“His name is Cabot,” Mr. Button said nearly in her ear. “Shut your mouth, dear, you’re a married woman.”
Callie gurgled, blinked, and then remembered her terribly urgent business that had caused this morning’s unpleasant venture into Amberdell. She turned to Mr. Button, grasping at his hand.
“Mr. Button, I think someone is trying to kill me!”
* * *
She found herself tucked away in Madame Longett’s frowsy sitting room, with a cup of strong tea in her hand and Mr. Button’s full and undivided attention.
“Have you informed your husband of these attempts?”
Callie shrugged. “Yes. He thinks I am either mad or childish.” She shuddered. “As if I would make up a thing like those snakes! That is why I came to you. I just wanted someone to … to tell me that I’m not mad.”
Mr. Button sat back in his chair and gazed at her with his head tilted. “Is there even the slightest exaggeration in what you have told me?”
Callie closed her eyes in resignation. “You don’t believe me, either.”
Mr. Button tapped her sharply on the wrist. She opened her eyes in surprise to see him frowning at her.
“Don’t be an infant,” he admonished tartly. “I believe you, my dear. I am simply after all the facts. Tell me about this man beneath the trees again. Was he truly as large as you say?”
Callie picked at the tassel on her reticule. “In fact, he was a bit bigger. I didn’t wish to sound, well … mad.”
“You would know him if you saw him again?”
She wrinkled her brow at him. “It would be effortless. He was quite the largest man I have ever seen.”
“Hmm.” His puckish face looked, just for an instant, ever so slightly … lethal. Much the way that Mr. Porter sometimes did, when he seemed to stand at the edge of what normal people called sanity. Callie felt a flicker of alarm. She kept encountering all these dangerous people …
Then the little dressmaker smiled and the ridiculous notion fled her mind. He patted her hand gently and gazed approvingly at her. “You must come to me at once if anything else should happen. Do you understand?”
Callie felt better immediately. Nothing had truly changed. Her situation was still very strange, indeed. However, a sympathetic ear could be as good as a helping hand sometimes. Sometimes a girl just needed someone to listen.
As she made her way out through the women flocking into the shop, she noticed Betrice near the door and made her way across.
Betrice greeted her easily, if a bit reservedly. Callie could hardly blame her, with all the eyes of the shop upon them.
“Are you shopping for the ball?”
Betrice nodded. “I received my invitation this morning. Goodness, you certainly have lovely penmanship.”
Callie slid her gaze to the heavenly Cabot, who quirked a single perfect brow at her from his post behind the counter. “Er … I’m so glad you’ll be coming. Is Henry excited, as well?”
Betrice looked down, folding her gloves together. “Henry will enjoy visiting with the other farmers, of course. I very much doubt he shall dance.”
Callie laughed. “If Mr. Porter can dance, I’m sure Henry will find it within him to do so.” Oh, dear. She’d spoken loudly enough to be heard over the hubbub—right when the hubbub hit one of those inexplicable silences. From all around the shop, wide gazes pinned her like a bug in a collection. She swallowed and tried to keep her smile even. Then the whispers erupted anew, louder than ever.
Even Betrice was staring at her. “Lawrence will be attending? Dancing? In front of the entire village?”
I have no earthly idea. “Of course he will!” Perhaps I shall run away to Jamaica. “It is his ball, after all.” Dear God, I’m rhyming. “I daresay he will dance with all the ladies!” Someone stop me, please.
Cabot appeared at her elbow. “Excuse the interruption, madam, but I have a question about the sprigged day gown you ordered. Which of these ribbons would you prefer for the trim?”
Across his large, elegant palm lay two ribbons of nearly identical tints of pale green. Callie stared down at them in blind panic. With a spastic wave of one hand, she apparently selected the one which Cabot most approved, for he bestowed a breathtaking smile upon her and bowed himself away.
