Lessons in French

by Laura Kinsale

  A familiar sense of waywardness possessed Trev, a moody antagonism riding on the lift of ale and latent violence that he could always find in a place such as this. He f lipped an insolent salute to Sturgeon. The officer only stared back. His good humor seemed to have evaporated.

  Trev wondered if the major had realized what basis they had for acquaintance beyond their meeting at the Antlers. From his scornful expression, Sturgeon appeared to bear Trev a marked dislike, considering only their brief contact the day before. So Trev followed up the grenadiers with more songs in a military mode, offering a few British camp tunes he'd learned from the wounded Light Bobs who'd hobbled alongside him in the baggage train. None of those tattered infantrymen had been in a patriotic mood, and the lyrics were all highly disrespectful, in addition to being lewd, taking cheerful and deadly aim at worthless officers and lack of pay. As he'd expected, there were enough worn-out soldiers in the Bluebell to approve this theme. They took it up with fervor.

  Trev could see Sturgeon's face growing ever more rigid. As the major's lips curved in disgust, Trev sat back, gulping ale, abandoning the thin skin of gentility. He knew this wild temper in himself—he'd regret it later, but at the moment it was amusing. Sturgeon deserved an insult, by God, for crying off on Callie.

  With a wink and a lift of his mug toward his prey, Trev plunged into a song about a deserter, singing merrily in celebration of cowardice. It was a lampoon of "The British Grenadiers," set to the same melody, but the words turned upside down. Instead of storming the palisades, this grenadier hero repaired to town a little too early in the verses, and found a girl who cried "Hurrah, boys," and fondled his grenades. The twist in the usual words had the men at Trev's table laughing so hard that they were spitting.

  Trev could see the furious color rise in Sturgeon's face. Still he grinned and plowed into the next stanza, where the craven grenadier turned tail, stuck branches in his unmentionables to impersonate a bush, and ended up with a promotion. In the original ditty, he'd been made into a grenadier sergeant, but Trev slotted "major of dragoons" into the verse instead, which fit the cadence better anyway. His tablemates were almost prostrate with hilarity. The man next to Trev gripped his shoulder as they all leaned together and howled, "Tow, row, row, row, row, row, row, for the British Grenadiers!"

  He was well into the third round when the voices round him died away to a sudden quiet. Trev recov ered his balance as his neighbor let him go. His chair legs hit the f loor, an audible thud in the new silence.

  Sturgeon stood over him, white and stiff. "You puling French bastard."

  Trev rose from his seat. "Oui, Monsieur?" he said politely and made an unsteady bow. He had not expected to draw blood so soon.

  "Shut up, you fool."

  Trev gave him a sweet smile. "But what have I said to offend you?"

  Someone giggled drunkenly behind him. Sturgeon's lip curled. "It's enough to know what you are."

  "Indeed." They were of a height, with Sturgeon at an advantage in weight. Trev drew a breath to clear the ale fumes from his brain. "But explain further, my friend. What am I?"

  "Blackmail," Sturgeon hissed through his teeth, almost a whisper, so low that Trev wasn't sure if he'd caught the word or if the major had called him a blackguard. He wondered if he was more inebriated than he had thought.

  "I fear you must speak more plainly," he said, "if you wish for everyone to hear."

  The major drew his lips back over clenched teeth. He reached out and gripped Trev's lapel, but said nothing.

  Trev pried his fist loose, thrusting it away. "You may unhand me," he said coolly. "And be sure that I know what you are. We've just been singing about it, eh?"

  The major seemed to swell, the blood beating in his temple. "Shut up! You nauseating bloodsucker, shut up."

  "I'll tell you what's nauseating," Trev said in a conver sational voice. "A man who insults a lady and then comes skulking back and bleating for her favor. Keep your distance, Sturgeon; she doesn't wish to see you."

  "You dare! You!"

  "Of course I dare. Do you suppose she has no friends to take her part?"

  Sturgeon was dead white with rage. "By God, I ought to kill you, you slimy little French worm."

  "You son of a whore," Trev said calmly. And then he repeated it in French, for good measure.

  Sturgeon stood so still that Trev could see the faint tremor in his fingers as he yanked off his glove. In the slow instant, Trev felt his own blood rise with a mad pleasure. A decade of rage pressed in his chest, lost years, impotent shame that he had stood and taken that blow from Callie's father and left her to be slighted by a man like this. With a sense of fascinated doom, he watched Sturgeon fold his glove over his fingers and lift his arm.

  A duel, it was to be. He was that much an English gentleman.

  The major slapped him across the face, the glove a brisk snap against his skin. "Name your weapons."

  Trev hauled back and struck with a right cross before Sturgeon's mouth was even closed. He put his full weight and five years of ringside training and all his hatred for arrogant English gentlemen behind it, smashing Sturgeon's jaw with an impact that he felt all the way to his heart, deep down in his chest.

