Again, My Lord: A Twist Series Novel (13 page)

“Thank you, my lord. You are truly gallant.”

They descended, and Tacitus did not allow himself to consider that this was unwise or to berate himself for weakness. For the first time in far too long, he felt happy. Even if only for a stolen moment, he would take it.

Calista tucked the fowling piece
against her shoulder, pointed it at Old Mary, and set her finger to the trigger.

“Wait! Good God, wait, woman!” Lord Dare stumbled into the belfry, his hand outstretched and eyes fraught. “What are you doing?”

She turned her attention back to the bell.

“I know how to shoot.” She dug the stock more tightly into her shoulder. “My brother taught me years ago.”

He came forward and knocked the barrel aside, then grabbed her wrist.

“What—”

His eyes flashed with fury as he wrenched the weapon from her hands. “He obviously didn’t tell you that solid metal will repel grapeshot right back at you. Good God, it’s a good thing I saw you coming in here just now.” Holding the rifle and her wrist both tightly between them, he gaped. “What were you
thinking
?”

She tugged out of his grip and backed away from him.

“I told you at breakfast. I cannot bear to hear this bell ring at dawn one more time. Not even
one
more time. If I have to hear it again, I think I will go mad. Truly mad.”

“And you don’t think shooting at it with a hunting rifle is already a sign of madness?”

“Yes!
Yes,
I do. But I haven’t any other choice in the matter. I have no choice in
any
matter. No matter what I do, nothing changes. Every act I make, every plan I devise, every word I utter disappears as though it never existed. I thought that if I shot at it—”

“You would accidentally shoot yourself and not have to take the blame for having done so?” he demanded.

“
What?
No. No, I didn’t— I never would— My son needs me—”

“Because I’ll tell you, after my parents died, I went down that ugly road. I thought through the entire thing logically and rationally, again and again. And again and again I came to the same conclusion: I was the worst sort of coward for even entertaining the idea.” His eyes were thunderclouds. “And if there is one thing I am certain about, it is that you, madam, are not a coward.” He gestured with the rifle toward the bell. “I don’t know what this is about. But it has been clear to me all day—even since last night when I arrived in this village—that all is not right with you. Whatever is going on, I needn’t know the details of it to know that you are made of stronger stuff than this. You can conquer it.”

“I don’t know if I can,” she said.

“You must. You will.”

“How do you know that? You don’t know anything about me. Not for years.”

“Perhaps. But I don’t think a person alters her character so severely, not in so few years.”

“You disapproved of me then.”

“Yes,” he said. “And no.”

“You had no right to.”

He seemed to draw a deep breath. “Whose is this?” He gestured with the rifle.

“Reverend Abbot’s.” It had taken her all day to locate a firearm, shot, and powder that she could borrow without notice.

“Come with me,” he said, and disappeared into the stairwell.

Calista followed him down the stairs, from the church, and along the soggy high street in the dark toward the opposite end of the village. He strode with purpose, not looking back at her, and directly to the pub. He halted at the door.

“Wait here,” he said. “Don’t move. Can you do that?”

She nodded.

“Keep this.” He handed her the rifle. “But, for God’s sake, don’t go back to that church and try to shoot that infernal bell.”

“You trust me not to?”

“Yes.” He went inside and returned shortly with a stack of glasses and bottles lodged beneath his arms. “Bring the piece.” He set off toward the blacksmith’s shop and then walked past it to the ford.

“Where are you going?”

“Here,” he said above the rippling rush of the water. He halted before the stone wall that bordered the swollen creek on the side of the smith’s shop, and set down the bottles. One by one he arranged the glasses along the wall at intervals of a few feet.

Calista watched in wonder. He surprised her every day. She never anticipated him. The night before, when he sat on that hard wooden pew and talked to her until dawn, as the hours passed and she told him about Harry and he told her about his parents, she’d felt happy for the first time in days. Simply happy. And as the night passed she had become certain—
certain
—that the bell would not wake her in her bed at seven o’clock.

Yet it had.

And she had gone a little insane. Rather,
more
insane.

“All right.” He came to her side. Starlight glimmered off the water and the empty glasses and full bottles standing like soldiers in a row. “I assume this is loaded?”

“It is.”

“Do you have more shot and powder with you?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now, my lady, you may shoot.”

“At those?”

He nodded, his face serious. “It should help.”

