Lessons in French

by Laura Kinsale

"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.

  "I warn 'er, my lady, I don't know how I'll serve a dinner on time," Cook said ominously.

  "I think a light luncheon will be perfectly adequate. Perhaps you can…" Callie surveyed the wreck of the kitchen. "Perhaps a ham and mustard sandwich," she concluded faintly.

  "Pr'haps," the cook said with displeasure. She nodded at the bull. "'Tis standin' on the bread, him is."

  "Yes," Callie said helplessly. "I see."

  Cook harrumphed in disgust. "Can't put food on the table with a bull in the kitchen, can us?" She rolled down her sleeves and turned resolutely to the door.

  "Oh no, please don't go—" Callie's plea was cut off by the sound of the door thumping closed behind the cook with finality. She bit her lip in vexation, sure that was the last they would see of the new cook. She was astonished a few moments later to hear the constable and Major Sturgeon addressed in strong Gloucester accents. The cook's voice was soon joined by another, equally scolding. Callie recognized the nurse, who seemed to have abandoned her patient long enough to come down to the yard and rebuke the local officer of the law in no uncertain terms. Lilly's higher tones joined in, and the sounds, along with the major's clipped replies and Constable Hubble's pathetic attempts to mount a defense, receded.

  Callie fed Hubert another tomato. After several minutes, the door to the hall opened cautiously. "Still here?" Trev looked around the corner.

  She gave him a dry look. "Where did you expect us to be?"

  "Can he turn about?"

  Callie cast a glance round the room, measuring Hubert's length against the breadth of it. "In a word—no."

  "Damn." Trev went away for a moment, then came back and opened the door fully, stepping down into the kitchen. "It's safe for now. They've retreated in disarray. Cook's gone for some bread at the shop. An excellent woman!" He grinned. "We'd fought it to a draw, but Sturgeon wasn't going to fall back until she rallied the forces."

  "I've raised her wages to three guineas a week," Callie informed him.

  "Capital." He offered another carrot to Hubert. "I could commit murder before her very eyes and keep her on at that rate. Now—what are we to do with you, my immense friend? Can you back him out?"

  "I doubt it. I may have to lead him through the hallway," Callie said.

  "I fear that you may. I pray for the survival of the f loorboards. And after that, what are we to do with him?"

  "What are we to do with him?" she echoed in surprise. "I should think that must be obvious."

  "We must get him out of here, of course," Trev said. "But after that, I'll admit, I'm stymied for a plan."

  "We'll return him to Colonel Davenport, of course."

  "And what will we say to the colonel?" he inquired. "'Here's your bull, my good man. So sorry he fell in a tanner's vat!'"

  Callie made an exasperated sound. "Why on earth did you dye him? It makes it appear as if you stole him."

  "Ah. You perceive the crux of the problem."

  She was silent for a moment, her gloved hand resting on Hubert's muscular shoulder. She lowered her eyes. "Did you steal him?" she asked softly.

  "Well, no," he said. "At least, I didn't mean to."

  She lifted her eyes, her head tilted a little aside, a hesitant upward curve on her lips.

  Trev felt his heart make a certain sort of squeeze, the kind of pang that he direly wished to avoid, when she looked at him just so. He gave a f lat smile and a shrug. "I'd intended to purchase him, if you will credit that."

  "For me?" Her voice was barely above a whisper.

  "Oh no," he said casually. "I meant to present him to some other lady. It's all the crack, you know. Flowers are so common."

  She pressed her lips together and frowned. She wrinkled her nose, and then put her arm over Hubert's broad back and laid her cheek to his massive shoulder. "Thank you," she said quietly.

  Trev examined the bandage on his hand, tugging at the knot. "An unsuccessful endeavor, as usual. What will I bungle next?"

  Callie sighed. She lifted her head and stroked the bull's sleek hide. "We must give him back, you know. He's too valuable."

  "I suppose," he said. "I prefer not to be too closely associated with the honorable deed, myself. Perhaps we could just turn him loose, to be found."

  She considered this, shaking her head slowly. "I don't like to turn him loose. There are these sharpers lurking about. And there's no saying who might find him first, or that he might get tangled with some fence, or chased by dogs, or a fast carriage might come upon him suddenly in a narrow lane. Hunting gentlemen come into the country this season and drive as if they're mad. He might be hurt."

  "True." Trev privately spared a moment's sympathy for any fast driver who happened to collide with Hubert.

