where the show is held."
"Good. How many nights do you stay?" he asked.
"I'd intended to stay all three."
"And who goes with you?"
Callie hesitated and shrugged. "No one."
"No one?" He sounded surprised.
"My father and I used to go together every year." She ran her gloved hand over Hubert's poll, stroking him. "But no one else has very much interest in a cattle show. Lady Shelford doesn't like it, but she didn't forbid me. So… this is the first year I'll go alone."
The boards creaked. He came to the edge of the loft and knelt down. "You won't be alone," he said with a slight smile.
She lifted her lashes. In the dusky light of the stable, his rumpled neck cloth and open shirt points made him appear carelessly dashing, like a dark poet or some hero from a novel. She always felt as if she were living inside a story when she was with Trev, swept along on the excitement of some plot outside her own making.
"You'll bring an abigail, won't you?" he asked.
"Oh yes, of course." She awoke from the brief reverie that he had meant she wouldn't be alone, because he would be there. "Though-" She remem bered that she hadn't yet lit upon on a substitute for the lady's maid that she and Hermione shared. She stopped gazing up like a moonling into his face and busied herself with arranging the pitchfork on a hook. "Well, I must have someone, at any rate. Hermey needs Anne at home for the next fortnight, what with all the callers and visitations. Sir Thomas is taking her on a number of outings, and Lady Shelford has invited a great crowd of people for the hunting and a masquerade ball or some such." She sighed. "It's so difficult now to keep staff. I don't require anyone with experience. I might even borrow Lilly now that your mother has a nurse, if Mrs. Adam will spare her to me."
"Perfect," he said with a grin. He rose and vanished again, keeping watch from some hole in the loft in case Major Sturgeon should return.
Callie looked down at her toes. It really was quite all right. They would have one last lark and save his skin, and then… the rest of her life, she supposed.
She pulled her gloves on tightly. "I should go," she said, taking up a notch in her horse's girth. "He'll be quiet now until this hay is gone. But be sure to keep a full manger and a bucket of water in front of him."
"We will. The lane's empty if you make haste. Wait-do you still have that medicine box in your cattle barn?"
She paused, holding the reins in her hand as she looked up at the loft. They'd used to use the medicine box as their secret place to exchange messages. "Yes, it's there."
He made a satisfied sound. "Check it every morning."
"What of the key?"
For a long moment there was silence. Then he said quietly, "I still have it."
Callie stood looking up at the bits of straw and cobwebs that dangled from the boards. She swallowed a slight, strange ache in her throat, anticipation and pleasure and pain all mixed, and turned away.
"Can you use the mounting block?" he asked, his voice oddly gruff.
"Yes, of course." She didn't look back, though she heard his boots hit the dirt of the stable f loor as she led her horse outside.
"You'll have a message from me," he murmured. The door closed behind her with a wooden growl and thump.
Being cordially disliked by Lady Shelford did not afford Callie any relief from attending the teas, dinners, and house parties that the countess-once released from the punctilious obligations of mourning-had begun to host at Shelford Hall. This unaccustomed invasion of county society was only slightly less daunting, in Callie's view, than the full round of gaiety in London during the season, but somehow she was a little less reticent than usual. When she found herself feeling intimidated amid a group of strangers, she thought of Trev feeding Hubert a tomato and grinning at her in the demolished kitchen of Dove House, and her lips would curl upward in a smile that seemed to make some guest smile back at her, and they would exchange a word or two, which was more pleasant than she would have expected in the circumstances.
She had never been obliged to suffer such a bustle of social doings at her home before. After harvest time, autumn and winter at Shelford had always been quiet. Though the Heythrop country was near enough for convenience, her father had held mixed opinions regarding foxhunting. He was by no means averse to the destruction of foxes, but he had the inborn objection of a true farmer to seeing his fences and cattle overrun by cavalcades of youngbloods on their bang-up high-bred hunters. So there had never been any proper hunting parties held at Shelford, only a few of her father's close friends who stabled their extra mounts there when the stalls were full at Badminton, and stayed over a day or two from time to time when they came to retrieve their second string.
Now, though, with the end of cub hunting and the true season about to begin, Lady Shelford seemed to have enticed half the nobility to what she fondly referred to as her family's ancestral seat. Callie tried not to feel offended by this description of Shelford Hall. It was true of course that the property now belonged to Cousin Jasper, and thus to his wife, and eventually to their eldest son, though an heir had not yet been produced. Indeed, the Taillefaires did not seem prolific of sons in their recent generations. Callie's own father had outlived three wives without procuring a boy for his trouble-and trouble it had been, from what Callie recalled. Once he had even said to her, with some anguish, that he would have been glad to leave her the whole if he might, for she was as fine a successor as any man could hope for, and then he could have done without these plaguey women upsetting everything with their vapors.
