Lessons in French (35 page)

someone who could keep her from bumping her head and make her mind her elders.

Callie waited until the door clicked closed behind him. She had been well aware that all

the time she was being examined, Trev and Lilly had been standing in a corner of the

bedroom, speaking in low tones to one another, so that the doctor took them both for her

servants.

"Lilly," she said. "Pray close the bedroom door. Stand outside and make certain that no

one comes in."

Lilly cast a glance at Trev and bit her lip. "But Sir wants me to—"

"Do as I ask, if you please," Callie interrupted. Her head hurt. She put her hand to her

temple. "I don't care what 'sir' would like at the moment."

The maidservant bit her lip and curtsied. She turned away to the door. Trev moved a

step, and Callie lifted her head.

"Do
not
leave!" she ordered him.

He stopped. Lilly closed the bedroom door behind her, leaving them alone. Callie sat on

the bed, looking at him. He'd pulled down the scarf to show his face, but still the sinister

gypsy effect was powerful.

"I can't stay long," he said.

"Really!" Callie favored him with a dry look. "And how do you plan to accomplish an

exit, when half the county is loitering below looking for you?"

He returned a sardonic smile. "By the window."

"Oh, of course." She blinked, touching her hand gingerly to the bump on her head. The

doctor's probing had only made it worse. She realized that her hair was falling down.

"Are you all right?" he asked. There was a peculiar tautness about his mouth.

"I am excessively put out with you!" she said, taking this as an invitation to vent her

spleen. "
You
started that rout, didn't you? And you had those men helping to let the

animals loose! Whatever possessed you to do such a thing? Any number of them might

have been hurt or lost. And think of the prize pies!" She paused, her lip trembling.

"Someone could have been
killed
! It was abominable of you."

"I'd not thought of the prize pies, I'll admit."

"Well, you should have. And the preserves and cheeses. I'm sure poor Mrs. Franklin is

weeping her heart out right now, after Hubert threw a barrel through her pear tarts. She is

a new bride, you know."

"No. I didn't know."

"And you haven't the least regret, have you?" Her resentment grew. "It's all quite a

game to you, isn't it? You stroll into some unsuspecting town and cause a riot, and then

you can't stay long." She stood up, holding on to the bedpost when the room had a

tendency to rotate about her. "You just go away and leave the rest of us to put everything

to rights."

"Yes," he said.

The fact that he stood there without defending himself only fed her wrath. "Why did

you do it? You didn't warn me. You didn't stop and think. Surely there was some other

way to reveal Hubert, something a little less—spectacular! I thought we were to do it on

the last day of the fair."

"We were," he said shortly.

"Then
why
?" she demanded.

His lip curled. "I was angry."

"Angry?" She blinked. "At what?"

"You showed him the pig." There was a note of self-mockery in his voice.

"The pig?" She had no notion what he meant.

"And laughed at what he said. Of course I had to put a stop to that at once."

"The pig? Do you mean that fat sow?"

He gave a slight shrug of assent, like a schoolboy called up on the carpet.

"You started all that—you put us all in danger— because I laughed about a
pig
? Are

you mad?" she exclaimed.

"It was our pig, do you see?" His voice rose to match hers. "God damn it. I haven't

asked for much. Give me a goddamned pig at least."

She shook her head, bewildered. "It's not my pig."

He threw back his head and gave a brief, hard laugh. "No. Right. I'm sorry you were

hurt. Scared the daylights out of me. It's true, it could have been far more serious, I didn't

realize until it got out of hand." He sounded mortified. "I'm sorry. My damnable temper."

"I only laughed because Major Sturgeon was so stupid. He asked me if she was a

Berkshire hog, when anyone could see that she's an Old Spot."

He took a stride toward her. Callie leaned back against the bedpost with her hands

behind her. In his rough jacket and heavy stockman's boots, he seemed much larger than

he ought, his dark, satyric features fit for a highwayman. For an instant she thought he

might shake her, but instead he took her cheeks between his hands.

She felt the rough wool of the mitts, and his fingertips resting on her cheeks. He bent

his face to hers. "Callie—know something, believe something. I must go, but believe that

I love you. Marry that fellow if you must; I know you have your reasons. I know I've let

you down at every turn. I'm not the man who could give you the sort of life you deserve.

But wherever I go,
mon trésor,
it doesn't matter where—I'll think of you. You're in my

heart. Believe me. You're the only true and honest thing in my life."

She stood with her face turned up to his, biting her lower lip.

"And you're beautiful," he said. "Believe that too. Not like some damned society

diamond, no. You're beautiful like the leaves in autumn, like a spring colt kicking its

heels, you're beautiful the way your animals are beautiful, even that fool pig. Do you

believe me?"

She didn't answer. He pushed back a lock of her hair and kissed her gently, so sweetly

that she was near to weeping.

"I want to make love to you in a field," he whispered. "In the green grass or in the fresh

hay. I want you beyond reason."

"I don't believe you," she said woodenly. "Tell me the truth."

His breath touched her skin. "I am."

