Callie’s eyes widened. “Frightened? But he’s … he’s…” She pursed her lips, unable to define her own reasons for trusting Mr. Porter. “He saved my life just yesterday.”
Betrice blinked. “Saved your life? Was your life truly in danger?”
Callie, like all Worthingtons, relished a good tale. “Oh, yes. I was cleaning windows, you see.”
Betrice frowned. “But you’re the lady of the manor. Why in the world would you … Oh, well … I suppose it must be difficult to acquire staff.”
Callie waved a hand, uninterested in that less amusing domestic sidetrack. “I was cleaning the glass in the study, because I could scarcely tell the time of day through it! So there I was, hanging from the sill by my hands when my fingers began to sli—”
Betrice gasped. Callie turned to see her new friend had gone entirely ashen. “What is it?” Callie thought back. “Oh, pooh. I forgot to tell the part about the sabotaged ladder—”
Betrice’s hand went to her throat in shock. “Sabotage? You believe … you believe someone intentionally tried to harm you?”
Callie blinked. Somehow her adventure, while dire enough at the time, had taken on the glow of a good narrative once resolved. It took her slightly aback to see how the simple retelling of it seemed to bring Betrice to a state of shock. She frowned slightly. “You are a very sensitive girl, aren’t you?”
Betrice blinked. “I … I mean … what?”
Callie sighed. This was always happening when Worthingtons encountered outsiders. Her own family would have seized upon the excitement and drama of the fall and rescue, with Mama caroling joy at the romance of the groom dashing to save his falling bride at the last possible moment.
Betrice was behaving almost as if … as if the entire matter had been real.
But it had been. Callie could’ve died. Something icy went through her belly at that realization. “I might have died,” she repeated to herself quietly.
Betrice had her hands pressed to her face, only her wide stricken eyes showing.
Callie wasn’t pleased with this new, grim, sharp-edged view of the world. She lifted her china teacup and shot a determined smile at her friend. “Betrice, really. Everything came out just fine. No harm done and the matter persuaded Mr. Porter that a bit of staff about the place would be beneficial.” She patted the stricken Betrice on the hand. “So stop gazing at me as if you’d sighted the ghost of me.” Really, Betrice did tend toward the overly sensitive sometimes. Why, she’d had nothing to do with it, so there was no reason to sit there looking so devastated.
“Oh! I haven’t yet told you of the mad thing I somewhat accidently did!”
Now this really was a strange story. At the end of it, Betrice simply stared at her. “You spontaneously invited the entire village to a ball?”
Callie grimaced at Betrice. “I know. I don’t truly know how it happened. I just wanted them to … you should have seen the way they looked at me.”
“I daresay it isn’t you at all.” Betrice set down the tray on the pretty carved stand next to Callie. “I’m afraid when the heir to Amberdell Manor was found, the local folk thought that they’d been saved. A new squire in the manor should have meant an influx of custom. A new staff should have been hired, maids and footmen and gardeners, a stable full of grooms and stable boys … they were most disappointed, as you could assume.”
Callie nodded. It made sense. “And then there’s the … ah…”
Betrice shot Callie an unreadable glance. “Yes. The hooded recluse persona. Not the openhanded squire they had hopes of. Quite a lethal combination for village disharmony, I’m afraid. You really shouldn’t have braved it alone. You could have handed out gold sovereigns instead of ginger and you still wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
“But what should I do? Now they all think I’m mad, too, like as not.”
“Perhaps you should go back to London—”
Callie looked up in surprise. Betrice was carefully not looking at her.
“But I—”
“If I had any family left, anyone at all,” Betrice said with quiet ferocity, “I wouldn’t let them out of my sight.”
Callie subsided in pity. Poor Betrice. With only Henry at her side, she must be terribly lonely.
Betrice poured the tea and handed Callie her refilled cup before she’d even realized it was empty. Callie spared a sigh of envy for Betrice’s effortless hostess skills.
