“Sometimes we can’t know all there is to know about a person,” Talis said, and even to himself he sounded pompous. He didn’t want to keep a secret from Callie. It was very hard not to tell her how, every day, he had been begging to be allowed to marry her. Keeping this vow was the most difficult of all the promises he’d made to Alida.
Except for vowing to leave Callie a virgin. That was the worst. He wanted her so much that he could hardly bear to touch her hand. If she got too near him he had to get away from her as fast as possible.
One day Hugh had seen Talis as he watched Callie walk across a courtyard, her hips swaying. Afterward, Talis had spent three hours in a blind frenzy of activity. As Talis was dripping sweat, drinking from a gourd, and trying to get the image of Callie out of his mind, Hugh stepped beside him and said, “Your honor is battling against the lips and thighs and breasts of Callie. Do you want to win?” It had been all Talis could do to keep from collapsing into tears at Hugh’s understanding—and at the provocative image of Callie’s lips and thighs and breasts.
Now, here she was standing in the midst of all these men and complaining that he was not constant in his love for her. She was the one who was not constant. If she loved him, she should believe in him. He was with the other women because he had to be. Lady Alida—he could not call her his mother even in his mind; Meg was his mother—said he had to be trained as a knight before he could marry Callie, the daughter of a man who was related to the queen. Part of his training was learning to dance and sing and play the lute and all the other things that took so much time and involved so many obsequious women.
That Callie did not understand these things without being told angered him. He had told her he loved her; what else could he do?
“I must leave you now,” he said abruptly. She was breaking his heart and she did not even know it.
Turning on his heel, he walked away from her, and did not look back even when she threw a clod of dirt and hit him in the back with it. Nor did he turn back when the laughter of the men standing near her rang out over his head.
For a long time, Dorothy lay beside Callie, listening to her crying. Or rather, felt her crying, for Callie was utterly silent in her weeping, poor little Kipp sitting beside her, twitching its head as it looked at Callie, sometimes extending tiny pink fingers to touch her tears. In truth, Dorothy thought Callie’s crying was almost eerie, these nightly tears that came from somewhere inside her and found their way out her eyes. Once, in a failed attempt at humor, Callie had said, “It is my heart melting and pouring down my face. If I cry enough, I will have no heart left, and when my heart is gone my tears will cease.”
Tonight they were staying in the little house with Father Keris. They’d learned to say that he was ill and they needed to nurse him back to health so they would be allowed to stay there instead of going back to the house. To both Callie and Dorothy it seemed that with every day, the atmosphere of Hadley Hall became more oppressive. It was as though a storm was building and would soon burst with such fury that they would all be destroyed.
So, whenever they could, Dorothy and Callie stayed with Father Keris, who slept through whatever they did or said.
“I cannot take any more,” Dorothy said, sitting upright in the bed she and Callie shared, her fists pressed over her ears. “I am sick of both of you. Sick of you, do you hear?”
“Who?” Callie asked, sitting up, rubbing her eyes, Kipp clinging to her waist. “I have no idea who you could mean.”
“The devil you don’t!” she said, shocking Callie into awareness. “Now you listen to me, Callasandra, you are going to do something about putting both you and Talis out of your misery.”
“I have no idea what you mean,” Callie said loftily. “Talis Hadley means nothing to me. Just because—”
She broke off at a vulgarity from Dorothy. “Talis wants you so much he is becoming flesh and bone. He cannot eat for wanting you so much; his studies are suffering. Yesterday he fell off his horse when you walked past him.”
“Did he? I did not notice. If he did fall, I am sure it had nothing to do with me. I—”
Dorothy grabbed Callie by the shoulders and gave her a shake, ignoring Kipp’s squeal of protest. She wanted to tell Callie the truth, that Lady Alida was behind whatever was going on and only heaven knew what her motives were, but Dorothy had a keen sense of self-preservation. It was better to leave her mother’s name out of all this.
“It is Talis’s sense of honor that keeps him from you and that is all. You should be proud of him, not angry with him.”
“But I do not believe that. I do not believe Talis wants me. Why should you? Have you seen how beautiful Lady Frances is?”
“And have you seen how selfish she is? You do not think she is half as beautiful as she thinks herself.”
Callie gave Dorothy a look of disgust. “Yes, and we all know how much weight a man gives to a woman’s mind. Look you at Edith: plain face and a good mind but no husband.”
“And me,” Dorothy said softly, saying what Callie could not. “I know, do not say it. I am a very nice person, but I am not beautiful enough to have a man fight my father’s stingy ways to win me.” She would not allow Callie to comment on this very true statement. “But you have a chance! You have what my sisters and I want so much.”
“You mean Talis? Do you mean that I have Talis? How could I have him when all the others—”
Dorothy repressed the urge to smack Callie for not seeing what was so plain. All Dorothy knew was that she wanted to get these two people together before her mother could do whatever it was she was planning. If it killed her, Dorothy wanted to see some happiness in this rich house. Too much gold and not enough love was her opinion.
“Now listen to me,” Dorothy said, “and help me to form a plan. Do not tell me more of how Talis does not want you. Think of this as one of your stories and help me plan.”
