MRS. ADAM HAD NOT HESITATED A MOMENT WHEN SHE heard. Disapprove she might of Callie waltzing in the arms of a suspiciously French émigré, but the news that Mrs. Easley had succumbed to the bottle again was sufficient to excuse all. "That woman!" she hissed, uttering everyone's favored description of Mrs. Easley. "Take Lilly with you. Tell her to fetch the arrowroot custard that I meant for midday dinner. That will do well for Madame's lungs, the poor lamb!"
Armed with the custard and a mission, Callie did not feel so shy as she made her way into the back door of Dove House. She was always better when she had a task at hand.
While Lilly swung the lantern so that shadows f lew all over the scullery, Callie wrinkled her nose at the odor of sour milk issuing from a pail on the f loor. The air was cold and damp, the hearth a dark pile of abandoned ashes.
It appeared that nothing had been done in the kitchen for a week or more. On the slate f loor lay a square case-bottle marked Hollands. Dove House had always had a faintly shabby air, being a sublet property for as long as Callie could remember, but Madame de Monceaux and her daughter Mademoiselle Hélène had kept a pretty garden and fitted up their spotless, neat parlor in a charming continental fashion. Callie feared that Madame must have taken a serious turn for the worse, to allow things to come to this pass.
She pulled off her gloves and folded back the calash hood from over her turban, set Lilly to washing bowls and cutlery, and located a candlestick from amid the disorder of the pantry. As she made her way up the short staircase, she wished strongly that she had not been absent for nigh a month with her sister and the new Lady Shelford, drinking the vile waters at Leamington and knitting enough length of Shetland wool to tie up a haystack in garters. Between helping her cousin Jasper to correct the muddle he had made of the estate books in that short time, and attending to the various small disasters that had arisen on the home farm, she had not paid a call at Dove House since her return, only sent the beef over Lady Shelford's objec tion that a hare would have been quite sufficient.
She could hear Madame coughing, and so she only knocked once before letting herself in. Somehow she had expected that Madame would be alone-Callie froze when she saw Trevelyan turn and look toward the door.
All her shyness swept over her again. "Oh!" she said. "I beg your pardon for intruding. I'll send up the maid."
As she began to close the door, he strode toward her. "Come in, my lady," he said, catching the door by the edge. Then he took her hand and made a bow as he relieved her of the candle.
Callie looked at his bare hand holding hers and then toward his mother. Madame de Monceaux held a handkerchief to her mouth, but she put it down and smiled such a warm welcome that Callie felt a little more at ease.
"I'm afraid I've neglected you, ma'am," Callie said. "I am so sorry. I didn't hear of Mrs. Easley until tonight. Will you take some arrowroot pudding?"
"My dear," Madame whispered. "Do not be concerned with me, but I would be grateful for anything you might discover"-she struggled for breath-"for my son to eat. You find this house in a sad state, I fear!"
Trev gave Callie a meaningful glance. He still held her hand in a firm clasp, as if to keep her. "She'll take arrowroot, I assure you," he said. He glanced toward his mother. "I had a great deal to eat at the assembly, Maman; I couldn't consume another bite."
Callie knew he had not eaten anything at the assembly. In the f lickering shadows from the candle, his face seemed grim. As Lilly came into the chamber with a tray, he let go of Callie's hand and went to prop pillows at his mother's head. Then he stood back uncer tainly, looking like a man in a sickroom-helpless.
"The fire has gone out in the kitchen," Callie said, offering him a task elsewhere. "Is there someone who might see to it?"
"Jacques," he said immediately. "I'll speak to him." He made a courtesy toward his mother, bowed again to Callie, and left the room.
Relieved at his departure, she took the tray from Lilly's hands and arranged it for Madame. It was a natural thing; she had often done so for her father. The Frenchwoman lifted her lashes and gave a faint thanks. "I must apologize-" she murmured.
"Don't worry yourself, ma'am," Callie said briskly. "When the fire is rekindled, Lilly will bring up some tea." She sent the young maid downstairs and busied herself with an inventory of the medicine glasses and spoons on the bedside table, watching from the corner of her eye as Madame lifted an unsteady morsel of the pudding to her mouth. "How pleased I am that your son has come home!"
Even in her weak state, Madame's face seemed to come alight. She laid down the silver. "It is such bliss to me, Lady Callista. You cannot conceive!"
