“We will work out terms,” she said, then began making him the lowest offer she could think of. And when he in return asked for the sun and moon and stars, she knew that she would not see a bed that night.
32
Two weeks, Callie thought. Perhaps to others they were merely days, but to her they were a lifetime. Where was he? What was he doing?
But she knew the answer to that. In the last weeks she had repeatedly sneaked down to the house and watched. Always, he was surrounded by a fluttering group of pretty women, jewels winking on their gowns and in their hair. The wind carried the sounds of their giggling, of their little squeals of delight when they tried to teach Talis something.
The first time she had seen him with them, she’d snorted in derision. Talis would hate people hovering over him; he couldn’t stand Nigel fluttering about, wanting to see what Talis was doing. And too, she and Talis had taken great pride in their studies, always competing to see who could do the best job.
But the Talis she knew and the handsome young man sitting in the sunlight on the stone bench were not the same man. This Talis couldn’t do anything correctly.
“Show me again how to do that,” he’d say, then look up wide-eyed at some fat-chested girl, as though he’d never seen anyone as smart and pretty as she.
In the few minutes Callie stood to one side looking at him, he failed in his attempts to strike the correct strings on a lute, couldn’t sing (yet she knew he had a beautiful voice), and expressed amazement at some advice a girl with wide hips gave him on how to dress.
Callie didn’t know where all the young women came from. Some were his sisters, some were ladies-in-waiting, but most were strangers to her. It was as though every pretty female in the county had been ordered to surround Talis and tell him he was wonderful.
Callie didn’t know that Talis had seen her the moment she turned the corner and that his ineptitude with the hovering women had been solely for her benefit. Truthfully, he had found all—well, almost all—of the women annoying more than anything else. For the first week he had been flattered, but now they were in his way every time he took a step, asking him to help them onto horses, showing him their sewing, wanting to practice French with him, asking him to pick fruit from the highest tree branches because he was so very tall.
Philip and James had nudged him with their elbows, and at first Talis had smiled at them, but in the last few days, he’d turned a furious face to them, making them back away from him in fear.
And Callie, he thought. Callie.
Since he’d talked to Lady Alida he had tried to keep away from Callie. It was better for both of them, was his reasoning, and, besides, he needed to learn to get along without her. He was a grown man, wasn’t he? And it would be better for her, too, if she learned to get along with other women.
Yes, he thought, it would be better for both of them if they learned to live without each other’s company every minute of every day.
But instead of getting easier with each day, being away from her was becoming more difficult.
And then he had seen her watching him while he was surrounded by all those tittering idiots, and, like a fool, he had tried to make her jealous. Maybe he’d hoped that she would step into the middle of them and use a sword to scatter the girls.
But she hadn’t. Instead, she had turned away from him as though she had no desire ever to see him again.
Later he’d wanted to go to her, but his father seemed to keep him busy every minute of the day. For the thousandth time that day he looked up toward the hill behind the house. Edith had told him that Callie had asked to be given a garden to tend, and now she spent her days alone up there.
That had seemed odd to Talis at the time because he knew that Callie, like him, liked animals better than plants. Why had she not asked to care for the birds, the peahens and peacocks?
Just the thought that Callie was doing something he knew nothing about made him ache with longing for her. But this was better, he thought. If he didn’t see her, he would be able to keep his vows to Lady Alida and not touch Callie, not hold her in his arms. He wouldn’t have to see her eyes when he could not tell her that he was working every day toward the goal of marrying her and giving them and their children a wonderful place to live. She would forgive him for his neglect of her when she saw this Peniman Manor and knew that he had worked to give it to her.
“Why do you not sleep?” Philip asked Talis, annoyed with his brother’s tossing and turning. During the day one could see black circles under Talis’s eyes and he was becoming weaker by the day in his training. James had said that it was as though the life were draining out of Talis.
“She is crying and her tears hurt my heart,” Talis said softly.
Philip had never heard anyone say anything like that. And as any virginal young man, he was curious about the opposite sex. “Do you…do you go to bed with her?”
“No!” Talis said then calmed. “It’s not like that.”
“You just miss her then. I know, I miss James when he is gone.”
“No,” Talis said and searched for the words to explain how he felt about Callie. “I have loved many people in my life: Meg and Will, and now you and James, our father. Many people. And I miss the people I love when I am away from them. I miss Meg and Will very much, every day even. But with Callie…”
He paused. “With Callie it is different. I cannot say that I love her, or that I miss her. There is a deeper feeling than that. When she is not with me, it is as though part of me is missing. It’s as though I have been split in half and when she is gone half of me is open and raw. All my blood and muscle, even my brains drain out that open wound. Can you understand that?”
Philip could not, did not, want to understand such a feeling. If this was love, he wanted no part of it. He looked in the dark at Talis’s profile, at his staring, sightless eyes and wondered again if this young man really was his brother. Turning away, he went back to sleep. Tomorrow would be full of more of his father’s eternal training, and now that Talis was so distracted during the day, Philip got no respite from his father’s wrath. If he had his way he’d give this girl Callie to Talis and be done with it. Talis was much, much more pleasant when she was standing in the shadows watching him.
