Lessons in French (23 page)

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 fleet 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 remembered 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 floor 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 fondness 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