  "Besides, I think he would just come home again." A slight frown crossed her brow. "And if he were discovered at Shelford—dyed like this—" Her eyes widened. "Someone might think I stole him!"

  He snorted. "You? No one would suppose that."

  "With the Hereford show next week—" She stood straight. "Everyone knows we're going to it. Everyone knows I hoped to win. There's a great deal of rivalry within the county Agricultural Society."

  "It's cutthroat, I've no doubt," he said. "But I hardly think anyone would accuse you—"

  "They would," she said strongly. "Best Bull not over Four Years of Age—it's for the silver cup, you know! And there was a horrid scandal last year; I heard all about it from Colonel Davenport, though I couldn't attend myself. Mr. Painter was disqualified from ever showing at the exhibition again, because he had glued false hair over a sore on his bull's back."

  "Shocking," Trev said with a grave look.

  "It was! Very! No one would ever have suspected it of Mr. Painter. We supposed him to be a perfectly ho
norable gentleman. Now he doesn't dare show his face among honest graziers. No, I don't want to risk anything like that. I've seven heifers, four steers, a bull calf, and a pair of oxen entered, even without Hubert. And I'm not certain, now that I think of it, that it would look very well at all even if I took Hubert directly back to Colonel Davenport now. Not in this state, and so close to the exhibition. It might appear that I only pretended to find him and bring him back, while meaning to keep him out of the competition altogether. He can't be shown like this."

  Trev pressed his fist inside the stiff curve of his bandaged hand. "So… we can't take him back, and we can't turn him loose, and we can't keep him at Shelford."

  She shook her head. "I don't see how we can—at least until he grows out of this dye."

  "How long will that take?"

  "Oh my—his winter coat will be coming on, but— some months I should think, before there is no trace of it."

  "Splendid," he said dryly. "We'll have to conceal him, then."

  They both gazed at Hubert. He chewed rhythmi cally, with a faraway, dreamy look in his deep brown eyes. He swished his tail, thumping it against the cupboard with a sound like a hollow drum. Inside the cupboard, the dishes rattled.

  "Perhaps some spectacles and a mustache," Trev suggested.

  "Yes, and a bagwig," Callie said curtly. "He could sit on the bench and conduct the assizes."

  Trev squinted at the bull. "He does resemble some of the judges."

  She pursed her lips and gave him an arch look. "No doubt you're familiar with any number of them."

  "Sadly I am, and I fear I'll come to know them even better if we don't discover some way to deal with this monster." He crossed his arms, leaning his hip against the overturned table. "If you believe we can't turn him loose, we must get him well away from Shelford, Callie, in truth. And rapidly at that. Is there anyone you trust to take him?"

  She frowned and clutched her gloves together, holding them to her chin. In spite of his increasingly urgent anxiety for his own skin, Trev found himself hard put to suppress a smile at the look of earnest concentration on her face.

  "I have an excellent drover," she said, "but he knows Hubert very well, and I wouldn't know how to explain it all. And where would we take him?"

  "Somewhere among a great number of cattle would be best. A market or such."

  "We can't sell him!" she exclaimed.

  "I don't mean to sell him. Only somewhere that he would blend in among a lot of others of his kind for a while."

  "I don't believe Hubert will blend very well. Particularly in this color. The only black cattle that are common are the Welsh type. They aren't so large, and you don't see many of them hereabouts. I heard there were a few at the last exhibition."

  "The exhibition!" Trev stood upright. "We could take him there. Cattle by the score."

  Callie gasped. "Are you mad? We can't let him be seen there!"

  "It's perfect. It's an exhibition, yes? You don't have to enter for a prize. He's an alien bull, just come over from… from Belgium. Kept under wraps until he's revealed at the show. New blood, all that. We could even start up a rumor claiming he's larger than Hubert. And you would publish Hubert's dimensions—slightly reduced, of course—and express your displeasure with this upstart—"

  Callie's mouth fell open wider and wider. She was shaking her head.

  "It's hide in plain sight, you see," Trev said. "We'll offer a challenge! A hundred guineas. While everyone scours the countryside trying to find Hubert, so that the two can be compared, he's standing right in front of them. But they won't see it."

  "You're mad! Of course they would see it. I recog nized him instantly!"

  "Did you?"

  "Well, I—it did take me a moment to realize—but, I'm sure anyone who knew Hubert would see it quickly."

  "How many in Hereford know him that well? He doesn't have any scars or nicks. It's not so easy to recognize an animal with no markings as one might suppose. I've seen enough dark horses to know, you may believe me."

