Lessons in French (2 page)

their boudoirs.

She blinked, realizing the music had paused. The gentleman who had thrown himself

from the cliff in despair was conversing with Miss Harper on the topic of how many

sunny days the town of Shelford had enjoyed so far in the autumn.

Callie could never think of what to say to gentlemen. She could feel her cheeks turning

splotchy if she tried. There had been one, once, who had been so easy to talk to that she

had quite lost her head over him, but that had not turned out well. It was quite settled by

now. She was born to be a spinster. The gentlemen would have to declare their undying

devotion to other ladies. Callie would be too much occupied with developing a delicate

constitution and a dependable recipe for tapioca jelly.

Her father, of course, had understood none of this, because he loved her. He had

thought her pretty and stubbornly refused to be convinced otherwise by the abundance of

evidence. As long as he lived he had persevered in escorting Callie to each London

season, arranging betrothals, signing settlement papers, and raging almost to tears each

time the gentlemen broke it off. By the third time, Callie had really been more distressed

on her father's behalf than on her own. She was not by nature a violent person, but she

had given serious consideration to sewing a teasel-burr into her former fiancé's

unmentionables, or even perhaps recruiting a live black beetle for this mission, but

decided in the end that it would be a disservice to the bug.

In any case, she had found no occasion to tamper with his personal linen, although the

lawyers had been pleased to make his bank account smart by the removal of ten thousand

pounds to avoid a breach-of-promise suit. He had departed on a ship for Italy with his

beautiful, penniless new wife, while Callie sat with her crestfallen father in the study and

held his hand.

The thought of it made her wrinkle her nose, blinking back the sting. She missed her

father pain fully, but it would not do to let her eyes fill with tears in the midst of a

country dance. She turned her face down, brushing her nose with the feathers of her fan,

concentrating on the swish and thud of the dancers' feet on the wooden f loor and the off-

key note on the pianoforte, waiting for the moment to pass.

It was only a local assembly, nothing so glittering as a London affair, but still Callie

would not care to make a scene. For a year after the Earl of Shelford's death, she had at

least been spared the agony of any social occasions, but now that they were out of

mourning it was her duty to accompany Hermione.

Callie kept a careful eye on her sister's partners. It was up to her to make certain no

fortune hunter stole Hermey. Their cousin Jasper wasn't precisely the sharpest needle in

the pincushion, and since his elevation to the earldom, his lady wife was most anxious to

see Callista and Hermione packed up and departed from Shelford Hall. An early wedding

for Hermey would be just what Lady Shelford liked, and she would not be particular as to

the groom. Any person would do as long as he wore trousers and promised to take Callie

along with her sister.

So Callie put on her gray gloves, hid her red hair as well as she could under a lavender

turban, and sat herself at her guard post on the row of satin chairs along the wall,

watching her sister dance with a most suitable baronet. He had taken leave from his

promising position as an undersecretary in the Home Office and traveled up from London

particularly to pay his compliments to Lady Hermione. Along with his addresses, it was

to be hoped, though that had not yet transpired.

Her favored position in the Shelford assembly rooms overlooked the dance f loor and

the entry. She had only to lift her lashes to see each newcomer, without any noticeable

turn of her head. It was late now. The crush of people in the arched doorway had long

since cleared, and so she merely glanced when a single figure appeared there.

For an instant she looked away again calmly, seeing only another smartly dressed

gentleman who paused to watch the dancers. It was as if recognition struck her heart a

moment late—a sudden rush of heat to her face, a squeezing of her throat. She found she

could not catch her breath.

It was him.

She threw a panicked look toward him, knew it certainly, and then had nowhere at all to

look or to run. She was alone on the wall of chairs. Mrs. Adam was vanished to the

refreshment room, and everyone else danced. She stared down at her toes with desperate

concentration, hoping and hoping and hoping that he would not recognize her.

He might not know her. She had not instantly recognized him. He was older. Of course

he was older—one could hardly suppose that she herself had reached the advanced age of

twenty-seven without him doing the same. In the first blink of a look, she had seen a

dark-haired, handsome gentleman; it was only with her second panicked glance that she

knew his face: sun-darkened and harder, all the smiling promise of youth matured to a

striking man.

He stood with a quiet confidence, as if it did not concern him to arrive late and alone, or

to receive no welcome. Any number of people here knew him, but no one had seen him

yet, save Callie—none who acknowledged him, at least. He had been gone from the

vicinity for nine years.

Callie fanned herself, staring at her lap. This was Mrs. Adam's news, of course. The

carriage arrived for Madame de Monceaux. Her prodigal son had come home.

It was glad tidings. Callie was pleased for his mother. The poor duchesse had so longed

for this, failing as she had been over the past year. She had clung to those infrequent

letters from France, read them aloud over and over to Callie, and made them both laugh

until Madame's cough overcame her and Callie took her leave.

For herself, Callie was terrified. Laugh she might over his written words—but she

could hardly even breathe for the strange and sick feeling that she felt at the sight of him.

He might not even remember her. He had never mentioned her in his letters to his

mother. Never asked after her, though he demanded to know how everyone else in

Shelford fared in a long list of names and reminiscences, which showed that he had not

forgot their small country lives while he consorted with kings and great people in Paris.

A pair of black evening shoes appeared in the limited range of her vision. She kept her

face hidden down in her feathery fan and worked frantically with the catch on her

bracelet, but the black shoes did not take the hint and move on. Closely fitted white

trousers, the tail of a fine blue coat—she was so dizzy that she feared she might faint.

