Lessons in French

by Laura Kinsale

  Callie nodded. "He followed me. That is—he followed Madame Malempré. He seems to be acquainted with her."

  "Acquainted with her!" Trev stopped in the motion of lifting his cup. "The deuce you say."

  Callie raised her face. "He says he met her in Belgium, at a picnic after Waterloo. He seems to"—she cleared her throat—"to know her rather intimately."

  He swore under his breath. "That's impossible. He must be feigning it. He suspects something. Damn, he followed you here?" He paced a step and turned. "It's as well you didn't go out again."

  "He isn't pretending," Callie said. "I think he does know Madame Malempré. I think he knows her very well."

  Trev looked at her sharply. "You do?"

  Callie nodded. She lowered her eyes and took a sip of her tea.

  "What did he say to you?" There was a taut edge in his voice.

  "Not to me," she said. "He thought he was speaking to her."

  "Indeed," Trev said suspiciously. "And just what did he say?"

  Callie thought a moment. She wasn't sure she wished for Trev to know everything he had said. "He seems to have had an encounter with her, in a garden summerhouse."

  He snorted. "An encounter in—" He stopped short. He stared, as if at some distant place, and then turned his back to her, looking out the window.

  "Who is she, this Madame Malempré? Do you know her too?" Callie asked.

  "Mordieu, it's just the name of a town I passed through once!" He made an impatient gesture, as if tossing something away from him. "I remembered it when I ordered the tarpaulins, that's all."

  She gazed at his back. "It was quite an unfortunate choice, then." She gave a little shrug. "He would like to renew his acquaintance with her."

  "Oh, he would, would he?" He turned back swiftly his jaw hardening. "He didn't touch you? You should have called Charles—" He stopped again. He frowned and then gave Callie an amazed look. "And he's been courting you, hasn't he?" It had taken a few moments longer for him to notice the incongruity of the situation than it had for her. He seemed shocked, as if he could not quite comprehend what he had just realized. "Callie!"

  She lifted her eyebrows, trying to look arch. "Yes, it's rather a blunder on his part. That's why I think he isn't pretending."

  "That whoreson bastard!" he exclaimed, striding across the room. He followed it up with several words in French that she had never heard in any lessons. He was not as amused by it all as she had expected. "By God, I'll kill him."

  He had reached as far as the door by the time Callie had untangled herself from the robe and shawl. He seemed to have come to his senses, or at least paused to consider what method by which to eradicate the major, for he stopped and turned around. Callie was on her feet by then.

  "Let me be certain I understand you," he said. "Sturgeon has asked you to marry him?"

  "Yes," she said.

  "And you are presently considering his proposal?" His voice was steely. He stood very still, looking at her.

  Callie couldn't hold his eyes. Suddenly she could not seem to think of anything but his arms around her, his body over hers. She found it difficult to breathe. She could not at that instant recall why she had said, in the middle of the night, that they would not suit. It seemed mad, as mad as those moments themselves, and equally dreamlike now. He had asked her to marry him, and she had remembered just in time that for some reason she must say no. And afterward…

  She hugged herself, standing in her bare feet, covered in mortification. "Trev," she said, turning with an agitated move. "We must—could we—discuss something?"

  "What happened between us last night?" he asked bluntly.

  She took a deep breath, daring to lift her eyes. "Yes, I… suppose… that."

  "It was, of course, iniquitous of me to take advan tage of you." He gave a short bow and spoke as if he were reciting something that he had memorized. "Let me repeat, my lady, that I beg of you to become my wife, if you would see fit to accept me."

  From the sound of it, the last thing he hoped was that she should do so. Callie looked down and fiddled with the fringe of the cashmere shawl. All her reasons for refusing him came back to her in a rush.

  "I know you feel that you must offer now," she said with difficulty. "But I don't think we would suit."

  "Yes," he said. "You mentioned that, I believe."

  "I'm rather… awkward and not very clever in company, you know. I fear that I wouldn't be a fitting wife for you."

  She glanced up at him, half hoping to be contra dicted, but he seemed to find the hem of her gown to be of more interest than her face. He remained silent, his jaw set.

  "I'm not a lady of fashion," she added, trying to make a clean breast of the whole. "I'm seven and twenty. And I'm English, of course. And not a Catholic."

  He made a slight deprecating shrug. But still he said nothing, altering his attention to some painting on the wall, frowning at it as if it offended him.

  "I suppose that might be overcome," she said, trying to reply sensibly to his silence. "But—you may have noticed—I'm rather dull and plain. I can't see myself living amid the haut ton. I was really quite a failure at it before, you know. I'd have to be like Madame Malempré and wear a veil all the time, so that no one would see me," she added, in a stupid attempt at humor.

  His expression grew darker as she spoke. "Nonsense," he snapped. "Don't talk that way."

  Callie wet her lips and gave him one more chance. "But you must wish to find someone who would be more worthy of Monceaux."

  He gave a short laugh and turned away, his hands shoved into his pockets. "Do not concern yourself on that head, ma'am."