When Callie looked skeptical, Dorothy smiled. “You are right, this is probably beyond your storytelling abilities.”
Callie’s expression changed. “What story do you need? I will tax my poor brain and see what I can manage to create.”
“All right, now listen to my plan.”
It was hours before Dorothy got to sleep and Callie didn’t sleep at all that night. In the morning both young women were smiling in conspiracy.
37
I do not know why you would want me to ride with you,” Talis was saying as he rode beside Callie into the woods that were John Hadley’s private hunting preserve. “You have so many other young men to escort you wherever you go. I do not know how you tolerate someone as lowly as me, you with a father who is an earl, who is the relative of the queen.”
Talis himself wanted to stop the words that poured out of his mouth, but he couldn’t. Yesterday Callie had sent him a message saying she wanted to ride with him, and after his initial elation, he had begun to worry about being able to keep his vows to Alida if he were alone with Callie for very long. In the year since he had declared that he loved her—in a spectacular drama before the entire village, as he remembered it—he’d done his best never to be truly alone with her.
She was wearing a gorgeous cape of blue wool, with a big hood edged in white fur. It was almost as though she were trying to make herself too beautiful for Talis to be able to resist. Today he did not even seem to mind the furry face of the monkey peeping at him from inside the folds of her cloak at her waist.
“I am thinking of getting married,” Callie said, looking at him over her shoulder.
For a moment, Talis couldn’t breathe, but then his spine stiffened and he put his head up. “Yes, that is a good idea. You are getting old and you should be married.”
“I agree. I would like to have children. Tell me, do you think I would be a good mother?”
How could his back have become stiffer? It seemed that even the muscles in his throat were tightening. “Yes, of course,” he said.
“Good,” she answered, smiling. “Today
I thought we might go somewhere private and you might tell me what it is that a man and woman do to make babies. I do not want to go into my marriage as ignorant as your sisters. You are my friend and you must tell me everything.”
Rage melted the stiffness in Talis’s body. Turning in his saddle, he reined his horse to a halt and faced her, his face red. “You asked me to come all the way out here with you in weather that looks like a storm is about to break to tell you—to tell you about…about…” He was so angry he couldn’t speak.
“Oh, I see,” Callie said casually, kicking her horse forward. “You know even less than I do. I was not sure, since you spend your life with so many women.”
“I know everything!” he shouted, moving beside her. “I know all there is to know. But you…”
“Yes? What about me?”
What made him so very angry was the fact that she was half smiling at him, as though what she was saying was not the most horrible, the most despicable, the most—He broke off as he realized that she was teasing him, that there was no other man and she wasn’t actually thinking of marrying anyone other than him.
He smiled at her. “Lady Frances has taught me all that goes on between a man and woman. Do you not think she is beautiful?”
At that he had the satisfaction of seeing Callie’s face turn red with anger, then before he could stop her, she dug her heels into her horse’s flanks and set off at breakneck speed. He’d made sure that she was given a horse that was more suitable for children than an adult, while he had taken a huge black monster that Lord John had forbidden anyone to ride. Talis had disobeyed because he wanted to impress Callie—if that was possible.
Just as Callie’s horse went charging through the forest, a bolt of lightning split the sky and the heavens opened into a downpour. It was minutes before Talis could get his frightened horse under control and go after Callie.
When Talis found her, his heart leaped into his throat, for his first thought was that she was dead. She was lying lifeless on the ground under a tree, the rain not yet penetrating through the thick leaves. To Talis, she looked like an angel fallen from heaven. In the fall from her horse her hair had come unfastened and now it lay about her in a heavenly cloud; her cloak was open and her gown was torn at the neck, exposing one bare, creamy shoulder and the beautiful, perfect round of one breast. After having teased her for so long about her flat chest, he had been fascinated to watch over the last year as she had made up for lost time. Kipp was near her face, and when he looked up he seemed to be imploring Talis for help.
Talis was off his horse while it was still moving. “Callie!” he shouted, running to her and pulling her into his arms. “Callie, my love. Speak to me. Callie, I will die if you are hurt. Please, Callie, please.”
He was holding her body so close to his, her face pressed to his shoulder so hard that he barely heard her groan. When he knew she was alive, he felt his eyes fill with tears.
Pulling her face away from him, but still holding her so tightly she could hardly breathe, he stroked her cheek. “Callie,” was all he could whisper, then began to kiss her cheeks and forehead and hair in relief that she was still alive.
“I am hurt,” she managed to whisper.
“Hurt? I will take you back to the house. I will get the finest surgeon, the best—”
“My ankle. I am sure it is broken and my leg hurts. I do not think I can stand.”
“My horse—” He had started to tell her that he’d take her back on his horse, but the skittish creature was nowhere to be seen. However, Callie’s horse had been taught to stand and was—
“Where is your horse?”
“How would I know where my horse is?” she snapped.
Talis was still holding her, but he was looking about him with a frown. This was odd. He had purposefully chosen that horse for Callie because it was so safe. It was attached to humans and would never leave its rider stranded. In fact, one of the stable lads had joked that the horse could not be got rid of. So where was it?
