Lessons in French (6 page)

He still found it difficult to comprehend that she had not married. When he had left,

he'd been sure that she would be wed within the year, if not sooner—as soon as her father

could arrange for it.

He had not cared to stay and watch the ceremony. He was a contemptible French

scoundrel, so he went to France. To his bloodthirsty delight, he'd found that Bonaparte

had good use for young men with bruised hearts and even more deeply lacerated pride.

For a few years Trev had labored under the name of Thibaut LeBlanc and shot at

Englishmen, starved hideously, looted Spanish peasants, and learned how far down he

could plunge into brute existence. What final vestige of pride or humanity he retained

was burned out of him at Salamanca. He had not rejoined the crushed remnants of his

company as they retreated; he'd surrendered instead to a British aide-de-camp who

recognized him from their school days, and spent the rest of the wars in the reasonable

comfort of various officers' prisons, interrogating French captives for Wellington's staff.

He might have gone back to Shelford after Waterloo. Instead he had remained in

France. He'd begun to write to his mother, but somehow he had not told her of the battles

or the ruin he had found at Monceaux, or the burned-out shell of her childhood home in

Montjoie. Somehow he had written instead of how he would win it back for her, the

fabled château and the titles and everything she had lost.

He knew all the stories. His grandfather had made certain of that. Instead of nursery

rhymes, Trev had been weaned on tales of the Terror, of his father's heroism and his

mother's sacrifice. His father had not surrendered, like Trev, but gone as a true nobleman

to his fate. His mother had barely escaped the mob. Trev owed his life and his baptismal

name to one Captain Trevelyan Davis, an enterprising Welshman who had smuggled her

and her five young children across the channel just two days before she gave birth to him.

In spite of the bloody backdrop, his childhood had been golden. He didn't miss a father

or a country he'd never known, but he remembered his pretty mother laughing while she

taught his elder brother to dance. Trev had worshipped Etienne as only a seven year-old

could worship a dashing brother of thirteen. Those had been the sweet, carefree times, the

years of perfect boyhood bliss. Then one day Etienne had tried to raced his hot-blooded

horse past a carriage, and amid a crush of wheels and his mother's frenzied grief, Trev's

brother had died, and the sunny world of childhood ended.

From that time, it was Trev's duty to regain all that had been stolen. Like a personal

guillotine, that expectation had hung over him, repeated with every blessing his

grandfather said at meals, in each letter sent to him at the English school, repeated

whether he fell ill or whether he recovered, when he was thrashed and when he was

praised, repeated until Trev had been sure he would throttle his grandfather, or shoot

himself, if he heard it one more time.

He had done no such thing, of course. Instead he had seethed like the silly, mutinous

boy he'd been, at least before all the gold and silver plate was sold and he had to leave

school and move with his family to the modest house at Shelford. After that he talked to

Callie and made her laugh. An agreeable alternative to murder, making Callie laugh. She

always tried not to and always did. It changed her face, made her eyes tilt upward and

sparkle in the hopeless attempt to stifle her giggle, just as it had tonight.

A bird called in the dark garden, a trilling whistle that made Trev turn his head. He

stared into the shadows. Then he put his hand in his pocket and felt for the pistol he

carried, realizing with some annoyance that another of his skeletons had dropped round

for a chat.

"Come away from the house," he said softly.

With a rustle, a figure moved out of the tangled gloom, shoving the overgrown bushes

aside. A chicken squawked and fluttered. The visitor uttered a heavy handed curse and

came through the gate.

"Quiet, you codpiece." Trev walked across the open yard with his hand still in his

pocket. When he reached the back of the small stable, he stopped and turned. "What do

you want?"

"Bill Hayter is beggin' a new match, sir."

Trev gave an exasperated sound. "I told you I've done with all that. He's been paid off.

Let him go to another operator if he wants to publish a challenge."

"But the stakes—"

"I will not act as stakeholder, damn it. Do I have to place an advertisement in the

papers?"

