Lessons in French (48 page)

the note in her hand and turned away.

"Callie?" The bantering tone left her sister's voice, replaced by wonder, as if before she

had only been teasing but now she saw more than she had expected in Callie's reaction.

"I'd like to take my nap now," Callie said.

"You can't lie down now that you're dressed," Hermey pointed out, "or you
will
look

like a demented parrot. You should have rested earlier. What have you been doing in here

all afternoon?" she demanded.

"Merely watching the rain and reading a little." Callie plucked all the feathers from her

headdress. "I'll come to your room in a little while, and you can put them in again. I only

want to doze for a few minutes first, to refresh myself."

Hermey looked at her and then at Anne. The maid cast down her eyes and stood with

the dumb and blind expression that Lady Shelford encouraged in her servants. "All right,"

she said, favoring Callie with another speculative glance. "You may read your love letter

in peace. I'll send for you at quarter to eight. That should give us time."

Callie waited until they had both gone out. She waited for some little time longer, just

to be sure Hermey would not find some excuse to come back. Then she opened her fist

and looked down at the note in it.

She had meant to tear it up. Almost, as she fingered the thick seal of wax, she did so.

She hadn't sent any ticket for the masquerade to the Antlers, of course. If Mrs. Fowler

wished to find him, she would have to chase after him herself. On a broomstick.

The thickly folded note lay in her palm. He'd said so many things to her, one lie upon

the other, that it could hardly matter what more the infamous Mrs. Fowler might have to

add to the whole sordid story now. Callie had a masquerade to attend, and never had the

notion of hiding behind a mask seemed more appealing. She would have preferred to

spend the evening in a cowshed, but there was small of chance of her being allowed to do

that. She made a gesture, tossing the note toward the grate, but her fingers closed on it

before it left her palm.

Instead, she broke the seal. Almost without her conscious approval, she found her

fingers pressing the paper half open, as if she wished to worry at a wound and could not

help herself. The writing was thin and florid—a thought crossed her mind that it was

nothing like Trev's concise, elegant strokes; a piece of evidence that one might have

supposed a jury would have noticed, but perhaps they were twelve good men and blind

instead of true.

She tilted her head. At first glance she was unable to make out the opening line, but

then she realized that the letters spelled out
"M. Tib L.B.,"
rather than what she had

thought at first: a very contorted rendering of
Trevelyan.

Monsieur Thibaut LeBlanc, of course. Callie had disliked the name immensely from the

first time she had seen it printed on the pages of
The Lady's Spectator
. Morbid curiosity

prompted her to spread the sheet full open, some dark desire to disgust herself as

thoroughly as possible. The first sentence provided a promising start to this endeavor.

You will surely Suppose me to be the Most Madcap of the Female race, and I know you

Think me so, but dear M. L.B., I dare to Plead for your Aid.

Callie made a face. She held the note with the tips of her fingers, as if it might stain her

skin, and read down the page.

Once before out of the Loyalty and Friendship which you bore So Nobly for my Late and

Dearest Husband, you put Yourself at Great and indeed Mortal Peril for that which you

Did Not Do. I depend on You then, that You will Not let that Sacrifice be in Vain, not on

My Behalf, but in the Sacred Memory of Mr. Jem Fowler and to Protect his Innocent

Child. I am in a Desperate way to Remove from England. I will tell you the Truth, that

you may understand the Extreme Gravity of my Present Situation—I uttered a Second

note, and it has now been Discovered. I will not attempt to justify my actions to you of all

People. I was Imprudent, that I will Acknowledge. Jem would Forgive me, and I Beg that

you will also and Help Me and my Blessed Child to Depart from England and reach

Safety. E.F.

"Imprudent!" Callie whispered, opening her eyes wide. She stared at the swirling

signature. She blinked and read the missive again. It still said the same things that it had

said before. "Dear God."

It was a confession. It was not meant it to be so, of course. Trev had said she was a silly

woman—she struck Callie as something very near to a raving imbecile to have written

this and handed it to a stranger.

Callie sat slowly, her knees buckling under her. She frowned down at the letter in her

hands for a very long time. Once she started up from her chair, thinking to ring the bell

and send to Dove House, and then sank down again without touching the pull. When she

finally did send for a footman, it was to dispatch two messages—one, by word of

mouth—to the Antlers, and the other, by a quickly written card, to Hermey's fiancé, Sir

Thomas.

Finally Anne's discreet scratch came at the door, summoning her to have her feathers

inserted. Callie folded the note carefully and slipped it into her bodice under the layers of

gauze.

It had been Hermey's dashing idea to hold a masquerade, one taken up by Dolly with

considerable enthusiasm. Callie had been too preoccupied with the circumstances of

secretly entertaining a gentleman in her bedroom to pay much mind to the preparations,

so that even though Hermey had regaled her with reports of the progress, she was

astonished when she saw the transformation. The ballroom at Shelford Hall, which had

not seen any large parties in Callie's lifetime, was fitted up as an enormous tent, canopied

and draped with swags that alternated green and white with pink and lilac and yellow—

all festooned with multicolored fringes and tassels. Under the radiance of the great crystal

chandelier, with the music and the mixing of masked and costumed guests, the effect was

dizzying.

As it was a masquerade, a dinner and reception would be quite silly, Hermey had

declared, for how ridiculous would they appear standing in their masks and greeting

guests they weren't supposed to recognize when they had just sat next to them at table?

Dolly, in an unusually obliging temper, had agreed to substitute an unmasking at the

midnight supper.

