Lessons in French

by Laura Kinsale

  Callie had been about to poke further punctures in his ridiculous tale, but she paused at that. "Never return?"

  "It is a hanging offense, Callie," he said gently. "It's a crime against commerce, and that's near-worse than murder in the eyes of the magistrates."

  "I… don't see how that can be so," she said. But she remembered suddenly that all the newspapers and even the ladies' magazines had been full of some great trial not long ago; she hadn't paid any mind to the details herself, but Dolly had followed the course of the events avidly and read them aloud at breakfast every morning at interminable length. Callie thought it had involved a lady with a very young child, and a gentleman of the sporting crowd, and a great number of sordid insinua tions and accusations. And yes—it had been a trial for forgery—she remembered that now, and the lady's life had been in peril if she were found guilty, but it had turned out to be the gentleman instead.

  She wet her lips. "Trev—" she said uncertainly. She looked up at him with a sinking feeling at the pit of her stomach.

  His faint smile vanished, and his jaw hardened. He gave a bitter laugh. "Please. Go on refusing to believe me. It's not something a man cares to admit, I assure you."

  The words seemed to go past her, then spin in strange echoes round her head. "A hanging offense," she repeated slowly, hearing it as if from a great distance. She stared at him, every limb in her body going to water. If she had not been holding on to the bedpost, she would have slid to the f loor.

  "It was not a pleasant experience," he said. "And so you see, I must depart." He gave a slight mechanical bow, a move full of suppressed violence.

  "What happens if they discover you here?" she asked, hardly able to command her voice.

  "They hang me," he said simply.

  "Oh good God," she breathed. Her legs were failing her. "Oh dear God."

  He stepped forward, supporting her. "Don't faint— Callie, my sweet life—oh no, please don't weep. Come here now. They haven't caught me yet."

  She realized that tears had sprung to her eyes, but they were not of sorrow. She gave a sob of pure terror, clinging tightly to him as he pulled her into his arms. "You must go!" She gasped into his shoulder. "Why are you still here?"

  He held her close, kissing her temple. "You can't guess?"

  "Your mother!" She pulled back sharply. "Does your mother know?"

  His mouth f lattened. "No. God grant she never will."

  "Of course not." Callie turned from him, hugging herself. "No, she mustn't know." She turned back. "But you must f lee directly—they're all hunting you now as Malempré." Her head was a painful whirlwind. "Oh lord, the duchesse—what shall I say to her? I can't go back to Shelford and—"

  "Hush, mon ange." He caught her again, more gently. "I've thought of all these things."

  "You have?"

  He nuzzled her temple, his breath soft on her skin. "Most of them."

  "Where will you go? To Monceaux?"

  He pulled her close. "It doesn't matter, if you aren't there."

  Callie turned her face up. He gazed down at her for a moment and then kissed her roughly.

  "Don't forget me," he whispered. He put her away from him. Callie held out her hands numbly. He caught them up and kissed them, and then without another word, he left her—not by the window, by the door, but she hurried to the window and stood there, looking out through the wavy glass with her heart beating hard until he appeared in the street below.

  He crossed swiftly to the far side, his face muff led up again, only another drover among the working people cleaning up smashed preserves and setting pens and crates and tables to rights. At the corner he turned, looking back up at her. She put her palm to the glass.

  He nodded once and vanished from her view.

  Seventeen

  MAJOR STURGEON STRODE VIGOROUSLY TOWARD THE Black Lion in the long shadows of evening, his collar turned up against the cold. Clearly he meant to keep his appointment with Colonel Davenport this time. As the cathedral bells rang out, echoing deeply across the roofs and down in the back lanes and alleys, the streets emptied, deserted by the fair crowds for the warmth of taverns and inns.

  Trev straightened from the wall where he'd been loitering, hunched down in his ragged jacket, and stepped into the major's path, shouldering him hard. The officer grunted and recoiled, exclaiming at a damned stupid oaf, but before he could get far with this rebuke, Trev grabbed him by his gilded braids and shoved him into the alley.

