'Shelford's prize bull. Davenport's to come and take him off tomorrow. Wait until that's done before you make your approach. Keep it quiet.'
'Oh, aye, sir. Mum as a post. Don't want to drive the price up, eh?'
Trev could hear his mother begin to cough upstairs. He turned. 'The price be damned,' he said over his shoulder as he headed for the door. 'Just make certain you get the bloody beast for me, will you?'
Five
WITH PAINFUL EFFORT, CALLIE KEPT HER COMPOSURE as Hubert ambled down the lane. She could have no complaint about the provisions made for his comfort: the drover offered water and tied him behind a cart full of hay. An exultant Colonel Davenport leaned down to shake hands with Cousin Jasper and turned his horse, trotting ahead of the cart as the little proces sion moved off. Hubert walked away, swishing his tail happily each time he snatched at a mouthful of hay.
Callie disengaged herself from her sister's sympa thetic hug and gave Cousin Jasper a bright smile as he tried again to stammer his regrets and apologies. The new earl wrung his gloves in his hands and looked miserable, blinking his wide brown eyes with a soft plea that she forgive him.
She had shed all her tears before dawn, brushing Hubert from his nose to his handsome rump, teasing out his tail pompom, buffing and polishing his hooves as if he were already going to a fair. It had given her something to do. Now, facing Cousin Jasper's wretchedness, she needed some further activity quite desperately.
'There, he's on his way. No more to be said.' She interrupted the earl with ruthless cheerfulness. 'Now I must walk to the village. Pray excuse me, Cousin!'
Hermey made no attempt to accompany her, for which Callie was grateful. She kept up such a brisk pace that by the time she reached Dove Lane, she was not quite so close to breaking down in tears, though she had to maintain a stern frown to prevent it. She had not intended to stop at Dove House, meaning to call first on Mr. Rankin at the inn and discover the news. But Trevelyan was just coming out, making his way through the overgrown garden.
He plucked at a long rose cane that attempted to grab his sleeve as he passed through the gate. 'Good morning, my lady. May I give you my arm up the street? I'm engaged to escort this rosebush to the shops, but I'll fob it off.'
Callie drew a deep breath. She felt her facade of forced cheerfulness slipping. 'Good morning.'
He tilted his head, smiling a little, looking at her with such unspoken understanding that she had a very strong urge to walk straight up to him, lay her head upon his elegantly tied neck cloth, and weep her heart out.
'You forget your mother, my lord,' she said, taking refuge in a frosty tone. 'Surely you don't intend to leave her alone? I can't think it wise.'
He nodded in agreement. 'Yes, it's always useful to pick a quarrel when one is feeling low. Come with me into the high street, and I'll undertake to start a brawl for your further diversion.'
She felt a small smile welling up, overcoming the immediate threat of tears in her throat. 'How civil of you.'
'I know. Particularly as I'll be bound to wrinkle my only coat.' He let the gate fall closed and took her arm. 'My mother is much improved this morning, with some excellent nourishment and a good night's rest. Mrs. Adam has arrived with Lilly to undertake nursing duties, and I am expelled as a dangerous man.'
She glanced at the house. 'Mrs. Adam is here? I should go in and lend her help.'
'No, you should not. She's certain that I intend to lure Lilly into the debauched harem that I maintain in the opium dens of Paris.' He turned her toward the lane. 'Be so good as to thwart me from this evil scheme. You can begin by distracting me with a walk to the post office.'
She smiled, though it was slightly watery. 'I see that it's my Christian duty, when you put it so. I only hope I may not succumb to your wicked plot myself.'
'Oh, I have far more sinister plans for you. I mean to entice you to a dish of tea in the public parlor at the Antlers. I will certainly set a chair for you, and possibly I may even speak French.'
Merely walking at his side, with her gloved hand resting on his arm, was rather alarming. She remem bered that he had brought roses, though she had not told anyone they were meant for her. 'Thank you for your call yesterday,' she said shyly. 'And for the beautiful posy.'
'Hardly enough to convey my gratitude,' he said.
She had not, of course, supposed the f lowers were meant as anything more than an expression of thanks. 'We'll inquire about the Bromyard woman at the Antlers,' she said, grasping at a practical topic. 'I have high hopes of her.'
'The dahlias reminded me of your hair,' he said pensively. 'That deep copper color. Only a little darker.'
'Oh,' Callie said. She lifted her skirt and stepped over a tuft of grass. 'I do hope she knows how to cook. Truly cook, you know. Something that your mother would like.'
'And the roses-pretty and pale, with a f lush of pink. Very like your cheeks when you blush.'
'A blancmange, perhaps,' Callie said brightly. 'Or a custard.'
'Your cheeks are nothing like a blancmange, I assure you, my lady. And certainly not a custard.'
