"I beg your pardon, Madame," he said, thrusting himself away from the mantel. "In that case I'll endeavor to confine myself to subjects of more worth and significance than my admiration for you."
She was cast into confusion by that, but recovered and began to pace the carpet again. "Indeed, it's been an excellent diversion, all this making up to me. I collect it was your intention to keep me wholly in the dark about everything!"
"Well of course," he said. "I always tell women I'm in love with them in order to produce mystification and baff lement. What other reason could I possibly have?"
"I can comprehend that you didn't wish to reveal these things to your mother, about making money off of boxing matches, and not truly owning Monceaux, and nearly being hung-but you might have told me and saved us a good deal of trial and tribulation."
"I didn't want you to know," he said curtly.
"What's more," she added, "you talk a great deal of how you admire and… and… whatever it is that you say-"
"That I love you?" he interrupted.
"Well, that. Yes, you seem to say that." She became f lustered. "You have said that, several times. And that you would like to murder Major Sturgeon, and that sort of thing, which of course is quite nonsensical, and perhaps it is all nonsense." Callie stopped her pacing. She looked over at him where he stood beside the fire place. The hard expression had returned to his face.
"I think it is all nonsense, because it is only words," she ventured. She wet her lips and then blurted out: "Like your letters, and everything you've said before. Words, with nothing behind them."
She glanced toward him under her lashes. White lines had appeared at the corners of his mouth. For a long moment they stood in silence, but her heart was beating so hard that it seemed to fill her ears. She had never seen him look so forbidding.
"Because if…" she said, summoning all her nerve, "if you aren't already married, then…" She broke off, realizing with horror that she was as near as was prac tical to demanding that he propose to her instead. Her courage failed her, overcome by a miserable wave of shyness. "Of course I understand now," she continued hurriedly, trying to appear as if she had meant nothing of the sort, "your circumstances are-with what you've told me, it's quite plain-you have abundant reason for not seeking matrimony with any respectable lady."
"Any respectable lady such as yourself?" he asked in a smothered voice.
"Myself!" she said with a dismissive f lurry of her hands. Three gentlemen had assured Callie that they loved her, and then reexamined their characters and belatedly determined that they were not worthy of taking so bold a step as to actually escort her to the altar. He was going to say he wasn't worthy to marry her. She could feel it coming. "Oh no. I wasn't speaking of myself, of course. You wouldn't be offering for me!" She gave an unconvincing laugh. "I'm betrothed, am I not? I didn't mean that at all. I merely meant-some chance respectable lady."
He examined the coals in the fireplace. Callie examined the hem of her skirt.
"In fact," he said slowly, "you are correct. It was all nonsense. Merely words, with nothing behind them."
Since she had entered into the room, Callie's emotions had spun from fury and shame to astonish ment-and then a feeling that she could hardly put a name to, something rather like a fragile joy, but half-disbelieved, too tentative and tender to fully show itself. At these words, it snapped back into hiding like a frightened turtle.
"To be frank," he went on grimly, "I never wanted to see you again. I assumed you were married and long moved away from here. If I'd known you were in Shelford, I'd never have come back at all."
"Would you not?" she asked lightly, assuming a defensive shell of hauteur against the shock of this attack. "Perhaps, after all, that would have been best."
"Certainly it would." He plucked her scarf from the f loor and tossed it on her dressing table. "In point of fact, I don't care to be your lover." His voice gained strength. "I didn't want to tell you anything at all about what my life has been. Not a goddamned thing! Here you are in this quaint little village, a respectable lady with your fortune and your cattle, where you're safe and comfortable, where a goat up a tree is the about the greatest threat to anybody's peace of mind. If there's one thing that's certain, it's that I don't belong in this pretty scene-as your father made perfectly clear years ago. When I saw you in that ballroom, I should have turned on my heel and walked out. And that, as you suggest, would have saved us all a great deal of trial and tribulation."
"Of course!" She was forced to agree immediately, and indeed to raise the stakes. "I'm sure that would have been the best for all of us!" she exclaimed in an unsteady voice. "Except for your mother, and if you did her a great deal of good at first, I believe with these Runners and constables besetting her, you may be the death of her yet!"
The instant she spoke, she wished the words back. She lifted her hand quickly, but he was already turning away.
"I'll remedy that at once," he snapped. "I bid you adieu, my lady. Accept my felicitations on your marriage." He threw open the shutters and the sash. It had come on to rain heavily again, and a gust of cold air blew her scarf from the table.
"Wait!" she said hastily. "Of course, I didn't mean-please wait. Oh, please wait!"
He paused with his hand on the sash, the wind blowing past him, tousling his hair. "What is it? Quickly, before I'm seen here in broad daylight."
A tumble of words fought to reach her tongue, but all she could manage to utter was, "Where are you going?"
"Where I've always been going." He swung his legs fully over the windowsill and ducked out. "To the devil."
Twenty-Two
THE DOWNPOUR HELD ONE ADVANTAGE, WHICH WAS that the Bow Street Runner apparently didn't care to stand outside in it and watch Dove House. Trev actually entered by the front door, a rare treat in his life lately. He had to shake off his coat, strip to his shirtsleeves in the entryway, and towel his hair dry with a cloth brought by Lilly, before he could step into the dining room. His mother seemed to have gained enough strength to sit up and have her breakfast there.
She glanced up at him from a newspaper spread out on the table. "Lilly, bring the fresh coffee. And then you must-" She caught her breath on a light cough. "You must do a guard at the kitchen door."
"Yes, ma'am." Lilly curtsied and gave Trev a pert glance, ogling him in his shirtsleeves as she left the room.
He pulled out a chair. "You frighten me, ma mère. I hope this doesn't mean Cook is entertaining the constable again."
"No, this time it is the Runner," she said, taking a sip from her cup.
"Excellent," he said. "A redoubtable woman."
"But why are you here, mon enfant?" She coughed again, covering her lips with a lacy handkerchief.
"Where is Nurse?" he countered. "Should you be cavorting out of bed in this frivolous manner?"
"I have made Nurse an errand, to walk very far in the rain."
"Making a nuisance of herself, is she?"
"She is a good woman, but she troubles… me very much, that I must be bled, which I do not wish."
"Never mind her, then. But you look well, Maman. You look well." He gazed down at one of the heavy old knives of sterling, running his finger over the ornate coronet engraved above the f lowing initial M. "Je t'aime, ma mère," he said to the tablecloth. "I must leave England."