  Sturgeon caught on instantly—he turned, trying to reach his sword and shout, but Trev kneed him hard, doubling him over before he could draw steel. Trev had his own knife at the ready, and he let Sturgeon feel it, but the man was no fading f lower even with a knife at his ribs. He seized Trev's wrist and shoved the weapon away, throwing a short, hard punch at his face. Trev ducked, to take the hit on the top of his skull—a cheap boxer's trick that hurt like the devil but could break the officer's hand if Trev got lucky. He didn't stop to discover if it worked: he clubbed Sturgeon in the side of the head with an elbow, jammed his forearm against the officer's throat, and wrenched his knife hand free. With Sturgeon blocked up against the wall, Trev shook his head to loosen the scarf from his face.

  "You!" The officer showed his teeth in a sneer, resisting Trev's grip until both their hands trembled with the strain.

  "Aye, it's me," Trev said cordially, moving the knife downward. "Now shut up and listen, or I'll cut off your pretty baubles and have done with it."

  Their huffs of frosted breath mingled in the fading light. Sturgeon made a wordless growl, his teeth bared, but Trev's arm across his windpipe and the knife at his groin appeared to be sufficient persuasion. He stood still.

  "I've got some good advice for you, Sturgeon." Trev spoke through his teeth. "If the lady chooses to take you, you'll treat her right, do you follow me?"

  For an instant, the officer just stared at him, breathing hoarsely against the pressure at his throat. Then a half degree of tension left his body, though he held himself stiff against the wall, well away from Trev's knife point. "Shelford's girl, do you mean?" He lifted his lip in derision. "Is that all? Damn, I thought you a common footpad."

  "I could be," Trev said in a silken tone. "I could strip you and leave you bleeding in the street, and I may yet. But you'll give up your bobtails and keep your trousers closed, starting now. You won't shame her or hurt her; you'll treat her like a queen, do you comprehend me?" He pressed the knife closer.

  Sturgeon tried to back up with a little scrabble against the brick. "Good Christ," he snarled. "What is it you have in for me? I caved to your bloody blackmail the first time, I broke it off with her— damned if I crawl for the likes of you again. I'll kill you first."

  "Blackmail?" Trev held him hard, his eyes narrowed. "Somebody got the advantage of you, Sturgeon?"

  "You know what I mean. What's your game? What do you want from me?" Sturgeon made a grunt as he tried to break free. "Take your blade away, fight me like a man." He gasped through Trev's constriction on his throat.

  "This is how I fight." As Sturgeon's hand moved, reaching, searching for the knife, Trev kneed him again. The officer wheezed, well caught between his windmill and his waterpipe.

  "Like a bloodsucking thief." Sturgeon's teeth were white in the shadows. "Blackmailer!"

  "I never blackmailed you, you maggot," Trev hissed. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Lie like the two-faced French devil you are!" Sturgeon gasped for air. "I know you did it. You were there."

  "Where? I was where?"

  The officer held stiff, glaring at Trev over his arm, his lips compressed. "You were there. Who else but Hixson could have known?"

  "Are you talking about Salamanca?" Trev asked in wonder. "Good God, is that it?"

  Sturgeon didn't answer, but his look was answer enough.

  Trev held him. "That courier's orders? Someone blackmailed you with it?"

  "Oh, the innocence," Sturgeon sneered. "All these years I never re
alized it must be you, you turncoat worm, until I saw you with her! It's too bad I didn't have you shot the day Hixson brought you in."

  There was truth enough to the word "turncoat" that Trev had to swallow back an urge to beat the man to a bloody pulp. His breath came harsh, but he kept his voice dead even. "Tell me all of it. You were blackmailed into jilting her? Did they ask for money too?"

