'Hurry!' Callie's voice drifted to him. 'Oh!' Her voice rose in pitch. 'Oh my!'
Trev's heart was pounding. He drew a deep breath into his lungs. He remembered that he was in the cattle yard, not in his bedroom. Faint lamplight outlined the door of the tool room. He picked his way more carefully and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, dragging on one boot. Callie urged him again to come quickly, her voice echoing in the eaves.
'On my way!' he responded, rolling up his shirt sleeves and attempting to sound as if he were wide awake. He could just see the clay-paved corridor as he hobbled past the granary on the way to the cattle stalls, carrying one boot. Down the long row, she was standing with her stockman and a farm boy at the edge of the lamp glow, her palms pressed together and her eyes alight.
'Look!' she said, pointing toward a lush bed of straw.
Trev blew out a breath of relief. He'd been deputized to provide added manpower in case it was required, a task which The Complete Grazier had not made to sound inviting, but from her joyful expression he could see that all was well. As he reached the open stall, a large cow heaved herself to her feet, revealing a wet and unprepossessing bundle of calf in the straw. Trev appeared to have slept through the grittier details of the procedure, for the tiny beast was already licked clean and attempting to get its hind legs under it in a wobbly effort to rise.
'It's a bull calf,' Callie whispered, leaning toward him. 'Our first!'
'Congratulations,' Trev said low, winking at her.
She took his arm and watched as the calf struggled to get its legs in order, collapsed, and tried again. This time he made it, standing with his feet splayed, trembling but upright, his damp tail f lapping from side to side.
'Oh, bravo! On the second try!' She cast a glowing look up at Trev. 'I never tire of seeing this,' she confided, resting against him in a gratifying manner that fully made up for his cracked shin and the fact that he still only had one boot on. 'Look at his perfect mottling! He looks a great deal like Hubert, don't you think?'
'Exceedingly like,' Trev agreed with a sage nod, privately considering that he had never seen anything that looked less like Hubert than this wobbly scrap of life that seemed to be all legs and eyes. As if to disagree with his assessment, the proud father favored them from somewhere in the distance with a prolonged, plaintive bellow.
'Is it that late? The sun must be coming up.' Callie glanced over her shoulder. Hubert had removed with them to the new property at Hereford, a wedding gift from Colonel Davenport-which was damned decent of the man, Trev thought, considering that the bridegroom had punched him in the breadbox. She had accepted the gift with fervent gratitude and promised the colonel one of Hubert's offspring, but it was not to be this particular one, Trev surmised. She was leaning over and baby-talking to the calf, cooing and encouraging its first step like a new mother.
Trev might have been a bit jealous if it weren't for the fact that she made equally foolish babble over their own two-month-old son. Master Etienne Shelford d'Augustin had also been pronounced to be the perfect image of his father, so Trev could feel satisfied that he rated well up with Hubert on the paternal scale of things. Hubert, of course, got by with lying about in a pasture, having done his duty, eating and sleeping himself to another championship, while Trev was sitting up with Callie for late-night feedings, walking the halls with a crying infant, and applying himself to a new life of bonds and cent per cents and bank shares instead of sporting bets.
He had a family of his own. Etienne's program rather resembled Hubert's: eat and sleep, with the addition of periodic howling sessions. Trev had never realized that babies were so consistently raucous, but if that was the price of admission, he was more than willing to pay. He experienced some indescribable prickle of sensation across his skin every time he watched his wife and son together, sitting up late at night in the house he had bought for her, just the three of them together.
Assured that the new calf was up and nursing, Callie left her stockman with a lengthy set of instructions and then allowed Trev to escort her back to the house, kindly pointing out to him that he ought to put his boot on first. Faint light barely touched the horizon, outlining the heavy, strange shapes of ancient oaks. Trev carried a bucket of warm molasses mash, walking over the dewy grass beside her. They had been here only a six-month, but all the fences were in trim, and the hay fields ripening. Their house stood elegantly on level ground overlooking the River Wye: nothing so great and magnificent as Shelford Hall, but a pretty mansion, recently built, with six bedrooms, two drawing rooms, and a modern kitchen that had almost brought Cook to tears of delight.
Callie paused at the gate to felicitate Hubert on his accomplishment, covering him with compliments that would have made a debutante blush. Trev merely told him that he was a jolly good fellow and offered the mash. Hubert appeared to fully appreciate the gesture, tipping the bucket over with relish and consuming the treat off the grass with his great tongue.
Around them, birds had begun to twitter in the growing light. On the far side of the pasture, a fox trotted into the open, stopped and stared at them a moment, and then vanished into the hedgerow. Callie stood tiptoe on the fence, a little disheveled, her hair trailing loose and her collar turned up on one side.
The thought that he might have been in Shanghai at this moment, instead of where he was, brought such a fierce tenderness to Trev's chest that he blinked twice and then informed her brusquely that he would like a moment in private with her, as he had a mind to do some highly indecent things to her person. It was not precisely what he would have liked to say, but he had no words sufficient for that.
