Again, My Lord: A Twist Series Novel (16 page)

Calista stared at the ceiling
and counted seven tolls.

An hour later she counted eight tolls.

An hour later she counted nine tolls.

There was little sense in rising when she knew everything that was to be known in the little village of Swinly beyond her bedchamber door on this cold and rainy February Saturday. She knew that Harriet Tinkerson would be dressing bonnets in her shop, that Elena Cooke was sewing the hem and cuffs of a blue muslin round gown, that the baker had burned his first tray of cakes, but the second batch tasted divine, that the vicar was at his desk preparing his Sunday sermon, that Mrs. Whittle would run out of milk at precisely nine thirty-eight, that sheep would begin wandering onto the high street at noon, that they would eat Mrs. Elliott’s winter greens at half past two, that the bookseller, accountant’s clerk, and Mr. Alan Smythe would cheat the Marquess of Dare out of four guineas before dusk, that the fiddler would begin playing “My Bonnie Lass” at the pub at quarter past six, and that a gray cat would expect its dinner—

The cat.

She had not fed it breakfast.

Bolting out of bed, she fastened her stays over her shift that was fresh each morning, donned her petticoat, stockings and gown, and threw open the door.

The cat sat on its hindquarters in the middle of the corridor, staring at her.

“Good morning,” she said, pulling on her slippers and hearing the familiar drumming of rain on the roof above. “You are patient. Much more patient than I am, it seems.” She started toward the stairs. “But you will see: if given the right motivation, I can be patient too.” At the base of the stairs she glanced into the taproom, then back up at the cat still watching her. “And I do have excellent motivation, don’t I?”

Sleep, and waking with the knowledge that Richard was gone, had done wondrous things to refresh her spirits. The truth of it was that she had as many days as she needed to seduce the Marquess of Dare. Delving into challenging projects had long been one of her best distractions from unhappiness. She knew he desired her. He merely needed the right sort of encouragement.

After seeing to the cat’s breakfast and visiting Jackson in the stable, she went into the taproom for her gown’s daily dose of coffee. Molly obliged, and while the men around the card table tried not to notice it, she dabbed at the stain with a cloth and pleasantly invited herself to play.

Lord Dare stood up to push in her chair.

“I did not know you were a cardplayer,” he said.

“I’m not much of one, in truth.” Men didn’t like it when women bested them at cards. She had learned this not only from Richard but from nearly every man she had ever met. “But there is so much time to be passed today, isn’t there? And what better way to pass it than with four handsome men?” She offered him a pretty smile. She hadn’t been allowed to flirt in years, but she had not entirely forgotten how.

He introduced her to Mr. Anderson, the accountant’s clerk, Mr. Peabody, the bookseller, and Alan Smythe, who smiled charmingly and gave up his hand to her.

“You mustn’t, sir,” she said. “I will wait until one of you loses everything and then take that place.” She hoped her eyes could still sparkle as any number of gentlemen in London years ago had reported.

From Mr. Smythe’s appreciative grin, she supposed they still did.

“I insist, my lady,” he said, and passed his cards to her.

Throughout the game she allowed him to give her whispered recommendations. The others did not object; she was a neophyte, Mr. Smythe said, and needed instruction, and this was a friendly game, not a London club. Under the silk merchant’s tutelage, she won four shillings, though she could have won more playing without his assistance. She thanked him, but offered her most taking smile to the marquess.

When she could, she watched Lord Dare’s hands. She liked them. Years ago she had liked them too. They looked strong, the sinews pronounced and movements fluid, as though he were accustomed to working with them—a peculiar characteristic for a bookish lord, to be sure. Widowhood had awoken the woman inside her that wanted a man’s touch. His strong hands had touched her quite nicely already. She wanted more.

She intentionally lost the next game to him.

“It’s a pity you discarded that king, my lady,” he said with a glance at her. “You might have taken that last trick otherwise.”

Calista’s cheeks felt warm. Pretending had never been difficult with Richard. She had never flirted with him or tried to manipulate him. She had simply remained silent. But a hint of suspicion glimmered in the Marquess of Dare’s eyes now.