“To shoot
those
?”

“Yes, woman.” He snatched the rifle from her hands, took a step away from her, raised it to his shoulder, and a deafening blast sounded as smoke arose from the barrel and a bottle exploded into splashing shards. He lowered the rifle. “There. I feel better already.” He glanced at her. “Where is that shot and powder?”

She laughed.

“The shot, madam?” he urged.

She gave it to him, and the powder horn. “You are an extraordinary person, Tacitus Everard.”

“Because I can shoot a bottle of whiskey at four yards out?” he said as he poured shot down the barrel.

“Yes,” she said, biting her lips.

“Your standards are far too low.” He handed her the rifle. “Now it’s your turn.”

She shot and missed. After reloading, he adjusted her grip and Calista tried very hard not to pay attention to the pleasure of his hands on hers while silently cursing the acrid gun smoke that overpowered his scent.

The next try went better; she nicked a glass.

On the third try, she hit a bottle and it burst in glorious abandon.

“Brava,” he said. “And just in time for us to be reprimanded by the local law.”

The constable’s bulky silhouette lumbered toward them from the direction of the pub. Calista held her breath. She had already spent several hours in the tiny Swinly jail after she chopped down Old Mary. She would rather not repeat that particular detail of her day.

“Good evening, gentlefolks,” he said pleasantly, a roll in his tongue from his tenure in the pub. He stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat and rocked on his heels. “Having a bit of target practice, are we?”

“Yes, sir,” Lord Dare said with a conspiratorial smile at her that dove straight into Calista’s toes. “Would you care to join us?”

“Don’t mind if I do.” The constable accepted the rifle and promptly sent a glass flying from the wall.

“Well done, Pritchard!” Mr. Alan Smythe came toward them. Beside her, the marquess seemed to stiffen. “What are you all at, shooting at midnight?”

“Simply shooting at midnight,” she said. “Will you take a shot, Mr. Smythe?”

He smiled charmingly, but it was a different smile than usual. Tonight it did not invade.

“No, thank you, my lady. I’ll leave that to men who actually possess that skill. But while my lord and the constable are at it, might I have a private word with you?”

“Her ladyship is shooting too, Smythe,” Lord Dare growled. “She is getting quite good at it.”

Mr. Smythe’s chin seemed to tuck inward. “Of course she is. Forgive me, my lady.”

“You are forgiven, Mr. Smythe,” Calista said, “and I will be glad to speak with you. Lord Dare, save me a bottle.” She took Mr. Smythe’s arm and walked a few paces away. “How may I help you?”

“At the risk of seeming atrociously indelicate, I wonder if you might share with me what you know of Mrs. Cooke.”

“Mrs. Cooke? The dressmaker?”

“The very lady. I made her acquaintance briefly today, when I went to her shop on your behalf. And may I say, this gown suits you superbly. I would not have thought worsted wool would do justice to your beauty. But it is a remarkably clever design, and the embroidery is superb about the collar.”

“Thank you.” She studied his intricately tied neckcloth and the fine fabric of his greatcoat that sported three capes. “You are an admirer of fashion, I think. Do you wish to consult Mrs. Cooke on patterns and fabrics and such?”

“I do indeed. But before that … that is to say, my lady … I should very much like to know if there is a
Mr
. Cooke in the picture.”

Of course.

“Mrs. Cooke is a widow. Her husband of only two years perished at Waterloo.”

“A widow of some time already, then.” His shoulders seemed to loosen. “That’s good news. That is, terrible tragedy, of course,” he amended swiftly.

“Mr. Smythe, are your intentions towards Mrs. Cooke honorable?”

His eyes popped wide. And then his mouth twisted into a sheepish grin.

“Lady Holland, I am honestly shocked to admit that they are.”

She smiled. “Then I wish you success in your courtship.”

“Courtship?” the marquess said, coming to her shoulder.

Mr. Smythe’s cheeks filled with red. “Thank you, my lady. Good evening to you both.” He bowed and hurried back toward the pub.

Lord Dare looked after him. “What was that about?”

The silvery blue light of the stars cast his face in shadows and the scar looked especially dashing. She wondered how he had acquired it. She wondered if it had hurt him terribly and if anyone had comforted him in his pain. Last night he had told her things she had not known about his family and his life, things she had not bothered learning from him six years earlier. Now she wanted to know so much more.

