her cheeks to be kissed and her gloved hands to be pressed. Her eyes sparkled when she looked toward the staid figure of Sir Thomas. It was pleasing to see. Her sister's evident happiness put Callie in such an expansive humor that she even exchanged a few words about the weather with the viscount.
He answered courteously as he seated her on the small sofa in the corner, screened as close behind one of the Corinthian columns as she could manage. His attention then being engaged by a fellow hunting-man regarding the condition of the coverts in the Cotswolds, and how it would affect the Beaufort pack, he forgot all about her. Callie accepted a cup of lemonade from a footman and sat looking at her toes, still drifting in her mind with Trev amid gilded towers and silken bedsheets, waiting for the first moment she could excuse herself to go out and feed the orphan calf.
'But where is your handsome French beau,
Callie's head came up in startlement. But no one was speaking to her-it was a lady on the other side of the column talking to Lady Shelford. Callie could just see the spangled train of Dolly's gown lying across the fringe of the India carpet.
'Oh, he sent his regrets tonight,' Dolly said, with a low laugh. 'How he regrets! His tiresome mother is ill.'
'A dutiful son,' the other voice said. And then, softer: 'But that is so charming,
'He's French, is he not?' Lady Shelford murmured.
'Let us pray his dear mother recovers sufficiently that he can leave her side,' her friend said sugges tively, 'while I'm yet here at Shelford to offer him my sympathy.'
'Indeed. But I fear I must claim precedence there, Fanny darling, as your hostess.'
'No, it's too ungenerous of you!' The other woman had a smirk in her voice. 'Didn't we always share everything at school?'
They giggled quietly and moved away, leaving Callie staring at the foot of the column. She was shocked, not least to find that Dolly must have sent him a card for the dinner. She sat fixed to the sofa, hardly knowing where to look. Trev grinning at her over the horns of a misplaced bull and the tres bon duc de Monceaux were two entirely different persons, she realized. She came to that insight with great sudden ness, on the heels of recalling that she was wearing a plain stuff gown that Hermey had cheerfully declared to be fit for a milkmaid, and her hair was unadorned except for a single ribbon in a shade of puce that Lady Shelford detested. Callie had not, when she dressed for dinner, taken any note of these opinions, because she intended to go out the barn later, but abruptly they took on a dangerous significance.
She was a spinster dowd. That was no fresh news, but she had rather a habit of forgetting it just recently, having been beguiled by the suggestion that her cheeks more closely resembled strawberries than a pudding, and the matter of certain gentlemen attempting to recover certain bulls on her behalf. But the knowledge was not something that she could afford to disregard, even under the allure of her daydreams. She and Trev were great friends, but he was indeed French. Flirtation and lovemaking were in his blood. He would say such things as he said to Callie to any lady. And now Dolly and her friend spoke of him in that horrid insinuating way, as if it were quite natural to suppose that they could share his attentions if they pleased.
Callie stood up abruptly, making her way toward the door before the violinist had even started to play. The room felt close and hot. Such a wave of resent ment and despair had possessed her that she nearly grew ill. She had to go out into the chilly air to escape from this press of elegant strangers. She hurried down the stairs to the little vestibule on the ground f loor where her cloak and muck boots awaited her. No one paid her any mind, though doubtless in the morning Lady Shelford would have some acid comment on her ungraciously early departure. Callie would say she had felt unwell. It was no more than the truth.
Major Sturgeon made his second and third calls without successfully cornering Callie alone. As the days passed, she observed with mild interest the colors of the bruise on his jaw fade from black and blue to green and purple. With each call he brought the latest news from Colonel Davenport regarding the search for Hubert, recounting the lack of success in grave tones. Poor Cousin Jasper was closely interested in this topic, asking anxious questions and proposing several absurdly optimistic theories about where the bull might have got off to-none of which would have comforted Callie in the least if she hadn't already known Hubert was safe.
Hermey also lent her chaperonage to the major's visits, sitting primly beside Callie and attempting to dislodge Cousin Jasper so that Callie could be left alone with her suitor. Their cousin seemed oblivious to all hints, however, chatting with the major in that slow, fretful way of his that always made Callie feel sorry for him. Major Sturgeon was relentlessly cour teous, but by his third call, she could see that he was losing patience.
'Will you take a turn in the shrubbery with me, Lady Callista?' he demanded. It was phrased as an invitation, but clearly he was a man accustomed to giving orders.
She was to leave for Hereford at first light. Knowing that he could not continue to pursue her after today, she submitted to the inevitable. She had spent long hours staring into the dark canopy of her bed, considering her future. Of course she wasn't a beauty. Anyone could see that. She was far past the age of matrimony. She had no wit or even sensible conversation in company. She did possess a distinguished rank and pedigree, but there had always seemed to be more than an adequate supply of earls' daughters to fill the demand at Almack's, and she had been dismissed by the patronesses as a hopeless quiz after her first season anyway. Her jiltings had confirmed their judgment: Callie was a social outcast. The only thing that she possessed to attract a husband was her money.
She knew all that in her head, but since Trev had returned, he had confused her in her heart. His sentiments appeared to vary from the romantic to the unfeeling; he said he was going away, and yet he stayed. He mentioned in an offhand way that he might love her, but neglected to expand upon the topic to any particular purpose. She'd found no sense in it, but what she had overheard from Lady Shelford and her guest had brought Callie back to cold reality.