He was far too intelligent to blatantly cozen.

She allowed herself to win the next game.

When Mrs. Whittle served lunch, the game paused. Calista suggested a stroll to the ford since the rain had ceased. Mr. Peabody and Mr. Anderson declined, and she happily donned her boots and took to the outdoors with Lord Dare and Mr. Smythe. A stop at the dress shop, and a lengthy perusal of a series of fashion plates gave Mr. Smythe sufficient time to notice Elena and draw her into a conversation that wasn’t quite flirtation. Elena apparently did not flirt. But she seemed to enjoy talking with him.

Eventually Calista and Lord Dare left their cardplaying companion at the dress shop and continued on to the ford. She mentioned a book that he had told her about during the afternoon they had spent at the pub, before she’d gotten too intoxicated to remember much. He seemed surprised, but pleased.

“Forgive my assumption, but I did not take you for an avid reader, Lady Holland,” he said as they stopped not five feet from the place he had kissed her as if she was the only thing in the world.

“I haven’t been, but I should like to read more,” she said. “Now that my husband is gone, I would like to spend more time in pursuits that interest me.”

His gaze had arrested. “Your husband is no longer with you?”

“No. I am a widow.” It was wicked how much she liked speaking the words aloud.

“Recently?”

“Quite recently, in fact.”

“I am terribly sorry. Please accept my condolences.” He glanced at her gown, which was a modest shade of green like the ribbon on her bonnet, and she realized her mistake.

“My husband did not want me to wear black forever,” she said swiftly. “He did not care for that habit of mourning.”

“He seems to have been a considerate spouse.”

Hardly
.

“I would rather not discuss him,” she murmured.

“Of course, I understand.” His shoulders seemed especially rigid. “It must be very difficult for you. When I lost my parents, I found conversation about them with strangers intolerable. Forgive me.”

“Thank you.” Calista turned her face away and bit her lip. This was
not
going as she had intended.

A minute or two passed as they each silently studied the swollen creek before them and she cast around in her mind for safe topics.

“I wonder what pastime I should take up,” she finally said. “There are so many to choose from. Do you have any particular favorite pastime, that is, when you are not seeing to your estates or in the Lords?” She chuckled. “But I suppose those would keep you sufficiently occupied, wouldn’t they?”

He nodded. “Indeed, they do.”

She felt his attention upon her and she looked up at him. A tentative smile lifted one corner of his mouth.

“Your laughter is as lovely as it was six years ago,” he said.

Calista’s heart shoved aside her lungs and commenced thwacking her ribs.

“You remember my laughter?”

“I do,” he said. “I make furniture.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“As a pastime,” he said with that same slight smile. “I make tables and chairs. Once I made a display case, but the glasswork gave me such trouble, I’ve never tried that again.”

Every moth in Swinly was fluttering around in her middle.

“You make furniture? With your own hands.”

“And with wood, of course. And tools.” He folded his hands behind his back and his stance as he looked across the ford was relaxed. “It isn’t a particularly lordly occupation, I realize. You would not be the first friend to chastise me for wasting my time in laboring like an artisan. But I quite enjoy it. It has nothing to do with the concerns of my responsibilities. And I believe my great-great-grandfather on my mother’s side was a cabinetmaker, so I suppose it is in my blood.”

Friend
.

He called her a friend. Why that should make her suddenly feel wretchedly ill, she could not understand.

After some conversation regarding the depth of the ford, they returned to the dress shop to collect Mr. Smythe, who convinced Mrs. Cooke to join them as well. The village was perambulated, with the dressmaker giving them a tour of its highlights: the pub; the millinery, where they endured Harriet’s effusions over Calista and Lord Dare’s presence in their little village, and paused to admire her hats; the church at the other end of the street where Old Mary now boomed three o’clock. The shepherd was still asleep, of course, and Calista suggested that they avoid the milling herd by walking along Farmer Donovan’s east field.

“You seem to know almost as much about this village as Mrs. Cooke does,” the marquess said as they walked behind the other pair. “Have you been here often?”