  So. She lifted her chin, growing more sure, and at the same time more disheartened. He had been eager in the night, and passionate, but what was that vulgar phrase she had overheard once among the stable lads? All cats look alike in the dark. She had fairly well thrown herself at him, even if she hadn't meant for him to find her in his bed, playing a trick like that impudent house maid who had tried to entice the parson on a dare. If he had even a slight wish to marry her, he would certainly show more delight at the idea. Even her jilts had managed to summon a greater show of gratification at the prospect than Trev appeared to feel.

  She had a gloomy vision of becoming betrothed to him now, in this moment of crisis, and then in a month or two receiving one of those polite, reserved letters in which he expressed his deep regret at breaking off their engagement because he found he was unable to make her a praiseworthy husband. Her jilts would be a nice round number: a wretched prospect.

  Or worse, far worse, a thousand times worse—for him to wed her because he felt he must, and then to be sitting some evening in some drawing room, listening to the whispers, to overhear that he was seeing Lady So-and-So, or Madame Vis-à-Vis, or whatever reigning beauty it might be, and how mortifying for his dreary little mouse of a wife, poor thing!

  "Well!" she said quickly, turning and walking to the table, where she started to pick up the teapot and then put it down when the exasperating lid would rattle under her trembling hands. "It is most kind of you, but I find that I cannot accept. I hope… I hope that we may remain friends."

  He inclined his head coolly. "Of course. We will certainly remain friends."

  She knew in that moment that she had been right to refuse him. He didn't wish to marry her. A tiny remaining hope that he might dispute her decision died a final death. She poured tea in spite of the fact that she spilled several drops into the saucer.

  "I suppose," he remarked, still in that dispassionate voice, "since you find you cannot accept me, we must pray that no natural consequences will result from my mistake."

  Callie felt herself grow cold, her blood seeming to recede from her head to her feet. It was a "mistake" now. She sat down abruptly, feeling light-headed. "No," she whispered. "I don't think that likely."

  The chamber was so quiet that she could hear a horse's hooves ring distantly against the cobbles in the stable yard.

&n
bsp; "At my age, you know," she added, to fill the silence, fumbling among the cups and spoons. "I'm not a girl any longer. It's very unlikely. Would you be so good as to ring for the chambermaid? And arrange some way that I may go out as myself? I must see how my cattle go on in this weather."

  He gave her a long, smoldering look. Then he bowed and left the room.

  It took all of Callie's courage to show herself in Broad Street. She was certain anyone could see that she had been walking abroad there the day before, dressed in a gentian blue hat and veil and speaking French. But when she appeared as herself, there were only welcoming grins and brusque farmers' greetings, the familiar faces of her drover and his boys—no one accosted her with accusations or stopped in the street and pointed with scandalized horror at the woman who had slept in Monsieur Malempré's bed last night.

  In fact she found herself quickly drawn into her own life, regaled with all the small incidents of moving the livestock to town, leaning down to check the knees of a calf that had stumbled and to see that sufficient ointment had been applied. With her warmest cloak and hood wrapped close about her, she accepted a cup of hot cider from Farmer Lewis. Lilly distributed mincemeat pies from a basket—the traditional hospitality at the Shelford pens. Callie could almost have forgot that there was anything amiss about this cattle show, but that her father wasn't there and all the talk was of Hubert and the Malempré bull, and she could still feel the physical consequence of what she and Trev had done in faint tingles and strange sensations that made her blink and blush. But her cheeks were already as pink as they could be from the cold, and no one seemed to notice anything different about her at all.

  "I don't believe it," she said, dutifully giving her opinion of the challenge to Mr. Downie when he stopped to chat. She spoke softly, because she wasn't very good at prevarication, and somehow it seemed as if keeping her voice low might make her sound more believable. "I can't credit that this Belgian animal would be larger than Hubert."

  "Certainly not," Mr. Downie said indignantly. Then he cleared his throat. "Have you seen the published measurements, my lady?"

  "No, I haven't," she lied, pulling her hood closer in the frigid air. The scent of smoke from street fires mingled with the odors of the show. "I understand that they are said to be certified?"

  "It's what the paper claims," he admitted, his breath frosting in the cold. "Has there been no progress in locating the Shelford bull?"

  She shook her head. Everyone spoke of Hubert as belonging to Shelford, though it was common knowl edge that Colonel Davenport now owned him. Mr. Downie harrumphed. "It's a bad business, my lady," he said. "A sorry day when your father passed away, God rest him. This wouldn't have happened if the earl had been alive."

  Callie could agree with that in all honesty. She listened to the rumors as more agricultural people gathered at the Shelford pens, pausing to greet her kindly and regale themselves on mince pies and steaming cider. The most common gossip suggested that Hubert had been taken swiftly from the vicinity and either moved by some old abandoned drovers' road to the north, or already baited and slaughtered, never to be seen again. She hated both notions and had to keep reminding herself that he was lying in a well-kept pen not fifteen yards away. The edge of a thick bed of straw overf lowed from under the Malempré tarps, and she could see a big hoof tip and the smooth black lock of his tail just under the canvas. A baker's sack, presumably full of Bath buns, sat on the Malempré herdsman's enameled green show box.