"But you must eat, you know, so that you have the strength to entertain him in fine style."
Madame de Monceaux picked up the spoon duti fully. But she laid it down again. "My dear-" She turned and gave Callie a wistful look. "You have been such a friend to us these years."
Callie lowered her face. "It's my pleasure to do what I can."
"The whole town has felt your kindness. But my family-you have been good to us beyond any hope that we… can repay you."
"Indeed, no, ma'am. Don't speak of repayment. Please do eat a little more!"
"I know your father did not approve of-any intimacy, may God bless him," Madame said. "I didn't blame him."
Callie had been fifteen when the émigré family moved into Dove House. Her father had been willing enough for her to take lessons to improve her French with Madame and her daughter, but in his curt summation, whatever wealth and rank the Monceaux had held before the Revolution, by the time they reached Shelford they were living upon little but pride and thin air, however refined it might be. And when her papa had discovered, somewhat belatedly, that a handsome son of Callie's own age had returned from school to live with his grandfather and mother and sisters, the earl's cool ness congealed to ice. The French lessons at Dove House had ceased.
At least to her father's knowledge. Callie had taken some further lessons at Dove House-if not entirely in French.
"That was long ago," she said. She sat down on the chair beside the bed and locked her fingers together nervously.
Madame took several slow bites, pausing for breath between each one. "I thought once-" She gazed down at her tray. "I thought-perhaps-I detected an attachment between you and Trevelyan."
"Oh no!" Callie said instinctively. She held herself rigid. Madame had never mentioned such a thing before.
"Ah-I am full of nonsense in my head tonight." She smiled a little. "It was long ago, as you say."
Callie sat mute, unable to steer between the treacherous shoals of conversation she perceived threatening on each side. She wondered if taking recourse to the sal volatile and burned feathers on the nightstand would help.
"I do think he has matured well, do you not?" Madame said faintly. "Though he took a fall from a horse, he told me-such a shame, that it has marked his face. He was always a perfect Adonis." She drew a hoarse breath. "So says his doting maman!"
"Is the pudding sweetened to your taste, ma'am?" Callie said in a stif led voice. "It's from Mrs. Adam. Tomorrow we'll see into procuring a woman to cook."
"So good she is, Mrs. Adam! She has warned me again and again against Mrs. Easley, but-you know- she is not such a bad woman, after all." Her voice trailed off into a small cough.
Callie did not need to be told that Mrs. Easley had been all the cook that Dove House could afford. "I'm sure that we can find someone more suitable, now that your son has returned." She was a little vexed that every subject seemed to lead back to Trev, but it was hard not to be glad at the look of relief on Madame's pale countenance.
"Oh yes-everything is so much better now!" the duchesse said.
"I'll make inquiries directly. And until we locate someone, we can very well spare the undercook and a maid from the Hall." Callie paused. "If Lady Shelford approves," she added belatedly, recalling that she no longer had charge of the housekeeping staff at Shelford Hall.
"Do not trouble yourselves at Shelford! Trevelyan will-" Madame lost her sentence in a fit of coughing. It grew worse, lasting so long that the tray shook and the Frenchwoman struggled for air.
Callie finally took the tray and helped Madame to lie down, keeping her own countenance calm with an effort. Hardly a spoonful of the pudding had been eaten, and every gasp seemed weaker. Madame lifted her lashes when the spell at last diminished, clutching the coverlet.
"Oh, Callie," she whispered with a faint sound of despair. "I don't want to leave him all alone."
"Rest now," Callie said, stroking her forehead gently.
The duchesse closed her eyes. She breathed shallowly, her lips working as if she would say more. But she sighed instead, holding on to Callie's hand. A single tear slid down the side of her face.
Callie stopped in the kitchen door, still startled at the sight of him, even though she should have been perfectly prepared. He sat at the kitchen table, watching Lilly measure tea into the pot, but he sprang up as Callie entered.
"Jacques! The tray." He glanced at a mountainous man who stood wedged between the table and a sideboard. "She didn't eat well?"
"Not very well," Callie admitted quietly, surrendering the tray to the scarred and gnarled hands of his hulking servant. "Lilly, you needn't carry up the tea after all. She's lain down to sleep now."
"Bring it to the parlor," Trevelyan said. "There's a fire started there."
