The following morning, Callie awoke in fine mood, indeed. She stretched sensuously in her big bed, shared by no sister, and contemplated her first true orgasm.
It would be a bit embarrassing, but she wished she could tell Mama. Mama would be so happy for her, like when Callie had gotten her courses. There had been cake with sugar icing and the gift of a lovely, lace-edged handkerchief, the kind a woman carried, by her plate that evening. The boys had pestered to know what the occasion was, but Mama had only smiled. Elektra had known, had been jade-green with envy, Callie recalled with satisfaction.
Callie buried her smile in her pillow. Oh, Ellie, if you only knew.
And yet, she and Mr. Porter had not yet consummated their union. She’d truly expected him to, right there on the floor. She’d felt it in his hands and his mouth and the way he pressed his erection against her.
More was in store. Callie’s smile widened wickedly.
She was terribly interested in that erection. She’d seen illustrations, of course, and one couldn’t live with six men without stumbling across the odd penis. In fact, she’d changed her younger brothers’ nappies as a young girl.
However, that did not at all explain what she’d felt against her last evening. Mr. Porter seemed very large. One assumed that nature would provide, but Callie dearly wished she had one or two of those manuals at hand today to compare. Surely her imagination had been fired by her lust.
Surely.
Then Callie recalled that she had a much more pressing problem.
She’d invited the entire village to a ball—and she had nothing to wear!
* * *
This time when Callie entered the village, hardly anyone seemed to take note of her presence at all. She found out why when she entered the dressmaking establishment of Madame Longett.
Everything looked much the same, but suddenly an elfin little man popped up from nowhere, his face wreathed in a smile. “Hello, dear lady! How may I be of service?”
It was not for Callie to comment upon the strangeness of finding this smartly turned out little man where she’d so recently encountered the somewhat frowsy Madame Longett.
It was possible that he’d been there all along … although by the gaggle of astonished women she’d seen lingering on the walk outside, she doubted it.
Still, he beamed at her in a most friendly fashion and that alone was such a relief that she nearly wept upon his elegant shoulder.
His beaming smile had not lost a single candlepower. “Have you need of my assistance, madam?”
Callie smiled helplessly back. “I ordered a few dresses yesterday … well, then I decided to throw a ball to celebrate my marriage … well, not decided exactly … it just sort of erupted out … do you know, I felt exactly like a volcano…”
She was acting like a gibbering idiot and this nice little man simply smiled encouragingly, as if she were making all the sense in the world. At his mild approval, she felt her nerves calm a bit. She smiled and shook her head ruefully. “My apologies, Mr.…”
He bowed. “Button, madam. I have stepped in whilst the fine Madame Longett is taking her holiday. I should be happy to make you anything you desire. I assure you, my skills will not disappoint.”
She had a feeling he wouldn’t disappoint. One didn’t live with Elektra Worthington without picking up a notion or two about fashion, and Callie was certain that the dapper Mr. Button was the most fashionable person she had ever encountered. She had a feeling that he was having a bit of joke on her … and yet she didn’t mind. If it was a jest, it was sure to be a kindly one and she would likely benefit from it and look back upon it with rueful approval.
She knew this because that was precisely what she did to her own family … and a bit like what she was planning to do to Mr. Porter, now that she thought on it.
Straightening, she nodded crisply. “I require a ball gown and I only have a few days. I have very little of my own at the moment. I know my family intends to send my things on, I thought they would have done so by now, but without me there to direct matters … well, things tend to slide a bit.”
Mr. Button beamed at her as if she’d hung the moon and then for an encore decided the stars were too few. “I imagine your family misses you terribly. Such a lovely smile you have, madam. It has surely brightened the halls of your family home all the days of your life.”
Thinking of her occasional screeching fits of frustration, usually brought on by Cas or Poll, or Attie, or Cas and Poll and Attie, Callie blushed. “I imagine they are toddling on without me well enough.” They are surely sinking like a barge made of stone. “Mr. Button, I realize it isn’t possible to have a proper gown made up in only a week’s time—”
“Ah, but impossible is my forte, madam. I eat it for breakfast and hang it out to dry by noon.” He winked.
