Lessons in French (20 page)

Madame smiled and lifted her hand. "As you can see, my son has procured… an

excellent woman to nurse me."

The nurse lifted her head for a moment and nodded curtly before she went back to

work. She had a military air about her that made Callie feel as if she should salute in

reply.

"But I'm impatient for a little company," Madame said. "I feel so much better that I

must have a… caller to amuse me. I heard someone ring a little while ago, but still I am

deserted, you see! My infamous son, he is sleeping very late."

Callie moved into the room. "You're feeling better, ma'am?"

"Much better." The duchesse smiled. "I do believe I could… dance."

Callie had never thought of herself as particularly shrewd, but she noted the

contradiction between Jock's story to the constable and the evident truth that Madame

was not on her deathbed quite yet. "I'm so glad," she said. "That's a great relief to me. But

you haven't seen the duke today?"

The duchesse shook her head. "It is most vexing. I should like to send him down to see

what is… all this clamor. Voices at the door, and I heard the strangest sound, my dear,

you… would not credit. Nurse says I am dreaming, it's only a dog, but we have no dog,

you know!" She shook her head. "And it did not sound like a dog at all. More as the very

Horn of Salvation! But sinister. Very low. Almost I could not hear it."

"I heard a dog barkin', madam," the nurse said stubbornly. "Certain as I live."

"Yes, there was a dog too," Madame agreed. "But this was… different."

"Aye, and it may be that your mind is playin' tricks on you, madam, since you haven't

yet been bled as the doctor directed." Nurse snapped the sheets taut across the bed. "Too

much heat in the brain."

The duchesse made a little face, turning toward Callie so that the nurse could not see.

She winked. "Yes, my brain is boiling," she said. "But I wish for my son… to approve

my treatments."

"He'd best rouse himself out of bed, then, madam," the nurse said with the disapproval

of the righteous for all those who did not rise at first light.

"Indeed," said Madame. "Before my head bursts! Perhaps, Lady Callista, would you be

so good as to direct his… manservant to wake him?"

Callie opened her mouth, but nothing emerged. She was certain Trev was far away

somewhere, fleeing the law, though she had no idea how to break this news to the

duchesse. As she searched for some way to deflect the request, a low vibration rose

beneath her very feet, a rumble that was just at the edge of hearing. The long and

haunting note seemed to tremble in the walls themselves before it died away below

hearing.

"
There
!" the duchesse exclaimed and was immediately overcome by a fit of coughing.

She leaned over, struggling to breathe, while men shouted outside. Callie and the nurse

hurried to assist Madame, but she waved, pointing to the door. The nurse was wide eyed

now, supporting the duchesse's thin shoulders as she coughed, looking up at Callie as if

she had seen a ghost.

It was indeed a malevolent and unearthly sound, if one didn't know precisely what

earthly beast had produced it. A surge of relief f lowed through Callie, but Hubert's

bellow had sounded so close that even she was startled. She looked out the front window,

seeing nothing in the garden but the constable's coattails as he ran out of the stable gate

toward the lane. He paused, looking up and down in both directions, and then ran across

toward the opposite hedgerow. After a moment, a brindled dog raced after him, barking

with all the offended frenzy of a shopkeeper chasing a thief.

She turned to the duchesse, who was barely recovering her breath. "Go!" Madame

whispered. "I'm… fine! See what—" She lost her voice in another cough but waved so

emphatically toward the door that Callie hurried to it.

"It's only my bull, ma'am; you needn't be alarmed," she said. She lifted her skirts and

hastened down the stairs.

Jock stood in the open door with his back to her as she came down, looking out and

pointing across the road. "That way!" he yelled to someone outside. Beyond his big

shoulders, she caught a glimpse of Major Sturgeon dodging round the horses tied at the

garden gate. "Follow the dog!" Jock shouted to him. "It broke through the hedge!"

She was about to dart past him to join the pursuit, when a brutal crash and a woman's

scream from the direction of the kitchen stairs made her grab the newel post, turning.