“You ought to have been lady of the manor,” she said with a rueful smile. “You appear to have been born to it.”
Betrice’s tea slopped over the rim of the cup, just a bit. She shook her head violently. “No, I should have hated it. I’m all right here, with the staff I’ve had all my life and the villagers I’ve known forever. But I—I’m no good at all with new people.”
Callie blinked. She’d thought Betrice reserved, but could it be that her new friend was really quite shy? “You’re good with me and I’m new.”
Betrice shot her a small smile. “You’re family. That’s different.”
The chill caused by Callie’s rather horrible morning began to thaw at once. Family.
Imagine, finding family all the way out here in the Cotswolds. It was like being handed another sister!
Then she narrowed her eyes at Betrice. “You’re not by any chance an evil mastermind, are you?”
Betrice blinked in frank shock. “Wh-what?”
Callie shook her head and wrinkled her nose. “Sorry. Never mind.”
Betrice wasn’t a Worthington. Just a nice ordinary-variety sister.
* * *
When Callie left Springdell behind and made her way back to Amberdell Manor with a lighter heart and a swinging stride, her smile had nearly regained full brightness. Two new cousins! Lovely people. Generous, as well, for at the thought of her walking, they’d promised her the loan of a mount and a lady’s saddle until she sorted out transportation at Amberdell.
Her smile faded slightly as her thoughts wandered to the prospect of indeed hostessing a ball. Yet … why not?
If the village resented Mr. Porter for his reclusive ways, what better way to show them all that they needn’t fear him? If they came to meet him, all of them, it would dispel the mystery and a grand night of food and dance should dispel the resentment, as well.
And if everything came from the village—if Callie ordered from the butcher and the grocer, and perhaps Betrice would lend her very excellent cook. And wasn’t there a school for unfortunate girls nearby? Callie could ask the girls to come and serve and perhaps pick out a likely lass or two to take on housemaid positions—ones with strong nerves and cheerful dispositions—then Mr. Porter needn’t fall back into his lonely ways when Callie left …
By the time she’d reached the bridge over the river, Callie was half convinced that she’d planned the ball all along for Mr. Porter’s benefit.
If only she could convince him not to hide behind his hood—
Suddenly she gasped and clutched her spencer to her chest. Oh, heavens, she was brilliant!
She would throw Mr. Porter and the village a grand masque.
Chapter 11
Scarcely a quarter of an hour after Callie had left Springdell, Betrice answered an urgent pounding upon her front door.
It was Teager, a carpenter and general man of work from the village.
His usually genial round face was tight with worry. “Please, missus, you got to come. There’s a sickness in the village!”
Betrice’s first instinct was to pull on her cloak and fly away to the village to render aid, as she had always done, as her mother had done before her as the wife of the steward of Amberdell—the closest thing the village had to a lady of Amberdell.
Her mother had filled those shoes all of Betrice’s life, had instilled in her daughter the urge to tend the village, and all unknowing, had filled Betrice’s head full of aspiration.
Now that dream lay in the dust of the lane, trampled by the unknowing strides of Calliope Worthi
ngton.
Betrice turned expressionlessly to Teager. “I think perhaps you ought to call upon the lady of the manor.”
Teager shook his head vehemently. “We need you, Missus Nelson. No one will allow that one into their homes!”
Betrice blinked in surprise. “But whyever not?” Surely a few social gaffes in a dressmaker’s shop wouldn’t cause such an aversion!
“Because it were her what brought the sickness!”
* * *
Callie frankly dawdled on her way back to Amberdell. The late-afternoon light painted the stunning countryside with a golden brush. Even the dusty gravel of the lane seemed to glow. Could it truly be that more wildflowers had bloomed since she’d walked the lane this morning?
After her lifetime in London proper—although of course she had journeyed out of it on occasion—Callie felt as though she drank the beauty in through her very skin. She paused on the same bridge where she had almost washed away just a few nights ago. Now the river chuckled amiably below her, shimmering with fiery glints that made her eyes water.
