by Anne Mallory
After saying their farewells, he helped Calliope into the carriage.
The coach bumped and swayed as his driver negotiated the ruts that had become more rough and dangerous with the spring rains. They had been on the road for more than five minutes and Calliope sat quietly, fiddling with her hands and staring out the window. James kept silent waiting for her to compose herself.
She finally turned toward him. "Thank you."
He raised an eyebrow. "For what?"
She shook her head and said, "Just thank you."
He nodded, and she sagged against the cushions. "I need to get to the theater. I’m worried about my family."
"Will they leave?"
She paused and then slumped fully into the seat. "No. Both of my adoptive parents are performing this evening, and regardless of threats, they would never leave the show. "
She absently moved her fingers across her brow. "They’re unaware of the potential danger. I’m frightened for their safety. They may be caught unawares."
James reached over and patted her knee. "They will be fine. I have men watching the theater. When we get back to the city, I’ll see what they have to report."
James had stationed a man at the theater as soon as he had learned of her ties there. The connection between Calliope and Salisbury was still too strange to be a coincidence. There were twists and links in the puzzle and everything seemed to point to Calliope.
"We’ll return to Stephen’s townhouse for the night and have another look through his files and belongings."
The effort would probably be pointless. They had searched thoroughly before. But she must have felt a bit better because she shifted her position and relaxed her shoulders.
James figured it was as good a time as any to catch up on missed sleep. Leaning back, he allowed his eyes to close. Calliope squirmed, attempting to make herself more comfortable against the plush seat. He cracked open an eye, watching her shift positions. After several minutes of fidgeting, he leaned forward, plucked her off the seat and deposited her next to him.
"What are you--"
Her mild shriek was cut off as he wrapped her in his arms.
Calliope’s mind went blank. She was nestled against him, and he had never once opened his eyes. For some reason, that irritated her.
She tried escaping by pulling toward the opposite seat. His arm was like a vise. But other than tightening his arm, he didn’t move.
His head lay against the seat. She peered around at him. She had been feeling out of sorts ever since finding herself curled against his side this morning. "My lord, I really don’t think this is dignified."
He gave no indication of having heard her.
"My lord?”
Nothing.
"Angelford?"
Silence.
"James!"
One eye opened.
"Don’t you think I should return to my own seat?"
"Shh, get some rest. You didn’t sleep last night any more than I."
For some reason, that made her feel infinitely better. She was exhausted. And it was more comfortable on this side of the carriage. Yes, if he was going to get the better side of the coach, it was only fair that he share. She closed her eyes and her head lolled onto his shoulder. The motion of the carriage was soothing. Warm and cozy dreams enveloped her and the nightmares ceased for once.
It was a brilliant summer day and she was strolling in a meadow. Flowers were blooming as far as the eye could see. James came toward her, a bright blue flower in his hand. She took it and inhaled the heavenly fragrance. It was like that spicy scent that clung to him. Strange, for a flower to smell that way.
But it was a beautiful bloom and the scent was manly, much better than the common fragrance of roses. He looked down at her with tenderness and bent his head. She would delude herself no longer. This was what she had been yearning for; every part of her said this was right. Her body thrummed and her breath caught as he leaned closer.
She sighed happily.
Unexpectedly, he jerked away.
"No!"
Calliope jolted awake as James moved his shoulder. He looked down at her. "No, what?"
The coach had stopped.
"Uh, nothing, just, uh, I was surprised we were there already."
How incredibly stupid.
He stared at her for a second and then exited the coach. He held up a hand to help her down.
The return to London was a jolt to her system. An ending almost. Quickly moving toward the door, she saw that her burly footmen were still in place. Thank goodness.
She frowned.
She had ceased to consider James the enemy and started thinking of him as her savior. Around the same time she had stopped thinking of him as Angelford.
More Angelford, less James. Now that they were back in London, that would be best.
They entered the library and he walked to her favorite chair. For once that was fine with Calliope. She sprawled on the brocade settee and shut her eyes.
"I thought we were going to search through Stephen’s things."
She opened an eye to see him staring at her superciliously. "Right. I’m just resting my eyes. How about ten minutes from now?"
He shook his head and she swore a smile flitted across his features.
"Fine, we’ll do it now instead."
A smile lit his eyes.
Calliope looked at the magnificent bookcases and sighed.