Callie had been about to see if she might discover some supper for him, but he was already at her elbow with a light touch that had resolve in it. She glanced about quickly for Lilly as she found herself propelled up the short stairs and across the dark hall to the parlor. She did not really think he was going to despoil and plunder her person, or anything nearly so interesting, but the town of Shelford would be honor-bound to assume so, having exhausted the latest volumes of The Lady's Magazine and La Belle Assemblée, and being in grave want of a fresh topic of conversation.
In the firelit room, he set the chairs back from the hearth. "I beg your pardon. I hope you may draw a breath in here," he said. "I don't remember that the chimney used to smoke this way." He placed a chair for her. "I won't keep you long, I promise. Miss Lilly, you'll remain with us after you pour out the tea."
"Yes, sir." Lilly curtsied willingly. Mrs. Adam's pert maidservant was not always so eager to oblige, but she was clearly enthralled by a handsome gentleman who called her "Miss."
Callie was fully conscious of the master stroke he delivered in complimenting the maid and openly ordering her to remain as chaperone. Lilly was sure to portray it in a positive light to Mrs. Adam. From there it would be passed to all the society of Shelford who might be supposed to have any business to comment upon Lady Callista's concerns. This comprised a large circle, even discounting the goats.
His manners could be faultless when he cared to exercise them-a strict grandfather of the ancien régime and a gracious mother had seen to that. He perfectly comprehended the most arcane demands of courtesy, even if he had always been equally pleased to disregard them at his whim.
"Lady Callista-tell me-what do you think?" he asked bluntly as he sat down.
Callie bit her lip. "She's very happy that you're here."
He made a sound in his throat, a half-angry laugh. "Overdue as I am, you mean. God forgive me." He closed his hands on the arms of the chair for an instant and then said, "I'll summon a medical man from London tomorrow. What can some country surgeon know?"
Callie only nodded, watching Lilly pour the tea. She feared that another physician could do no more than ease the way a little, but she did not wish to say so.
"Please, if you can aid me in finding some staff- the expense is no object," he said. "A housekeeper and cook and some maids. And someone who can coax this abominable chimney to draw. Whatever is required. I wish the best that can be had, but I have no notion how to discover them."
"Of course. I'll commence to look directly in the morning. We can find a temporary cook and a maid in a few days, I think," Callie said. "But the neighborhood is thin of help, I fear. A good housekeeper may take some weeks to procure."
"Weeks!" he said.
"In the meantime, I'll make certain that things are managed better here."
He looked up at her. Callie met his eyes for just an instant. She saw the same f lash of knowledge and despair that she had seen in his mother's face. "I would be grateful," he said. "What an insufficient word."
"I'm truly glad if I can be of use," she said. "I haven't many duties to engage me at home now."
"No? But surely you're busy at Shelford Hall."
She gave a small shrug. "Lady Shelford wishes me to have more leisure since my father died, and not fatigue myself with concerns about the staff."
"I see." His mouth f lattened. "She's jealous of you there."
As ever, he said outright what Callie kept concealed and shrouded in her heart. It was like a lifting of a burden she had not realized she carried, to have someone who understood. She could not agree with him openly, not in front of Lilly, but she gave him an appreciative glance.
"I can't conceive of anyone who could manage Shelford better than you, my lady," he said. "But doubtless that's what vexes her."
Callie felt the splotches coming to her cheeks. "I don't fault her. Truly, it's confusing for the servants, to have two mistresses."
"I suppose. Still, if she feels that she can spare you, then her foolishness is our gain, if you'll turn your excellent talents to us."
"I'll be glad to do all I can," she said. She lifted her eyes long enough for a quick smile and lowered them before he could perceive the rush of gratification that she felt at his words.
They sat for a moment without looking at one another. Callie sipped her tea. She was vividly aware of Lilly in the chair behind her. She suddenly found a hundred things she wished to say to him, questions to ask, where he had been and what he done. She struggled for a commonplace to fill the silence, but commonplaces always eluded her.
"You remain at Shelford, then?" he asked at last.
"Only until my sister marries. Then I'll go with her, to keep her company."
He stood up suddenly. "Forgive me, but that is a precious waste."
She shook her head. "It's what I wish."