Slowly she shook her head.

"The truth about me, you mean," he said, lifting his head and looking down at her under

his dark lashes.

"Tell me in truth why you're leaving. If you want me to believe—whatever else you

say."

He stood back, his hands sliding to her shoulders. "I suppose I owe you that much, don't

I?" He looked aside and suddenly let go of her, pushing away. In a voice that went to icy

derision, he said, "The truth is I've been convicted of forgery and sentenced to hang."

Callie blinked. Then she pushed back her falling hair from her face. "Oh come now. I'm

sure I might have swallowed the rest, even about the pig, but I'm not a complete f lat, you

know!"

He had been standing before her with a hard, sullen expression; at that, his lip quirked

upward. "Yes, you are," he informed her. "You're a pea-goose. It's one of the most

charming things about you."

She gave a little huff. "Perhaps so, but I'm sure I'm not going to believe that you're

laboring under a sentence of death."

He tilted his head. "Why not?"

"Well…
because
," she said, not quite certain of the look in his eyes. "For forgery, you

say? I can perfectly suppose that you gave Major Sturgeon a black eye, and so the

constable is after you, but I can't imagine that you did any such thing as commit a

forgery. Why would you do so? You're already excessively wealthy. And besides, I don't

think anyone would be hung for it. It's not a case of murder or something on that order.

It's just a piece of paper."

He leaned back against the chest of drawers, a wry smile touching the corner of his

mouth. "Very sensible, I admit. I wish the bench might have taken your point of view."

"And here you are, quite alive," she pointed out with some satisfaction in discovering

another large hole in his claim.

"Just so," he said. "I was given a conditional pardon the day before they finished

building the gallows. I must leave the country and never return."

Callie had been about to poke further punctures in his ridiculous tale, but she paused at

that. "Never return?"

"It is a hanging offense, Callie," he said gently. "It's a crime against commerce, and

that's near-worse than murder in the eyes of the magistrates."

"I… don't see how that can be so," she said. But she remembered suddenly that all the

newspapers and even the ladies' magazines had been full of some great trial not long ago;

she hadn't paid any mind to the details herself, but Dolly had followed the course of the

events avidly and read them aloud at breakfast every morning at interminable length.

Callie thought it had involved a lady with a very young child, and a gentleman of the

sporting crowd, and a great number of sordid insinuations and accusations. And yes—it

had been a trial for forgery—she remembered that now, and the lady's life had been in

peril if she were found guilty, but it had turned out to be the gentleman instead.

She wet her lips. "Trev—" she said uncertainly. She looked up at him with a sinking

feeling at the pit of her stomach.

His faint smile vanished, and his jaw hardened. He gave a bitter laugh. "Please. Go on

refusing to believe me. It's not something a man cares to admit, I assure you."

The words seemed to go past her, then spin in strange echoes round her head. "A

hanging offense," she repeated slowly, hearing it as if from a great distance. She stared at

him, every limb in her body going to water. If she had not been holding on to the bedpost,

she would have slid to the floor.

"It was not a pleasant experience," he said. "And so you see, I must depart." He gave a

slight mechanical bow, a move full of suppressed violence.

"What happens if they discover you here?" she asked, hardly able to command her

voice.

"They hang me," he said simply.

"Oh good God," she breathed. Her legs were failing her. "Oh dear God."

He stepped forward, supporting her. "Don't faint— Callie, my sweet life—oh no, please

don't weep. Come here now. They haven't caught me yet."

She realized that tears had sprung to her eyes, but they were not of sorrow. She gave a

sob of pure terror, clinging tightly to him as he pulled her into his arms. "You must go!"

She gasped into his shoulder. "Why are you still here?"

He held her close, kissing her temple. "You can't guess?"

"Your mother!" She pulled back sharply. "Does your mother know?"

His mouth flattened. "No. God grant she never will."

"Of course not." Callie turned from him, hugging herself. "No, she mustn't know." She

turned back. "But you must f lee directly—they're all hunting you now as Malempré."

Her head was a painful whirlwind. "Oh lord, the duchesse—what shall I say to her? I

can't go back to Shelford and—"

"Hush,
mon ange
." He caught her again, more gently. "I've thought of all these things."

"You have?"

He nuzzled her temple, his breath soft on her skin. "Most of them."

"Where will you go? To Monceaux?"

He pulled her close. "It doesn't matter, if you aren't there."

Callie turned her face up. He gazed down at her for a moment and then kissed her

roughly.

"Don't forget me," he whispered. He put her away from him. Callie held out her hands

numbly. He caught them up and kissed them, and then without another word, he left

her—not by the window, by the door, but she hurried to the window and stood there,

looking out through the wavy glass with her heart beating hard until he appeared in the

street below.

He crossed swiftly to the far side, his face muff led up again, only another drover

among the working people cleaning up smashed preserves and setting pens and crates and

tables to rights. At the corner he turned, looking back up at her. She put her palm to the

glass.

He nodded once and vanished from her view.

Seventeen

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.