She laughed at his absurdity, yet his madness was very convincing somehow. She certainly couldn’t be any worse off than she was already. “It would be lovely to leave the matter in your hands, sir. I’ve never thrown a ball before and I hardly know what to do as it is—”
He held up a hand, palm flat to her. “My dearest Mrs. Porter, say no more. I know precisely how to throw a ball. Tell me, do you have thoughts upon a style? A theme, hmm? Spring is quite lovely in the Cotswolds. A pagan rite, perhaps? Or classical, with you gowned as Persephone, Goddess of Spring?”
“A masque,” she said firmly. “And I dare not make it too elaborate, for I’ve invited the entire village, and I’m not certain but it is possible there will be livestock attending, as well.”
She’d got him there. He paused, mouth open, doubtless ready to extol upon his skills once more, but she could see the shiny brass clockworks inside his mind turning as he regarded her in blinking startlement. “Well, it isn’t as though I’d meant to invite the blasted mule!”
For a long moment, she worried that he might in fact faint. Then he finally drew a breath.
“Invitations,” he blurted, a bit desperately. “Yes, invitations are quite the thing. When one has an invitation in hand, a reference to the event, so to speak, with clear instructions as to attire and er, er … attendees…”
“Yes. Invitations. I suppose I could write them out tonight.” But tonight she would be naked and anyway her calligraphy hand was hideous. She was much more inclined to a crabbed, scholarly style.
The miraculous Mr. Button merely waved a graceful hand. “No, madam, I insist. I shall see to the matter myself. Er, is there anyone … else? The village of course, and what a marvelous notion, a lovely opportunity for everyone to greet you and congratulate you upon your very fine match.” He dismissed the population of the village as if penning the invitations would take no more than a moment of his time. “You mentioned your family? Do they reside nearby … close enough to attend?”
“Family. Oh, dear.” A recipe for a nightmare, that is. “I love my family but … my husband … it was rather difficult to … er, no. No, I don’t think my family could possibly make it here for the ball. They reside in London, you see. I’m sure it is too much of a journey after they have only just arrived back home.” Reasonable and relieving. The idea of Mama trailing scarves and Papa spouting Shakespeare and Cas and Poll quite possibly unleashing the four horsemen of the apocalypse on this, her first ever ball … no. It was for the best.
Ellie might murder her later, at least until she heard about the attending beasties. Then it would be Attie who would be furious to have missed it.
Mr. Button was indeed a wonder. After only an hour, Callie left, quite bemused, toting a parcel of exquisite underthings to replace those lost in the river, her measurements most swiftly and respectfully taken. She’d never been measured by a man before. Then again, Mr. Button was an entirely different sort of fellow, wasn’t he?
Furthermore, she left with the promise of two gowns within the next few days and a gown of silk by the day of the ball, which hardly seemed possible, and yet whilst standing within the spell of Mr. Button’s confidence, it
had seemed most entirely feasible.
What a strange little man. She absolutely adored him.
And it was nice to have found another friend.
She wondered how he’d known her name.
MR. AND MRS. LAWRENCE PORTER
BEG YOUR ATTENDANCE
ON THE EVENING OF THURSDAY NEXT
FOR A MASQUE
TO BE HELD IN HONOR OF THEIR RECENT MARRIAGE.
When one was about to spring a surprise ball upon a hermitesque gentleman, one ought not to approach said fellow empty-handed. Mr. Porter had a sweet tooth. The answer?
Pies. Callie’s pies were known far and wide as portions of juicy heaven wrapped in cloud crusts. They made men shudder with pleasure and vow to slay dragons for her. Or in the case of her brothers, lured them into doing Callie’s more unpleasant chores.
A girl needed something in her arsenal other than her winning personality.
The pies she wanted to bake required more apples than the number sitting in their basket in the pantry. It would require a trip into the cellar to find them … and Callie was none too fond of cellars.
It wasn’t that she was frightened of the dark. Exploring in the dark had gotten her into this mess, hadn’t it?