  He caught the officer utterly off guard. Sturgeon went down backwards, sprawling against a table. Men leaped up to stay clear. Someone grabbed Trev's arm, restraining him. He turned round and threw another punch, hard to the gut of the major's esteemed comrade. The man doubled over. Trev jerked free of some eager bystanders and saw his tablemate hurl a blow at Sturgeon before the major could launch himself at Trev.

  People scrambled, yelling and shoving at one another. Chairs toppled and bottles smashed. The barmaid shrieked in frustration as the Bluebell descended into a drunken melee.

  Eight

  ACCORDING TO HOARY TRADITION, THE YEW TREE outside Callie's window had been planted at the behest of Edward I. She had never had reason to doubt this fact—its girth was a full twelve feet round, and the thick old branches were gnarled and scarred enough to have seen six hundred years. They had certainly witnessed a visit by Henry Tudor to the abbey that had once stood in place of Shelford Hall, and been singed by the f lames of Cromwell's troops. Two elopements, a sermon preached by John Wesley, and a murky incident involving the tenth countess, which could have been an attempt at burglary, an abduction, or a practical joke—all were on the list of known escapades in which the old tree had played a role.

  There were a few escapades in its more recent past that were not a matter of public record. Callie was already certain, without even trying to peer down through the moaning and whipping branches, exactly who was waiting at the foot of the ancient yew. The sharp double click of two pebbles, and then the raucous howl of a tomcat: she should not remember that signal at all, but she had recognized it from a dead sleep it seemed, her eyes springing open at the first rattle against the glass. She was out of bed and pulling on her dressing gown before the hoarse yowl died away.

  She paused before she pulled open the shutters, putting her palms to her face. Woken so suddenly, she could barely gather her wits. Her cheeks were hot, her heart thumping. Surely he did not truly suppose she would climb out of her window now. At the age of seven and twenty. A spinster. In this weather!

  The yowl came again, insistently. She drew a breath and folded the inside shutters back, kneeling on the window seat. Through the glass, she could see only swaying black shapes of branches in the night outside. The dark mass of the yew obscured everything else. The tomcat called a third time, ending on a muff led human note, almost a plea. Callie made a small moan and pushed open the window.

  Chilly air f lowed in, sprinkled with icy drops. The damp, musty scent of the yew enveloped her as she leaned out. She could not see the ground. "Go away!" she hissed. "For pity's sake, are you mad?"

  "Callie." He pitched his voice low, just loud enough to be heard over the rushing sound of the branches and the wind. "I need help."

  She squinted down, grippin
g the wet windowsill. She had expected him to laugh and urge her to join him on some ridiculous exploit.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I can't go…" The rest of his reply was lost amid a gust of wind in the branches. "Would you…" Only snatches of words reached her. "…my mother. I need…"

  She could not make out more. In the murk, she could just barely discern a pale shape that might have been his face. But there was distress in his voice, not taunt or coaxing. "What is it? What's happened?"

  He made no reply to that, or if he did she couldn't hear it. She sat back on the window seat, pulling her dressing gown tight about her waist. Trev had never come asking for help, not this way. It was some crisis with his mother. And she could not blame him for coming to her window instead of sending a message. He wouldn't want to wake the staff, or involve Dolly, not at this time of night. Callie wasn't eager to do so herself.

  She leaned out again. The branch nearest her window, the big one with the special crook where she had always taken the first step, was impossible to see. And really, she had no intention of climbing down from her window—it was simply beyond the pale.

  She thought of telling him to meet her at the cow barn, but one of her farm lads would be sleeping there. The boxwood maze would be miserable on a night like this. The gamekeeper would be on alert for poachers in the wood, and a groom was always on night duty in the stables.

  Truly, the range of possibilities had not altered much in the past nine years.

  She cupped her hands around her mouth and called down as softly as she could. "The carriage house."

  "Bless you!" he responded instantly. The vague shape below her vanished.

  Callie wore her oilskin overcoat and work boots. She had made her way out the servants' entrance, locking the door behind her, prepared to say that she was going to tend the orphan calf if she'd encountered any of the staff. But no one stirred, not even the hall boy snoring on his cot by Dolly's bell.

  It was all too easy, as it had always been. She should have been born a housebreaker.

  The door to the carriage house was closed. She could see enough by the light of the lowering clouds to let herself in, but it was utterly black inside.

  "Trev?" she whispered. "Are you here?"

  She heard the carriage springs squeak with some sudden move.

  "Callie?" His voice sounded muff led and shocked.

  "Of course," she said. She had no idea why he had mounted into the carriage itself. "What's happened? Is it your mother?"

  There were more sounds, and then the creak of the door opening. "Callie. You didn't have to come out."

  She paused in consternation. "I thought you needed help."

  She heard him moving on the steps, and then suddenly he bumped against her in the dark. He sucked in a swift, sharp breath and then touched her arm, resting his fingers there as if to steady himself.

  "You're not hurt, are you?" she asked, uncertain of the sounds.