“Oh, several times.”

They dined at the pub and Calista could not recall when she had enjoyed another evening in mixed company so thoroughly. But by the end of the night her head ached. Maintaining the pretense of knowing little about all three of them, and constantly editing her words before she spoke so that she would not reveal herself, proved exhausting. And her principal object seemed as far away as it had been the day before. Even farther, perhaps. As she already knew, the Marquess of Dare was an ideal companion. But other than complimenting her laugh, he had done nothing beyond the bounds of propriety, nothing that convinced her he would welcome her throwing herself upon him at his bedchamber door.

Instead, at her bedchamber door he offered her a bow and the same slightly surprised smile he had throughout much of the day.

“Good night, Lady Holland. I have enjoyed spending time with you.”

Calista balanced on her toes. If she grabbed him and kissed him now, he might welcome it. But abruptly the alternative, his revilement, seemed unendurable.

She liked having his friendship. She wanted his friendship. She did not want to ruin that. She could not bear ruining that, even if he would forget it.

“Good night, my lord. Thank you for today.”

Then he took her hand, lifted it, and brushed his lips across her knuckles. “And I thank you.” He released her and walked away.

Inside her room, she fell against the closed door and allowed herself a long, deep groan. Then she opened the door again to admit the cat and watched it leap onto the bed.

“Tomorrow, cat. Tomorrow I will have my widowhood story straight, and start things off properly,” she said firmly.

It meowed.

“Did you eat dinner?” She went to it. “I am sorry I wasn’t here to feed you.” And she had not written Jackson’s letter to his son, either. But she might tomorrow, or the next day, or any day after that. He wouldn’t remember, so it didn’t matter anyway.

No one but the cow herself, mum.

She frowned and pushed away the unbidden memory of Molly’s comment. She stood up. “Let’s go see what we can find for your dinner. Though it looks as though you’ve been eating well enough lately.” It was true. The ribs that had projected from the cat’s shaggy sides barely showed beneath the shiny fur. “You were little more than skin and bones the first time you bothered me. Weren’t you?”

With an impressive display of tongue and teeth, it yawned. Then it mewled its usual hunger signal.

“I am mistaken. Aren’t I? You were exactly like this sixteen days ago. Weren’t you?”

In the corner of her eye, a light flickered. She glanced at the candle on the dressing table. But it was not the candle that had glimmered.

The statue glowed. Again. For the first time in a fortnight.
Unmistakably
.

A warm golden aura emanated from the alabaster, swirls of darker gold twining about the figure and glittering in her filmy skirts.

Then it ceased. The statue was plain, pale stone again, and staring blankly.

Calista stared.

“I might have had too much wine with dinner.” She rubbed her eyes then again studied the statue. “Or …” She walked toward it. “Perhaps it
is
you. Perhaps it is not my eyesight or a tumor inside my skull or madness or any sin I have committed. Perhaps this isn’t actually Hell.” The statue remained passive. “Perhaps
you
have done this to me, entrapped me here. Is that it?”

She peered into the passionless eyes of the goddess.

“It
is
you, isn’t it? You are playing a game with me for your own amusement, and you have given me a
cat
as my only companion in this nightmare because you are the most awful, horrible, wicked, evil, unkind, miserable creature to have ever descended from Olympus. Isn’t that so?”

The statue did not reply.

Grabbing the cold stone around the neck, she hurled it to the floor. It made a mighty thud and the wood splintered.

The stone remained unharmed. And Aphrodite’s eyes stared up at her without sympathy.

“I refuse to be beaten by you,” she exclaimed, renewed purpose pounding through her blood. “You will see. I will have him whether you want me to or not. I will win.”

Calista turned her back, leaving the stone goddess on the floor where it lay.

He liked playing cards,
although he did not always win. But when she let him win, he seemed to know she had.

He liked books. But when she mentioned titles that she knew he had read, he appeared perplexed. It seemed he had a difficult time believing that she was a reader. She was not a reader, in fact, but that was easily remedied. She visited the doctor, vicar, and Elena Cooke to borrow books, and spent time reading each morning.