“It seems that Mr. Smythe fancies Mrs. Cooke,” she said.

“The dressmaker?”

“Yes. He intends to court her. It’s marvelous. If I had not fed the cat and so gone in to breakfast late, and if Molly had not spilled that coffee on me instead of Mr. Dewey at just the moment Mr. Smythe came through the foyer, and if he had not offered to ask Mrs. Cooke to call upon me, he might continue to pass through this village twice a year and never meet her, though she is only one hundred yards from him every time. Isn’t it delightful what an accidental happenstance can lead to?”

He was silent, only his beautiful eyes intent upon her features, one feature after another.

“Yes,” he finally said. “I wish him well in it. Now, there is one bottle left to be destroyed. Will you do the honors?”

She smiled; but now, strangely, it was an effort to do so. “Thank you, my lord.”

She shot the bottle. And for a few precious moments she did feel better.

Calista awoke groggily,
cracking her eyes open to the gray dawn and slowly drawing in a lungful of cold air. She counted Old Mary’s tolls, but she already knew when they would cease. Turning her head aside on the pillow, she watched the rain run along the pane, an endless stream of heaven’s tears.

No tears threatened her eyes. What was the purpose of weeping when it would have no effect? What was the purpose of doing anything when nothing had any effect? She had never had much influence on anything; not on her family’s scandal or its recovery under Ian’s guidance, not on her father’s decision to sell her to Richard, and not on her husband except to rouse his jealousy and possessiveness.

Now she was thoroughly impotent. She had no power to wrest Harry from her husband’s control, and no power to end this endless day. She understood that finally.

She supposed she ought to thank God that she would never be obliged to return to Richard. Yet without her son, it was a hollow, horrible prize.

She dressed, and when she opened her bedchamber door the cat bounded in and straight to her dressing table. Leaping up beside the statue of Aphrodite, it curled its body around the stone, rubbing its brow against the goddess’s knees and twining its tail around her lovingly. It purred.

“I don’t like her, you know,” Calista said. “You cannot change my opinion.”

The animal meowed.

Jumping down from the table, it followed her to the kitchen for its breakfast. Accepting from Mrs. Whittle a slice of buttered bread for herself, Calista took up an umbrella and escaped the inn before Mr. Pritchard and Harriet could arrive, before Molly could douse her with coffee, and before she could see the civil distance in the Marquess of Dare’s eyes.

She had no further desire to try to silence Old Mary. That madness had passed with the shattering of whiskey bottles.

She crossed the rainy yard swiftly and ducked into the stable. Shaking her skirts, she went in search of her coachman and found him feeding the carriage horses.

“Mornin’, milady.”

“Good morning, Mr. Jackson. We shan’t be traveling home today. The ford has flooded over.”

Distress clouded his eyes.

“Are you— What is the matter?” she asked.

He turned from her and his trembling hands made the pail rattle. Perhaps he had already taken to the bottle this morning.

“Nothin’ a’tall. The horses’ll be well-rested to go tomorrow.”

“Mr. Jackson, I wish you would tell me what your trouble is. In my husband’s absence, it is my responsibility to take care of such things.”

“T’ain’t nothin’ you can take care of, milady,” he grumbled, and left the stall.

“Come now. Why don’t you try me?”

He set down the pail and heaved a great sigh. “My Petey, my second boy, he’s been off in the East Indies for some time now.”

“In the Army?”

“Aye. Signed up the very week his mum passed four years ago. I haven’t seen him since.”

“You must miss him dreadfully.” She knew that ache well.

He nodded, then his face crumpled.

“Oh, dear.” She reached out to touch his arm. “Why don’t you sit down?” She urged him to a bench and he slumped upon it, then she joined him. “Has something happened to him?”

“I’d a letter ten days ago,” he said dully. “My boy sickened with a fever. It— It took him quick, his captain said. He didn’t suffer too much.” Tears fell onto his cheeks.

“I am so sorry,” she said. “So very sorry.” But this was too painful. Much too painful for her. This was the reason for his drunkenness in the past sennight, and it dug too deeply, too swiftly. She stood up. “If there is anything I can do for you, you must let me know.”

“My older boy, Bartholomew, he don’t know about Petey yet. With the master doin’ so poorly of late, Mr. Baker’s been too busy to write to him.”

“Mr. Baker? Why would my husband’s valet write to your son?”

