Laura Kinsale: Lessons in French

Callie kept a careful eye on her sister's partners. It was up to her to make certain no fortune hunter stole Hermey. Their cousin Jasper wasn't precisely the sharpest needle in the pincushion, and since his elevation to the earldom, his lady wife was most anxious to see Callista and Hermione packed up and departed from Shelford Hall. An early wedding for Hermey would be just what Lady Shelford liked, and she would not be particular as to the groom. Any person would do as long as he wore trousers and promised to take Callie along with her sister.

So Callie put on her gray gloves, hid her red hair as well as she could under a lavender turban, and sat herself at her guard post on the row of satin chairs along the wall, watching her sister dance with a most suitable baronet. He had taken leave from his promising position as an undersecretary in the Home Office and traveled up from London particularly to pay his compliments to Lady Hermione. Along with his addresses, it was to be hoped, though that had not yet transpired.

Her favored position in the Shelford assembly rooms overlooked the dance f loor and the entry. She had only to lift her lashes to see each newcomer, without any noticeable turn of her head. It was late now. The crush of people in the arched doorway had long since cleared, and so she merely glanced when a single figure appeared there.

For an instant she looked away again calmly, seeing only another smartly dressed gentleman who paused to watch the dancers. It was as if recognition struck her heart a moment late-a sudden rush of heat to her face, a squeezing of her throat. She found she could not catch her breath.

It was him.

She threw a panicked look toward him, knew it certainly, and then had nowhere at all to look or to run. She was alone on the wall of chairs. Mrs. Adam was vanished to the refreshment room, and everyone else danced. She stared down at her toes with desperate concentration, hoping and hoping and hoping that he would not recognize her.

He might not know her. She had not instantly recognized him. He was older. Of course he was older-one could hardly suppose that she herself had reached the advanced age of twenty-seven without him doing the same. In the first blink of a look, she had seen a dark-haired, handsome gentleman; it was only with her second panicked glance that she knew his face: sun-darkened and harder, all the smiling promise of youth matured to a striking man.

He stood with a quiet confidence, as if it did not concern him to arrive late and alone, or to receive no welcome. Any number of people here knew him, but no one had seen him yet, save Callie-none who acknowledged him, at least. He had been gone from the vicinity for nine years.

Callie fanned herself, staring at her lap. This was Mrs. Adam's news, of course. The carriage arrived for Madame de Monceaux. Her prodigal son had come home.

It was glad tidings. Callie was pleased for his mother. The poor duchesse had so longed for this, failing as she had been over the past year. She had clung to those infrequent letters from France, read them aloud over and over to Callie, and made them both laugh until Madame's cough overcame her and Callie took her leave.

For herself, Callie was terrified. Laugh she might over his written words-but she could hardly even breathe for the strange and sick feeling that she felt at the sight of him.

He might not even remember her. He had never mentioned her in his letters to his mother. Never asked after her, though he demanded to know how everyone else in Shelford fared in a long list of names and reminiscences, which showed that he had not forgot their small country lives while he consorted with kings and great people in Paris.

A pair of black evening shoes appeared in the limited range of her vision. She kept her face hidden down in her feathery fan and worked frantically with the catch on her bracelet, but the black shoes did not take the hint and move on. Closely fitted white trousers, the tail of a fine blue coat-she was so dizzy that she feared she might faint.

"Lady Callista?" he asked in a voice of low surprise.

She thought desperately of pretending she had not heard him over the music. But she remembered his voice. It was the same timbre, full of warmth. Evidently it still had the same dire effect on her senses.

"Come, I know it's you," he said gently. He sat down beside her. "I can see a stray lock peeking out from under that prodigious lovely turban."

She drew a deep breath. "No, can you? And I was so hoping to be taken for a Saracen." She tucked at the nape of her neck without looking at him.

"You've mislaid your camel, it would appear. How do you do, Callie? I must say, I didn't expect to find you here in Shelford, of anyone."

She found enough courage to lift her head. "You've come to see your mother," she said. "I am so glad."

He returned a sober man's look, a stranger, no longer the wild boy who had been careless of any burden. His dark eyes did not smile at her. She saw in a short look that he had a scar on his left cheekbone, and a little crooked bump to his nose that she did not remember. The marks only served to make him appear more an untamed gypsy than ever, even severe and stiff in his formal clothes.

"I've come to her, yes," he said. He paused, tilting his head a fraction. "But you-I thought you must have left Shelford long ago."

"Oh no, I have clung here like a limpet." She opened her fan and closed it again.

There was a little silence between them, filled with the violins and the dancers' noise and prattle.

"You have not married?" he asked quietly.

Somehow, Callie had supposed the news that she had been jilted three times must have reached the farthest corners of the earth. It was certainly common knowledge everywhere she had ever set foot. But it seemed that France had been spared the intelligence.

"Indeed no," she said, looking up at him fully for the first time. "I don't propose to marry."

He would find out the truth soon enough. She could not bring herself to mention it. But at the way his eyebrows lifted, she suddenly feared he might think it was because she still bore some strong feeling for him-and that was worse.

"I've become quite celebrated, you see," she said, f luttering her fan. "I have driven no less than three terrified gentlemen from the altar, not counting yourself. I don't tally you in my record keeping, but if you would like to do me the honor and then break it off, it would add immeasurably to my eminence. Four would be a nice round number."

He seemed slow to comprehend her. "Four?" he asked blankly.

"That is the sum of one and three," Callie said, beating her fan with a nervous velocity. "Unless there has been some recent alteration in events."

"Are you saying that you've been betrothed three times since I left?"

"It is a wonderful accomplishment, is it not?"

"And they all-"

"Yes." She snapped her fan closed. "That is what I've been doing, you see-becoming engaged and being jilted. And how do you account for your time these past years, my lord duc? Have you indeed recovered your ancestral properties and fortune? I sincerely hope for it; it would give your mother so much happiness."

He stared at her a moment, as if he did not quite understand the language that she spoke. Then he recovered himself. "I've had success, yes," he said. He did not elaborate on it. "I think it has given her strength."

"And will you return with her to France?" Callie asked.

"That would be impossible. She's not well enough."

"I hope you won't leave her again soon."

"No. I don't plan to leave until-" He hesitated. "I've no intentions to leave."

"She will be delighted to know it. Please reassure her directly. She will be anxious."

"I will. I have. I'll speak of it again, so that she is sure."