MAJOR STURGEON STRODE VIGOROUSLY TOWARD THE Black Lion in the long shadows of evening, his collar turned up against the cold. Clearly he meant to keep his appointment with Colonel Davenport this time. As the cathedral bells rang out, echoing deeply across the roofs and down in the back lanes and alleys, the streets emptied, deserted by the fair crowds for the warmth of taverns and inns.
Trev straightened from the wall where he'd been loitering, hunched down in his ragged jacket, and stepped into the major's path, shouldering him hard. The officer grunted and recoiled, exclaiming at a damned stupid oaf, but before he could get far with this rebuke, Trev grabbed him by his gilded braids and shoved him into the alley.
Sturgeon caught on instantly-he turned, trying to reach his sword and shout, but Trev kneed him hard, doubling him over before he could draw steel. Trev had his own knife at the ready, and he let Sturgeon feel it, but the man was no fading f lower even with a knife at his ribs. He seized Trev's wrist and shoved the weapon away, throwing a short, hard punch at his face. Trev ducked, to take the hit on the top of his skull-a cheap boxer's trick that hurt like the devil but could break the officer's hand if Trev got lucky. He didn't stop to discover if it worked: he clubbed Sturgeon in the side of the head with an elbow, jammed his forearm against the officer's throat, and wrenched his knife hand free. With Sturgeon blocked up against the wall, Trev shook his head to loosen the scarf from his face.
"You!" The officer showed his teeth in a sneer, resisting Trev's grip until both their hands trembled with the strain.
"Aye, it's me," Trev said cordially, moving the knife downward. "Now shut up and listen, or I'll cut off your pretty baubles and have done with it."
Their huffs of frosted breath mingled in the fading light. Sturgeon made a wordless growl, his teeth bared, but Trev's arm across his windpipe and the knife at his groin appeared to be sufficient persuasion. He stood still.
"I've got some good advice for you, Sturgeon." Trev spoke through his teeth. "If the lady chooses to take you, you'll treat her right, do you follow me?"
For an instant, the officer just stared at him, breathing hoarsely against the pressure at his throat. Then a half degree of tension left his body, though he held himself stiff against the wall, well away from Trev's knife point. "Shelford's girl, do you mean?" He lifted his lip in derision. "Is that all? Damn, I thought you a common footpad."
"I could be," Trev said in a silken tone. "I could strip you and leave you bleeding in the street, and I may yet. But you'll give up your bobtails and keep your trousers closed, starting now. You won't shame her or hurt her; you'll treat her like a queen, do you comprehend me?" He pressed the knife closer.
Sturgeon tried to back up with a little scrabble against the brick. "Good Christ," he snarled. "What is it you have in for me? I caved to your bloody blackmail the first time, I broke it off with her- damned if I crawl for the likes of you again. I'll kill you first."
"Blackmail?" Trev held him hard, his eyes narrowed. "Somebody got the advantage of you, Sturgeon?"
"You know what I mean. What's your game? What do you want from me?" Sturgeon made a grunt as he tried to break free. "Take your blade away, fight me like a man." He gasped through Trev's constriction on his throat.
"This is how I fight." As Sturgeon's hand moved, reaching, searching for the knife, Trev kneed him again. The officer wheezed, well caught between his windmill and his waterpipe.
"Like a bloodsucking thief." Sturgeon's teeth were white in the shadows. "Blackmailer!"
"I never blackmailed you, you maggot," Trev hissed. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Lie like the two-faced French devil you are!" Sturgeon gasped for air. "I know you did it. You were there."
"Where? I was where?"
The officer held stiff, glaring at Trev over his arm, his lips compressed. "You were there. Who else but Hixson could have known?"
"Are you talking about Salamanca?" Trev asked in wonder. "Good God, is that it?"
Sturgeon didn't answer, but his look was answer enough.
Trev held him. "That courier's orders? Someone blackmailed you with it?"
"Oh, the innocence," Sturgeon sneered. "All these years I never realized it must be you, you turncoat worm, until I saw you with her! It's too bad I didn't have you shot the day Hixson brought you in."
