When he broke away, she could hardly gather her wits and recall who and where she was. He turned from her, sitting up and leaning back against the wall, staring at the tea table. He released a deep exhalation and closed his eyes. "I think—we had best stop there," he said.
"Oh," she said, vastly disappointed. "Gooseberries."
He laughed, turning to lean down to her again, his face close to hers. "I want you far too much," he said. "Miss Gooseberry."
Her eyes widened. "You do?"
"Oh no, I'm just about to have an apoplexy, that's all."
"An apoplexy!" She stuck out the tip of her tongue at him. "I suppose we don't want that."
"No indeed. Where would Hubert be if I fell dead on the f loor?"
"I expect I should have to call in Major Sturgeon," she said airily.
He nipped her shoulder hard enough to make her yelp. Then he nuzzled her throat. "That pompous f latfish? What would you want with him?"
Callie giggled. "If you must know, he said he would do anything for me," she informed him in an arch voice.
Trev drew back a little. "He did, did he? And just when did he make this satisfying offer?"
"He has called several times," she said. "He was most obliging."
She expected that Trev would laugh, but his face changed subtly, grew cooler. "Several times!" he said. "I suppose one can guess what his object is." He pushed away from her, leaning on one elbow, his back propped against the wall. "Has he proposed to you yet?"
Callie began to be sorry she had mentioned Major Sturgeon, even to tease. It was hardly the moment to bring up the most persistent admirer of her fortune. She bit her lip.
"Has he?" Trev sat up. He began to tuck in his shirt and rebutton his waistcoat.
When Callie didn't reply, he stood, leaving her amid the disarray of her skirts and chemise. She pulled the fabric over herself and sat up also.
"Of course he has," Trev said. His mouth formed a hard line. "Did you fob him off?"
Callie held the dress to her breast. "I suppose I should have," she said faintly.
"You didn't?" His voice held a slight crack. "You're engaged to him?"
"No," Callie said. "Of course not."
He blew out a harsh breath. Callie watched him uncertainly. A notion occurred to her, one that she wished for so much that she didn't even dare entertain it for more than an instant. He took a few paces across the room. She thought he might speak. He stopped before the window and stood with his hand gripped on the drape, staring out.
"So you refused him?" he asked without turning.
She would have liked to say that she had. It seemed worse than a disgrace now, it seemed a betrayal to be here with Trev, to want him beyond anything else, and yet be entertaining a proposal from another man. But it was not as if Trev had asked for her hand. Indeed, he said he was going away back to France. And he had said nothing to suggest that he desired to wed her and take her home to his estates. She might indulge in a great number of fantastical daydreams, but that was one fantasy that she ruthlessly denied to herself.
She straightened and lifted her chin, pushing back a lock of her hair that had fallen loose. "I told him that I would consider it."
He gave a brief, cold nod, as if he had expected it.
"I don't think I'll be happy living with Hermey." She felt compelled to explain. "And so…" Her voice trailed off. "Well, I said to him I would think it over."
He tilted his head back and gave a short laugh. "Sturgeon!" he said bitterly. He turned to her. "I don't trust him, Callie. It's your money he wants."
"Yes," she said stiff ly. "Of course."
He frowned at her, his jaw working.
She kept her chin lifted. "It would be foolish to expect at this juncture that I would marry out of affec tion or anything of that nature. If I married at all."
He stood looking at her, and then he shook his head. He put his hands up and ran them through his hair, as if he were quarreling with some recalcitrant and impossible child. He laughed again, a little wildly. "Accept him, then!" he exclaimed. "Why not? What's love to do with it, after all?"
She rose to her feet, gathering the white shawl from the f loor. "I only told him I would think about it. But Hermey's fiancé doesn't want me. And I can't remain at Shelford. I won't. Trev, I don't know what I'm to do! If you—if I thought for a moment, if I thought that you—" She stopped, unable to complete the sentence, angry that she had said so much. She turned her back, clutching the dress and shawl against herself.
A heavy silence filled the chamber. Callie could hear her own breathing, rough with gathering tears. She stared at the mahogany leg of a chair, waiting for what she knew would not come, feeling her heart break with foolish hopes, fruitless wishes. The words that he didn't say hung between them.
"Of course I have no right to question you," he said in a low voice. "I beg your pardon."
She could think of no reply. She squeezed her eyes shut as she heard him come behind her. He put his hands on her bare shoulders, a light, warm touch that was like a sweet ache all down through her body.
"I want you to be happy," he whispered. "I don't want him to hurt you again."
She shook her head wordlessly. All she could think was that he would go away, and not take her, and it hardly mattered what she did then. He put his face down in the curve of her neck.
"I know," he said softly, as if she had spoken her misery aloud. "I know." He sighed, his breath a warmth against her skin. "We have a few days."
"Three," she said in a small voice.
He ran his hands down her arms and back up again, then held her against him, his lips at her throat. "Callie, I do love you. You know that."