  Colonel Davenport himself arrived, his cheeks f lushed with cold and bluster. He accosted Callie immediately, demanding to know if she had heard of this havey-cavey Belgian business. He was of the dark opinion that Hubert had been made off with, probably by this Malempré fellow himself. The whole thing had the strong smell of criminal activity. He did not mean to frighten her, but he was a magis trate. He had long experience of rogues and rascals, and they were not all of the lowest classes. He very much doubted that Monsieur Malempré was what he represented himself to be. Colonel Davenport didn't suppose for one moment that Malempré was an honest gentleman, and it was unconscionable for the Agricultural Society to give him any countenance when he had stolen Hubert.

  "No, I believe it was your fence," Callie said quietly, finally lifting her face at this. "I saw the break myself. You don't keep secure fences, I'm sorry to have to say, Colonel Davenport. No one stole Hubert—he simply pushed through your fence and got out."

  A silence greeted her pronouncement. Every herdsman and farmer who had been standing about eating mince pies and listening to the colonel—and there were many—looked at Callie in something like awe. She had never said so much in public before.

  As the representative of the late Earl of Shelford, who remained in everyone's mind the proper owner of the bull, her opinion of the matter carried considerable weight. When her drover chimed in, muttering that he'd seen the break too, and there weren't no way such a rupture in the wood had been made by the hand of man, the weight of judgment began to go against Colonel Davenport's theory. He was a little put out, defending his fence and trying to argue with her, but Callie found that she had more friends than she knew: Mr. Downie and Farmer Lewis, her drover and her herdsman and the cottager with the fat pig, several other cowmen and farmers, and the wife of the Shelford butcher—even Mr. Price stopped as he was passing and took up Callie's point with vigor. A great discussion erupted over the usual sounds of clucking and lowing, filling Broad Street with the echo of voices in loud dispute. Callie could imagine Trev's wicked enjoyment as he observed the scene from whatever place he had chosen to conceal himself. He had told her that he would be watching.

  Monsieur Malempré's reputation gained consider ably in respect when some bystander said he'd spoke to the banker, and the five hundred guineas were deposited under seal, good as gold, and if no bull met the challenge, they were to be donated to the society itself to be used for improvement of the local breeds. The big fellow who imparted this stunning information was a stranger to Callie, but his size and diction—there was a strong f lavor of Charles's rough style to his speech—made her suspect he was no random passerby.

  Mr. Price turned round at this, expressing astonish ment and gratification at the news. He demanded to know why the officials of the society had not been apprised of this aspect of the challenge.

  "Dunno nothin' more of it." The stranger shrugged. "I'm just a stockyard man myself, from up Bristol. Guess he don't want some swindle," he suggested innocently, pulling a straw out of his mouth. "Like them society fellows might shuff le off the biggest bull here roundabouts if they knew they'd get them guineas themselves. Dunno what them aggi-culture coves might do, eh?"

  "The society hide him? By God, we'd never—"

  Colonel Davenport cut him off. "Mr. Price! How long has the society been aware of the Malempré Challenge?" he demanded.

  "Why, we just found it out yesterday!" Mr. Price cried. "And precisely what are you implying, Colonel, by asking me such a question?"

  The colonel seemed to realize he had crossed the line to insult, and held himself up stiff ly. "I merely inquired," he said. He gave a small bow. "I beg your pardon, sir. I meant no offense."

  The secretary of the society relaxed a little but kept his brows raised. "No offense taken. I comprehend your upset, Colonel. It's an unfortunate situation for you, no doubt, to have misplaced the Shelford animal at this juncture."

  Colonel Davenport drew in a sharp breath as if he might give an angry retort, but then he seemed to crumple under the weight of the secretary's words. "I cannot comprehend it," he said in despair. "How that bull could have disappeared so suddenly, under my very nose! Gone without a trace! A week before the show—and now this… this… Belgian! Five hundred guineas, I say! What would you think?"

  "Dark doings," Mr. Price agreed. "We've had seven animals measured since yesterday, but none approaches the dimensions of this imported animal." He glanced toward Callie. "My lady, I beg your pardon, did your father ever have Hubert's meas
ure taken?"

  "He was measured last year at the Bromyard show," she said promptly. "After he took the premium for Best Bull under Four Years," she added, to remind them of Hubert's value. "But he's grown since. I daresay he's larger now."

  Colonel Davenport gave a faint moan. "Egad, what an animal," he said miserably. "And I've lost him!"

  "You've no leads at all?" Mr. Price inquired.

  "I'm having all the yards searched from here to London," the colonel said. "I've sent letters to the shorthorn breeders and the society secretaries in ten counties, in case someone attempts to sell him or show him. I've even alerted Bow Street, should he be taken to the Home Counties. Gave 'em a description of that shady fellow who tried to buy him of me. And that French rascal who attacked poor Sturgeon—he's still abroad! I dare swear he's mixed up in it too."

  "Perhaps he pulled down your fence," Callie murmured.

  "It was a perfectly sufficient fence!" the colonel declared, glaring at her.