There was truth enough to the word "turncoat" that Trev had to swallow back an urge to beat the man to a bloody pulp. His breath came harsh, but he kept his voice dead even. "Tell me all of it. You were blackmailed into jilting her? Did they ask for money too?"
"They?" Sturgeon gave him a look of scorn. "You! No money, and you know it. But Shelford wrung me to the last penny for sheering off, if it gives you any satisfaction."
"Oh, it does," Trev said. "Believe me."
"And you didn't manage to get your claws on her fortune after all." His lip curled. "What happened, did the old earl have you whipped away at the tail end of a cart?"
Trev held himself back from strangling the man on the wave of rage that suffused him. Instead he blew air through his teeth and gave a bitter laugh. Suddenly he let go, all at once, and stepped back, well out of range of the heavy blow that Sturgeon threw. He blocked the next punch, still laughing, an angry sound that echoed in the alleyway until Sturgeon stood back, huffing for air, looking at Trev as if he were mad.
"I didn't blackmail you, Sturgeon," he said. "I was a prisoner until after Waterloo, you jackass, how'd you suppose I'd know anything about you, or give a damn? I didn't even know your name at Salamanca. Hell and the devil, I was grateful to you for taking that tent out of artillery range. You were welcome to ignore all the orders you liked, by my lights, as long as you didn't get me shot."
"Shut up about it." The officer looked as if he'd like to enter into a further brawl, but Trev could see him thinking in spite of himself, calculating history and distance.
"I didn't return to England till '17," Trev said, to aid him with his mathematics. He held himself ready, watching Sturgeon put his hand on his sword. "I'd say if someone blackmailed you, it's Geordie Hixson must be your man, though I'd not have thought it in his style."
"Hixson was already dead a two-month before I got the note."
"Geordie's dead?" Trev scowled. "How?"
"A damned kettle of turtle soup," Sturgeon said. "Cook left it in a copper pot overnight, so they said. Or it was poisoned on purpose, belike. Convenient for you that he's not alive to say his piece."
"Oh, isn't it? You think I murdered him and then blackmailed you out of marrying her? All the while I was incarcerated at Wellington's behest. The bastard kept me right through the Paris treaty, and you're welcome to question the Foreign Office on that if you like." Trev began to chuckle again on a wilder note. "Or save yourself the trouble and ask Madame Malempré where I was." He gave the officer a swift bow, backing away to make sure he was out of range as he did. "Were you before me with her, or after, Sturgeon? Quite a willing little piece, that one."
The officer stood upright, stiffening. His face went white. "I will kill you," he said low.
"I'm sorry to enlighten you as to her liberal char acter." Trev pulled his pistol from his pocket. "But you won't be entertaining yourself with that sort of thing anyway," he informed the officer. "You think me capable of blackmail-I assure you that I am. If my friends tell me you're embarrassing my lady with any escapades of a romantic nature, or distressing her in any way, you'll find yourself drummed before a court-martial, and I'll be very pleased to tell them what I saw that day."
"The word of a French coward against mine!" Sturgeon spat in the street.
"I'd advise you not to take the risk," Trev said softly. "The exposure alone-the rumors, the ques tions. Think about it, while you turn about and walk out to the street."
The officer glared at him. For a long moment, they faced one another across the dark, garbage-strewn distance between them. Then Sturgeon pulled his cloak about him and turned, striding swiftly toward the open street.
Everyone supposed it was the blow to her head that made Callie stare vaguely out of windows and lose the tail of her sentences. Hermey watched her with a worried little frown and asked if she was in pain at least once an hour. To pacify her sister's concern, Callie submitted to daily attention from Shelford's mumbling old doctor and then locked herself in her bedchamber to provide Hermey with the happy impression that she was resting quietly. It was a convenient excuse to avoid Major Sturgeon's frequent calls to leave f lowers and inquire after her condition. And to avoid making a visit to Dove House.