"The gentlemen of the Fancy don't trust no one but you, sir." His visitor was only a

black silhouette.

"Then they may go hang," Trev said cordially.

"Sir," the man said in a plaintive tone.

"Barton—my mother is dying. A low, unfeeling fellow I may be, in the usual course of

things, but I find this concerns me just a little. If you suppose I'm going to saunter off to

make book at some fight that would like as not be broke up by the sheriff and land me in

the dock, you may reorder your ideas."

"I'm sorry, sir. I'm sorry to hear that." Barton was silent for a moment. Then he said

tentatively, "Do you think, after she passes on, God bless 'er, that you might…"

"I might have you strung up and disemboweled. I might do that."

Barton gave a gloomy sigh. "Very well, sir." His feet shuffled on the gravel. "But I

don't know what's to become of us."

"For the love of God, you had two percent of sixty thousand guineas not a fortnight

ago. How'd you manage to spend twenty years' wages in two weeks? Or need I ask?"

"We ain't got your head for a numbers game, sir," Barton said humbly. "You're the

lucky one. Charlie botched the calculations, and we come up short to pay out on St.

Patrick when he won at Doncaster."

"That short? You'd better marry an heiress and be done with it."

"Ain't no heiress would have me, sir," Barton said.

"Then follow my example. Become an honest man."

Barton gave a snort. Then he began to chuckle.

"Go on," Trev snapped. "Get out of here before you wake the dead."

Callie was sitting at her dressing table, dreaming of escaping from pirates, wielding a

sword like a musketeer while Trev kicked a scalawag overboard at her side. As her maid

unwound the length of purple silk from Callie's head, Hermione peeked inside the door,

interrupting Trev's desperate lunge to pull Callie from the path of a cannonball.

Her sister slipped into the room, holding her wrapper close about her. "You're home,"

she said. "I was hoping you wouldn't be too late. Mrs. Adam said they hadn't a thing to

eat at Dove House."

"Nothing," Callie said. "And I'm afraid Madame has not long to live."

"Poor woman." Hermione walked restlessly to the window, plucking at the latch as if it

were not closed properly. "But her son has come home? High time for that, they say. I

didn't see him; is he a tolerable gentleman?"

"Oh yes. Elegant manners." Callie watched her sister in the mirror. Hermey took after

their mother, everyone said, with skin of smooth perfection and soft golden brown hair

falling loose now down her back. The maid plucked at the ends of Callie's own red braids

and began to unravel and spread them over her shoulders.

"Elegant," Hermey said. "Well, that's to be expected, I'm sure. He's Madame's son, after

all. And a duke, or whatever sort of title they have over there now." She stopped her

agitated pacing and made a sweeping flourish with her thumb and pinkie finger, as if she

were taking a pinch of snuff. "So very continental!" There was a f lush to her cheeks, a

high color that was unlike her.

"Crushingly modish, I assure you," Callie said lightly.

"I'm sure you took him in dislike, then. It was good of you to offer to help."

Callie did not correct her. "I intend to do what I can for them," she said merely. "I mean

to find some servants and see that the house is put to rights."

"Of course." Hermey made a distracted wave of her hand. She turned away and turned

back again. "I was surprised to find you gone, though. I was looking for you after the

waltz."

"Yes, I told Mrs. Adam—"

"I know. It's no matter. Only—" She hugged herself. A half smile of excitement curved

her lips. "Your hair is so pretty when it's down! It looks like copper waves."

"Hermey." Callie tilted her head quizzically. "What mystery are you keeping from me?"

"Sir Thomas is coming to call on Cousin Jasper tomorrow!" she said breathlessly. "He

told me so!"

Callie smiled at her. "Already!"

"Oh, Callie!" Hermey clasped her hands together, chewing her knuckles. "I'm so

afraid!"

"Afraid? Of what, pray?"

Hermione took the hairbrush from the maid's hands. "Be so good as to go upstairs,

Anne," she said primly. "I'll do that."