When Callie turned back to Betrice, she was surprised to find her friend had disappeared into the crowd. Surprised but honestly relieved. When she got back to the manor, she was going to have a very stern talk with her runaway mouth!
It wasn’t until she had made her escape and was safely halfway back to the smithy that Callie realized that she hadn’t ordered a sprigged day gown with pale green trim. Bless you, Cabot!
* * *
Cabot entered the sitting room where his master sat idly stirring a cup of tea with a spoon. Since Cabot knew perfectly well that Button never took sugar, he maintained a respectful silence during his master’s “deep think.”
Eventually, Button ceased stirring and took a sip. Then he put the cup down on its saucer with a clink. “Yes, I believe steps must indeed be taken before matters get entirely out of hand.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When one takes on such an assignment, one must be prepared to deal with the unexpected.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It is not as though I could leave the poor thing dangling out alone, like the last leaf on the autumn tree!”
“Most well put, sir.”
“Reinforcements, that is what is needed here!” He rubbed his hands together. “Cabot, fetch me the—”
A tray appeared at his elbow, supplied with pen, ink, and a stack of already penned invitations to the Porter masque. Button gazed at it with delight. “How would I do without you, dear boy?”
“Brilliantly, sir. As always.”
* * *
Betrice turned a corner into the churchyard and stopped her headlong rush. With one hand pressed to her aching midriff, she leaned back against the sun-warmed wall of the church and closed her stinging eyes.
Damn. Damn, damn, damn.
Betrice was a lady, she would never say damn in a churchyard, even in her mind, were she not driven to it!
I daresay he will dance with all the ladies!
Callie, damned bloody Callie! For the past few years Betrice had truly believed that she might at last become the lady of Amberdell Manor. Everyone in the village had thought so, had indeed treated her as de facto mistress of the hall. She looked after them, and listened to them, and settled their piddling disputes, and carried soup to their ailing children and—she brought her gloved fist down to smack against the stone behind her—arranged the flowers every Sunday in this very church!
But it seemed that poor, half-mad, dying Lawrence wasn’t quite as ill or insane as everyone had been so certain.
Callie had seemed so confident, so bloody damned giddy about him—like a girl in love, knowing her man would do absolutely anything she asked, even live.
“You’ve hurt your hand.”
Betrice straightened with a start, opening her eyes to find Unwin standing before her, his thick features dark with concern. She gazed down at her hand, realizing that she was cradling the throbbing thing in her other hand. Her glove was torn down one side and blood had beaded on the scraped flesh below.
Apparently she had struck the wall more than once.
Her eyes filled with tears of frustration and fury. She let them come. Unwin would understand. Unwin wouldn’t think less of her for her rage. He knew a bit about rage himself.
* * *
Callie gleefully left the village in her dust, riding Sally away at a careful gallop. Sally, who had more than a hint of Thoroughbred in her veins, would have liked to have made it a full run. It was only with difficulty that Callie kept the filly to an easy pace. She merely wanted some distance from Amberdell. She didn’t wish to end up in Scotland.
A wide path ran alongside the river, likely from the passage of horse-drawn barges. It made for a lovely bridle path an
d Callie enjoyed her ride very much. When she felt the tension of the village fall far behind her and Sally had become bored with pulling at the bit, they slowed to a prancing walk.
Callie let her hands ease, flexing her fingers. It had been a long while since she’d ridden regularly, what with her duties running the household. Not that riding had ever been terribly entertaining to her. The Worthington mounts were ever so slightly … elderly. Every one had survived through successive young riders and were stolid and slow-paced, immune to encouragement and unimpressed by anything short of cannon fire.
So she was entirely unprepared when Sally let out a shrieking neigh and leaped powerfully sideways, then bounded high. Callie felt herself lift entirely out of the saddle, then come back down to find that Sally was elsewhere.
Oh, ow. Not a brilliant last thought, but all she really had time for before she flew the great distance from Sally’s Thoroughbred back to the hard-packed earth of the path. This will hurt.