She spent the time pacing and leafing through every copy of an outdated paper or magazine that she had been able to discover at Shelford Hall. She was down to the fish wrappings, but she'd found nothing that hinted at the trial that had so fascinated Dolly. In spite of all the concentration she could muster, Callie couldn't recall precisely when it had taken place. Some time ago: after last Christmas she was certain, but had it been in the spring or the early summer? The Lady's Magazine of March was mute on the topic. The latest copy, October, had been whisked away by Hermey and was nowhere to be found amid the gowns and hats and peculiar assortment of possible costumes for the upcoming masquerade ball that lay cast about her room. All the volumes in between were making their way along the village circuit, passed from house to house in a strictly defined order of precedence before being returned to Shelford Hall, where they would be bound and shelved in neat gilded leather bindings at the end of each year.
She'd found nothing more informative than a folded month-old page of the Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, which had slid under a cushion in the library and been missed by the charwoman. The page contained an odd and passionate letter to the editor from a Mrs. Fowler, who accused her enemies of besmirching her name in the attempt to "murder the good reputation of an innocent creature and impose upon the public." Mrs. Fowler insisted that her whole heart belonged to one man, and one alone, and though he was no longer at her side, those who knew her best would never doubt this.
It was a strange letter, fervently written but repellent to Callie's mind; a washing of one's linen in a public newspaper that hardly seemed appropriate to any situ ation. The name Fowler seemed distantly familiar, but it was common enough and there was no reference in the letter to any trial. The remainder of the page was taken up with a description of a concert by an Italian violinist, a discussion of the new Navigation Act, and three advertisements for linen drapers. Callie had smoothed the paper, folded it again, and placed it in her pocket diary. It disturbed her in some way that she couldn't quite fathom, but she found it impossible to discard.
She was carrying the diary when at last she had herself driven to Dove House a week after her return from the disastrous fair at Hereford. She dreaded to call, but when she heard that Lilly had sent to Mrs. Adam for the ingredients for a chest plaster, Callie felt she must look in on the duchesse. Constable Hubble was sitting opposite the garden gate, perched on a crate with the remains of a substantial luncheon about him. He put aside his mug and a half-eaten pie and stood hastily as the trap drew up, straightening his coat with a stern look.
When he recognized Callie, he eased his severe expression and pulled off his hat. "Afternoon, my lady." He offered a rough hand to help her down. "We ain't caught 'im yet, ma'am, but I've set a net, as you can see. We'll snap him up if he comes near, mark my words."
"A net?" She paused, glancing up from the gener ously packed food basket at his feet.
"Aye, ma'am. I'm here m'self, in the f lesh, as you might say, and I got my boys posted both ends up the village, that I do, my lady. He won't get past us!"
Callie relaxed slightly. She had thought for a moment that he meant a real net, one capable of actu ally trapping someone. Once she understood that it consisted of the constable and his two lads barricading the single road through Shelford-well provisioned by Cook, too, it appeared-her immediate alarm receded. Trev was out of the country by now in any case, so there was little fear that Constable Hubble would be required to desert his picnic basket in the line of duty.
"Thank you," she said. "That relieves my mind. I hope you enjoyed your dinner?"
"Aye, my lady, that I did. Her's a mighty cook, that woman come to work for the poor duchesse. Her can make a kidney pudding to rival my old Fanny's, rest her soul, and I wouldn't say that about nobody else."
It was high praise indeed, this comparison to Constable Hubble's beloved late wife. Callie nodded. "I'm pleased to hear it. But do you say the duchesse is poorly?"
He gave a solemn nod. "Cook tells me the lady ain't got no appetite-that's why her brings us out so much broken victuals." He twisted his hat and ducked his head. "We wouldn't gobble so much otherwise, my lady, but Cook don't want it to go waste, y'see."
"I understand." Callie was glad at least to know that Trev must have arranged for ample provisions to the house. She could see that someone had been working in the garden, clearing away the chaos that Hubert had left and trimming the plants down to winter crowns. There was a pot of Michaelmas daisies on the stoop, with purple petals and cheerful yellow eyes.