Lilly came squealing round the corner, colliding with Callie and springing back, her eyes

wide. She stood still, put one hand over her mouth, and gestured wildly toward the

kitchen.

Callie heard a familiar low rumble, a thump, and the sound of breaking dishware. "Oh

dear," she said. She rounded the corner, already expecting disaster, but the sight that met

her was rather more along the lines of a culinary apocalypse.

The kitchen at Dove House was not a large chamber. Four ancient stone steps led down

to it from the main body of the house, and at the far end, it gave out on the rear yard. At

the moment, the back door stood open, blocked by a brawny woman f lapping her apron

with both hands and breathing with such violent agitation that the sounds she made

almost equaled the gusty snorts of the colossal bovine occupant who took up the largest

part of the room.

For an instant Callie stood stock-still, completely confounded by the sight. She had

already braced herself to find Hubert involved in this outlandish pickle, but it wasn't

Hubert beside the overturned table. Amid the broken eggs, cooked carrots, and remnants

of a perfectly browned apple pie, stood—not Hubert—but a black bull of equally

gargantuan proportions, swishing its tail against the cupboard. He munched happily on a

head of lettuce, showing no objection to the f lour-sack blindfold across its face. As it

swallowed the final head of lettuce leaf, Trevelyan—looking entirely the part of an

unshaven and wrinkled fugitive from British justice— offered it a ripe tomato from the

mess on the floor.

"Close the doors," he ordered with such a snap of command in his voice that Callie

slammed the kitchen door behind her, nearly catching Lilly's nose in it. The new cook

was a little less docile. She only dropped her ample apron to her lap and stood gaping in

the open back entry. The bull snuff led, turning its blindfolded face up toward Callie,

giving a happy moan as its nostrils flared.

The entire state of affairs came clear to her in a single burst of comprehension. She

recognized Hubert—she should have done so instantly, only he looked so oddly different,

like a familiar person wearing a peculiar wig. Trev would be hiding from the constable,

of course, and for some absurd reason he meant to conceal Hubert too. They would have

been in the stable yard and ducked into the kitchen as the first possible cover with the

pursuit so near. She had been through just this sort of close call with Trev any number of

times.

By instinct she hopped down the steps and edged past Hubert to reach the back door.

"You must come inside." She took the cook-woman by the arm. "This is a perfectly

harmless animal, I assure you, but there's a dangerous criminal and a vicious dog out

there. Hurry now, shut the door!"

The cook from Bromyard gave a faint scream and banged the door closed behind

herself as she stepped gingerly inside. Callie glanced at Trev. "What of Lilly?"

"And good morning to you too, Lady Callista." He grinned at her, that familiar slanted

grin that made them instantly conspirators in crime. With a cordial bow, he added, "Jock

can manage Lilly, but damn this great ox." He tried to offer Hubert the limp green top of

a carrot, but the bull was attempting to turn blindly toward Callie, treading on a fallen

bread loaf and shoving the table another foot toward the hearth. The cupboard tottered

dangerously. "Can you keep him quiet?"

She lifted her skirt and climbed across the table leg to reach Hubert's head. The bull

gave a deep sigh of contentment once she joined him, and ceased his attempt to destroy

the kitchen furniture. He accepted the carrot top from Trev's bandaged hand with a

gentlemanly swipe of his great tongue.

"What," Callie said fiercely, untying the blindfold so that she could scratch the bull's

broad forehead, "are you doing?"

"Ah," Trev said with an airy wave of another carrot top, "we're just having a bite of

breakfast, you see."

"I thought you meant to go—" She stopped, remembering the cook.

He gave her a glance, a compelling f lash between them, awareness and a vivid memory

of the night before. She looked down and shook away an apple peel that clung to her

hem, clearing her throat.

"My lady! Pardon us!" The cook's voice quaked. "But—" She could not seem to gather

any further speech as she pointed at Hubert with a muscular arm and shook her head.