It did.
* * *
Ren drew his hood down so that not even an errant breeze might reveal him and rode his horse slowly down the village High Street. He felt the furtive stares scurry across him like mice, and just as unwelcome.
When he’d returned to his post just past the bridge after his efforts to find the giant had been to no avail, he’d become impatient when Calliope did not appear after half an hour. He’d missed her, he was sure of it.
He’d felt compelled to check. Now, with his shoulders twitching from the weight of all that resentful curiosity, he wished he’d gone directly home. She wasn’t here. Her bay filly was nowhere to be seen. She’d made swift with her business apparently, for which he could hardly blame her. Did they treat her so grimly here? Surely not. Calliope’s cheerful manner and open friendliness must find purchase even with these surly country folk.
Or did it? She had been here thrice in less than a week, and each time she seemed to leave as quickly as possible. No idle gossip with the ladies, no invitations to a cup of tea, no kindly overtures to the new lady of the manor?
Apparently not. He remembered the ginger fiasco … and his own churlish treatment of her after discovering her in the cellar, even in front of the village men.
His gut went cold at the thought of her certain unhappiness since she’d wed him. He must appear a madman to her, bent on only lust and the occasional scolding. She’d been torn from her insane but loving family, that outrageous mob, only to find herself completely isolated from even making new friends by her husband’s reputation for darkness and deviltry. It must be some sort of special Calliope hell. Handmade by him and delivered to her bound by a broken strand of pearls.
With a muffled curse, he turned his mount and spurred it into a gallop, right down the village street, causing village curs to scurry and pedestrians to dodge out of the way.
Back to his bloody manor, may it do him no good whatsoever. She would only come home and drive him mad with mingled longing and exasperation. No place on earth was safe from the flavor of Calliope, that taste of uncompromising sweetness, with just a tantalizing hint of rosemary and salt.
Chapter 18
Callie lay upon her back in the middle of the path and contemplated the gathering clouds in the afternoon sky. When had the sun disappeared?
Her head ached. Had she landed upon it? She didn’t think she’d gone unconscious but perhaps a bit … discombobulated. Slowly she pushed herself up with her hands until she was sitting up, rather like a child’s dolly. For a long moment she gazed fuzzily down at her skirts until she realized that they were rucked up to her knees. She pushed them down with clumsy hands.
Yes. Definite discombobulation.
Sally. Looking around her, turning her head carefully on her neck, revealed no horse. The filly was gone, probably back home to her barn. That was good. When a horse came back without a rider, people became concerned. People like Mr. Porter. And … and Betrice. And her husband. Callie stared blankly at her filthy scraped palms for a long moment until it came to her. Henry.
Mr. Porter and Betrice and Henry would see the silly Sally coming home with no one in her saddle and they would immediately set out to rescue silly Callie.
Someone would come.
Being rescued was a good thing, of course. Irritating, but good. Still, there was no good reason to wait here like this, sitting in the dirt like a discarded plaything.
Getting to her hands and knees went well. She was feeling clearer by the moment. She now very clearly felt the throbbing in her head. And, when she tried to stand, she very clearly felt the nauseating pain in her ankle.
Hobbling carefully, she made it to the edge of the path to rest upon a fallen log there. Much more dignified, to be discovered reclining sedately upon a stump than to be sprawled in an ungainly way in the path.
The breeze picked up, swirling about her and creating little eddies of leaves in the path. She shivered. When had it gotten so chill?
She gazed up at the hidden sun for a long moment, half shielding her eyes with one hand while she thought. It had been late morning when she’d left the village. Now it was well into the afternoon. She’d only ridden for a quarter of an hour or so downriver from the bridge—albeit at Sally’s long-legged racer’s gait—so …
She must have remained discombobulated for quite a while, first of all. An hour? More?
Time for someone to begin searching for her. Time enough, in fact, for someone to find her?
