Lessons in French (38 page)

Sturgeon said. "You have made me the happiest man alive."

"Congratulations," Callie remarked wryly, holding her bucket with both hands as she

lugged it to the stove. "How pleased I am for you."

He glanced up at her from his position on the requisite bended knee. He had worn his

full dress uniform, all burnished and plumed, as he made his call in reply to her note that

she had made up her mind in the matter. The Shelford yard and cattle stalls were quite

clean, but he had paused and looked carefully at the ground before he lowered himself to

put his question to her.

"Oh dear," she added, seeing his expression as she set the bucket down. "That's

someone else's line, isn't it? I've done this so often that I become confused."

He had the grace to made a gesture of rueful admission. "You haven't been treated as

you ought, dearest, and I am the first to blame for that."

She gave him a faintly acid smile. "Only the first."

He stood up, looking down for a moment and brushing at his knees. Then he took a step

toward her and caught both of her hands in his. "I hope I can make you as happy as you

have made me."

She raised her lashes. "You might lift this bucket up onto the stove, in that case," she

said.

"Certainly!" He let go of her and reached down, hefting the bucket of mash and

molasses onto the hot surface with a grunt. He stood back, brushing his palms together. "I

beg your pardon, I ought to have done so instantly, but I was… distracted."

"By your deep love and abiding respect." Callie took up the wooden paddle and began

to stir the mix. "I understand completely." She peered down into the dark syrup. "I have

one stipulation that I must mention."

"Of course. Tell me anything that would please you."

"I hope you won't object to a marriage of convenience."

"Convenience?" He drew her away from the stove, taking her hand again lightly. "I'm

not certain that I understand you."

Heat rose in her cheeks. She held the paddle out over the pail to prevent molasses from

dripping to the floor. "I mean that I prefer not to interfere in your conduct. You may feel

free to indulge—"

"My dear!" He interrupted her, catching the paddle from her and dropping it into the

mash. "We needn't speak of this sort of thing. I mean to make up fully for my past fault,

of that I assure you. Tell me—where would you like to live? Somewhere that you may

raise your cattle, I'm certain, and I've had my eye on the broads country round about

Norwich. Have you seen it? What do you think of the forage there?"

Callie pulled her fingers free. She looked down at her muck boots and then up again. "I

believe you under stand me perfectly well. I do not wish to be touched."

Surprise flitted across his features, followed by a lightly concealed impatience.

"Delicacy of feeling is perfectly understandable in a virtuous maiden such as yourself, of

course. I hope that I can assuage your fears. I'm not an insensitive man."

"It isn't delicacy of feeling," Callie said frankly. "It is you, sir. I do not wish to be

touched by you. You may consider it a personal aversion, if you like. I well understand

that you wish to marry me for my money. You must understand that I have purely

practical motives to accept you. You may, of course, feel free to withdraw your suit if

that offends you."

He stared at her. "My lady—" He seemed unable to summon a reply. Callie had the

notion that he actually noticed her for the first time and was not pleased with what he

perceived. She turned to the pail and began to stir vigorously before the syrup could

congeal.

"You feel a personal aversion to me?" he asked, as if the very thought bewildered him.

The notion that any female could hold him in aversion appeared to be a supremely

difficult concept for him to grasp. She let go of the spoon and turned. "I beg your

pardon," she said with a slight curtsy. "I am known to have poor taste."

He stood observing her with a frown. "I'm sorry to hear that you feel this way."

She offered a consoling glance and went back to her task. "I'm sure I'm in the

minority."

Major Sturgeon stroked his plumed hat. Callie waited for him to say that the

engagement was off. She wondered if she had been engaged long enough for it to count

as a fourth jilt. Going for a record, Trev would have said. But she did not want to think of

Trev. She was done with Trev. She walked Trev to the end of a plank at sword point and

poked him in the back and watched him step off into shark-infested waters with a huff of

satisfaction. Before he even hit the water, she was stirring hard as she boiled him in a vat

of molasses and made him march, covered in goose feathers, down the center of Broad

Street in Hereford, while farmwives jeered and threw pear tarts at his back.

She stiffened a little as the major took a step toward her. He noticed it. He paused in

midstride and held himself up. Callie stopped stirring her mash pail. For an instant they

were like two tin soldiers facing one another.

"My lady," he said. A degree of the rigid affront left him. He lifted his hat and dropped

it with a helpless move. "I'll admit that I hardly know what to say. Are we to be strangers

to one another, then? Do you wish to live separately? I had hoped that my children—" He

stopped.

Callie supposed that he was hesitant to admit quite so openly that he needed a mother

for his family. Her cheeks were f laming with bright red spots, she was sure. She wiped

her hands on her apron and glanced over the stall partitions to be sure no one was nearby.

"It isn't that. I look forward to becoming acquainted with your children. I don't—I

suppose I don't wish to live separately." She took a breath, feeling as if she were

smothered in molasses herself. "This is a difficult topic to discuss. I would prefer not to

live as man and wife. Of course I understand that you will have— other interests—and I

wish you to understand that is perfectly acceptable to me."

He stood looking at her, a slight frown creasing his brow. He shook his head slightly.

"A mistress, I comprehend you mean. Pardon my bluntness. No, my lady, I had not

contemplated such a thing."

"Oh come," she said, adding another scoop of barley and giving the mash a hard stir.

"Pray do not lie to me."

A silence stretched between them. He averted his eyes and shrugged. "Perhaps at one

time I did." He looked at her askance, his lowered glance traveling from her hem to her

throat. "I cannot, at the moment, comprehend why."

"Perhaps you will remember later," Callie said dryly. She would hardly be an object of

admiration in her canvas apron and mucking boots. "It doesn't matter. That is my

stipulation, along with my choice of property for our home and a settlement in which I

have ample allowance to pursue my cattle husbandry."