“Oh, my foot, my foot,” Callie groaned. “It pains me. And my side and my head also hurt.”
The rain was coming down harder now and cold drops were penetrating the roof of the tree. With a squeal at getting hit in the eye by an icy droplet, Kipp scurried under the folds of Callie’s cloak. Talis knew that they would need to get home soon. He must find one of the damned horses and get Callie back to safety as soon as possible.
Carefully, he laid Callie down on the ground and started to get up to look for the horse.
She sat up on her elbows. “You are more interested in your horse than you are in me?”
“No,” he said hesitantly. “We need a horse to get back to Hadley Hall. I must—”
“You aren’t even going to look at my ankle?” At that she fell back against the ground in what could have been a faint.
Instantly, Talis was again beside her, again pulling her into his arms, and for a moment his mind whirled with thoughts. It seemed to make the most sense to find a horse and get back as soon as possible and have someone who knew more about injuries than he did look at Callie.
“Oh, Tally, it hurts so much,” she said, limp in his arms. Pliable. Helpless. Totally dependent upon him.
With one arm still around her, he reached for her foot to try to look at her ankle. Callie was a bit smaller than other girls her age, and compared to Talis she was tiny, but even at that, he could hardly reach her ankle while holding her. In order to see her injury, he had to pull her skirt up past her knee just to see her ankle.
Oddly enough, there didn’t look to be any swelling around the joint.
As he was looking at her ankle, trying to see the wound, Talis wondered why he had never before noticed that Callie had such delicate ankles, nor had he been aware of how gracefully her ankle curved into her calf. She wore thin, almost transparent hose that were made just for her leg and fit her like skin.
“My leg,” Callie whispered. “Higher. My leg hurts very much. I think it is bleeding.”
With a hand that shook just a bit, Talis raised her skirts higher on her leg. When had she started wearing all of these female undergarments? If they’d been on the farm and he’d found out she was wearing delicate stockings, he would have laughed at her. These things would not hold up for even one afternoon’s jaunt through the brambles.
But right now he had never seen anything as alluring as these pale pink stockings that stretched up Callie’s shapely leg. Slowly, with his mind nowhere near his purpose of seeing whether or not she was injured, he held her upper body with one arm and lifted her dress with his right hand.
The stocking stopped just above her knee and was tied in place with the most extraordinary thing he had ever seen. It was a garter made of pink ribbons and white embroidered cloth; there were tiny hearts sewn onto the cloth. The garter was frothy and feminine and Talis had never in his life seen anything as fascinating as that piece of fabric. It was as though he could not take his eyes off it.
As though time were suspended, his eyes moved to above the garter and there he saw Callie’s thigh. Just a few inches of skin before her skirt concealed her body. Her skin was as pale as spring sunlight, the curve firm, seeming to invite his hand to touch it.
As he lifted his hand, a loud crack of lightning brought him back to reality.
In one frantic, terrified movement, Talis dropped Callie to the ground and jumped away from her. “I must find the horse. I must find the horse,” he said, and the water on his face was more sweat than rain. “I must get you back to the house. I must—”
For a moment Talis thought he heard some rather vulgar words come from Callie but he was sure that couldn’t be true. If she’d said such a thing, it was probably just the pain from her leg, or maybe that damned monkey twisting her hair. Whatever the problem, he realized he had to do something now. Jumping up to grab the lowest hanging branch of the tree, he swung himself upward.
“What in the world are you doing?” Callie yelled up to him as he
quickly and agilely began to climb the tree.
“I’m trying to see the horses,” he called down to her.
It was at that moment that, coming from the other direction, Callie’s horse appeared and she grimaced. “The only horse ever born that can’t find its way back to the stables, and I have to have it,” she muttered. Glancing up to be sure Talis was involved in his mad dash to the top of the tree, Callie ran across the grass into the rain to the idiot horse. It was looking at her as though it wanted her to take care of it—which it did.
Callie loved animals but she loved Talis more, so what she did, she did with a feeling of guilt. From inside her pocket she withdrew a little bundle of herbs from her own garden, a posy she had prepared for just such an emergency as this, and tied it to the horse’s bridle. With one whiff of the herbs, the horse turned and ran in the general direction of Hadley Hall, and Callie, with Kipp clinging to her belt, scurried back to her place under the tree.
When Talis came down from the tree, Callie was reclining on the ground, which was growing damper by the moment. Talis saw that her dress was disarrayed so that one leg was exposed to above her knee, the other to midcalf. He knew it could not be possible, but it was almost as though her gown was torn more at the shoulder than it had been and now it seemed to expose more of her breast than it had. Was he being punished for having laughed at her flat chest of a year ago? Couldn’t she have stayed flat? Why did she have to look so ravishingly desirably beautiful?
“Callie?” he said, then when she did not open her eyes, he fairly shouted, but he did not stoop and take her in his arms again. “Callie! We must get out of here. You are wet through and the rain’s coming down harder. We must…”
Gracefully, she opened her eyes and when she spoke she sounded as though she were at death’s door. “I cannot walk. You must go and get help. Get…get Edgar, the farrier’s son. His house is near here and he is strong enough to carry me back to Hadley Hall. He will not need a horse.”