Lessons in French

by Laura Kinsale

  "The groom is walking my horse."

  "I hope it doesn't throw you again," she said. "If it does, I must leave you. We've lost hours already."

  "You may abandon me bleeding on the road," he said. "I can see that this bull is of the foremost importance."

  "He's my finest calf!" she said, leaving him in the corridor as she mounted the stairs. "And my best friend too. I should never have let him be taken off, never! Stupid wagers. Stupid gentlemen!" She hiked her skirt and pounded up the steps, wrinkling her nose. "I detest the whole lot of you!"

  Nine

  "A NEAT BANDAGE, SIR," JOCK SAID, GLANCING DOWN AT Trev's swollen fingertips. "Poleaxed him, I'll wager?"

  "Went down like a dead tree." Trev leaned behind the door of the small stable at Dove House, brushing straw off his coat. "How is my mother?"

  "Asking for you this morning," Jock said. "I said you was sleepin' late, havin' been out all hours conducting yourself ungentlemanly. Made her laugh. She wouldn't be bled, 'less you approved it."

  Trev wiped his good hand over his face, trying to order his thoughts in the aftermath of too much ale and too little sleep. "Well, I don't approve it. Why put her through that, if there's no hope?"

  Jock shrugged. "Doctors," he said, in comprehen sive disgust.

  Trev closed his eyes and opened them. "The constable hasn't been here yet, then?"

  His manservant gave him a long, interested stare. "The constable. Should we be expecting the constable, sir?"

  "I seem to have picked a fight with a local magistrate."

  Jock drew his big body up straight. "Lordy," he said. "You knocked down a judge?"

  "Most likely. It was a little… confusing. I know I punched his friend, the major of dragoons."

  "That ain't a good thing, sir."

  "No. In point of fact, it's a consummate disaster."

  Jock nodded slowly. "Aye."

  Trev leaned heavily against the rough wood. "I can't get snagged now. If I'm discovered in England, it'll be the gallows."

  "You sure they'll send the constable? Was it self defense? What can they take you up for?"

  "Disturbing the peace, assault—we did some considerable damage to the Bluebell tavern."

  "Nobody weren't killed, was they?"

  "No." Trev scowled. "At least… not while I was there." He rolled his head back, resting it against the wall. "Mother of God, I hope not."

  "You certain this magistrate'd recognize you, sir? It's a country place here. Maybe he don't know who you are."

  "He may not. But his friend the major does. Called me a French blackguard. Or—" Trev hesitated. He turned his head, frowning, trying to recall their alco holic brangling. "I'd swear he said blackmail."

  "Damme," Jock said, squaring his enormous shoul ders. "That's an insult!"

  "I suppose I could blackmail him after all, if I cared to," Trev muttered. "But it was hellish more fun to hit him instead."

  "You don't blackmail nobody, and you don't forge nothin'," Jock said fiercely. "When you was Monsieur LeBlanc, you always paid out fair and square. That's why I've stuck with you, sir, and that's why they still wants you back so bad to operate the fights. Ain't nobody we trust as much as you, and them judges can say what they like. We all know you didn't forge that bond note, and we know why you took the blame."

  Trev gave his manservant a crooked smirk. "A touching encomium to my honesty. I could have used it when I was on trial."

  "The Rooster knows why you did it." Jock gave a thrust of his chin toward heaven. "He knows. Mrs. Fowler's tucked up all safe and sound with her little boy, ain't she? Though she don't deserve a bit of it. You're too good a man for her, and so was Jem Fowler."

  Trev shrugged. "It's the boy I cared for. And Jem. But the king won't pardon me a second time. Hell's bells, he can't. It would all come out if somebody recognized the duc de Monceaux as the same man as Thibaut LeBlanc while I'm standing in the dock. And even if they didn't, Christ, just think about it—I'm hauled before the bench while my mother's on her deathbed. What an edifying prospect for her last moments."

  Jock grunted assent. He crossed his arms, his great muscles f lexing. "This officer you decked knows you's LeBlanc, sir?"