"Yes, of course, you are quite right," Callie said in her most soothing-of-servants

manner. "We must remove him. But not until we know it's safe."

"Safe!" the new cook said indignantly. "I didn't take this position to be attacked by

cattle and criminals, I tell you, in my own kitchen, and on my very first day!"

"Certainly not," Trev agreed. "But I'm obliged to you for your courage. It's women of

your iron moral fiber who saved England from Bonaparte."

The cook glanced at him. She took a deep breath, as if to reply sharply, and then

straightened her shoulders a little. "I spe'ct so. And who might you be?"

"The duke," he said easily.

"The duke!" She made a puff of disdain. "Oh, come!"

Trev shrugged and smiled. The cook's lips pursed as she tried to maintain her

indignation, but her frown eased. Ladies always melted when Trev smiled in that self-

deprecating way. Callie had a strong tendency to soften into something resembling a

deflated Yorkshire pudding herself, in spite of knowing better than anyone how

dangerous it was to succumb.

"I'm one of those eccentric dukes," Trev said. "The French sort."

"Little does she know," Callie said under her breath, pulling Hubert's ear forward so

that she could rub behind it. The bull tilted his head and moved it up and down with

heavy pleasure. Trev took a step back as a horn waved perilously close to his face.

The door opened a crack. "They're on the way back, sir," came Jock's disembodied

voice.

"Already?" Trev said. "Can't Barton even lead a respectable goose chase?"

"They don't look none too happy, sir. Sturgeon's got mud over half his breeches, and his

sleeve's torn off."

"The work of the vulgar Toby, I perceive." Trev gingerly pushed Hubert's horn away

from his face with his injured hand. "Doubtless this too will be added to my account.

Keeping a vicious dog on the premises."

"Old Toby's all right," Jock muttered through the door. "Had all the sense knocked out

of him in his line o' work, is all."

"Toby? That's
your
dog?" Callie asked, lifting her head. Before Trev could even

answer, she had leaped forward in her thoughts. "That's a fighting dog!" She stared at him

for an instant, her whole world tilting. "Why is Hubert dyed black?"

"A small misunderstanding," Trev said hastily.

"You stole him!" Callie exclaimed. "You were going to bait him!"

"Of course not. I—"

"Why is he disguised?" she demanded. "Why is he in your kitchen? And that dog." Her

voice rose in pitch. "I'll never let Hubert be baited! He's—"

"Callie!" His voice cut strongly over hers. "Good God, do you think I'd do any such

thing?"

She paused, biting her lip. Then she lifted the f lour sack in bewilderment. "But I don't

understand. Why is he here?"

"I was trying to get him back for you," he said roughly. He began to edge past Hubert's

bulk as the door clicked abruptly closed. "Maudlin fool that I am. Keep him quiet, unless

you prefer to hand him back to Davenport on a silver platter, and my head along with

him."

Callie had to feed Hubert the entire overturned basket of tomatoes and raise the new

cook's wages to two guineas a week in order to keep both of her charges in check while

dogs and constables raged about outside. Trev and Jock seemed to be leading them a

merry chase, with a few feints provided by Lilly from the upstairs window. In spite of her

initial shock, the young maid had clearly thrown in with the criminal ranks. She showed

some zest for it too. When Toby began scratching and barking at the kitchen door, she

leaned out and rang such a peal about disturbing a house of illness that the constable tried

to grab the dog himself, though all he seemed to get was a nip for his trouble.

Hubert paid no mind to the snarling threat from the yard, occupied with his tomatoes,

but Cook finally grabbed a tub of dishwater in both of her beefy arms, braced it against

the door, and opened the latch, dumping the whole over Toby as he tried to dash inside.

He yelped and shied back. Cook slammed the door closed. The barking and growling

ceased.

"Well done," Callie said in admiration. "Three guineas a week!"

Cook nodded shortly and crossed her arms. "Constables. Dogs. Can't have such 'uns in

the kitchen, can us?"

"I should think not," Callie said, rubbing Hubert's ear.