"To leave Shelford Hall? But, Callie-"
"It is what I wish," she said firmly. "And Hermione has promised she will not marry any gentleman who won't allow me to bring my bulls." She paused, real izing how unseemly that had no doubt sounded, and felt the red splotches bloom brighter on her cheeks. "Pardon me," she said. "But-you know what I mean." She blinked and averted her gaze in embarrassment, seizing the opportunity to stare into the dregs of her teacup and wonder what the scenery would be like in the outer reaches of Mongolia, if God would only answer her prayer and transport her there at once.
"Yes, I know what you mean," he said. His voice held a hint of a smile. "Tell me, how does the magnifi cent Monsieur Rupert go on these days?"
"Rupert has passed away," she said, on firmer conversational ground there.
"God rest him." He clasped his hands behind his back. "I'm sincerely sorry to hear it. I was hoping to see him again."
She lifted her eyes, surprised at the note of genuine regret in his voice. "Thank you. But he was upward of eighteen years, you know, and had a good and fruitful life. I've kept two of his sons, and a particularly promising grandson. In fact Hubert has developed so well that I didn't even enter him at the Bromyard fair this year, because he's taken first premium there once already. We're going directly to the county exhibition at Hereford next week."
"Directly to Hereford. Indeed!"
"Yes, and I feel certain he'll win one of the silver goblets." Her voice gained confidence. "His sire took first place last year among the Bulls of Any Breed, and Hubert is a finer animal on several counts. Only-I'm hoping that Hermione's husband will like them all."
"The man would be a fool not to adore them, I'm sure."
"Well, he need not write poetry to them," she admitted. "Some good pasturage will be sufficient."
"No love poems, of course," he said gravely. "He wouldn't wish to make Lady Hermione jealous. But surely an ode would be appropriate?"
She felt a smile lurking at the corners of her mouth. She pressed her lips together to conquer the quiver and put down her cup. If only he would not look at her quite so, with that gleam in his dark eyes. It had always made her think foolish, outrageous things. "I should see if there are any eggs to be had for your supper. I believe Madame said there was a hen nesting under the rosebush when I called last month."
"No, I'm already a devil to keep you so long. It's far too late for you to be tangling among thorns and sulky chickens," he said. "Jacques will drive you home, and I'll lie awake and pine until you return. So do not tarry long, my lady."
Callie stood up. "You've had no supper."
"Not for the first time. I promise you won't find me expired of hunger, as long as you return promptly at sunrise. Or a little earlier, if you can manage it." He gave her a hopeful look. "Say, five or ten minutes from now?"
She shook her head slightly, trying to remind him of Lilly. It was impossible that he meant anything by such absurd things as he always said-she should know that well enough-but still she could feel her thought less heart f lame with long-silent memories. His carriage held the scent of him. Even after he had closed the door and stood away, after the driver had clucked to the horses and the carriage began to roll, in the dark interior of the vehicle she breathed a faint perception of his presence, a hint of sandalwood and polished leather.
Lilly sat up on the roof with Jacques, to direct the way to the gates of Shelford Hall. Inside, Callie ran her hand over the velvet seat of what was certainly an elegantly appointed traveling chaise. She could not see it well by moonlight, but she had discerned the coat of arms painted on the door. She would have thought Trev would drive a curricle, or even a cabriolet, something light and fast, but instead it was a great ponderous closed vehicle like her father's carriage.
A bit too much like her father's carriage. That ceremonial vehicle stood yet in the coach house, only used on Sundays and for funerals. Enclosed and dark and set a little away from the stables, as it had always been, left to quiet and seclusion each week after the wheels had been cleaned of mud and the seats brushed down.
She stared out at the slowly passing shapes of trees and hedges, all blue-white and black under the rising moon. Not for a long time had she thought about her father's carriage as anything more than the convey ance that she and Hermione, and now Lord and Lady Shelford, mounted inside to drive to church. But tonight, in a different carriage, with the thought and scent and touch of Trevelyan d'Augustin all about her, that other memory rose vivid and inescapable.
It was Trev who had first perceived the commo dious possibilities of the coach. It was not something Callie would have considered. But then, she had not been considering anything very rationally at the time. She had been so in love, and so besieged by the sensa tions he could evoke just by glancing down at her with that faint perceptive smile at the corner of his mouth-one of the peahens in the yard would have been more likely to hold a sensible exchange on the matter of where they might safely meet.