And it wasn’t that she was precisely frightened, either. Just … cautious. Very, very cautious. Cellars were dark and chill and usually old and … well, they simply made her skin creep!
“Oh, for a lowly housemaid. Or a manservant. Or a highly intelligent dog.” She thought about that for a moment, then shook her head. “Oh, dear. That wouldn’t work, would it? I must have green apples and dogs cannot see colors. How would he ever know which ones to put in the basket?”
With a sigh, she took up a lantern from a hook near the door, lighted it from the fire in the stove with a burning twig, and left the house. Cellar entrances were generally found near the kitchens, so it only took a few minutes of poking through the overgrown weeds to spot the trail worn by generations. She followed it, hiking her skirts over one arm as she strode through the warming day, swinging her basket in her other hand. Such a shame to have to leave the brilliance of this beautiful spring morning to go … down there.
She half hoped she wouldn’t be able to find the entrance, but after a moment the trail led her to a short, wide plank door built into the side of the house. Faded and flaking, it looked as though no one had opened it in Callie’s lifetime, although that couldn’t possibly be the case. Taking a deep breath, almost as if she were going underwater, she pulled the simple ring latch to open the door.
It stuck a bit, scraping over the frost-heaved cobbles of the step before it. The screeching sound of wood on stone sent a cold chill up her spine. Callie had an unpleasant thought of being trapped within.
“Oh, no,” she scolded the door. “That won’t do at all.”
Looking about her, she spied a chunk of firewood lying cast off in the high grass. It was just the right size to wedge firmly into the doorway to keep the sagging plank door wide open. Satisfied, Callie picked up her lantern and carefully picked her way down ancient cut-stone steps spiraling into the bowels of the house.
“Unfortunate word, bowels,” she muttered to herself. “Puts one in mind of an giant’s digestive tract.”
It didn’t help that the architecture of the cellar was a maze of rooms like half barrels, the stone carefully fitted by long-ago hands to hold up the vast house above.
She stopped halfway down the stairs. “Oh, I wish I hadn’t thought about that.” Now it seemed as if she felt the very weight of the house itself above her. She raised her lantern high. Before her was a room that on closer inspection seemed perfectly solid. In fact, it was surprisingly dry and clean, empty but for a head-high stack of empty crates in the far corner from the staircase. Other than a few spiderwebs, there was nothing objectionable in sight.
“You’re such a ninny, Calliope Worthington … er, Porter. Look at this place! Verily indestructible! Probably built by the same blokes who built the pyramids of Egypt, in their spare time, of course. It will stand long after you’re dead.” Her bravado faltered. “I wish I hadn’t said dead.”
Her voice didn’t echo in the network of arched caverns before her. It, too, seemed to sink beneath the weight of the house above.
“Apples. Find the blasted apples. Find the blasted apples and then get back out into the sunlight.” She held up the lantern once more and began to make her way deeper into the warren. “It’s a beautiful day. I needn’t go back indoors for hours. Pick some flowers for the dining room. There must be more vases somewhere. And there will be mushrooms in the woods. I can make a sauce that will bring Himself drooling from the smell of my cooking.”
She randomly went left at a joining, but the next vault into which it led was only a wine cellar, filled with vast racks of dusty bottles. Wine was nice but she hadn’t a clue what might be good, what might be precious, and what might be decades-old vinegar.
Reversing her path, she took a meandering tunnel that at last led her to another vaulted room, this one satisfyingly full of stacked bushel baskets of all sorts of edibles. She filled her basket with brilliant green apples, very pleased to find the proper sort for pie. There were some of last year’s pears as well, a little withered but perfectly suitable for stewing in a sugar syrup on another day. She was much cheered by a gracious plenty of other things from the previous autumn. Piled high about the room were bushels and crates of pumpkins, potatoes, carrots, and onions, the colors glowing like the treasures in Ali Baba’s cave. At least Mr. Porter didn’t intend to die by starvation any time soon.
Feeling better about the cellar in general, Callie had to roll her eyes at her own earlier fears. “A right ninny, indeed.”