Trev might be her dear friend, but truthfully, what could a man like the duc de Monceaux possibly want with her? He had regained his own fortune. He was titled. He was rich. In spite of a penchant for devilry, he was perfectly fitted to the elevated continental society for which he had been bred. She had seen enough of the bon ton to know that. Callie at the head of a great French noble house? It was a preposterous idea. She was unsuitable in every way. She wasn't French, she wasn't Catholic, she wasn't young or gay or beautiful. She knew no better than to wear poppy orange with pink.
She imagined herself sitting against the wall in a Parisian salon the way she had sat in Almack's, conspicuously gauche, while the fashionable gossips whispered behind their fans and wondered what could have induced him to marry this unfortunate English thing. They would conjecture how she had trapped him and invent unpleasant stories about her. She knew well enough the sort of things people could say, having been jilted three times. Some no doubt would feel sorry for her and murmur that he had married her out of pity, a thought that made her feel wretched.
She allowed Major Sturgeon to escort her to the shrubbery. Hermey positively grabbed Cousin Jasper by the arm, detaining him from following. Callie sat on a stone bench and folded her hands, examining the polish on the major's boots as he took all the blame upon himself for the breaking of their previous betrothal-as well he might, she thought dryly- proclaimed that he was a reformed man, swore to devote the remainder of his life to her welfare, and declared himself to be prostrate at her feet. He did not, thankfully, claim to be in love with her. He seemed to have at least a smidgen of shame left to him.
She listened to his proposal in silence and then said that she must have a fortnight to think about it.
Twelve
CALLIE LOVED AGRICULTURAL FAIRS. HER SITTING chamber at the Green Dragon, the same one she and her papa had always used, directly overlooked the wide street where all the stock would gather. They had spent many hours standing in this same window and trying to guess what sort of calves were hidden inside Mr. Downie's tarpaulin enclosure, or commenting on the suitability of some crossbred yearling ox for plowing. The earl would lean out the window and salute his friends, calling down to invite them inside to share a breakfast.
There was no standing off or holding oneself up stiff ly above the others. Humble Farmer Lewis would bring a jug of his best perry made from the celebrated black pears of Worcester, touch his forelock respect fully, and be welcomed to sit down to the table with the earl and everyone else. Callie always kept a place on the little sofa near the window, taking effervescent sips of pear cider and listening to the talk of sheep and orchards. She enjoyed the familiar whiff of soap scrubbed skin and tobacco, the earnest mixture of best Sunday clothes and work-toughened hands. There was always a sense of gay excitement, especially on the first day as the animals arrived, much hearty laughter and dreams of silver cups and prizes. Everyone felt as if anything could happen.
She stood by the sitting room window now, the room silent and empty behind her. It was very hard not to cry. She saw Mr. Downie go by in the street below, but she felt too shy to wave or call out, and there was no need, for she couldn't host a breakfast as her father had-it would seem a very strange thing for a spinster lady to invite a group of gentlemen and farmers to her rooms.
She had felt conspicuous enough arriving alone at the Green Dragon with only Lilly in her company, but the innkeeper knew her well and made her comfort able, kindly sending Farmer Lewis's offering of a jug up to her room. She wrote the good farmer a note of thanks, with a mention of how her father had always especially enjoyed to drink the product of his orchards, and wished him the best of luck with his entries this year. She sent it down with the boot boy. Then she did weep, just a little.
Her own stock was not to arrive until this evening, moving at a careful, steady pace along the back lanes the fourteen miles from Shelford. She herself had embarked much earlier than usual. The brief note Trev had left for her in the medicine chest had not been very informative, instructing her only to arrive at the Green Dragon as early as she could, and send Lilly out to the shops directly.
A great deal of shouting erupted below her as some crated pigs and geese had to be moved in order to accommodate the passing of a large closed van drawn by a pair of oxen. Callie recognized one of the Agricultural Society officers, Mr. Price, trying to settle a dispute over how wide the lane for traffic must be kept. He made a valiant effort, but after the van had lumbered through, the space narrowed rapidly behind it again.
She watched the vehicle creak to a halt across the street, just past her window, waved into place by two very large and daunting men in powdered wigs and matching green coats that stretched taut over their broad shoulders. Even before the doors were opened, they set about erecting the pen and tarpaulins to hide their entry. Callie bit her lip, her heart beating faster. She had never seen any cattle brought in a van before, though crates of the smaller stock often arrived on drays. But while the patient oxen stood waiting, the body of the van shifted and rocked ponderously on its axles in a manner no sheep or pigs would ever cause.
The crisp tarpaulins spread out in the morning sun, displaying a richly painted coat of arms with the name
The pair of uniformed handlers paused as he spoke to them. A crowd was gathering, but more men in green coats seemed to appear from nowhere, waving and pushing the onlookers back. A boy who tried to peek under the tarp was summarily lifted by his collar and deposited in a watering trough, much to the amusement of his elders. Such curiosity about what lay behind the tarps was always discouraged by the jeal ously competitive herdsmen, and often not so gently.