* * *
Twenty minutes later she was still sighing. James felt frustrated himself. Not only was he certain the object they were searching for was here in this room, but his response to Calliope was reaching a fever pitch.
She had removed her wig, and her soft curls caressed her shoulders.
He shook his head, trying to concentrate on the task at hand, and spied a walking stick resting against the wall. He picked up the smart mahogany and gold cane, recognizing it from the night she tried to brain him with it.
"A slight step up from the one you abandoned at the Killroys’ ball."
She looked up from a stack of papers and eyed the cane. "Did you find my cane at the Killroys’?"
"Yes. Imagine my surprise when you sailed back into the ballroom, graceful as can be."
Calliope flushed. "I don’t know what caused me to forget it."
"l thought we had determined you missed me."
She looked disgruntled. "You are a menace."
James smiled. "Do you need to use a cane at all?"
"Not often, just sometimes when I get tired--it makes it easier to move around."
She walked over and reluctantly plucked the stick from his hand. Her eyes were intense. "My mother left this with me. It was the last time I saw her. She thought she had enough time to run back into the burning house."
Sadness and pain darkened her face. The expression tore at him.
"Why did she run back?"
"She tried to save the documents my father left with her. I’ve always blamed him for her death."
She said it nonchalantly. They could have been discussing the weather, but her eyes were anything but calm.
"You’ve saved the cane all these years."
"Yes, I generally keep it close at hand, although I don’t use it. It’s a reminder. "
"Maybe it would ease the pain if you started thinking of the cane as just another object."
She was silent for a long minute.
James wasn’t sure what to do or say; the lost look on her face was making him crazy. He was about to take the offending object away from her when she became a whirlwind of motion.
She struck a fencing pose. A rather good fencing pose.
Astonishment pierced him. "You fence?"
"I was once a pirate at the Adelphi when one of the actors fell ill. I practiced other stances after that. It is rather a fun hobby. "
A pirate? "How many other roles have you played?"
She shrugged and jabbed toward his stomach with the blunt end of the cane. "I’ve filled in as ne
eded. Small roles. Chorus parts, mainly. If one of the stars falls ill, an understudy steps in and sometimes I assume the smaller part. It’s actually rather fun. Performing is quite exhilarating. One doesn’t get noticed much in the chorus, so no stage fright."
Calliope was thrusting and parrying across the room. She lifted her left leg at the knee, balancing on her right leg. The cane was gripped in her right hand and perched horizontally over her head.
Two fingers on her left hand were pointed upward at the end of the cane. She then dropped the raised lingers to her right wrist and thrust her left hand and the cane away from each other in diagonal directions.
"What posture is that?" He was considered an expert swordsman, but he had never seen that particular move.
She looked at him in surprise. "I don’t know. An extra who returned from the Far East taught me that maneuver." She coughed discreetly. "Well, not exactly taught, but I secretly watched him practice enough times to learn."
James was intrigued. He moved toward her. "Do it again."
She repeated the movement.
He studied the move, trying to think of ways to incorporate the technique. "Shouldn’t the sword be pointed more at an angle for better entry?"
She sent him a dark look as he came closer. "Look here, I know what I saw. "
Calliope jabbed him in the side with the cane to emphasize her point. He scowled and pushed it aside. She twisted the handle to yank it back and it made a clicking noise.
"What the—" James stared down at his midsection.
Calliope followed his gaze and gasped when she saw bright red blossoming across his stark white shirt. The cane dropped to her side and she rushed to him. "My God, James, your shirt!"
James frowned at the cane and picked up the end. A sharp blade protruded from its tip. Calliope gasped and lifted his shirt. Blood seeped from the wound.
""Stand still. You’re hurt," she said, blanching as she inspected the wound.
"Luckily the bloody thing was too far away to do major damage. But I’d be most appreciative if you could stop trying to kill me with that thing."
She gave him a worried look. "Sit and don’t move. I’ll have Grimmond call for the doctor."
"Relax, I was teasing. It’s just a scratch. I’ve endured worse during fencing practice."
"Apply pressure here, and sit down so you won’t pass out and bleed all over Stephen’s carpet," she replied tartly, and left the room quickly to find a clean shirt and medicinal supplies.
James remained stoic as she cleansed the area around the wound, but Calliope grimaced, fearful she was hurting him. For a lord of the realm he was in superb shape. His broad chest was tanned and lightly brushed with hair. How would it feel to run her fingers across the planes of his muscular chest and back?