  Trev shook his head. "No, thank the Lord. We've a little history of another kind. But he'll be sure to lodge a charge against me and prosecute it all the way. Nothing more certain, with his friend being the justice of the peace. At best I'll be sitting in the gaol till Epiphany if I let them catch me, and fortunate if I don't rot there until the Easter assizes."

  A hen clucked from somewhere in the shadows of the single stall. Jock turned his head, alert to any odd noise. But aside from a faint scratching in the straw, there was no more sound.

  "Chicken pox!" Trev said, suddenly inspired. "You can tell the duchesse that I've broken out in spots, and the doctor said I must keep a distance until the contagion is past."

  The manservant gave a skeptical grunt. "Chicken pox? You don't think she's such a greenhead as that, sir. Up to every rig, Madame is."

  "Hmm," Trev said. He scratched his chin with the bandage. "No, you're right. Chicken pox—I think I've had it. I can't remember."

  "Yer mama will. They all do."

  "You'll think of something. I'd advise spots of some sort. Something that would keep me away for a fortnight or so."

  "A fortnight?" Jock lifted his thick brows. "Didn't the doctor say—"

  "I know what he said! It's burned between my ears. But I can't stay, Jock. For God's sake, how can I stay?"

  They both stood silent. He didn't need to explain more of the consequences to Jock. If he wanted his mother to go to her final rest knowing her only living son was a criminal condemned to hang, all he had to do was get himself arrested. Thibaut LeBlanc had been given a rare royal pardon from his capital conviction for forgery, but it was provisional, based on his obliga tion to leave the country and not return. If LeBlanc broke his exile, the pardon was revoked.

  "You'd surely better not get yourself snabbled," Jock said at length. "But it might blow over, eh? If they find out about yer mama being so ill, they might think twice about taking you up for a little disagree ment between gentlemen."

  "I can't chance it. I can't stay here openly."

  "Aye. But if you was to go off for a few days, sir. Let tempers cool. If they come here, I can make 'em feel pretty ashamed for persecutin' of a poor lady who hadn't got long on this earth. You could come in at night to see her."

  Trev squinted into the musty corner of the stable. He chewed his lip in thought. "It's risky." He nodded slowly. "But it might do. If I had a safe house."

  "Lemme ask round for—"

  A sharp, trilling whistle interrupted him. They both startled at the sound—familiar enough, but so close overhead that Trev had to crane his neck to see into the loft. "Barton!" he muttered in disgust. "What the deuce are you doing up there?"

  His former accomplice showed his face between the rough-hewn beams, a straw of hay dangling from behind one ear. "I've got him, sir!" he hissed. "Tied up right out behind the shed."

  Trev had a sudden nightmarish vision of Sturgeon—or worse, his friend the magistrate—bound and gagged behind the shed. "Who's tied up?" he exclaimed, taking a step. "Barton, I swear, if—"

  "The bull, sir," Barton said. He scrambled round, causing hay and dust to drift down through the planks. He dangled from a beam by his hands, dropped, and recovered himself, dusting vigorously at his trousers.

  "The bull?" Trev scowled at him a moment and then remembered. "Oh right—the bull," he said with a strong sense of relief. He watched Barton try to dig a straw from inside his neck cloth. His hand was dirty— completely black about the fingernails, and his clothes were marked with grimy dark streaks. "Well done, then. Well done, old fellow. At least something's gone right. Have you been sleeping in some bog? Clean yourself up at the pump and take the animal over to the Shelford home farm. Say it's to be presented to Lady Callista Taillefaire, with my compliments."
/>   It was something he could do for her, anyway. He thought of how pleased she would be, and wished that he could see her face light up when she saw the creature, as he knew it would. "Try to get the manure out of your ears first," he added.

  Barton fidgeted. He'd been grinning like a gargoyle at the praise, but his smile faded at this. "Present it to a lady?" he said. "I dunno if that's a good idea, sir."

  "She'll be excessively pleased, I assure you. She's no common lady. How loud did you have to squeal for Davenport?"