  "They?" Sturgeon gave him a look of scorn. "You! No money, and you know it. But Shelford wrung me to the last penny for sheering off, if it gives you any satisfaction."

  "Oh, it does," Trev said. "Believe me."

  "And you didn't manage to get your claws on her fortune after all." His lip curled. "What happened, did the old earl have you whipped away at the tail end of a cart?"

  Trev held himself back from strangling the man on the wave of rage that suffused him. Instead he blew air through his teeth and gave a bitter laugh. Suddenly he let go, all at once, and stepped back, well out of range of the heavy blow that Sturgeon threw. He blocked the next punch, still laughing, an angry sound that echoed in the alleyway until Sturgeon stood back, huffing for air, looking at Trev as if he were mad.

  "I didn't blackmail you, Sturgeon," he said. "I was a prisoner until after Waterloo, you jackass, how'd you suppose I'd know anything about you, or give a damn? I didn't even know your name at Salamanca. Hell and the devil, I was grateful to you for taking that tent out of artillery range. You were welcome to ignore all the orders you liked, by my lights, as long as you didn't get me shot."

  "Shut up about it." The officer looked as if he'd like to enter into a further brawl, but Trev could see him thinking in spite of himself, calculating history and distance.

  "I didn't return to England till '17," Trev said, to aid him with his mathematics. He held himself ready, watching Sturgeon put his hand on his sword. "I'd say if someone blackmailed you, it's Geordie Hixson must be your man, though I'd not have thought it in his style."

  "Hixson was already dead a two-month before I got the note."

  "Geordie's dead?" Trev scowled. "How?"

  "A damned kettle of turtle soup," Sturgeon said. "Cook left it in a copper pot overnight, so they said. Or it was poisoned on purpose, belike. Convenient for you that he's not alive to say his piece."

  "Oh, isn't it? You think I murdered him and then blackmailed you out of marrying her? All the while I was incarcerated at Wellington's behest. The bastard kept me right through the Paris treaty, and you're welcome to question the Foreign Office on that if you like." Trev began to chuckle again on a wilder note. "Or save yourself the trouble and ask Madame Malempré where I was." He gave the officer a swift bow, backing away to make sure he was out of range as he did. "Were you before me with her, or after, Sturgeon? Quite a willing little piece, that one."

  The officer stood upright, stiffening. His face went white. "I will kill you," he said low.

  "I'm sorry to enlighten you as to her liberal char acter." Trev pulled his pistol from his pocket. "But you won't be entertaining yourself with that sort of thing anyway," he informed the officer. "You think me capable of blackmail—I assure you that I am. If my friends tell me you're embarrassing my lady with any escapades of a romantic nature, or distressing her in any way, you'll find yourself drummed before a court-martial, and I'll be very pleased to tell them what I saw that day."

  "The word of a French coward against mine!" Sturgeon spat in the street.

  "I'd advise you not to take the risk," Trev said softly. "The exposure alone—the rumors, the ques tions. Think about it, while you turn about and walk out to the street."

  The officer glared at him. For a long moment, they faced one another across the dark, garbage-strewn distance between them. Then Sturgeon pulled his cloak about him and turned, striding swiftly toward the open street.

  Everyone supposed it was the blow to her head that made Callie stare vaguely out of windows and lose the tail of her sentences. Hermey watched her with a worried little frown and asked if she was in pain at least once an hour. To pacify her sister's concern, Callie submitted to daily attention from Shelford's mumbling old doctor and then locked herself in her bedchamber to provide Hermey with the happy impression that she was resting quietly. It was a convenient excuse to avoid Major Sturgeon's frequent calls to leave f lowers and inquire after her condition. And to avoid making a visit to Dove House.