Just before he fell asleep, Philip once again prayed that he’d never fall in love.
“Perhaps I could make you a nice, hot broth,” Callie said sweetly to the young man lounging under the tree and watching her.
“Mmmm?” he said. “And what shall you put in it?”
“Anything my garden has to offer,” she said, batting her lashes at him.
Allen Frobisher laughed in a way that said he knew she didn’t mean a word of what she was saying. Why, if she made him something to drink from her garden it would have to be poisonous. And of course she didn’t mean to do that. Of course she adored him; all women did. How could they not, with his golden hair and his blue eyes and his tall, elegant form? Yet sometimes he almost thought that this girl, this plain-faced girl, did not, well, like him. Which was indeed impossible. Ridiculous even.
“Haven’t you someplace you should be?” she asked, a hoe in her hand, chopping at weeds around some purple flowers. “Isn’t there some heiress you need to try to wed?”
For an instant, Allen frowned. Sometimes the girl made him sound as though he were a nuisance. All in all, if Lady Alida weren’t paying him so much, he would leave this girl and never see her again. “Callie, dear, simple girl that you are, I do not think you fully realize who I am.”
Callie opened her mouth to make a retort to that, something along the lines of his being a wastrel, a worth-nothing, when, suddenly, she stood upright and, shielding her eyes from the sun, looked toward the horizon to watch a man making his way toward them.
Following her look, Allen glanced up; his only interest being whether or not the approaching man was that tall boy, that Talis. Two days ago he had ridden by, and Callie, who until then hadn’t given Allen the time of
day, suddenly became the most wanton creature he had ever seen. From under a tight, plain cap, she had unleashed a torrent of the most ravishing blonde hair, spreading it around the two of them as though it were a golden cloak. Then, in a honeyed voice, she’d begun telling him an outrageous story of dragons and mermaids. Allen had never been so fascinated by a woman in his life. Within seconds Callie had changed from a plain-faced girl into a seductive woman.
Allen had been so enraptured with this glorious change that he’d hardly noticed the tall young man sitting rigidly atop the horse, scowling down at the two of them. Allen had been told of the long-lost son John Hadley had found, but, to Allen, Talis didn’t look much like the rest of the Hadley family. He was a tall young man, sitting on an unruly horse that looked as though it would have delighted in kicking Allen’s head in. In fact, when Talis had looked at Allen, Allen had swallowed hard. If Callie’s hair had not caressed his face at that moment, he might have taken off running down the hill. As it was, Talis said not a word but merely looked at Callie, then turned his horse away.
As soon as he was once again alone with Callie, Allen started to pursue her licentious behavior, but when he reached his hands out to touch her, she soundly slapped his face. While he was rubbing his cheek (she was extraordinarily strong for a girl) she twisted all that hair back under her cap and her face changed from radiant back to the dullness he usually saw.
Never in his life had Allen been so intrigued by any female. It was as though there were two Callies: the one he was looking at now, chaste, demure, boring, and the one he’d seen very briefly two days ago, a Callie who was radiant, ardent, and oozed sensuality.
Now, Allen had been waiting for two days for that girl to reappear, but she hadn’t and he was beginning to get bored. He had no idea what he had done before to bring out the lust in her but he was a little tired of trying to regain it. He was much too vain to think that her sensuality had been for that dark Talis and not for him.
When the approaching man was close enough that Allen could see that he was nothing more than a peasant farmer, he had no more interest in him. Nor was his interest aroused when Callie threw down her hoe and went running toward the man, her arms outstretched. Lady Alida had hinted that the girl was not a lady, in spite of the belief that she was Gilbert Rasher’s daughter. Surely her embracing of this peasant was proof of her common birth.
When Callie returned, arm in arm with the old man, Allen took offense at the way the farmer told him to leave them, but he obeyed the man. For all of his rough clothes, there was an air about Will Watkins that made people obey him. With a great show that said he had meant to leave anyway, Allen mounted his horse and left the hill.
“Now,” Will said when he and Callie were comfortably seated under a shade tree, “I want to know everything. All of it.”
Will was not surprised when Callie flung her arms around him and began to cry. Never had he seen such unhappiness on Callie’s face. And only one thing in the world could make Callie unhappy: the absence of Talis.
“Where is he?” Will asked, not needing to say who “he” was.
“With women!” Callie spat, wiping her eyes. “Talis spends all day with beautiful women, women with bodies that…that…” She looked down at her own flat chest. “He does nothing but talk to them and sing to them and say sweet words to them. They are all over him. He cares for them, takes them riding, touches them, kisses them. He makes love to them all day and all night. He never stops. He—”
At this point Will smiled at her. “All day and night? Talis? And when does he sleep his twelve hours a day?”
Callie did not smile. “He is not the Talis we have always known. He is…He is an animal. He is no longer human. You would hate him if you knew him now.”