  Jock looked up sharply. Barton's glance slid side ways, an avoidance that caused a familiar drop in the pit of Trev's stomach.

  "Davenport, did you say, sir?" Jock asked. "A Colonel Davenport?"

  Trev glanced at his servant. "Aye, do you know of him?"

  "Sir, he's the one give me the name of that London doctor. The Antlers sent me over to his place at Bromyard, thinkin' he'd know somebody in town. A very kind gentleman, took some of his time out to write me an introduction to the medical man." Jock's voice held an anxious note. "Sir… sir, he had law books in his study. And a lot of notebooks and proceedings. I think he might be a justice of the peace."

  "A justice?" Trev gazed at him, slowly compre hending. "My justice?"

  "Stocky gentleman, sir, with a red complexion and a mole beside his nose?"

  Trev groaned. "Oh God. Let that be a lesson to me—first inquire if a fellow's done me any favors before I punch him in the bread-box. How much did you pay him for the bull, Barton?" he repeated. "I hope it was a fortune."

  "Well, sir," Barton said brightly, "y'know how chancy my luck can be now and then! That fellow Davenport wouldn't take no price. He weren't kind to me, oh nossir. Had me f lung out the door. He got all heated, he did, sayin' I couldn't pay nothin' he'd take." He giggled. "And I didn't have to pay nothin', as it happens."

  "Barton! Damn you, tell me you didn't—"

  "No, sir! Oh no, sir! I didn't steal him. I swear I didn't." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and leaned forward with a conspiratorial grin. "Ol' Tobe an' me just found him on the road."

  Trev closed his eyes and dropped his head back against the wall. But he had only a moment to consider whether he would strangle Barton or drown the man. A brusque halloo came from the direction of the garden gate, a stranger's voice with an edge of resolve in it.

  All three of them looked at one another. Barton lifted his thumb and forefinger in a familiar sign, pointing toward the hayloft. Trev glanced at Jock and jerked his chin toward the gate. The manservant gave a curt nod. Without a word, they split company— Jock striding toward the house and garden, Trev and Barton scaling the ladder. Trev followed his companion across the dusty boards to the open loft door. Down in the walled yard, he saw an enormous black bull lift its head from a pile of hay, chewing calmly as it watched them.

  "Barton!" Trev hissed, dropping from the bale hook to land on both feet. He stared at the black animal and then put his face into his hand in despair. "You infernal imbecile. That's the wrong bloody bull."

  Callie trotted along rapidly, only vaguely aware that Major Sturgeon's horse kept pace behind her. She had taken the shortcut into Shelford, jumping two stiles and a hedge and trespassing on Farmer Dauncy's orchard to reach the lane. She left word with everyone she passed, calling Mr. Rankin out from the Antlers and informing him of the emergency without even dismounting.

  Colonel Davenport lived at some distance from the village, several miles along the Bromyard road. As she rode she scanned the autumn landscape, searching for a familiar f lash of red and white hide among the laden apple trees or across the fields. It shouldn't be difficult to locate something as large as a bull, but they could be amazingly easy to overlook. Hubert would be enticed by the countless orchards or any fencerow that contained sweet grass, still green under the holly and hawthorn this late in the year. He could manage to obscure himself quite nicely behind an overgrown hedge.

  A brief pause at Colonel Davenport's house discov ered only the empty paddock. The colonel himself was not at home. A stable lad showed her where Hubert had cracked the rails right through, tearing them out of the posts. Callie had dressed the boy down, quite unfairly, for the f limsiness of a fence that would not have held Hubert when he was a yearling, much less as a full-grown bull. It wasn't the lad's fault that Colonel Davenport didn't keep sturdy fences, but she was incensed. The boy seemed to think that Hubert must have smashed the rails with his horns, which would have alerted the whole neighborhood to his escape, but Callie knew better. All that would have been required was a long, slow, steady push by a bull that preferred to be outside the paddock rather than in it.

