Laura Kinsale: Lessons in French

A few minutes later, still feeling satisfactorily rosy from the slight delay due to the need for further kisses in spite of the Home Secretary hot on their heels, she trotted her mare out of the stable yard, leaving a startled groom behind her. Trev swung up from the darkness and settled onto the seat beside her. He leaned over and kissed her again. He would have taken the reins, but Callie retained them, feeling that he might not drive quite straight while aff licted with this continued compulsion to kiss her. She f licked the whip and asked her horse to break into a brisk canter, sending up a spray of gravel as they f lew down the drive.

While Trev lounged back on the seat, his arm about her shoulders in a most warming manner, she allowed the mare to maintain this great pace as far as the gate lodge. There she reined in, for the trees shadowed the road and the moonlight was not as bright. The horse came to a halt before the closed gates. The lodge keeper stared up. "My lady, is it you? But-begging your pardon-where are you driving out at this hour?"

Callie looked over at Trev. "America, did you say?"

He leaned across her. "Or Shanghai, if you prefer it," he countered.

"You needn't leave the gates unlocked in that case," she informed the bemused gatekeeper as the gig rolled through. Outside, she turned the mare toward Shelford village.

"We'd best take the north road from here," Trev said. Their mingled breath frosted in the pale dark. "No need to go this direction."

"This is a short cut," Callie told him.

"Is it? Good. Damn, I'm a fool-I ought at least to have lifted a cloak for you on our way out. I don't think it would be wise to stop in Bromyard, except to leave your mare. But if you can endure it as far as Leominster, we'll take a chamber there. That's four teen miles or so."

"I'm not in the least cold," she said truthfully. Not while he was holding her close in this gratifying manner.

"You're a heroine," he said, kissing her neck. "Je t'adore."

She accepted this compliment calmly. "But pray, will you enlighten me… when last we spoke, you wished you had never seen me again."

"I was out of my mind," he explained. "I entirely blame your stockings."

She cast him a sideways glance.

He withdrew his arm and put his hand across her wrists, causing the mare to come to a walk. "Callie," he said, turning her face to him. His voice dropped harshly. "Do you understand-you won't even have your own money? Your father made certain of that long ago."

She felt much colder when he sat away from her. "Did he?"

"Aye, he was pleased to inform me that your trust was made ironclad to protect you from fortune hunting scoundrels." In the moonlight she could see a derisive smile curl his lips. "Taking myself as the pattern and type."

"He didn't yet know Major Sturgeon, I suppose."

"And we'll be living abroad," he said doggedly. "I can't bring you back to see your sister or Shelford or England. And I don't keep respectable company. I've money enough, but-"

"Are you trying to make me jilt you too?" she demanded.

"No, damn it all, but you ought to."

"Yes," she mused, "I should return to the masquerade and announce that I've changed my mind and prefer after all not to be forcibly seized. Doubtless that would make heads spin even on the editors of The Lady's Spectator."

"I daresay they'd thank you for the increase in their circulation numbers, at any rate."

She clucked the mare to a trot. "I feel they've been given adequate stimulation. As for me, I should like to break it off with you, of course, after having discov ered these dismaying facts, but it was such great fun to jilt Major Sturgeon that I daren't encourage that sort of fickle behavior in myself."

He fell silent. The mare splashed through a puddle, and Callie allowed her to slow again on the muddy track. "This is Dove Lane," he said, as if he had just noticed it.

"Yes, and I hope it will dry a little by morning," she said. "Lord Sidmouth intends to pay a call on your mother tomorrow, if he isn't kept up too late at the masquerade."

Trev sat bolt upright. "Sidmouth?"

"The Home Secretary, you know."

"He intends to call…? Good God, has that Runner been to see him? Why the devil is Sidmouth to call here?" Then he stopped and said in an appalled voice: "Did Emma Fowler tell him I was here?"

"No, nothing of that sort," Callie said soothingly. "I mentioned to him that your mother has been feeling ill and very low about you, and he thought that perhaps a visit from him might raise her spirits."

"Are you mad?" They had halted at the garden gate in front of Dove House. Moonlight shone dimly on the whitewashed fence and the silvery rose canes. "Callie, don't stop here," he hissed. "She's asleep. She knows I can't come back. For the love of God, let us go and be done with it. "

"I have something to say to her."

He closed his eyes and took a breath. "I won't prevent you," he muttered in a constricted voice, "but we'd best be damned quick about it, if Sidmouth's in the way of things."

She had been enjoying to the full her oppor tunity to serve him back some of his own sauce, but seeing his anguish, Callie relented. "Perhaps I should tell you too," she said. "Before we go all the way to America."

"Well?" he asked gruff ly. "What is it? You prefer somewhere closer. Italy? I warn you that it won't make much difference, except that perhaps you might be able to make a visit on your own now and again."

"I really don't think we need leave England at all, unless you very much wish to do so."

He shook his head. "I knew you didn't truly under stand what it would mean to go with me."

"I know you suppose I'm a f lat-"

"A pea-goose, damn it," he corrected. "Flat is a vulgar canting word."

She cocked an eye at him. "Perhaps you should teach me some cant, as we're not planning to keep respectable company," she suggested.

"No," he said in smothered outrage.

"A pea-goose, then," she said mildly, "but as I was saying-since Lord Sidmouth comes tomorrow to tell your mother that you're going to receive a full and unconditional pardon, and I understand that the climate in Shanghai is not entirely salubrious, I was thinking perhaps we could take a look at property in the neighborhood of Hereford instead."

He took her hands. "Ma chérie," he said gently, "you must know it's not possible- what did you say? "

"I said that Lord Sidmouth is going to give you a full and unconditional pardon."

He let go of her. There was a long and charged silence, with only the sound of the mare's soft snorting breath and the creak of a wheel on the gig.

"He gave his word on it," she added, feeling a little uneasy now that she had pushed her amusement to the limits of what any reasonable man might be expected to bear. "Because the evidence of your innocence is now overwhelming."

"Now overwhelming?" he repeated blankly. "When did he discover this?"

"Only an hour ago, perhaps."

"Don't jest with me. It's not a topic I find amusing. And don't suppose you can hoax me, either."

"It's not a hoax. I merely asked Mrs. Fowler several questions, and she wrote a sample of her handwriting on a card, and-well, perhaps she wasn't aware that Sir Thomas and the Home Secretary were witnessing what she said." She wriggled uncomfortably. "It might have been a bit dark in the corners of the dry laundry, and so she didn't see them. And you're right, Trev, I may be a pea-goose, but she's a… a veritable saphead. If you could have read the letter she wrote to you! That folded-up one you wouldn't touch, and I can't blame you for it. She's forged a second note of hand, and she wrote all about it to you, saying that you had taken the blame for her before and in hopes you would help her to escape England this time, and so you see, when the invitation ticket she wrote matched the handwriting in the note-and Lord Sidmouth heard what she said-" Her voice trailed off.