London was gray stone and soot and noise, and yes, art and culture and science … but peace? Not in the Worthington household. Not outside it, in the bustling streets. Not even in the parks, which on fine days were filled with people, horses, dogs, and children.
Never alone. Callie thought if two words could describe her existence before this, it would be those. Now, she spent so much time alone … what in the world should she do with herself?
She’d known what to do once. There had been a time before Attie’s birth when her brothers had been away at school and she spent her time avoiding Elektra’s girlish prattle by keeping her nose in a book, or by … by drawing.
She closed her eyes against the river’s shimmer and let her eyelids turn the reflections into a rosy peaceful glow. Once upon twelve years or so ago, she had spent hours of every day drawing and painting intricate botanical studies. She’d loved it so, for it combined the two things she found most stimulating—art and science together. Not for her those hazy, dreamy watercolor landscapes, sentimental and inaccurate—yet not the single-minded study of botany, either, turning the very symbol of life itself into dry, scholarly facts.
Then Attie’s birth had turned difficult and Mama had nearly died. She’d remained in her sickbed for many months, and had little strength for nearly three years afterward. Callie had cared for Attie and Mama both, and been happy to do so. Attie was her darling and Mama perhaps the only person on earth who truly understood Callie’s innermost soul. Young Elektra had been appalled when she learned Callie meant to pass on her Season, but funds had ever been short and who would care for everyone while Callie wasted her time talking to boring people and spinning in circles on a dance floor?
Still, she did plan on finding a husband. Eventually Mama had recovered and Attie, once so tiny and frail and constantly ill, had become a robust and ingenious toddler who had progressed directly from screaming animal sounds to complete sentences. Dade had come home from the war unhurt and ready to take some of the burden from her shoulders. Callie had felt the world open up around her, although she’d never thought of herself as being caged before.
Then Lysander had fallen in the Siege of Burgos. The news of his death—confused and untrue, of course—had sent Callie’s parents into deep mourning. Then he’d been found, fevered and raving in a soldiers’ hospital. Callie had instantly disposed of her renewed plans for a Season and set herself to healing her dear, broken brother.
Time and rest and loving care had eventually healed his body, but it had been a very long time before Lysander spoke to any of them—at least, spoke anything resembling calm and rational sense. The family was perhaps not so swift to recover.
First mourning his death, then worrying over him, had done something to Mama. She’d drifted away from them, losing herself in her paintings. Papa had hidden from Lysander’s ravings in his Shakespearean studies, composing endless versions of the same paper extolling the possibility that Shakespeare had in fact been a woman. His evidence was slim and his scholarly community scornful, so the days grew into weeks into months into years while Papa polished and researched.
Callie found herself dealing with Mama’s responsibilities, while Dade took on Papa’s. Their dear, sensitive, but injured parents became two more children in a house full of them.
But she and Dade were not Mama and Papa, and their siblings knew it. The house became a place of abrasive conflict and constant, noisy unrest. The bonds of love were strong, but the hands steering the course were untried and sometimes hesitant. Dade did his best to understand Lysander and to keep the twins’ antics within legal limits. Orion became analytical and cold, scorning the theatrics of Elektra and the dark shadows of Lysander. Attie spun from one sibling to another, now drawing Lysander out with a brutal game of chess, now piquing Orion’s temporary interest with her intellect, then joining Cas and Poll for a spot of sibling terrorism, or allowing Elektra to spoil and pet her like a doll, then finding herself ignored by her glamorous sister.
Callie tried to help, providing a steadying influence, but Attie, out of all of them, had the least illusions about her family. She’d never known the early days of serenity and joy and, yes, occasional madness but always something to laugh about later. Callie felt sorry for her sister, just about to slip into womanhood without ever really having a childhood, at least not the sort of childhood Callie and the others had enjoyed.