Callie entered arm in arm with her sister, but soon lost Venus to the music of a country

dance. She seated herself on the row of chairs against the wall, but she was not left alone

for long: an Egyptian Mamluk—Major Sturgeon in his regimentals and a turban—found

her almost immediately. This was no great feat of detection. Among the several sultanas

present, Callie was the only one with red hair and one plume that was determined to keep

drooping down over her nose in spite of Hermey pausing to straighten it several times.

The major was in an amorous mood. He bent over her fingers, looking quite imposing

in his black mask and clean-shaven jaw. "An exotic!" he murmured. "Will you dance

with me, lovely odalisque?"

She accepted, reckoning it best to humor him now, as she would be otherwise occupied

in a short time. Besides, she found that wearing a mask went a great way toward making

one feel less shy in public. There was something to be said for the protocol of ostriches.

She entered the dance for once without being too nervous to enjoy it.

He returned her a little breathless after two sets, with her plume askew and the gauze

drifting loose from several places that she could see through the mask and several more

that she suspected from the attention that her Mamluk seemed to give her bodice. She put

her hand up to check the safety of the note, and his eyes behind the black silk followed

her motion. He grinned and bent to her ear.

"My God, my lady—do you wish to slay me?"

She did wish to be rid of him, but not quite that permanently. "I must go straighten

my… my plume," she said. "If you will excuse me."

"You look charmingly just as you are," he said, giving her elbow a squeeze.

"Thank you," Callie said. She caught a glimpse of Sir Thomas taking Hermey toward

the stairs. "But there, my sister is going down too. I must speak to her. If you will bring

me a lemonade when I return, I would be much obliged." Without waiting for a reply, she

deserted her fiancé as rapidly as the crowd would allow.

She hurried down the stairs and found Sir Thomas lingering outside the room set aside

for the ladies to repair their toilettes. Instead of joining Hermey, she went to Sir Thomas

and put her arm through his, walking with determination down the spine passage to the

servants' stairs. He allowed her to lead him, though she could see that he was rather ruff

led.

"In here." Callie took him through a door into the dark recesses of the boiler room.

"My lady," he said in a whisper, "this is quite irregular. What is it?"

"Can you bring Lord Sidmouth to me?" she asked, pushing the plume back over her

head. "It's a matter of the utmost importance. A terrible miscarriage of justice has been

done, and I believe he should be informed."

"So your note said, or I shouldn't be standing here in a coal cellar! I'm sure I'm pleased

to do whatever I may for Lady Hermione's sister, but what can you mean? What

miscarriage?"

"Regarding Monsieur LeBlanc and that forgery," she said urgently. "I have a confession

from Mrs. Fowler."

Even in the dark, she felt him stiffen. "The deuce you say. Pardon me—but… a

confession? How is this? She was here today, Lady Hermione told me. She made you a

confession of guilt?"

"Yes! Well, no. Not precisely. She wrote it down."

"Wrote it down!" he exclaimed.

Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness and the dim red gleam of the boiler. "I have it

here. And she's coming back to Shelford Hall tonight. Can you ask Lord Sidmouth to

meet me?"

He was silent. Callie watched him. She would have to try to accost the secretary herself

if he would not aid her, but she was sure the minister would give one of his own

assistants a more serious ear.

"She's passed a forged note again," Callie added ruthlessly. "And doubtless will

continue, if she isn't stopped." It was unfeeling, perhaps—even wicked— to reveal Mrs.

Fowler and put her in danger of the noose, but she had served Trev the same turn without

apparent remorse. Callie had thought long on the issue. She hardly knew if Trev would

thank her—he might think it rendered what he had done pointless, and there was this

child somewhere in the north, his friend's son—but in the end Trev was gone and Callie

was adamant. It was for the duchesse, if nothing else.

"You have evidence of that?" Sir Thomas asked sharply.

"Yes, she wrote of it. And the second note has been discovered. She's attempting to find

a way to leave the country; that's why she's here."

That was enough. He made a sound of assent. "I'll speak to the secretary."

"Do so directly," she urged. "And bring him here at quarter past eleven."

Callie's message to Mrs. Fowler had warned her that on no account must she come to the

porter at the front facade, but to enter by the laundry court. She would have no trouble

locating this, for Callie had instructed the same footman to return to the Antlers with a

sedan chair and escort her to the Hall at the appointed time. Under a full moon and racing

clouds, a pair of hefty retainers trotted up to the rear of Shelford Hall bearing the chair. A

figure swathed in a dark domino emerged and stepped daintily to the washroom door.

Callie met her, still masked, feeling much as if she ought to have thirty pieces of silver

jangling in her pockets when Mrs. Fowler thanked her with such a pretty profusion. But

then she thought of the note and stiffened her resolve. The one forgery—that might have

been excused as a naïve mistake—but when she uttered the second counterfeit note, she

had known full well how heavy the consequences were. And then she came to Trev again

as her savior from her own folly!

Callie had provided a blank card and writing materials on the big ironing table in the

dry laundry. "I couldn't find an extra ticket," she said, drawing a closed lantern near. "But

this is out of the card stock from Lady Shelford's desk." She set the lantern on the table

and shone light on the paper. "Here is ink. Write it as: 'The Pleasure of your company is

requested at a Masked Ball'—and you must make a capital of P and
M
—yes, just so."

Callie had noted the peculiar and unique manner in which Mrs. Fowler inscribed these

letters. The original invitations had been engraved, and Callie had been ready to explain

that these had run out and the latter ones written by hand, but in the event Mrs. Fowler

didn't question writing her own ticket. She did it so readily that Callie thought perhaps

she had some experience of the practice.

"Where am I to meet him?" Mrs. Fowler asked, looking up from the table. She had

procured a half mask on a stick; she picked it up with the card and turned to Callie.

"He's waiting for you," she said. "He says that you must be ready to f ly on the instant."