She shook her head again, very quickly. "Don't," she implored. "Do not suppose you have to say that. I know you're my friend, my very best friend, and—that is quite enough."
"Friend," he said with a slight, derisive laugh. "Your friend." With a fierce move he clasped her hard and kissed her, burying his face in her shoulder. "Give me these three days, Callie."
She made a whimper of assent, nodding.
"It'll be our finest adventure," he whispered. "I promise you." He lifted his head and drew a deep breath against her hair. Then he slipped the chemise up over her shoulders and pulled the dress into place. With a few authoritative tugs, he buttoned the fabric over the tight corset while Callie held in her breath and smoothed down the front.
For a moment he stood behind her, resting his cheek on her head and holding her gently. Then he reached down and retrieved her hat.
"Now we must set you to rights and embark upon our first mission," he said briskly. "Procuring a steady source of Bath buns."
Thirteen
HAVING TAKEN DOWN AN ORDER, IN SPITE OF THE heavy accent of his customer, for twelve dozen Bath buns to be delivered daily to the exhibition pen of Monsieur Malempré, an elated baker escorted Monsieur and Madame into the street. He took leave of them with a surfeit of bowing and repeated pledges that his buns would most assuredly contain a generous measure of white currants. Having bespoke the buns, at a price so outrageous that it would have embarrassed His Majesty's pastry chef, Trev took Callie's arm and turned her toward the High Town.
He kept his hat brim low and gave the veiled lady on his arm the benefit of his full attention and gallantry. He was not overly concerned that Hubert would be recognized in the city of Hereford, but he was not so sanguine about himself. Here in the marches of the West Country, close by to Bristol—that first-rate source of burly butchers' boys anxious to enter the prize ring—the very soil seemed to produce prime pugilists. Trev had always limited his own scouting to the south and east, deliberately avoiding Hereford and Shelford and Callie, but he would be a fool to count himself perfectly safe here. He was too well-known among the Fancy.
Jock and Barton had been busy chasing up old acquaintance for the past several days, calling in all favors on Trev's behalf. And he had a wealth of credit to call upon, he found, for the thing h
e'd done for Jem Fowler's wife and baby boy. The hefty green-coated footman who now walked behind the Malemprés had only recently been pummeling a challenger in some set-to in a Bristol training yard. Across the way lounged a pair of regular brutes in the science, who owed their success and early opportunities largely to Trev's patronage. The men assigned to handle Hubert were experienced both in cattle yards and prizefights. There was a marvelous inf lux of boxing men to Hereford at the moment.
For his own part, Trev had discarded his Belcher necktie and adopted a sword cane and several other sartorial details to camouf lage himself as a continental beau rather than a sporting buck. Walking beside Callie now, he regretted having chosen the name Malempré for their masquerade—he'd been in a hurry, arranging for the van and commanding the painting of the canvas to swathe Hubert's pen, and the first name he'd summoned to mind was a town in Belgium where he'd spent a few weeks of his imprisonment just after Napoleon's first abdication.
It had been an easy enough situation there. On his gentleman's honor to attempt no escape, he'd had the freedom of the pretty village and even waltzed at the assemblée. The sole inconvenience had been the wife of the local chevalier, who had conceived a most ardent fondness for Lieutenant LeBlanc on the basis of a single trif ling kiss, which no amount of diplomacy—or indeed, discourtesy—had seemed to cool. She had been so relentless in her pursuit that he'd become the butt of the captive officers' mess until he was moved to Brussels to await a prisoner exchange that had never materialized—the defeated French apparently having no pressing need for one more LeBlanc littering their countryside.
He'd forgot about her until this morning, and that her name was also Malempré—a silly oversight that annoyed him. It seemed almost an insult to Callie. But it was too late to change now. He carried in his inner pocket several copies of a broadside imprinted with the handsome image of a dark bull and the breathless details of the Malempré Challenge:
The CERTIFIED Measurements of the Celebrated
BELGIAN BULL of Malempré! Freshly Arrived
in England, to Tour the Entire Country! The
PRIZE offered to Any BULL of Any Breed that
can be Proven GREATER in All Dimensions! 500
GUINEAS and a Silver Salver with the NAME of
the Winner ENGRAVED beneath its Likeness!
He had made sure that Colonel Davenport would be absent for the formal announcement by the simple expedient of putting a man to spy on him and discov ering his schedule. The good colonel was engaged this morning to determine which farm laborer had the honor of Supporting the Largest Number of Legitimate Offspring without Recourse to the Parish, for a prize of two pounds, and thereafter to judge turnips. Presumably he would be fully occupied in the counting of children and adjudicating of root vegetables, and unable to attend the public proclamation that Trev had arranged to give under the auspices of the president of the Agricultural Society. The colonel would not remain long in the dark, however, as Trev had caused a copy of the Challenge to be delivered to him by hand, courtesy of Monsieur Malempré, along with a bottle of excellent French wine to rub salt in the wound.