He liked furniture carpentry. But when she introduced him to Swinly’s carpenter he had no more to say than any other gentleman she knew, at least not in her presence. When she revealed to him that she knew of his pastime, that he must have told her about it six years ago, he replied that he had only taken it up five years earlier.

He preferred coffee to tea. She taught herself to choke down the bitter brew without cringing.

He preferred brandy to whiskey and whiskey to claret. But whatever she tried, she could not seem to entice him to drink alone with her again.

He was unfailingly patient with Molly and always gracious to Mrs. Whittle.

He treated Mr. Peabody and Mr. Anderson as near to equals as a man of his status could without embarrassing them with inappropriate familiarity.

He seemed suspicious of Alan Smythe’s flirtations with her, though he never spoke a word about it, and he was sincerely interested in the political theories of George Smythe.

He was very kind to Penelope.

Calista wondered about that. Penelope Smythe had neither beauty nor apparently much personality. The daughter of a vastly prosperous merchant, she was nevertheless beneath the notice of a wealthy marquess. Yet each time Calista saw him in the Smythe family’s company, he made a point of speaking with interest to Penelope, to which the girl responded with exasperating shyness.

“My sister-in-law’s hopes for poor Penny aren’t what my niece wishes for herself,” Alan whispered to her at tea as Mrs. Smythe forced her daughter into conversation with the marquess.

“Oh?”

“But my niece is terrified of displeasing her parents. She’ll go along with it, I suspect, whoever they manage to corral for her.”

Calista understood. Six years ago she had been young and foolish enough to bow to the wishes of others. She wasn’t any longer. And she refused to lose this battle.

She doubled down on her seduction of the Marquess of Dare.

She told him directly at breakfast that she was a widow, and then she made her wishes indisputably clear. He avoided her for the rest of the day.

The next day she allowed him to learn of her widowed status from someone else, and then she spent the day doing things she knew he liked. He bade her good night at her bedchamber door with the hope that he might see her again soon.

Apparently he was more cautious with her when she had no husband.

The following day she did not tell him that she was a widow until the end of several hours filled with pleasant activities. His good night was warm, but definitely good night.

“Nothing I do suffices!” she shouted into her pillow.

The cat meowed.

She sat up and looked into its eyes. “He will not be won over in a day. He is too principled. And I think he cannot shake his unflattering memories of me. I hate him for it.” She dropped her face into her hands.

The cat crawled onto her lap and rubbed its head against her knuckles. She uncovered her face and it butted up against her wrist.

“This is unprecedented. What are you doing? Are you trying to hug me? No, of course not. You want to be caressed, a desire I sympathize with fully, of course.” The memory of his hands on her back was so strong. And his mouth …
his mouth
. Her breaths deepened and she felt the memory to her toes.

Now the cat used her knuckles as a rubbing post. But passivity was not in her nature; she turned her fingers around and scratched its neck beneath the ear. It purred.

She wanted to make the Marquess of Dare purr. She wanted to make him kiss her again like there was nothing else on earth but her lips to kiss and her body to flatten against his.

“He senses something isn’t right,” she murmured to her companion. “He has probably become an expert at avoiding women who try to entrap him into marriage … or into anything. Probably.”

The cat’s fur had grown soft, and it seemed much warmer than her own body. It was so slight, despite the steady strength of its heartbeat beneath her hand. For a creature of such unruffled attitude, it was practically a wisp.

She ran her hand along its back and it curled its tail to guide the caress. She missed touch. Sustained touch. She missed holding her son in her arms or holding his hand or even briefly stroking his hair. She missed
intimacy
. All intimacy. She missed intimate human contact. The brief taste of it with the marquess had only made her crave it more.

“I do not hate him,” she murmured. “Rather the opposite. But I will never be allowed to touch him, no matter what I do. It is her punishment to me, you see, or perhaps merely her game,” she whispered to the cat as she made lines through the fur on its back with her fingernails. “It seems that I have you, though.” She drew a long breath and looked across the room at the statue. “At least she gave me you.”

She fell asleep with the creature tucked against her side.