She took a deep breath, gathered her skirt, and walked up to the door. Lilly answered the bell promptly.
"Oh, my lady!" The maid stepped aside as Callie entered, closing the door. "I'm so thankful you've come-Madame asks so many questions and looks at me so odd, and I don't know what to say! My lord told me that I mustn't worry her, and I've tried, my lady- I've tried, but-" Suddenly her eyes filled and she dropped a belated curtsy. "I beg your pardon, but-" She put her apron over her face and burst into tears.
Callie felt all the guilty weight of her neglect in delaying to call. She put her arm about the girl and guided a sobbing Lilly toward the kitchen. Cook turned about from her chopping, took one look at them, and lifted the teakettle from the hob. Lilly wiped her eyes and plopped down in a chair.
"She asked me when the duke was to call again!" the maid exclaimed in tragic tones. "And I knew I was meant to say that he would be here soon, b-but I c-couldn't seem to say it a-right. And she looks at me so! And now her cough is worse, and her fever is high-Nurse says she's in a bad way, even with the mustard plasters."
"Nurse." Cook snorted, sitting down and reaching over with her great arm to fill the teapot amid clouds of steam. "Don't put much stock on what her says, I don't. That grim sort, them likes to make out like as all's going to wrack and ruin. Gives 'em position, they suppose."
Lilly sniffed. "Do you think?"
"Ma'am's been eatin'. Not in great swallows, her ain't, but I seen that tray don't come back quite so full as it goes up."
In spite of a desire to hurry to Madame's bedside at this news, Callie delayed to share a cup of tea. It was always best to learn what the servants had to say of a situation. Lady Shelford would never countenance a chat in the kitchen with the staff, but Callie had no such qualms. "So there's been no word from the duke this past week?" she asked, careful to keep her voice level and unconcerned.
"No, my lady," Lilly said. She glanced toward Cook and then averted her eyes, heaping lumps of sugar into her tea.
Callie noted the heavy inroads on the sugarloaf, which had been reduced from a neatly peaked cone to a shapeless lump wrapped in blue paper. "You have enough to buy what provisions you need?" she asked.
"Oh aye," Cook said comfortably. "We got us an open account at the greengrocer and the butcher too, and I told the duke I've no need to have recourse to the cookshop. Whatever Ma'am needs, I can make right here, I told him. There was a little trouble when that Easley woman tried to buy a ham off the butcher, claiming her was working here at Dove House, but I took care of that. And I'll send that one on her way if she comes round about here again, no matter if Ma'am wants to waste her time on such rubbish and don't know her own good." Cook nodded and thumped her knuckles on the table, making the teacups rattle.
"Mrs. Easley has come here?" Callie asked in surprise.
"Twice!" Cook said indignantly. "Come asking to see Ma'am, and got herself in too!" She glared at Lilly.
"Madame said she wanted to see her!" Lilly protested. "It's not my place to say she can't see anyone she likes, is it?"
Callie shook her head. "Of course not. I'm sure the duchesse wanted to make certain that poor Mrs. Easley was-that her situation had not deteriorated after she was turned off."
"'Poor Mrs. Easley,'" Cook mocked with a snort. "Her's top-heavy from the gin, that's all o' her situa tion a body needs to know."
Callie could not argue this point. She nodded. "Well, I don't want her to worry the duchesse-if she comes again, you may turn her away."
"But Madame said in particular that she was to be allowed to call," Lilly said plaintively.
Callie frowned. "I see. If that's the case, I suppose we must allow it. I'm sure the duchesse feels some gratitude toward Mrs. Easley, in spite of her faults. She was the cook here for a good while, after all, before-" She cleared her throat. "Before Madame's circumstances were recently improved," she finished.
"Too soft-hearted by half," Cook grumbled.
"I perfectly comprehend you, Cook. And do make sure to count the silver whenever she leaves." Callie stood. "I'll go up now. You may bring us some tea and whatever you think Madame might be persuaded to partake."