He examined the plume on his hat, running his fingers over the feathers. Then he

shrugged. "I will agree to that, my dear, if it's truly what you wish."

Callie found herself even more flustered. She'd rather hoped that he would find her

requirements too onerous, but of course except for his pride, there was little to burden

him in her requests. Her mouth was dry as she nodded. "Very well."

He reached as if to take her hand to kiss it, then stopped himself, looking conscious. He

substituted with a brisk military bow. Callie gave him a shallow curtsy in return.

It was settled, then; she would truly marry this man and go away from Shelford Hall

with him.

"Ah yes!" he exclaimed with a forced brightness. "But in the excitement of our coming

to an under standing, I'd forgot that I've news for you. You'll be pleased to hear that my

efforts to apprehend that so-called Belgian scoundrel for you have borne fruit."

She lifted her eyes quickly. "Indeed?"

"Yes, I had word from some men I hired out of Bow Street. He was spotted boarding a

ship, but when the port police learned that there was warrant for him, they sent an officer

out to take him off before it left harbor."

"Oh?" To hide her reaction, Callie turned to the bucket of mash on the stove. She took

up a cloth and clasped both hands about the wooden handle of the pail, gripping it tightly.

He reached to help her lift it from the stove. "They're low fellows, those thief-takers,

but they know the criminal mind. Careful! Allow me, my dear. They tracked him from

Hereford to the Bristol docks. He's jailed and awaiting the assizes by now. Take care!"

He leaped back as the bucket tilted and clattered to the floor, spilling a flood of hot

molasses and barley grain.

Trev should have been on a packet ship for Boston instead of under his mother's bed. His

trunk—and Jock along with it—were aboard. But Trev had gone ashore with the last

mail, telling himself he ought to leave a final note for his maman and that he'd somehow

find the words to write it on the Bristol quay. He hadn't, of course. Six beakers of blue

ruin in a dockside gin house had not loosened his pen, but they had succeeded in making

him miss the last call for the ship tender.

Jock was doubtless a little put out. Trev sincerely hoped that Boston had excellent

tailors.

He'd woken up with a thundering headache and no purse. By the time his head was

clear, he'd been halfway to London on borrowed blunt, with the intent to track down

whoever it was who had blackmailed Sturgeon. It was a bothersome itch in the back of

his mind—though not as bothersome as the dust ball that was tickling his nose at the

moment. He stifled a sneeze.

"Why is this window wide open to the cold night air?" Nurse demanded. Her sturdy

shoes clumped across the floor, making the boards vibrate under Trev's cheek. He'd just

made it under the bed before the door opened. "The plain truth is, that young maid is a

good-for-nothing! I'd supposed Madame would be asleep," she added severely. "And the

candle still lit!" There was an ominous pause. "I daresay you didn't think to ring for me to

snuff it?"

"You may put it out now," his maman said faintly. "No—ah no, pray—there is no need

for you to… occupy the dressing room tonight."

Nurse's feet clumped indignantly. "My duty to you, Madame."

"But… you wish me to sleep," the duchesse said in a plaintive tone. "Do you not?"

"Certainly, Madame."

"Then I think… " His maman trailed off. "I do not say that the snore would… wake the

dead. But perhaps I think it might."

Trev pressed his fist to his mouth and nose, subduing a sneeze and a laugh. It was said

with such a pretty, tremulous naïveté that the nurse didn't even feel the sting. She huffed

and clumped about, grumbling, but after slamming shut the window, placing all the

utensils of her black art to her satisfaction, and snuffing the lamp, she made a decisive

effort to tiptoe on the way to the door, threatening to rattle the medicine bottles off the

shelf.

After the door closed behind her, a silence descended on the room. Trev waited. The

sound of Nurse's shoes receded, replaced by the creaks of the floorboards overhead as she

took possession of the attic.

"Mon trésor," his mother murmured. "The toast is clear."

Trev worked himself from beneath the bed frame, wincing as he bumped his head. "The

'coast,' Maman. The
coast
is clear." He fumbled to light the bed candle that Nurse had

just extinguished.

"That is a great relief to me." She gave a faint smile. "Toast I never could comprehend

to be clear. Particularly as the English… put butter on it. Are you hungry?"

He observed her intently, suspicious that his first impression had been correct—that her

eyes had filled with tears when she first reached out her hand to him. "I'll eat later.

Constable Hubble is presently engaged on some murky business with Cook in the

kitchen, which I prefer not to know too much about."

"You have been… traveling?" She seemed unconcerned that he had entered through the

window. It seemed to be his typical means of ingress and egress to any respectable

establishment these days.

"Yes." He did not elaborate but sat down on the bed and put his finger under her chin.

"What is this?" He examined her face from side to side. "You've been gay and raking

while I wasn't here to restrain you, I see. Too many parties, Maman. You're run off your

feet."

She smiled. Then she gripped his hand and pressed it against her cheek, kissing his

palm fiercely. Her eyes glittered as she took a single sobbing breath.

When she released him, he brushed his fingertips tenderly over her pale hair and down

her chin. She greeted him with tears. Tears, and he had never seen his maman weep

before except when his brother had died. She had lost four more children, but if she shed

tears, she had done it in someplace beyond where anyone could see or hear.

"I won't leave again," he murmured.

"But the constable…" she said.

"Aye, and the Bow Street Runners too," he said, dropping his hand with a sigh. "I'll be

put to some lengths to dodge them, I fear, but I won't leave you again, Maman."

He hadn't expected to have the Runners on his track. After a narrow escape from a

brickyard where he'd been meeting with a clerk from the Bank of England, they'd made

London too warm for him in the circles where he was asking questions. So even while he