“Yes, I am sure I would. Tell me who this young man was who was lounging about under the tree and watching you. And what are you doing with these?” He waved his hand at the Poison Garden, his dislike of death plants evident.
“He is no one. Allen Frobisher.” Callie waved her hand in dismissal. “Talis lies to the women, tells them he cannot sing when he can. He wants them to hover over him and show him everything. You know how he can do anything that can be done, but when they are near, he pretends he can do nothing. He makes me sick. He would—”
“Who is Allen Frobisher?” Will persisted.
“I do not know. He comes here. I think he was sent by that Lady Alida. I do not like that woman. I think she has plans for Talis, and now Talis would not understand if the devil himself were planning to use him. Of course if the devil used a woman, Talis would agree to the plan. He’d sell his soul to get a woman near him. He’d—”
“Callie!” Will said. “Please try to direct your mind to something besides Talis’s many women and tell me—”
“Many! He has thousands of women! The world cannot contain his women. He wanted to be a knight but now all he does is follow women about. Dogs have more morals than he. He is—”
“Has he seen you with this Allen Frobisher?”
“Talis is the lowest snake, the dirtiest—” When she at last heard Will’s question, she smiled. “Yes, he saw us.” She gave a nasty little laugh. “Allen liked my hair; he liked my story.”
At that Will ran his hand over his eyes and shook his head. “Callie,” he said softly, “did you know that this Frobisher lad is very good-looking?”
Callie looked at Will as though he’d lost his mind. “He has white hair,” she said, as though Will were blind. “And his eyes are blue. And his skin is the color of unbaked bread. And he has legs as thin as a chicken’s.” By now she was leaning into Will’s face, speaking slowly and deliberately as though Will couldn’t understand the simplest of concepts. “Allen Frobisher is short.”
“You mean that he does not look like Talis, is not as tall as Talis, so therefore he could not possibly be handsome?”
“I did not say that,” Callie said with pride. “I’m sure there are many handsome men on earth.”
Will’s eyes were twinkling. “In these months you must have seen many men. Which of them are handsome?”
“There were a great many of them handsome,” she said stiffly. “Many, many of them.”
“I am waiting for one name. Just one man you thought was even half as princely as your beloved Talis.”
“He is not princely and he is not mine,” she said, looking away from Will. Then, suddenly, she turned back to him and threw herself onto his wide chest and started to cry. “There is no one on earth as handsome as Talis. No one. He is more beautiful than the sun and the moon together but he has forgotten me. He does not need me or want me. He thinks only of other women.”
“Does he sleep at night?”
“No,” she said, sniffing. “My crying keeps him awake and I am glad. I want to keep him awake. I hope I never let him sleep. I hope I make him miserable.”
Will stroked Callie’s back and didn’t say a word. She and Talis had grown up in such isolation that they did not know that what they said and thought were quite strange. Callie did not have any idea that other people did not know “in their minds,” as she always said, where another person was or what he was doing.
When the children had been little, a few times Talis had not come home at dark. Meg had been frantic, but she and Will soon learned that only if Callie was upset was there reason to be worried. The first time Talis had been “lost” Will had asked Callie to help look for him. “He will be home,” she’d said calmly. “I know in my mind that he is all right.”
After that, it had been common to ask either of the children what they knew “in their mind” about the other. Now, if Callie said Talis was kept awake at night by her tears then Will knew that it was true.
But what Callie didn’t seem to understand was that if the connection between them was so strong that she could keep him awake all night with her tears, then Talis was not in danger of falling in love with any other woman.
“Come, Callie, stop crying,” Will said
, holding her away from him. “I want to know everything that is going on. And do you not want to know about Meg? Have you forgotten Meg? She has sent dried apricots for you and Talis.”
“He does not deserve them,” Callie said. “I should make him a pie with these.” She waved her hand toward the poisonous plants.
At that reminder, Will frowned. “I want to know why you are here. Why have they put a girl in charge of a garden such as this? Why are you here alone with that young man? For all the good that sleeping old man does, you might as well be alone,” he said before she could point out Father Keris to him. “You must tell me everything.”
It was hours later that Will was able to get the full story out of Callie. For all that Callie was usually an excellent storyteller, when Talis was involved, she was nearly incoherent. She could say no more than a couple of sentences about her life since coming to Hadley Hall before she went off on a tangent about the perfidy of Talis, how he was lusting after every female in the county and how he cared absolutely nothing for her anymore.
Under all the words Will heard the loneliness in her voice, heard the emptiness of her life. If Callie had Talis she was interested in her stories and her animals and in other people, but without Talis she was interested in nothing. Without Talis she had no one to tell her stories to, no one to make laugh, no one to give to.
“And what does Talis feel about this?” Will interjected into yet another tirade from Callie about his “uncaring ways.” “Is he happy here?” They were sharing a beef pie that Callie had been given for dinner. That she was not to come to the house to sit at the table with the others was another indication to Will that something was deeply wrong.
“No,” Callie said before she thought, “Talis is not happy.”
“Oh? And how could he not be with all those women around him? That would have made me happy when I was his age.”