His kisses she had already experienced. She was an authority on the topic. Trev said so. He said her kisses made him feel as if he were dying, which she had taken as a compliment, because his made her feel exactly the same way, and it was indeed a great deal like dying, or disintegrating, or falling down some infinite well that had no name but led somewhere that she was sure she had to go.
It had led, in fact, into her father's carriage. Even now, years later, she moistened her lips and closed her eyes and put her gloved fingers to her mouth at the thought of the dim coach interior, lit only by a thin line of daylight that fell down from some high window and through the curtains, a streak of brightness across the red velvet seats. And silence, but for his breath at her ear and throat, and the little noises she made as he touched her. Protest and pleasure and fear almost to panic that someone would discover them, but when he had kissed her there and even there, his tongue and teeth on her breast, tugging through her gown, she had gasped and clung to his shoulders and begged with tiny whimpers.
He'd sat up a little, his hair all mussed in the dusky light, looking as if he could not remember who he was. Then he had freed the buttons on his trousers and guided her hand, kissing the side of her neck. When she touched him, he shuddered and bruised her skin as he closed his teeth. A low sound in his throat seemed to make sparks shower down through her whole body.
She arched up against him, pressed and tangled as they were on the seat, his leg over hers and her skirt all askew. She felt his hard man's part slide against her thigh, their fingers twisted together over it, as if both of them searched and prevented at once. She wanted him closer and pushed him away, frightened and seeking for more.
As she pressed her legs together, he worked his fingers inside her, finding a place that made her sob with smothered pleasure. She'd tried to suppress the sounds that came from her throat, but he kissed her breasts again and thrust his fingers deeper, growling in his chest as he drew a half cry from her, delight and confusion and desperation, wanting and wanting and pushing herself up to meet his hand. She could hear herself panting, and him, their breath coming harder, mingling and rising until she felt a wave of such intense pleasure burst through her that she did cry out, forgetting everything but him. He rose over her, pressing himself hard into that intimate place, not his hand now but the thick head of his erection pushing for entry.
"Callista!"
The sound of her father's voice seemed to echo even now, as if he stood there yet, the door to the carriage f lung open and Trev moving suddenly to sit up. Remembering, Callie bit down on her fingers so hard that it hurt through the glove.
Trev had tried to conceal her, but there was no hope of it. Only an instant of bewilderment, and then her heart had seemed to burst in horror. Sickness rose in her throat. She had barely been aware of Trev's quick move to arrange her skirts; she had seen only her father's face, a nightmare against the shadowed brick of the coach house wall.
"Get down," her father said in a whisper.
Callie had scrambled past Trev, stumbling down the stairs, her gown and hair in disarray. Her father had not touched her. He stood back, his hand working on the riding whip he carried, as Trev swung down after her in one swift move.
"Callista," he said. "Go back to the house."
Trev started to speak, and her father struck him across the face with the whip.
Callie made a choked cry. She took an instinctive step toward Trev as she saw the line of blood well across his cheekbone. His face was white, utterly still. He stared at her father without speaking.
"Go to the house now, Callista," her father said. "Or do not expect ever to enter it again."
She had run. She had turned away and run from the stable yard, up the front stairs, run blindly through the hall and up to her room. She had not seen Trev again. He had vanished from Shelford, from his family, from her life. Not even his mother had known where he had gone until years later, when he began to write from France.
Late in the evening of that dreadful day, after she had sent back a tray from her room, having no appetite to swallow anything, her father had come to her. Callie was too mortified to do more than sit at her dressing table with her fingers gripped around her comb until the teeth bent. She had glanced at him once, but the expression on his face was unbearable. If it had not been her father, her own staunch and self-possessed papa, she would have thought from his red-rimmed eyes that he had been weeping.
"Callista," he said, "I will not chastise you. You lost your mother when you were very young, and perhaps I haven't-perhaps your governesses-" He paused, rubbing his hand over his eyes. "I'm convinced that you did not comprehend."
She sat silent, allowing him to excuse her. She well knew she had been wicked. Anything and everything to do with Trev was a transgression. She had kept it secret because she had known that with perfect clarity. All she had to say for herself was that he made her lose all shame and reason, and that was no defense.