Trev had at first felt a twinge of guilt over leading Davenport a dance, but then he'd thought of how the fellow had taken Callie's bull and refused to sell it back for an honest price. When he remembered her tearstained cheeks hidden under the bonnet, his brief qualm vanished, replaced by a chilly desire to carve a liberal piece out of anyone who made her unhappy. Knowing that he himself was not entirely blameless in that regard did nothing to diminish his ire, but rather made him more inclined to exact revenge on whatever culprit he could reach.
"Something is amiss, Monsieur?" Callie asked in a worried tone, gamely keeping to French as she looked up sideways at him through the netting.
Trev realized that he was scowling, and softened his expression. "I beg your pardon," he replied, smiling down at her. "I was meditating on the shocking cost of pastries in this town."
"I understand you," she said with feeling. "Mrs. Farr would take to her smelling salts if she knew."
"We must pray that my bank will stand against the strain. But we have an hour or two before we issue our announcement—what would you like to do? Take in the shops?"
"I would rather look at the animals," she said. She spoke very pretty French, he thought, when she would venture to do so. It made him want to kiss her, to brush his mouth against her lips while she formed the words. "Would it be possible?"
"Certainly. Whatever would please you the best, ma chérie." He f lourished his cane and pointed as they turned the corner to the wide street that was filling rapidly with all manner of livestock for the show. Under the shadow of the cathedral spire, the scent of a barnyard permeated the air. "Where shall we begin? Let us critique the pigs!"
"Do you make a study of pigs, Monsieur?" she asked, with a muff led note of amusement.
"Of course. I've observed them frequently on my breakfast plate." They had neared the first of the pens, where a stockman was lovingly bathing the ears of an enormously fat spotted sow. Five piglets squealed and gurgled about her panting bulk. "Note the marvelous coil of the tail." He gestured with his cane. "Absolute perfection!"
"And those ears," Callie said, nodding sagely. "She appears to have two!"
"Four legs," Trev added, cataloging all her points.
"Are you certain she has legs?" Callie asked dubi ously. "I don't see any."
"They are hidden under her porcine vastness," he informed her. He tilted his head speculatively as they reached the pen. "Unless she has wheels. Perhaps she rolls from place to place?"
The handler glanced up, startled to hear a language not his own. Seeing a fashionable lady and gentleman observing him, he straightened up and pulled his forelock, red-faced.
"An animal par excellence," Trev said in thickly accented English as he indicated the pig with an approving nod. He reached inside his coat and drew forth one of the printed broadsides. "Myself, I have a bull."
The stockman took the bill and perused it with a serious air. He seemed to read it, though Trev had made sure there were numerals in addition to words, for the edification of the illiterate. A working man might not have book learning, but the number of guineas was something that anyone would compre hend. "Looks to be a dead gun, sir," the stockman said politely.
Trev was well aware of the local vernacular, but he affected surprise. "Dead? No, he is alive, very much, I assure you!"
"Aw, no sir, I mean to say, he looks a dead good 'un, sir. Them's his length and breadth, in'net?"
"And five hundred gold, you see there," Trev pointed out, "to say there is none to match him."
The stockman grinned, showing spaces in his teeth. He shook his head. "Naw, sir, I fear you'll be losing it. Him's a good big 'un you got there, but we've the biggest old bull ever you seen, right here, comin' up today from Shelford."
"Indeed!" Trev said. "But I must see this animal. Who belongs to him?"
"Colonel Davenport has him now, but 'tis his late lordship's bull. The Earl of Shelford, sir. They call him Hubert."
"Ah yes." Trev nodded wisely. "Of this bull I have had a great description. With red and black—how do you say this—the spots—ah, mottles, eh? Hubert." He gave it the French pronunciation, "Oo-bear". "I long to see him!"
"You'll see him, sir. Can't miss him, can you? He's the size of a house."
Trev turned to Callie and said in rapid French, "Good. Better to raise the challenge first, before they all learn he's gone missing." He patted her arm and reverted to English again. "And what do you think of this lovely pig, Madame?"
"A peeg of the first merit," she said obligingly, with such an earnest copy of his overwrought enunciation that Trev found it difficult to keep a straight countenance.
"Indeed," he agreed. "Great good luck to you with this peeg, mon ami."
The stockman thanked Trev with a gruff acknowl edgment. They left him turning to his curious neighbor with the broadside stretched out in his han
d. From there, Trev was quite certain, the word would spread. He had planted news of a bout often enough to know how quickly intelligence could travel.
"But deplorably fat," Callie murmured as they walked away. "I cannot approve of it. She will overheat."
Trev nodded gravely. "I thought I smelled bacon burning."
She gave a gurgle of laughter under her veil but then added in a troubled tone, "It's not really a funning matter, though. It's become all the rage amongst the cottagers to show a poor pig so fat that it cannot even get up without help. I fear they suffer for it. I mean to write a letter to the society. I place full blame upon the judges for encouraging it."