Yet as she made her way back to the exit, she saw no beckoning light from the open door. She was going the right way, she was sure of it. Yes, there was the gloomy entrance to the wine cellar. Yes, here were the stacked, empty crates. She turned in the room, holding the lantern high. Yes, there were the stairs up to the doorway to sunlight and fresh air.
A doorway that was now most obviously closed.
Now, most women wouldn’t be all that alarmed by a simple closed door, especially on a brisk spring day full of sweet fresh breezes.
Most women didn’t have five brothers.
Nerves twanging, Callie climbed the steps and put a tentative hand on the latch. It twisted easily enough, but when she pushed on the door, nothing happened. She pushed harder, juggling her basket and the lantern to one hand and throwing all her strength into a one-shouldered shove.
The old planks creaked in protest, but the door didn’t budge.
“Bloody hell,” Callie breathed. If she weren’t nearly a hundred miles from London, she would swear she could hear Cas and Poll snickering on the other side of that door!
But that was madness. It couldn’t be a prank. Who would do such a thing? Who even knew she was here? It certainly wasn’t Mr. Porter. To even consider that possibility, one would also have to concede the faint possibility that Mr. Porter had a smidgen of a sense of humor, albeit a most juvenile one—and that was patently ridiculous.
Yet Callie knew a prank when she was the victim of one. A surge of anger had her pounding on the door, but she knew no one would come. The prankster would hardly help her, and Mr. Porter was somewhere in the great house, far from her muffled noise. She would have to be her own rescuer, as usual.
“Well, then.” Putting her basket and lantern carefully out of the way on the step below hers, she briskly dusted her hands in preparation.
She hammered, she shoved, she yelled, and she pushed. Finally, she resorted to throwing herself bodily against the planks, gasping curses at the top of her lungs. Well, five brothers, after all.
As she flung herself particularly violently at the planks one more time, she felt her shoe slide on the gritty stone step. Her balance shifted precariously and her foot kicked out sideways, knocking her basket of edibles over and endangering the lantern.
>
Apples be damned. Callie grabbed for her only source of light.
“Got you!”
Immediately after which, Callie forgot how to breathe. Bent nearly double over the rickety railing, the rescued lantern swinging from her fist, she had a perfectly marvelous view of the writhing mass of glossy black snakes as they slithered from their winter nest in the curve of the stairs, disturbed by apples falling from above.
“Sweet flaming hell,” Callie whispered, hoping with all her heart that snakes couldn’t climb stairs.
And then the railing snapped.
Chapter 14
Where the hell was she?
Gone for a jaunt across the countryside without his knowing? Rambling about the rooms of the manor, digging through some obscure closet?
Dangling by one hand from some great height? Again?
There was no help for it. Ren had to enlist the help of the men of Amberdell, whom he scarcely knew. There was one, the fellow who delivered the goods for his larder, a brutish bloke by the name of Unwin. Unsavory perhaps, but he evidenced no fear or curiosity toward Ren.
Unwin was nowhere to be found. Ren was forced to approach his second choice, Teager, the carpenter who had repaired a section of the stables for Ren’s horse.
Teager agreed to help, politely not trying to peer into Ren’s hood, although the men he enlisted to search were perhaps not so self-restrained.
Ren turned away from them, riding on the outside of the group, deflecting their curious stares.
Fury fought with worry. Damned woman, forcing him into this mortifying position!
Where the bloody hell was she?
* * *
Callie perched high on the teetering stack of crates, the lantern clutched in her hands and her gaze locked on the snakes.
She’d tried counting them, but they would keep moving. Somewhere between ten and thirty, she thought. Perhaps two dozen snakes, between her and the door to … well, nowhere.
She’d tried twice to make her way back to the stairs. It had taken every scrap of courage she could muster to climb down to the enemy-occupied floor. Yet every time she’d taken a step, she was sure the snakes’ heads turned her way. Quailing, she’d clambered back up the pile of crates, just as she had done when she’d landed on her hands and knees on the stone floor. Her palms were scraped raw and stinging and her knees ached abominably and the chill of the cellar was seeping right into her bones, but really, all that was nothing compared to her terror of the snakes.
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