Her hands paused. Cleaning and applying ointment to the area was an intimate act of a lover or wife.
Calliope felt a light blush and continued working. She bandaged the gash and assisted him with his shirt. He grumbled about flesh wounds.
Calliope plunked down on the settee and inspected the cane. She turned it to the left and the blade retracted. She turned it to the right and it protruded.
.
"I should have been using this long ago."
James said something unintelligible.
She leaped from the seat, struck a pose and twisted left. It retracted. Right. Protruded. Left. Right. Left. Right. She giggled. "I feel like a real pirate now."
"Calliope, will you please sit down?"
Now that the cane had lost some of its hold on her, she didn’t want to put it down. The connection to her father was still present, but it felt different somehow.
She sighed. The blade was out. One twist left and it was in. She decided to make sure it wouldn’t do any unintentional damage and twisted left again, hoping to lock it in place. To her surprise, the handle twisted open.
"What is this?" She peered into the hole. There was something wedged inside. She gingerly slipped two fingers inside and pulled out a wrapped object. Handing it to James, Calliope searched for anything else. She gave the cane another twist, but it appeared to only have the three settings.
Satisfied the cane was closed, she set it down and looked up at James’s shocked expression.
"What is wrong? Does your wound hurt?"
He sat in stunned silence staring at the object in his hand.
Calliope peered at it. It was a ring. The ring looked vaguely familiar.
James just shook his head. "This can’t be."
"This can’t be what?"
He held out his hand to her and she plucked the ring from his palm and noticed the image of a bird engraved in the gold.
"This is what we’ve been searching for, isn’t it?"
He nodded, a wry grin spreading across his face.
"Stephen must have found it and made an imprint."
The grin slipped from his features. "The cane belonged to Salisbury. " It wasn’t a question.
The pain spread through her again. "Yes, he left it with my mother. That is why she made sure it survived the fire. The papers were destroyed with her."
Calliope felt a reassuring grip on her shoulder.
"Salisbury must have assumed the cane and papers perished in the blaze with the two of you. Possibly whoever set the fire thought so as well."
She glanced up at him, startled out of her reverie. "What do you mean, whoever set the fire?"
He was gazing at her in a cautious manner. "It’s too coincidental and the timing was too close to Salisbury’s own assassination."
Had her heart stopped? Calliope took a few deep, steadying breaths.
"Are you implying that my father really did cause my mother’s death?"
"Absolutely not. Believe me, Salisbury blamed himself enough for both of you. One had only to see him to know it. Someone murdered them both." He rubbed her hands. "I need to call on a friend of mine. He knows all sorts of interesting things and may be able to tell us about this ring."
"All right, let’s go."
"No. He is a cautious fellow and doesn’t like unfamiliar faces. It will only take a few hours. I’ll be back shortly."
Calliope let him leave without her. She had used enough contacts when researching caricatures to know how skittish people could be with their information.
She walked aimlessly around the townhouse. The servants were keeping to themselves. Ever since the new footmen had arrived, they had been strangely quiet. Almost fearful. The atmosphere was driving her mad.
She plopped onto the sofa and thought about what James had said. It was hard not to blame her father. She had been blaming him for so long that it was hard to break the habit.
She vividly remembered the night when she had lost everything in her world and had approached Lady Salisbury for assistance. Yes, now that James had dredged up old memories, Lady Salisbury had definitely appeared scared. There had been fervor in her eyes and fear.
Calliope wondered what it had been like for the woman. Lillian Minton was Salisbury’s lifelong mistress. Everyone knew he had no intention of giving her up, and no intention of marrying.
It was something that had always troubled Calliope. It was an accepted fact that Salisbury would never marry another because of his love for her mother. Therefore, why hadn’t her father married her mother? Was it societal restraints or something else? It was the unanswerable question that haunted her.
Calliope backed away from the thought. She closed her eyes and tried to conjure more pleasant thoughts.
A few hours passed before the front door opened and James entered the room, looking more energetic and healthy than when he had left.
"It’s a Falcon ring," James said.
She waited patiently for him to explain and was fortunately not disappointed.
"There was a secret society formed to depose Bonaparte. The members worked behind the scenes and received no aid from the government. Only a handful of men have these rings, and I’m fairly certain n
either Stephen nor your father possessed one."
"What was the name of the society?"