Callie had smiled at that but never allowed herself to lose sight of the fact that she would be leaving Shelford Hall. If there had been more fond ness between them, she might have remained as a companion to Lady Shelford, one of those maiden aunts who made conversation over the needlework and doted on the children, but no one had ever contemplated that notion for more than an instant. In truth, if Callie must dote on someone else's offspring, she preferred her sister's, or even Major Sturgeon's, for that matter. The changed atmosphere at Shelford was already painful enough.
This evening it was a formal dinner party large enough to fill the entire long table in the dining room. Callie partook of the extravagant meal with stiff care, dreading to make some faux pas that would draw Dolly's attention to her. She impressed her dinner partner-some viscount or other-only with her silence. Amid the murmur of conversation, the candles and glitter of silver and diamonds, she indulged herself in imagining a dining salle in Paris, with the conversation all in French, and herself the enchanting new bride of a duke-nameless, of course, but resembling Trev in every particular. Somewhere in her fantasy all the guests mysteriously vanished and he drew her up a gilded staircase to a bed that rather resembled the entire city of Byzantium, kissing her hands and then-
"Lady Callista?" Her dinner partner was standing, waiting to pull out her chair. Perforce, she took his arm and joined the guests in the drawing room.
Hermey had taken a place near the door with Sir Thomas, enjoying her time in the sun, accepting felic itations from some of the new arrivals who had been invited for the music after dinner. Callie had found her own brief betrothals and the attendant ceremonies to be excruciating, but clearly Hermey loved it. She readily offered her cheeks to be kissed and her gloved hands to be pressed. Her eyes sparkled when she looked toward the staid figure of Sir Thomas. It was pleasing to see. Her sister's evident happiness put Callie in such an expansive humor that she even exchanged a few words about the weather with the viscount.
He answered courteously as he seated her on the small sofa in the corner, screened as close behind one of the Corinthian columns as she could manage. His attention then being engaged by a fellow hunting-man regarding the condition of the coverts in the Cotswolds, and how it would affect the Beaufort pack, he forgot all about her. Callie accepted a cup of lemonade from a footman and sat looking at her toes, still drifting in her mind with Trev amid gilded towers and silken bedsheets, waiting for the first moment she could excuse herself to go out and feed the orphan calf.
"But where is your handsome French beau, le duc très bon?" a female voice murmured coyly. "Monceaux, was it? He didn't linger the other day. I had so hoped to have an introduction to him."
Callie's head came up in startlement. But no one was speaking to her-it was a lady on the other side of the column talking to Lady Shelford. Callie could just see the spangled train of Dolly's gown lying across the fringe of the India carpet.
"Oh, he sent his regrets tonight," Dolly said, with a low laugh. "How he regrets! His tiresome mother is ill."
"A dutiful son," the other voice said. And then, softer: "But that is so charming, n'est-ce pas? No doubt an attentive lover too."
"He's French, is he not?" Lady Shelford murmured.
"Let us pray his dear mother recovers sufficiently that he can leave her side," her friend said sugges tively, "while I'm yet here at Shelford to offer him my sympathy."
"Indeed. But I fear I must claim precedence there, Fanny darling, as your hostess."
"No, it's too ungenerous of you!" The other woman had a smirk in her voice. "Didn't we always share everything at school?"
They giggled quietly and moved away, leaving Callie staring at the foot of the column. She was shocked, not least to find that Dolly must have sent him a card for the dinner. She sat fixed to the sofa, hardly knowing where to look. Trev grinning at her over the horns of a misplaced bull and the très bon duc de Monceaux were two entirely different persons, she realized. She came to that insight with great sudden ness, on the heels of recalling that she was wearing a plain stuff gown that Hermey had cheerfully declared to be fit for a milkmaid, and her hair was unadorned except for a single ribbon in a shade of puce that Lady Shelford detested. Callie had not, when she dressed for dinner, taken any note of these opinions, because she intended to go out the barn later, but abruptly they took on a dangerous significance.