Cook nodded and heaved herself to her feet, turning briskly in spite of her bulk. Lilly dried her eyes and shook out her apron. She began to collect clean cups from the cupboard. Callie paused at the door and watched for a moment. A wave of gratitude came over her for these two humble and good-hearted people. While she had been cravenly putting off a call on the duchesse, for fear of what questions she might face, they had been taking care of their mistress with staunch loyalty. "Thank you," she said. "Madame is very fortunate to have you both."
Lilly blushed and curtsied. Cook grunted an assent. "Her's not a bit o' trouble," she said. "Now that mad Frenchie son o' hers-" She shook her head and took a deep breath, preparing for what Callie could see would be a lengthy exposition on the topic of the duke.
"I must go up," she said hastily and closed the door before Cook could get a start on her next sentence.
It didn't take long for Callie to understand why Lilly had been reduced to tears. The duchesse was neither gloomy nor distressed; she sat up and smiled and conversed in her elegant, accented English, but she seemed spun fragile and slight as a thread of glass, as f leeting as a web that glistened in morning dew. She asked no questions about her son, but her bright, feverish glance followed Callie with an intensity that seemed to look right through her, as if in search of answers.
They spoke of the cattle fair and Callie's knock on the head. Madame inquired as to Hubert's health and nodded in satisfaction when she learned that the bull was residing temporarily in his home pasture at Shelford Hall again while Colonel Davenport repaired his stone walls to Callie's strict specifications. That lesson, at least, had been learned.
Callie wondered if Trev had found a way to see his mother before he left, but she was simply too craven to ask. Instead, to fill the time with safer topics, she asked if she might read to the duchesse, and picked up a periodical from a stack on the bedside table.
"Please, if you will," Madame said faintly, smiling and closing her eyes. "Such a world beyond-our village. And such people it is. I am never at a loss to be amused."
Callie nodded. She brushed her thumb through a copy of The Lady's Spectator, one of the more daring of the new journals that Dolly had brought to Shelford. Although it was much sought after in some quarters, several of the ladies of the village would not even allow it within their doors. Doubtless that was why Madame-languishing at the low end of village precedence-had a copy only a few months old at her bedside. It was a summer number, full of town gossip and moralizing in equal measure, warning ladies against the unwholesome activities of the bon ton while describing them in rich and titillating detail. Callie was suddenly glad that her appearance as Madame Malempré had occurred in such a backwater as Hereford, or she suspected that she would have found the entire escapade described in detail in the upcoming Christmas volume. The editors of The Lady's Spectator appeared to know a great deal about all manner of personal and public activities.
She searched for something she could read aloud without blushing, and finally found an article on a finan cial scandal, in which the perpetrator had, according to the affronted editors, "sold out his own holdings in good time while keeping the true state of affairs from the public." When the stock company in question failed, this malefactor had f led to Naples, where he was now residing comfortably on the sixty thousand pounds he had previously settled on his wife, much to the fury and financial embarrassment of his creditors.
The article editorialized at length on the shameful tendency of the justices to allow these villains of both sexes to impose upon society without fear of retribu tion. Callie added emphasis to her reading voice as the author summed up with high f lourishes of moral contempt. Then she paused. She frowned as she finished the article's last sentence, which compared this disgraceful situation to that of Mrs. Fowler's escape from a just penalty for her crime of forgery.
"Oh," the duchesse said, opening her eyes suddenly. She lifted one slender hand. "Pray do not read me of this tiresome Mrs. Fowler. I have no interest in that… sordid affair."
Callie found to her chagrin that she did. Prurient and low though it might be, she had a burning desire to discover more of the woman who protested her innocence in the public papers. And now, finding that Mrs. Fowler was apparently accused of forgery-Callie hardly seemed able to hold the journal steady. She riff led through the pages quickly, following the indication pointing to Further Articles Relating to the Trials of Mrs. Fowler and Monsieur LeBlanc, Page 24. Fortunately the designated page included a story about a well-known actress driving herself alone in Hyde Park, an uneventful progress, which was nevertheless endowed by the editors with broad hints of sinister meaning. Callie read it aloud, trying to examine the articles about Mrs. Fowler from the corner of her eye.