"I must-" He turned his back on her. "I must ask this. Did he-ah-"
He seemed to lose the tail of his sentence. She felt the ivory teeth of her comb break with a tiny snap. She stared down at the red marks on her fingers.
"He claimed that he did not utterly soil and ruin you," her father said in a rush. "I cannot-I will not-take the word of a blackguarding French scoundrel, but if you tell me that is so-" His voice changed. He seemed almost to plead. "Callie, I will believe you."
"He didn't, Papa," she said quickly, f lushing so hot that she felt feverish. Callie perfectly understood what he meant. She was as well acquainted with certain facts of life as any farmer's daughter would be. But she should not have touched that place where Trev had guided her hand, or let him do what he had to her-what girl of any slightest modesty would not have comprehended that!
Her papa let go of a deep breath. "I see."
She picked at the tiny broken teeth of her comb. He turned back to face her. Callie stared at her toes.
"My very dear," he said. "Oh, my dear. I'd have given my life to spare you this. He's a villain of the lowest sort. I know that he made you believe he loved you, or you would never have been so rash, but, Callie, Callie…" He gazed at her, his eyes damp. "It is all lies. You're a substantial heiress. You're underage. These wretches with their polished address, they're full of any pretense in order to get you into their power." His lip curled with scorn. "But he'd never have touched a penny of your fortune. It's well protected for you, I've made certain of that. He knows it now, if he did not before."
She had nodded. She had not wholly believed him. Trev's sweet falsehoods had been still too close then, the way he made her feel too vivid to disbelieve.
Trev had said they would f ly to the border to be married, because neither of them was of age. In the years after, she was amazed to look back and think that she had ever had the nerve to fall in with such plans. But then she had always done so, whether it was a secret jaunt to see the finish of a horse race, amid a very mixed crowd of rowdies and questionable gentlemen, or a visit to the graveyard by a full moon. She had known he was wild, but she had trusted him. It had not seemed so bad or frightening to slip out of the house at midnight, as long as Trev would be waiting for her under the ancient yew that guarded her window.
No doubt those escapades had hardened and habituated her, rather like the criminal classes, to accept without serious question his idea that it would be a grand adventure to elope. Of course she had known it was an iniquitous thing to do, and that her father deeply disapproved of Trev and would never countenance a marriage between them, clandestine or otherwise, but all that she somehow had put aside in her euphoria that someone as splendid and handsome and enthralling as Trevelyan loved her.
She had barely been seventeen. She was not so naïve anymore. The point had been borne in upon her by three subsequent gentlemen just how unlikely it was that Lady Callista Taillefaire would inspire any true romantic passions in the male heart.
"Well," her father had said gruff ly. "I wish for you to go to your cousins in Chester for a time. But we'll take a visit up to Hereford first. You and I. There are some cattle sales I wish to see, and you will advise me on what I should buy. You'll like that, eh? We'll depart tomorrow, as soon as your maid can make ready."
So she had gone away for a few months and then come home. Her father had made her excuses well. No word of her indiscretion had ever been disclosed, no hint or insinuation of it whispered over the years. Shelford was a small place, and she was notorious for her triple jilting, but not even the most scandalous gossip had ever connected her name with Trevelyan's.
Not even his family had known. Madame de Monceaux had spoken often of her bewilderment and grief, and his grandfather cursed the boy to damnation for his capricious desertion of his family. Callie felt heavily to blame. After she was allowed to return, she had quietly done everything she could for their welfare, but the occasional pheasant or basket of fruit from Shelford Hall was a poor recompense for the loss of a son.
Callie gathered her shawl about her, sitting up as the carriage turned in at the gates of her home. She looked out the window at the fields along the drive, their dim, silvered expanse dotted with the dark humps of sleeping cattle. The Hall was a high black shape, a few windows glowing softly here and there along the length of its regular facade.
The coach rolled to a stop. Lanterns glinted on the broad stairs as Shelford's footman opened the door for her. Callie unclasped her fingers, aware of a secret lift of her spirits as she stepped down from the carriage. Trev had come home. She was needed at Dove House early in the morning. But she made no request for a mount to be ready or a maid to be prepared to accom pany her. She would rise before dawn and walk by the back way to his den of iniquity, so that she would not be seen in the village.
In truth, Trev might be a practiced villain, but she feared that he had not required much practice to lead her astray.