She was a spinster dowd. That was no fresh news, but she had rather a habit of forgetting it just recently, having been beguiled by the suggestion that her cheeks more closely resembled strawberries than a pudding, and the matter of certain gentlemen attempting to recover certain bulls on her behalf. But the knowledge was not something that she could afford to disregard, even under the allure of her daydreams. She and Trev were great friends, but he was indeed French. Flirtation and lovemaking were in his blood. He would say such things as he said to Callie to any lady. And now Dolly and her friend spoke of him in that horrid insinuating way, as if it were quite natural to suppose that they could share his attentions if they pleased.
Callie stood up abruptly, making her way toward the door before the violinist had even started to play. The room felt close and hot. Such a wave of resent ment and despair had possessed her that she nearly grew ill. She had to go out into the chilly air to escape from this press of elegant strangers. She hurried down the stairs to the little vestibule on the ground f loor where her cloak and muck boots awaited her. No one paid her any mind, though doubtless in the morning Lady Shelford would have some acid comment on her ungraciously early departure. Callie would say she had felt unwell. It was no more than the truth.
Major Sturgeon made his second and third calls without successfully cornering Callie alone. As the days passed, she observed with mild interest the colors of the bruise on his jaw fade from black and blue to green and purple. With each call he brought the latest news from Colonel Davenport regarding the search for Hubert, recounting the lack of success in grave tones. Poor Cousin Jasper was closely interested in this topic, asking anxious questions and proposing several absurdly optimistic theories about where the bull might have got off to-none of which would have comforted Callie in the least if she hadn't already known Hubert was safe.
Hermey also lent her chaperonage to the major's visits, sitting primly beside Callie and attempting to dislodge Cousin Jasper so that Callie could be left alone with her suitor. Their cousin seemed oblivious to all hints, however, chatting with the major in that slow, fretful way of his that always made Callie feel sorry for him. Major Sturgeon was relentlessly cour teous, but by his third call, she could see that he was losing patience.
"Will you take a turn in the shrubbery with me, Lady Callista?" he demanded. It was phrased as an invitation, but clearly he was a man accustomed to giving orders.
She was to leave for Hereford at first light. Knowing that he could not continue to pursue her after today, she submitted to the inevitable. She had spent long hours staring into the dark canopy of her bed, considering her future. Of course she wasn't a beauty. Anyone could see that. She was far past the age of matrimony. She had no wit or even sensible conversation in company. She did possess a distinguished rank and pedigree, but there had always seemed to be more than an adequate supply of earls' daughters to fill the demand at Almack's, and she had been dismissed by the patronesses as a hopeless quiz after her first season anyway. Her jiltings had confirmed their judgment: Callie was a social outcast. The only thing that she possessed to attract a husband was her money.
She knew all that in her head, but since Trev had returned, he had confused her in her heart. His sentiments appeared to vary from the romantic to the unfeeling; he said he was going away, and yet he stayed. He mentioned in an offhand way that he might love her, but neglected to expand upon the topic to any particular purpose. She'd found no sense in it, but what she had overheard from Lady Shelford and her guest had brought Callie back to cold reality.
Trev might be her dear friend, but truthfully, what could a man like the duc de Monceaux possibly want with her? He had regained his own fortune. He was titled. He was rich. In spite of a penchant for devilry, he was perfectly fitted to the elevated continental society for which he had been bred. She had seen enough of the bon ton to know that. Callie at the head of a great French noble house? It was a preposterous idea. She was unsuitable in every way. She wasn't French, she wasn't Catholic, she wasn't young or gay or beautiful. She knew no better than to wear poppy orange with pink.
She imagined herself sitting against the wall in a Parisian salon the way she had sat in Almack's, conspicuously gauche, while the fashionable gossips whispered behind their fans and wondered what could have induced him to marry this unfortunate English thing. They would conjecture how she had trapped him and invent unpleasant stories about her. She knew well enough the sort of things people could say, having been jilted three times. Some no doubt would feel sorry for her and murmur that he had married her out of pity, a thought that made her feel wretched.
She allowed Major Sturgeon to escort her to the shrubbery. Hermey positively grabbed Cousin Jasper by the arm, detaining him from following. Callie sat on a stone bench and folded her hands, examining the polish on the major's boots as he took all the blame upon himself for the breaking of their previous betrothal-as well he might, she thought dryly- proclaimed that he was a reformed man, swore to devote the remainder of his life to her welfare, and declared himself to be prostrate at her feet. He did not, thankfully, claim to be in love with her. He seemed to have at least a smidgen of shame left to him.
She listened to his proposal in silence and then said that she must have a fortnight to think about it.