“He’s a good soul, Mr. Baker is. He does it for me, seein’ as I can’t.”

“You cannot write?”

He shook his head. “Can’t read neither.”

“Oh. I see.”

“I’d like to tell Bart about our Petey. They were thick as thieves when they were lads. Then Bart went off to serve a gentleman in Leeds and Petey couldn’t bear staying at home without his brother and mum both. It’ll break my boy’s heart to hear his brother’s gone. But I’m anxious to tell him. Then, I suppose, we can comfort each other.”

“I daresay,” she whispered. She clutched her hands together at her waist. “Do let me know if I can assist you with anything … here.” She looked around. “Not that I really could. I don’t know how to care for horses.”

Jackson nodded somberly.

“I am so terribly sorry, Mr. Jackson. Truly.”

She fled the stable. But there was nowhere to go to escape her fear of never seeing Harry again. Of all of the horrors of this curse, that fear was by far the worst.

~o0o~

Through the taproom window, Tacitus watched Calista Holland leave the inn, walk up the high street and disappear from view, and then return an hour later carrying a wrapped bundle. Crossing the foyer, she ascended the stairs, leaving a trail of water dripping behind her.

Shortly, she came down the stairs in a dry gown and cloak, took up an umbrella, and went out again.

An hour later, she returned, this time empty-handed, and the entire process repeated itself.

Then again.

The fourth time, he donned his coat and followed her. The rain had finally ceased but the roads and paths she took were sodden. From twenty yards behind her he admired her even stride despite the mud, the set of her shoulders, and the fall of her wet hair down her back. She wore no bonnet and had left her hair unbound.

She seemed to have no destination. She walked to the ford, then behind a smith’s shop to a path that wended along the swollen creek, then across a field and up a hill. Descending, she climbed over a stile, crossed another field, this one peopled with sheep, and, after she passed through it, closed a gate that had stood wide open. When he opened it to follow her, she halted.

“Do make certain to fasten the latch firmly, my lord,” she called back to him. “The sheep will escape if you don’t.”

He did so, but before he could walk to her she started off again.

She was an odd, mysterious woman.

“Have you a destination?” he called forward.

“No,” she shouted back, and turned from the path onto another that led up another rise.

He jogged to catch up with her, the muddy earth splashing on his boots. She did not break her stride or slow for him.

“What are you doing, then?” he said, coming to her side.

“Strolling. Obviously.”

“Have you taken this same path on each of your four previous strolls?”

“The first time I stopped at the dress shop on my return route to the inn. And I had forgotten about the sheep gate until this time. Have you been watching me, my lord?”

“I have. From the taproom at the inn where I was losing at cards to the sharps disguised as our fellow guests. It was a welcome distraction to follow your progress, or lack thereof, as it were.”

“Why did you decide to follow me?”

“I suppose I should be embarrassed to admit that my curiosity overcame me.”

“Well, there is really nothing interesting about this. I am sorry to disappoint your curiosity.”

He walked apace with her a few strides. “You must be tiring.”

“A bit.”

“Have lunch with me at the pub.”

She halted and faced him. “Why?”

“It’s lunchtime.”

“I saw a rainbow,” she said.

“Did you?”

“Yes, for the first time today. I never saw one before today, though it must have been here all along.”

“Then I am glad you have finally seen it.”

“I will have lunch with you. Thank you.” Her words were subdued and she did not smile. She seemed a changed woman from the girl he had known six years earlier. Still beautiful—despite the gray circles beneath her eyes—so beautiful that looking into her face made his chest ridiculously tight. But now she was too somber, her features entirely lacking the joy that had lit her smiles and laughter that month.

They walked in silence to the pub, took a table, and ordered food. He instructed the serving girl to bring tea as well. Lady Holland’s hair was wet and her skin too pale.

“I should have known that you would be kind to me today, even after my sharp words last night,” she said, stirring milk into the tea.

“Curiosity is not kindness,” he said, his voice unaccountably scratchy.

“Call it what you will.” Then her eyes came up suddenly to his. “I have never asked you where you are traveling now.”

He tilted his head. “No, you haven’t.”

“Where are you going?”

“My cousins from America have made the sea journey and will be arriving in England momentarily. Their ship docks at Bristol.”

“You have American cousins? I didn’t know.”

It was a moment before he was able to say, “How should you? I barely know of them myself. But they are all the family I have now. So I thought it time for a visit.”