Guilt stung her eyes and chilled her belly, but Callie did not allow herself to dwell upon her abandonment of them. She’d had no choice. The loss of Dade would have ruined them all forever! And this arrangement wasn’t everlasting. She would return home someday soon. The pearls would help so much, and someday she might find herself a rich widow.
That part of the plan felt unpleasant and hollow now. She could not longer pretend to be blithe about the fact of Mr. Porter’s limited time on this earth. The poor man.
Perhaps, when he’d become more accustomed to her presence and did not flee the house every time she picked up a broom, she could find a way to do more for his comfort.
Something plopped into the river and Callie opened her eyes. The frogs were out once more, popping from their muddy winter homes. Soon the warming evenings would be filled with their peeping song.
After their brief rest, her eyes drank in the beauty anew. It was all so glorious, from the greening trees to the burgeoning tiny lives to the brilliant color of the wildflowers. Like her awakening body, warming and pulsing with life.
And right now, Callie had nothing better to do than to enjoy it all.
Gazing down at the riverbank, she smiled. Cowslip flowers peeked yellow eyes up at her. As common as grass, yet Callie had always loved the cheery little blooms clustered at the top of their bobbing stem. Cowslips meant the winter was gone and better times were ahead.
Come to think of it, she had a bit of paper in her basket, meant to leave as lists and orders in the village—and she always had a pencil in her reticule …
* * *
Penny Longett, the Amberdell dressmaker, was a woman of small talent and great determination. She’d had a brief career in the London shops as a modiste; well, to be perfectly frank, she had worked for a well-known modiste, at any rate. She had traded on that slightly embroidered reputation when she’d moved into the country with her husband years ago. He had died soon after, but he’d left her with enough coin to open a shop and she’d done all right in her way.
There weren’t many true dressmakers in any nearby towns or villages, so she had a bit of custom from the surrounding areas and not a great deal of competition.
However, with no lady in the manor and with even Mrs. Nelson, dear girl that she was, inclined to pinch her pennies until they squealed … well, it was all a widow could do to survive in such times. She hadn’t counted on the way women in the country did for themselves, trimming their own bonnets and refashioning their gowns every year for a new look at a fraction of the pr
ice of new!
So when a strange little man rode up in an extraordinary little pony cart, entered her shop and offered her a thick wad of banknotes to abandon her post for a long holiday in Brighton … well, Penny had kissed him upon the top of his balding little head and dropped her shop keys into his palm without a tremor of guilt. It would all keep until she came back … if she ever came back!
* * *
He was following her again.
A hunter upon the scent.
More like a hound after its mistress.
It wasn’t as if he had anything better to do. Amberdell Manor was losing its brooding appeal, room by room, as Hurricane Calliope swept through it. How was a bloke supposed to lurk properly in rooms full of light and flowers and the smell of beeswax polish?
Positively irritating.
When he had first come to Amberdell Manor, it had been shut up for more than a year already, silent and dark. Ren had never thought to look beneath the dustcovers in most of the rooms. It turned out he had a very fine house, indeed.
She was doing something else today. At first he’d thought she was headed back from the village again, but she’d turned aside at the bridge and was following the riverbed, picking her way down the bank, turning her head from side to side. Had she dropped something? If she were looking for some of her lost possessions, she might wish to look downriver instead of up.
Suddenly she exclaimed and bent to pluck something from the ground.
She was picking flowers. Again.
Ren didn’t think the house needed any more.
Yet Callie didn’t seem to want a bouquet. Instead, she stepped closer to the river and carefully washed whatever it was she had found. Then she crossed to a higher bank and seated herself in a patch of sunlight. Her basket apparently contained a sheaf of papers and a pencil.
She was drawing.
Bemused, Ren continued watching from the rise behind her, allowing his mount to drop his head and graze the hillside. There his bride sat, upon the damp ground, her stack of paper on her knee and her pencil in action. She made a pretty picture, a shapely girl sitting on a grassy bank on a sunny day. He only regretted being too far away to see what it was that fascinated her so.
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