She turned with one of her sidelong, mischievous smiles and gave him her hand, hopping down from the fence and into his arms. Beyond that, it seemed, words were not presently required.
'It's a bull!' Callie informed the duchesse when she came down for breakfast.
'Voyons, did I not predict?' Madame said with satisfaction. She allowed Nurse to seat her at the table. 'You owe me a guinea, Trevelyan, and do not wager against the brave Hubert again, if you are wise.'
'Strip me of my fortune, will you?' Trev kissed his mother's hand and carried his newspaper back to the window. 'Take care you don't become a hardened gambler on the strength of this success.'
'But no, can I help myself to bring young men to ruin?' She lifted a hand as Callie moved toward the door. 'Ma fille, pray allow Nurse to attend to Etienne and have a cup of tea with me to celebrate this great event. Then we will go and dote on him together, eh? He has not yet been sufficiently spoiled by his grand maman today.'
Callie assented to this agreeable plan and sat down again. The duchesse had made a recovery that even the London physician called miraculous, though Callie privately thought it could be attributed largely to having her son back with no cloud over his situation. Trev claimed it was because he wouldn't allow any lancets for bleeding in the house. The duchesse had merely smiled at all their speculations and asked to hold Etienne very often.
'Good God,' Trev exclaimed suddenly, rattling the newspaper. 'Listen to this!' He folded the paper back. ''The marriage of John L. Sturgeon and Emma Fowler, nee Braddock, took place in Florence, Italy, in a private ceremony.'' He laughed and shook his head. 'I never thought I'd feel for Sturgeon, but Lord save the poor devil. I wonder how she managed that?'
'She's very taking,' Callie said. This news, while surprising, somehow made her smile behind her teacup. 'I think he likes that.'
Trev made a sound of disgust. 'Taking, indeed. She'll take his hide and tan it for a new pair of gloves.'
'It pleases me to see that I have brought you up wisely, Trevelyan,' the duchesse murmured. 'I never believed that you would fall in love with such a one as that.'
'Nary a chance,' he said, smiling at Callie. 'I was in a hopeless case long before I ever met the lovely Fowler.'
Callie blushed and peeked at him over her cup. 'I wonder what the magazines will make of this?'
'At least ten volumes, I'm sure. What I wonder, my love, is who blackmailed that unlucky devil out of marrying you? Not that I don't bless 'em every day, but I've turned over every angle I can conceive, and still I can't reckon who it would benefit-' He stopped abruptly. An arrested expression came over his face. He looked toward his mother.
'And now I go to puddle my grandson, I think,' the duchesse said lightly, laying her napkin aside and rising from her chair. 'Will you come with me,
''Cuddle,' ma'am,' Callie said, suppressing a smile. 'Of course I will come.'
'A moment, Maman,' Trev said sternly, standing up. 'Geordie Hixson called on you, did you tell me once? When was that?'
'Ah!' She made a careless gesture. 'I'm much too old to recall such a detail. But a charming young man. I was so sorry to learn that he had passed away. I liked him very much. We were great friends in one afternoon.'
'I can imagine,' Trev said dryly. 'No doubt he told you many stories of the war.'
'Several,' she agreed. She lifted her thin brows. 'I fear he didn't like his commanding officer and unbur dened himself to me on the topic.'
'Did he!'
'Yes, and perhaps it was not well done of me, but when I mentioned to him that my young friend at the great house was engaged to marry this same officer, he was most dismayed.'
Trev shook his head slowly. 'No, it wasn't Geordie. Sturgeon said he was dead before he got the blackmail note.'
'Of course it was not him!' she said, shocked. 'He was far too honorable a young man to stoop to such a thing! In fact, it was upon a point of military honor that he took greatest exception to his officer's behavior, I believe.'
Trev's mouth quirked. 'I see. And how did you dispatch the other two, ma mere?'
Callie took a sharp breath. She looked back and forth between her husband and the duchesse. 'Trev! You can't be accusing your mother of… of-'
'Of blackmailing them all into jilting you?' He grinned. 'Indeed not. I'm not accusing her. I'm about to get down on my knees and express my burning gratitude to her.'
'It was nothing, my son,' she said demurely. 'Mrs. Easley obliged me by cutting up the papers and pasting them and seeing the notes delivered.'
'Ma'am!' Callie exclaimed.
'I hope you are not too angry with me, cherie. I know that it hurt you a little each time, and for that I am very, very sorry.' She gave Callie a worried look. 'You did not greatly wish to marry any of them, did you?'
'Well, no, I didn't, but-'
The duchesse lifted her chin. 'None of those men could have loved you as you deserve,' she declared, 'or they would not have paid the slightest heed to a silly note.'
Callie was much struck by this view of the matter. 'I suppose you're right,' she said wonderingly. 'Though I never thought any of them loved me at all.'