  She turned and gazed at Hubert, assessing his generous bulk and shaking her head. Trev could see that she was about to dispute him, when a faint cough from the door made them both look round quickly.

  "Maman!" Trev exclaimed. "What are you doing down here?"

  The duchesse leaned one white hand on the door jamb, peering into the kitchen. "No, I ask you!" she whispered. "What does this animal do here?" Her eyes danced. "You and Lady Callista… have a scheme together, eh?"

  "We're taking him out directly," Trev said. He moved toward the door, avoiding the smashed pie. "As soon as I help you back to bed."

  "Oh no, do not suppose—" She coughed, clinging to the door. "You expect me to… be in bed… while all my house falls down!"

  "Better that, than you fall down," he said, taking her arm.

  "I will… sit up in the parlor," she said with dignity. Her voice strengthened. "I am much… better. We have a great deal to discuss, I think, Trevelyan."

  "And where is that nurse?" Trev asked. He guided her away from the door, but she set herself against climbing the stairs.

  "No. And no. I will… sit up," she said as firmly as her weak voice could manage. "And we will discuss, Trevelyan!"

  "May I remove this bull from the premises first?" he asked courteously.

  "You may," she said with a little smirk at him. "Only do not… destroy what Limoges ware I have left to me."

  "I make no guarantee of that," Trev said, guiding her to a chair in the modest drawing room. "I can only hope he doesn't lodge at the turning and pull the whole place down around us."

  Hubert proved himself a splendid gentleman, worthy of his exalted lineage and genteel upbringing, in his transit from the kitchen to the front door. Following Callie and a trail of carrots, he moved one ponderous step at time, his big head swaying gently under the replaced blindfold. There were a few breathless moments at the turning, in which his hip caught on the doorjamb and the ancient f loorboards squealed in protest at his weight, but a mighty shove against his rib cage by Trev, and Callie's encouraging voice, swayed him just enough. His hind foot found purchase on the top stone stair, and he pushed through.

  Once he reached the garden, however, he summarily shed his well-bred manners and showed a loutish tendency to trample the dahlias and browse on the tender shoots of a sweet pea vine. Trev had tied the horses in the stable yard and made sure the lane was empty of passersby before they brought Hubert through the door, but he felt his alarm rising as the bull disregarded the carrots and planted himself amid the f lower beds, cropping great swaths of blossoms and vegetation with each mouthful.

  "Callie!" Trev hissed, pushing at Hubert's rump. "Move him along!"

  "I'm trying!" she returned in a fierce whisper, as if they weren't standing in full view of the lane with a massive black bull taking up the twelve feet of garden between them. She clucked and tugged at the animal's nose ring. "Hubert! Walk on!"

  Hubert f licked his ear, lifted his nose an inch, and then went back to tearing up daisies.

  Trev had been praying that Jock and Barton's absence meant that the pursuit was still decoyed away. Jock knew full well they needed time, and plenty of it, but Sturgeon had not left the premises willingly—not unless it was to go for a musket. So when Trev saw a f licker of motion through the leaves and overhanging branches far down the lane, a warning that someone was marching briskly toward them, he felt a surge of true panic.

  "Someone's coming." He would have stampeded the bull in any way he could, but with Callie standing in front of the bull he didn't dare. She'd be crushed in an instant if the beast overran her. He threw a wild look round, saw a white expanse of bed linens hung out to sun over the side fence, and finished off Hubert's work by trampling down the delphiniums to reach them. He tore the sheets off the fence and waded back, dragging them in his arms, tossing the whole spread over Hubert's back. "Take the ends! We're airing linen."

  Callie nodded, with a wide-eyed glance toward the l
ane. She grabbed a sheet corner, pulling it toward her. Hubert ignored the drape as Trev hurriedly arranged one edge over a rosebush, trying to cover him entirely under a tentlike affair of bed linens. Callie held out the ends, waving them up and down as if to shake out wrinkles while she made a pavilion over Hubert's lowered head.

  To the nondiscerning eye, he might possibly resemble the lumps of covered garden bushes, assuming the bushes were small trees, but Trev feared he looked very much more like a bull with a pair of sheets and a counterpane laid over him. Trev was frantically trying to invent a reasonable tale to cover the situation when the advancing pedestrians appeared round the curve of the lane.

  Trev looked toward them. Then he closed his eyes, let go of a harsh breath, and thanked every saint in heaven and a few well-known sinners in hell. It was only the new cook and his mother's nurse, with no other companions.