  "Ah," he mumbled. "A little."

  She could smell strong drink on his breath, some thing she had never noticed with Trev before, though it was common enough among the older gentlemen of her acquaintance.

  "I only need a place to sleep," he said, enunciating his words carefully. "I can sleep in the carriage."

  "What's happened?" She pulled off her gloves and fumbled in the deep pocket of her overcoat where she always kept a cache of useful items. "What have you done to hurt yourself?"

  He blinked and squinted at the f lare of her brim stone match. "I fell."

  "Fell?" She peered at him. He was holding his hand up against his chest. Even in the f lickering light she could see that it was badly swollen. He had a bloody cut on the side of his jaw.

  "From my horse," he said, standing back from her. He leaned against the carriage wheel. "I'd… rather not go back to Dove House just now. Need a place to rest until morning."

  She could see that his coat was torn at the collar, and his neck cloth hung down in complete disarray. She frowned, trying to discern if he had any other injury.

  "I don't want Maman to see me like this," he said thickly.

  "I suppose—yes." She looked at him in consterna tion. "It might frighten her."

  He ran his good hand through his hair, disheveling it even further. "The doctor from London attended her this morning."

  "What did he say?"

  The light f lickered, casting shadows on his face. "He said she has a week or two, perhaps." His voice was not quite even. "A month at most."

  Callie tilted her head. "I'm sorry," she said softly.

  The match went out. They stood in the dark. She could hear him breathing almost as if he were laughing. "God damn it," he said. "God damn me to hell. I ought to shoot myself."

  "Nonsense," she said stoutly. "You've only had too much drink. No wonder you took a tumble. You'd no business going mounted, not in this state." She fished again in her pocket for a candle stub. "Let me look at your hand. I'm sure once it's bound up, and you're set to rights, your mother won't be upset to see you. Did you take any other hurt?"

  "No," he said. He paused. "I don't know. A little bruising. I may have cracked a rib."

  She touched the candle to another match. "I'd best send a boy for the surgeon."

  "No," he said strongly. "No surgeons."

  "Only to bind you up. I won't let him bleed you."

  "No surgeon," he said.

  "But—"

  "I haven't taken any serious hurt." He scowled, turning from her candle. "If I can just rest a few hours, I'll be off in the morning."

  She held the light over a metal trunk. "Sit down. Let me see your hand."

  He blew out a breath of air and sat. Callie set the candle stub in a rusty sconce and sat down beside him. He allowed her to open his fingers and moved each of them in turn for her. She was no surgeon, but she had dealt with enough animal injuries to have a good deal of experience in judging their extent. He tensed a little, especially when she pressed gently at the swollen joints along his fist, but made no sharp move.

  "I don't think you've broken anything," she said. "But it would be best to bind your fingers. There will be some bandages in the carriage boot."

  She left him sitting on the trunk and felt about in the dark boot for the horse supplies, returning with scissors and cloth. As she bent over and wrapped his hand, she could feel his breath move softly against her temple and hair.

  She tied off the bandage tightly and cut the ends. Then she straightened, standing between him and the carriage. It loomed behind her like a huge and awkward keepsake, a ponderous memento, as if a hidden package of love letters had suddenly mush roomed into an elephant, standing there swinging its trunk back and forth with gauche shyness.

  "Well!" she said brightly. "Another adventure."

  He remained sitting, his head turned a little aside as he looked up at her. "Another adventure," he said with a smile that held no humor. He closed his bound fist, holding it up against his shoulder.

  "Does it hurt when you breathe? You think you might have cracked a rib?"

  "I'm all right. Thank you, this helps a good deal."

  "There's little enough I can do, if you won't see the surgeon."

  "I'm all right, Callie. Sit down with me for a moment."

  She felt her pulse beating faster. But he appeared more distracted than amorous, which made her ashamed that she was feeling quite animated by his company in the middle of the night in highly improper circumstances. She sat down, her oilskin rustling.

  For a few moments, they were both silent. Callie watched the gleam and sway of light on the black carriage paint. Several layers of fabric and oilcloth separated them, but not enough to prevent her feeling the solid shape of his shoulder against her arm. She wriggled her toes inside her work boots. They were cold, but her cheeks felt f lushed.

  Unexpectedly he took her hand, locking it within his. He lifted it and bent his head and pressed his mouth to her fingers. She watched him in astonish ment, feeling as if it were some
other lady sitting in her place with his lips and cheek resting against her hand.

  "I have to leave Shelford now, Callie," he said.

  She blinked. "Leave?"

  "I can't go back to Dove House. Would you—could I ask you to call on my mother? And tell her…"

  He stopped, as if he could not think of what he wanted to say.

  "You have to leave now?" Callie repeated stupidly. "What do you mean?"

  He gave a short laugh and kissed her hand. "I'd rather not explain. I'm a brainless bastard, will that suffice?"

  She was bewildered. "But… how long will you be gone?"

  "For good," he said roughly.