  Whether he had been ready to go home or just stretching for that farthest blade of grass, she didn't know. From the colonel's house she took the route that the drover would have followed from Shelford. This led her back toward the village by a longer, more level way where a cart might ford the streams, in the direction of Dove House.

  "Black henna, sir!" Barton whispered. "Not a bad job, eh? Started as soon as I had any light. For a while I didn't know if it would come up to cover the white, but he's turning pretty sleek now." He ran his hand down the bull's hind leg. "I see I missed a spot there on his left hock."

  "Christ, where'd you get that much dye?" Trev demanded in a low voice. He saw now that there was blue-stained hay concealed under the fresh layer at the bull's hooves.

  "Tanner, sir," Barton said solemnly. "Got thick with him over a pint of bitters."

  "Naturally." Trev watched the dog, Toby, sniff at the bull's knee. "Now what the devil do you expect me to do with this animal?"

  Barton looked anxious. "I dunno, sir. You didn't tell me I'd need to think o' what to do with 'im. I reckoned you knew your own mind on that, sir."

  "I did," Trev said dryly.

  "You was gonna give 'im to that lady, sir?"

  "That was the plan. But she would be expecting a red pied bull, you see, with a bill of sale. This seems to be a black bull of uncertain origin."

  "Hmm," Barton said, pursing his wide mouth. "So it does, sir."

  "Quite."

  "I didn't steal 'im, sir! I found him."

  "We aren't going to argue the point with a constable, Barton. We're getting myself and my fellow fugitive here out of sight before anyone searches the premises."

  "Yes, sir." Barton grabbed the lead attached to the bull's nose ring. "I know a way round the lane to the millpond. We can walk him down the stream and tie him up. Come along, old fellow." He clucked to the bull. "Toby, get him!"

  At Barton's voice, the dog barked and nipped at the animal's heels. The bull turned its head and gave a half hearted kick, but appeared to find the dog no more persuasive than a large f ly. It blew a gust of air and lowered its nose, taking up another mouthful of hay.

  "Quiet!" Trev snapped, as Toby began to bark and growl. "Do you want to advertise us to the whole county? Move along, you beast!" He picked up a pitchfork and waved the handle at the enormous bull. He'd seen drovers in the army hustling their animals along with staffs.

  The bull blinked at him, all four feet planted solidly amid the hay, its jaw working in unhurried rhythm.

  "Come along," Trev said in exasperation, bran dishing the fork. "What's your name? Hubert. Hyah, Hubert!"

  The animal turned fully at the sound of its name. With slow majesty, it lifted one hoof and then another, ignoring the pitchfork and ambling toward Trev. It lifted its massive nose to snuff le at his clothes, as if searching for something in his neck cloth. It was purported to be a shorthorn bull, but Trev could have sworn that the tips of its horns were as wide as his arm-span.

  Trev backed away. The bull followed. "Hubert," he said, walking backward toward the gate. Hubert moved faster after him, deliberate now, his great hooves thumping in the dirt. He made a low sound, a sort of groaning, smothered bellow that made the hair rise on Trev's neck. He hoped to the devil that the thing didn't decide to charge.

  "Hubert !" Callie pulled her horse to a halt i
n the middle of the lane. Major Sturgeon came up behind her. She waved at him to stop, straining her ears to hear over the sound of the horses and her own breath. She could have sworn that she'd caught Hubert's distinctive bellow, a deep rumbling sound almost below hearing.

  They had just passed Dove House. The garden gate was ajar, and the front door stood open. She had not forgot Trev, but the strange encounter in the night seemed so far from reality that today she was hardly certain it had even taken place.

  A dog was barking furiously somewhere in the back of the property. She dismounted, throwing her reins to Major Sturgeon. It wasn't impossible that Hubert had wandered off the road and found his way inside the small stable yard, where she knew there had been some fresh hay put out for Trev's team. She was about to hurry round to the rear when a figure came skulking out the front door, pulling his hat down over his eyes. Trev's big manservant walked out behind him, pulling the door closed with a firm hand.