"Lady Callista?" he asked in a voice of low surprise.

She thought desperately of pretending she had not heard him over the music. But she

remembered his voice. It was the same timbre, full of warmth. Evidently it still had the

same dire effect on her senses.

"Come, I know it's you," he said gently. He sat down beside her. "I can see a stray lock

peeking out from under that prodigious lovely turban."

She drew a deep breath. "No, can you? And I was so hoping to be taken for a Saracen."

She tucked at the nape of her neck without looking at him.

"You've mislaid your camel, it would appear. How do you do, Callie? I must say, I

didn't expect to find you here in Shelford, of anyone."

She found enough courage to lift her head. "You've come to see your mother," she said.

"I am so glad."

He returned a sober man's look, a stranger, no longer the wild boy who had been

careless of any burden. His dark eyes did not smile at her. She saw in a short look that he

had a scar on his left cheekbone, and a little crooked bump to his nose that she did not

remember. The marks only served to make him appear more an untamed gypsy than ever,

even severe and stiff in his formal clothes.

"I've come to her, yes," he said. He paused, tilting his head a fraction. "But you—I

thought you must have left Shelford long ago."

"Oh no, I have clung here like a limpet." She opened her fan and closed it again.

There was a little silence between them, filled with the violins and the dancers' noise

and prattle.

"You have not married?" he asked quietly.

Somehow, Callie had supposed the news that she had been jilted three times must have

reached the farthest corners of the earth. It was certainly common knowledge everywhere

she had ever set foot. But it seemed that France had been spared the intelligence.

"Indeed no," she said, looking up at him fully for the first time. "I don't propose to

marry."

He would find out the truth soon enough. She could not bring herself to mention it. But

at the way his eyebrows lifted, she suddenly feared he might think it was because she still

bore some strong feeling for him—and that was worse.

"I've become quite celebrated, you see," she said, fluttering her fan. "I have driven no

less than three terrified gentlemen from the altar, not counting yourself. I don't tally you

in my record keeping, but if you would like to do me the honor and then break it off, it

would add immeasurably to my eminence. Four would be a nice round number."

He seemed slow to comprehend her. "Four?" he asked blankly.

"That is the sum of one and three," Callie said, beating her fan with a nervous velocity.

"Unless there has been some recent alteration in events."

"Are you saying that you've been betrothed three times since I left?"

"It is a wonderful accomplishment, is it not?"

"And they all—"

"Yes." She snapped her fan closed. "That is what I've been doing, you see—becoming

engaged and being jilted. And how do you account for your time these past years, my

lord Duc? Have you indeed recovered your ancestral properties and fortune? I sincerely

hope for it; it would give your mother so much happiness."

He stared at her a moment, as if he did not quite understand the language that she

spoke. Then he recovered himself. "I've had success, yes," he said. He did not elaborate

on it. "I think it has given her strength."

"And will you return with her to France?" Callie asked.

"That would be impossible. She's not well enough."

"I hope you won't leave her again soon."

"No. I don't plan to leave until—" He hesitated. "I've no intentions to leave."

"She will be delighted to know it. Please reassure her directly. She will be anxious."

"I will. I have. I'll speak of it again, so that she is sure."

She dared another glance at him. He was turned toward her, looking directly at her. He

gave her a quirk of a smile, so familiar that she could hardly recall to breathe.

"Have you ripped me up enough yet?" he asked. "I was not one of your jilts, Callie."

She knew the splotches were burning on her cheeks. "I beg your pardon! I've no notion

what made me speak so!" He was the only gentleman outside her own family she had

ever been able to talk to at all.

"The tip of your nose is turning pink."

She hid it quickly in her fan.

"A charming portrayal of an ostrich," he said, "but I'm afraid you'll suffocate in those

feathers. We'd better dance, so that you can thrash me about the head with them instead."

Callie realized with alarm that the music had paused and the sets were reforming into

couples. "Oh no, it is a waltz—"

But he was standing, holding out his gloved hand to her. Callie found herself lifted by

the strong clasp of his fingers, in spite of her intentions, drawn irresistibly as always into

whatever adventure that Trevelyan Davis d'Augustin, Duc de Monceaux, Comte de

Montjoie, and seigneur of any number of exotic-sounding
villes
somewhere in France,

might propose.

He led her to the floor and bowed. Callie curtsied and turned her face aside, terrified to

look at him as he rested his hand on her waist. She had only waltzed in public three times,

once for each of her betrothals. People were already staring at them. Mrs. Adam had just

come from the refreshments—she stood stock-still in the doorway with a look of horror

on her face. Callie saw her start forward in determination, as if she would tear Callie

bodily from his indecent embrace, but the music began and his firm guidance swung her

into motion.

Callie held herself as far from him as she could, barely allowing her fingertips to rest on

his shoulder, trying with little success to make her fan lie down instead of fly in his face.

She could scarcely recall where to put her feet, but he directed her with simple assurance,

looking down at her as they spun around, smiling that intimate half smile.

"I never hoped I'd be so fortunate as to discover you here," he said warmly. The room

seemed to whirl past with the music, everything a blur but him.

Callie could hardly comprehend that she was dancing with him. She glanced up and

then away again, feeling oddly weightless, as if he carried her on air just by the light

touch of his gloved palm.

"I must beg of you a favor," he added, squeezing her hand a little.

Callie nodded, gazing at his shoulder. It was handsomely clad in a tailored coat, a

broader and taller shoulder than she recalled. He was familiar and yet unknown—far

more intimidating than the grinning and unruly youth of her memory. Her heart and