They detailed the lady's history with the salacious enjoyment of a first-rate village gossip. The pretty daughter of a Yorkshire gentleman with both money and connections, Mrs. Fowler might have made a respectable match, but instead she had obliged The Lady's Spectator by running away with an impoverished poet at sixteen. After his early demise in a sponging house, she straight away wed a famous prizefighter- Mr. Jem "The Rooster" Fowler-and became the reigning toast of the Corinthian set, only to witness his death in the ring under suspicious circumstances. But it was the description of her companion Monsieur LeBlanc that made Callie stumble as she tried to read. He figured prominently in the latter part of the story, first as the friend, then as the lover, then as the secret spouse of Mrs. Fowler.
He was French, but according to The Lady's Spectator, no one who knew him personally could hold that against him. The journal seemed to take a tolerant, even an admiring view of his activities. Monsieur LeBlanc was a member of the demimonde and the boxing fancy, a bookmaker and organizer of bouts, a close friend of Gentleman Jackson and the Rooster, and a man of impeccable character and noble manners. The journal saved its disdain for the hapless widow, Mrs. Fowler, who had been detected in the attempt to pass a forged note of hand in payment for her large debt at a dressmaker.
Upon exposure, this unfortunate lady had at first seemed bewildered by the idea that anything could be amiss. Learning that the crime was subject to capital punishment, however, she had instantly insisted that her friend Monsieur LeBlanc had given her the note, which she had merely delivered in all innocence. At her trial, she had caused a sensation by revealing that he acted as trustee of the considerable public sum that had been collected to support her and her child after her husband's untimely death in the boxing ring. Upon examination, she tearfully suggested that Monsieur had gambled away her money and been reduced to forgery to hide it from her.
Several affecting drawings of Mrs. Fowler accompa nied the description of her trial. She was shown in her prison cell, in the dock, and praying outside the court room with her young son, each time in a different gown. But however plausible and touching it might be, The Lady's Spectator did not swallow her story for an instant. There was no indication, upon the court's summoning of the account books, that Monsieur LeBlanc had mismanaged Mrs. Fowler's trust. Indeed, it appeared that when she had exhausted the stipend with her spending, he had given her a generous amount of money from his own funds as well.
It was this last fact that riveted Callie's attention and caught that of the eager public too, it seemed. The discovery that he had been supporting Mrs. Fowler for some years prior to the scandal put a new light on their relationship. Witnesses spoke of how often he was in her company, how tenderly he treated her. While it had never been brought up at the trial itself, The Lady's Spectator confidently stated that they had married on the day after the Rooster's death and kept it secret so as not to offend the mood of public mourning for the famous boxer. Thus he made no defense at his own trial, taking the part of tragic honor and allowing himself to be convicted so that his lover might be declared innocent.
Callie looked up, realizing that she had long since ceased to read aloud. She stared blankly at the bedpost. Her heart was beating wildly, but she sat very still.
It was Trev, of course. She knew that with a certainty that went to her bones. He had not come home from France. He had been in England all along. All his huge menservants-they were prizefighters. He had been convicted of forgery, and it was precisely the sort of gallant thing he would do, sacrifice himself for a woman.
For his wife.
The duchesse said nothing. When Callie looked up at her, their eyes met for a long moment. Madame bit her lip and turned her face away with an unhappy look. It came upon Callie suddenly that she knew- that the guilt and sadness in Madame's face were because she knew.
"Oh my," Callie said. She was numb, but she struggled to speak. "Oh."
The duchesse reached toward her. "My dear, if I may-"
"I'm sorry, I… I must go." She couldn't hold the magazine for another moment; she let it fall to the f loor as she stood and hurried to the door. "I really must go!" she exclaimed. She closed the door behind her, ran down the stairs, and f lew out the door, leaving Lilly standing with some unanswered query on her lips.