The maid curtsied and left the room. Hermey watched the door close behind her and

then began to brush out Callie's hair. Callie could feel her sister's fingers trembling.

"Hermey!" she exclaimed. "What are you afraid of?"

"It's just that—he said… he said he would do himself the honor of calling on the earl

tomorrow. That means he's going to ask, doesn't it, Callie?"

"I should think so," Callie said. "He had no business saying such a thing to you if he

didn't mean it."

"I'm twenty," Hermey said. "Twenty! And it's my first offer."

"Well, you needn't make anything of that. You couldn't come out while Papa was so ill,

and then you had to wait out the last year in mourning. You haven't even had a season."

"I know. But I'm almost—" She stopped, looking conscious.

"On the shelf?" Callie drew her hair over her shoulder, working at a tiny tangle.

"Goose! I'm on the shelf, not you. You'll have your choice of suitors if you wish to wait

until spring and go up to London. I hope you won't leap at this one if you don't like him."

"I like him," Hermey said. "Very much!"

Callie parted her hair and caught it, winding it about her head. Sir Thomas Vickery

seemed a kind and quiet gentleman, the perfect sort of person to be perpetually an

undersecretary. He rather reminded Callie of herself, which did not impress her greatly,

but she could find nothing to object to in him. Indeed, she could only be glad that

Hermey, who was a little flighty, seemed to prefer a steady man. And he was drawn to

her sister's vivaciousness no doubt—which would be just as well if the three of them

were to form a household. At least there would be one person to make conversation at the

dinner table.

"Well, then," she said. "If you like him that much, I advise you to wear that blue straw

bonnet tomorrow and be in your best looks. I don't know how he can help himself but

propose if he sees you in it."

"I think he will," Hermey said. "I know he will." She went and sat against the bed, still

holding her wrap about her and shivering as if she were cold. "No, anything but blue,

Callie. I think I will wear the apple green. Or the spotted lilac with the cream ribbon. Oh,

I can't think. I don't care what I wear!"

"Calm yourself, my dear," Callie said at this astonishing statement. Hermey always

cared what she wore. "It's really not so frightening. I've had three offers myself and

survived them all."

"I know. I
know
!"

She looked so distressed that Callie rose and turned to her. "What is it? Now, do not

cry, love! I never thought you would be full of nerves over such a thing. He's the one who

should be anxious, and I've no doubt he's quaking in his shoes this minute at the thought

of making an application to you."

Hermey gave a choked sob. "Oh, Callie! I'm going to tell him that I want you with me

or I must refuse him, and I'm s-so afraid he will say no to it."

Callie paused. She met her sister's unhappy eyes. Then she turned and reached for her

nightcap, bending to the mirror and tucking up her hair. "You will tell him no such thing,

of course!" she said briskly. "You mustn't make a cake of yourself just when he's

proposed, you silly girl. Do you want to frighten him out of the house before you have

him fairly caught?"

"But I will tell him!" Hermey took a deep breath. "I don't care if he won't agree. I won't

leave you here alone with that… that—oh, I don't know what horrid name to call her!"

"Hush," Callie said, as her sister's voice rose. "He would think you addle-brained, my

dear, just when he's declared his deep love and abiding respect for you, to be told that his

bargain is two for one."

Hermey bit her lip. "Is that what he will say? That he loves me?"

"Certainly. That's what they all say."

"Well, if he truly does love me, then he'll let me have you with me. And your cattle

too!"

Callie laid her robe across the chair. She crossed to the bed and gave Hermey a hug.

"Perhaps he will. But pray do not tax him with it at the very moment that the poor man

makes his offer. There will be ample time to talk of such things later."

Hermione caught her hand as she pulled away. "Callie. I will not leave you here with

her. I couldn't bear the thought. I won't speak of it to him tomorrow, then—but I promise

you that I will." She lifted her chin defiantly. "And if he doesn't agree, then I will jilt