She could sit here and wait, although she wore only her woolen spencer and her gown was damp from lying on the ground and the breeze was becoming good and stiff now. The clouds were darkening, as well, becoming quite black to the northeast. Recalling the storm that had nearly washed out the bridge on her first night here, Callie knew she would not like to be lost in it, alone and hindered by her injury.
Mr. Porter would come.
Wouldn’t he?
The thing was … well, she simply didn’t know if he would come for her or not. He’d been so angry about the ladder, and the cellar, and the ginger … at what point would he simply decide to disregard her?
Since she had been gone for hours before, to the village and visiting with Betrice and rambling through the wildflowers, he might very well simply be expecting her to appear back at the manor in her own time.
Letting out a long, sad breath, Callie came to the conclusion that she was well and truly on her own.
Alone.
Perhaps not quite as enjoyable a state as she’d originally supposed.
* * *
Ren looked up from his study fire to frown at the breeze rattling at the window glass. He’d been enjoying his first real brood in a while, dwelling upon the stares and glares of the villagers and of how he hadn’t had to deal with such aggravation before Miss Calliope Worthington had waltzed half naked into his life.
She was taking her bloody time about coming back from her ride. The house was too damned quiet without her bustling and sweeping and singing silly rude songs just under her breath so he could only hear half the words …
There were no delicious cooking smells today. The weeds she insisted on sticking into his antiquities were wilting. The house was growing colder, almost as if it didn’t think she was coming back—
A shattered ladder. A jar of poisoned ginger. A mysteriously jammed cellar door and a nest of asps. A dark silhouette on a hilltop.
An explosion of icy fear suddenly froze his gut.
I believe.
* * *
Ren rode his gelding into the wind for nearly an hour, searching the areas where Callie had gone drawing in the past. There was no sign of her, not so much as a pencil shaving.
She might have ridden quite far on Henry’s restive bay filly without realizing it. Amberdell estate was bounded on one side by the river but on the other three there were only a few ancient stone cairns to mark the lands. She could have wandered into a different county by now!
Ren pulled his mount to a halt at the top of yet another
hill and stared hard in every direction. Impatiently he pulled his hood down, letting it fall like a cowl about his neck as he strained his eyes in the fading light. It was not yet sunset, but the black clouds boiling up from the northeast had turned day into evening. Ren could not spot the filly’s bright coat, nor Callie’s pale muslin gown nor her nut-brown spencer.
The filly had seemed well broken to Ren, if a bit youthfully excessive. Surely Henry would never send over a dangerous mount for a lady!
But Callie had lived in London all her life. Posting paths did not pose the same dangers as country riding … and there was the giant stranger to consider. If Callie had somehow come off her horse, the creature would surely have returned by now—
Returned to Springdell, not Amberdell.
Ren cursed, even as he towed his mount in a half circle and spurred him to a full canter. Springdell was nearly three miles away, but the big gelding’s stride made short work of the distance. In less than half an hour Ren pulled his blowing mount to a halt in Henry’s barnyard. Ren tossed his reins to a staring groom, only then realizing that his hood was down. Indifferent to the man’s gaping curiosity, Ren only pulled it back up when he saw Henry’s wife Betrice running from the house, her skirts picked up and urgent concern on her face.
“Is she all right?”
Ren’s heart fell. “I thought she might be here.”
Betrice shook her head. “No, I haven’t seen her since this morning, in the village. Sally came in just now, her reins broken and no sign of Callie.” She pressed both hands to her face. “Oh, if something happened to her—I shouldn’t have told Henry to give her the filly. I just thought Callie would like her, she’s such a pretty beast—”
Ren realized that he didn’t know Betrice at all, though they’d been neighbors for three years. She seemed sincerely worried over Callie.
“Where did the horse come in from?”
Betrice pointed. “Over the west pasture, from the direction of the river.”
When She Said I Do Page 17