'A blancmange would be the true test of her skill,' Callie said with difficulty. 'I think we should ask her to make a blancmange.'
'They're the classic strawberries and cream. Very English.'
'Any sort of fruit trif le would make a good test, I agree,' she said hastily. 'But strawberries are out of season.'
'Indeed, but they aren't,' he said. He slanted one of those looks down at her that left her covered in confusion. It was very vexing. She ought to tell him to stop. But she didn't precisely wish him to stop. She rather wished to fall right back in love with him, like a veritable ninnyhammer, and believe against all fact and reason that he meant what he said.
'So you have met my sister and Lady Shelford?' she asked, her voice rather too loud. She could see some pedestrians in the sun-dappled lane, far down where it widened into something that could reasonably be called a street.
'Lady Shelford,' Trev said. 'I met her, yes. An awe-inspiring woman, to be sure. I'm afraid I didn't remain long enough to have the honor of an introduc tion to Lady Hermione. She was engulfed in well wishers. Has a date been set?'
'Next month,' Callie said.
'They're impatient lovers,' he commented.
'But poor Hermey has had to postpone so much because of-' She hesitated, then said, 'She's hardly been away from Shelford at all, or met any eligible gentlemen, until we went to Leamington to the spa. Our father was ill for a long time, you see, and then he passed away last year, so we have been in mourning.'
'My condolences.'
Callie did not look up at him. 'Thank you,' she replied in a small voice.
Trev guided her round the bowing white heads of Queen Anne's lace that encroached on the lane. He was aware that he should make a better show of sympathy. Callie had adored her father. He knew it well. But he would never forget that whip across his face. He remembered it every time he shaved himself, each time he saw the faded scar in the mirror. For months afterward he had dreamed of revenge with a hopeless violence that only fed on knowing his fantasies were absurd. He'd shot more than one unfortunate British infantryman with the Earl of Shelford in his sights.
She walked with her face hidden from him. He looked down at the tendrils of reddish copper hair that had escaped her braids and bonnet, tiny curls that lay against the nape of her neck. Callous bastard that he was, the glimpse of white skin, tender and soft, made his throat fill with some unnamed clash of emotion, with resentment and protectiveness and a potent spike of simple lust. She smelled faintly of fresh hay and mown grass, as she always had.
They could be friends. He truly wished for that. A friend would enter into her obvious distress with real sympathy, the way she had instantly come to his aid with his mother. He tried to summon words of kind ness for her father's death, but they were not there. The only sort of words that came to him were sarcastic comments on just how pleased the old man would doubtless be to see her walking with him now.
Finally he said, 'I'm sure you miss your father.' It came out more stiff ly than he wished, but he had said it.
'Yes,' she said. 'Very much.'
'He cared a great deal about your welfare.'
'Oh yes,' she said.
Trev hoped that was sufficient. He bewildered himself with the fresh rage that overcame him. He had no right to it, as he had no real right to tease and f lirt with Callie when he could go no further. Her father had rejected him as a penniless nobody of unsteady character, and that was in Trev's respect able days. Now he was one step ahead of the hang man's noose.
'He was very disappointed when I didn't marry,' she said, so softly that he could barely hear. 'He wished very much for that.'
'Ah,' Trev said. His rage found a new object: these three silly sods who had jilted her. He walked along for a few moments, all tame in his gentleman guise, gazing at wildf lowers and trying to think of a kindly and understanding response. With sudden ferocity, he uttered, 'I'd like to kill them all for you.'
She gave him a startled glance. Then she laughed, causing the trace of a tear to tumble down her cheek. The sound made his heart rise amazingly.
'Thank you!' she exclaimed. 'I've been so vexed that I can't do it myself!'
He took deep pleasure in the happy crinkle that appeared at the corner of her eyes. 'Only tell me who they are,' he said, giving her a little bow. 'I'm wholly at your service.'
She sniffed and smiled. 'Perhaps it wouldn't be quite the thing,' she said. 'It would cause a vast increase in the number of widows and orphans in the country.'
'Reproducing themselves rapidly, are they? Just what the world needs, more bloody fools. I'd best set about eliminating them without delay.'
She giggled, with a little hiccup of a sob. 'Trev,' she said, holding his arm with her gloved hand.
No more than that. Just his name. She looked up sideways at him under her hat, that shy, half-laughing look that had always made him want to pull her down in a rick of new hay and tumble her under him and do lustful and luxurious things amid that sweep of loosened coppery hair.
'We'll start with Number One,' he said. 'He should be skewered first, for setting a bad example to the rest.'
'Major Sturgeon,' she said readily.
'Sturgeon,' he repeated. 'Sturgeon, as in the fish?'
She nodded.
'So you might have been-dear God-the Lady Callista Sturgeon?'
'Well,' she admitted, 'I did consider that.'