  She spent the time pacing and leafing through every copy of an outdated paper or magazine that she had been able to discover at Shelford Hall. She was down to the fish wrappings, but she'd found nothing that hinted at the trial that had so fascinated Dolly. In spite of all the concentration she could muster, Callie couldn't recall precisely when it had taken place. Some time ago: after last Christmas she was certain, but had it been in the spring or the early summer? The Lady's Magazine of March was mute on the topic. The latest copy, October, had been whisked away by Hermey and was nowhere to be found amid the gowns and hats and peculiar assortment of possible costumes for the upcoming masquerade ball that lay cast about her room. All the volumes in between were making their way along the village circuit, passed from house to house in a strictly defined order of precedence before being returned to Shelford Hall, where they would be bound and shelved in neat gilded leather bindings at the end of each year.

  She'd found nothing more informative than a folded month-old page of the Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, which had slid under a cushion in the library and been missed by the charwoman. The page contained an odd and passionate letter to the editor from a Mrs. Fowler, who accused her enemies of besmirching her name in the attempt to "murder the good reputation of an innocent creature and impose upon the public." Mrs. Fowler insisted that her whole heart belonged to one man, and one alone, and though he was no longer at her side, those who knew her best would never doubt this.

  It was a strange letter, fervently written but repellent to Callie's mind; a washing of one's linen in a public newspaper that hardly seemed appropriate to any situ ation. The name Fowler seemed distantly familiar, but it was common enough and there was no reference in the letter to any trial. The remainder of the page was taken up with a description of a concert by an Italian violinist, a discussion of the new Navigation Act, and three advertisements for linen drapers. Callie had smoothed the paper, folded it again, and placed it in her pocket diary. It disturbed her in some way that she couldn't quite fathom, but she found it impossible to discard.

  She was carrying the diary when at last she had herself driven to Dove House a week after her return from the disastrous fair at Hereford. She dreaded to call, but when she heard that Lilly had sent to Mrs. Adam for the ingredients for a chest plaster, Callie felt she must look in on the duchesse. Constable Hubble was sitting opposite the garden gate, perched on a crate with the remains of a substantial luncheon about him. He put aside his mug and a half-eaten pie and stood hastily as the trap drew up, straightening his coat with a stern look.

  When he recognized Callie, he eased his severe expression and pulled off his hat. "Afternoon, my lady." He offered a rough hand to help her down. "We ain't caught 'im yet, ma'am, but I've set a net, as you can see. We'll snap him up if he comes near, mark my words."

  "A net?" She paused, glancing up from the gener ously packed food basket at his feet.

  "Aye, ma'am. I'm here m'self, in the f lesh, as you might say, and I got my boys posted both ends up the village, that I do, my lady. He won't get past us!"

  Callie relaxed slightly. She had thought for a moment that he meant a real net, one capable of actu ally trapping someone. Once she understood that it consisted of the constable and his two lads barricading the single road through Shelford—well provisioned by Cook, too, it appeared—her immediate alarm receded. Trev was out of the country by now in any case, so there was little fear that Constable Hubble would be required to desert his picnic basket in the line of duty.

  "Thank you," she said. "That relieves my mind. I hope you enjoyed your dinner?"

  "Aye, my lady, that I did.
Her's a mighty cook, that woman come to work for the poor duchesse. Her can make a kidney pudding to rival my old Fanny's, rest her soul, and I wouldn't say that about nobody else."

  It was high praise indeed, this comparison to Constable Hubble's beloved late wife. Callie nodded. "I'm pleased to hear it. But do you say the duchesse is poorly?"

  He gave a solemn nod. "Cook tells me the lady ain't got no appetite—that's why her brings us out so much broken victuals." He twisted his hat and ducked his head. "We wouldn't gobble so much otherwise, my lady, but Cook don't want it to go waste, y'see."

  "I understand." Callie was glad at least to know that Trev must have arranged for ample provisions to the house. She could see that someone had been working in the garden, clearing away the chaos that Hubert had left and trimming the plants down to winter crowns. There was a pot of Michaelmas daisies on the stoop, with purple petals and cheerful yellow eyes.