“That’s good of you.”

“I hope they don’t turn out to be insufferable.” He smiled. “They wrote that they intend to remain in England for several months before continuing on to tour the Continent. How horrid it would be if I have damned myself to poor company for months.”

“I daresay.” Only the corner of her mouth lifted.

He took up his glass. “Is the journey that brings you through Swinly a lengthy one?”

“Only two days. I came here to meet Evelina so she could take my son to Dashbourne for a holiday. But I must return home tomorrow.”

“You are not to have a holiday as well?”

“My husband is ill. He needs me at home.”

He found he had to look down. “I’m sorry. Forgive my prying.”

“Pry all you wish. It won’t change a thing. My single reason for living these past five years has been taken from me and I honestly don’t know when I will ever see him again. I am hopeless, my heart is aching so fiercely that it fills up my entire body and soul, and yet I can do nothing about it.” Her words were desperate, but her tone was too bland, her eyes empty.

Tacitus recognized these signs. Once, he had lived them.

He stood up, went to the bar, and commanded two ales and a bottle of whiskey. Returning to the table, he set an ale and an empty glass before her.

“Spirits won’t change anything either,” she said.

“But they will temporarily dull the pain.” He poured whiskey into her glass. “Drink up, my lady. We’ve an entire bottle here and only an afternoon to drink it.”

The ghost of a smile teased her beautiful lips. Then she lifted the glass to her mouth and swallowed the draught.

~o0o~

He got her drunk.

She allowed it. She welcomed it. She had nothing better to do and she had never been truly foxed. He drank along with her, noting that it would be rude of him not to.

They talked of thoroughly inconsequential matters, neither of them introducing any topic of weight or personal relevance. He described to her every minute detail of the fine carriage and horses that he used to race against Lord Mallory when they were in their cups, and the outcome of every such race. Finally she begged him to cease, at which point he regaled her with stories of his friend’s scandalous losses at the gaming tables in London. He himself never wagered more than he had in his pockets at the time, which he realized was dreadfully tame, but he rather liked his fortune and preferred to keep it. They spoke of grand society balls that gossips talked of for weeks, but that neither had attended, a balloon ascension she had once witnessed, and books he had read, and her mother’s plans to someday mount an exhibition of ancient Greek statuary at the museum in London.

He was a charming companion, attentive and amusing. At some moment over the course of the afternoon she asked him if he had always been thus.

“Yes.” The drink had made his voice slow and husky. “I have always been charming and pleasing, albeit in a somewhat bookish fashion. Next question?”

“Six years ago I thought you unreasonably stiff.”

“You weren’t the only one.”

That another woman might have teased him for his rectitude made her angry at that anonymous woman, though even in her cups she realized this was hypocrisy of the worst sort. “Who else?”

“Mallory.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “But he is a confirmed scoundrel. What was your excuse?”

“You told me I was childish.”

“
Never.
”

“Yes. You did. And you were right, at that moment.”

“Was I?” His eyes squinted as he studied her. “You don’t seem like a child now. If I weren’t three sheets to the wind, I would say you are lovely. I would have said it then too if I hadn’t been so—what did you say?—unreasonably stiff.”

Butterflies fluttered through the fiery spirits sloshing around her stomach.

“If I were Lord Mallory,” she said, “and you were drinking with him now, without a curricle in sight, of course—”

He nodded.

“—would you be flattering him?”

“That wasn’t flattery. That was the truth.” He parted his lips as if to say more, then clamped them shut.

“What? Tell me.” She feared she slurred.

He shook his head. “Can’t. Wouldn’t be right.”

“What wouldn’t be right?”

“Saying what I’m thinking.” His gaze slipped across her face, her shoulders, and ever so briefly her breasts. “It would be the height of dishonorableness.”

The fluttering butterflies became diving swallows.

“You should say it,” she said. “You must. I’m having the worst day of my life and I want to hear it. Please.”

Beneath his folded arms his chest seemed to rise upon a breath. Then he said roughly, “I wish you weren’t married. Now. Today. Tonight.”

She forced her gaze down to the table. “You are correct.” She stared at the table rather than his expressive eyes. “You should not have said that. So let’s forget that you did.”

He said nothing.

She chanced looking at him again. He was not smiling now.

“Forget that you said it, my lord,” she said. “That is an order.”