Remembrance

“Why did you have to leave it uncovered? Why did you not shove it under a cap?”

She smiled at him. “Do you mind that other men see my hair?”

He stiffened. “It is only that it catches on everything and is a great nuisance. It is a wonder the birds do not start nesting in it.” Talis thought that was a very clever remark, but from the look on Callie’s red face, she did not think it was at all clever.

“Allen likes my hair,” she spat at him. “In fact, all the men like my hair. They like it very much.”

“I did not say I did not like your hair,” he said, blinking in wonder. What was wrong with her? He had teased her all his life. Why was now any different?

“Go away!” she ordered him. “Do you not understand that I do

not want you near me? Go find some other woman to bother.”

As he watched her walking away from him, Talis could feel anger running through him. He had done everything in the world to be with her, to show her that she was his very existence, but now all she seemed to want was this thin half-man, Frobisher.

Determinedly, he walked behind the two of them, and when they stopped at a booth of fruit pies, he leaned against the stall and looked straight ahead, as though he just happened to be there.

“Oh, yes, Allen,” Callie said loud enough to be heard half a mile away, “I would love an apple pie. They are my very favorite. Thank you so much. You are a kind and thoughtful man and you know so very well how to treat a woman.”

Allen was flushing with her praise as he held out a copper coin to pay the merchant for the two apple pies.

But Talis’s big hand stopped him. “She likes peach pies better. In fact, she thinks apple pies are boring, unless they are coated with a great deal of cinnamon and I can tell by the smell that these are not. If you really want to please her, get her a peach pie, or apricot. But don’t get the blackberry as the seeds get into her teeth, and, too, she is a very messy eater so she will get the black juice all over her gown. All in all, you had better get her peach.”

“I, ah…ah…” Allen sputtered.

Callie glared up at Talis, who wouldn’t look at her. “I have changed my mind. I don’t really want any pies. Come, Allen, let us see the acrobats.”

“There is a bear here to be baited,” Allen said hesitantly. “Perhaps you’d like to see the dogs tear at the bear. It is great sport.”

“She would hate that,” Talis said, pointedly looking down over Allen’s head, showing that he was at least four inches taller than the blond man.

“I would love that,” Callie said through clenched teeth. “I have changed in the many, many months since I have seen you.” She made “you” sound like something that grew in her Poison Garden.

“Oh, is that what’s bothering you?” Talis asked. “The fact that I haven’t been to visit you? I have been very busy lately. You know, the duties of helping all the ladies with their sewing and whatnot has taken so very much of my time. I do hope you forgive me.”

“I do not own you,” she said, trying to keep anger from her voice. “And you do not own me. Do whatever you want. Right now, I would like for you to leave us. I am with a man who understands that I am a woman.”

At that she pulled Allen’s arm tightly to her side and looked up at him with what she hoped was a loving expression.

With some effort, Talis managed to put his body between the two of them. “My father has given me the assignment of protecting you and I must obey him. What do you say that we look at the bookstall?”

Allen laughed. “I do say, young Hadley, you know nothing about women.” Perhaps he wasn’t as tall as Talis, but he was older and more experienced. “Women like excitement, something like bear baiting, not books. Women’s minds were made for romance and love, not for what is found in a book. Is that not right, my dear?” he said as he raised Callie’s hand toward his lips to kiss it.

“Oh, I do beg your pardon,” Talis said as he practically fell onto Allen, nearly knocking him down and preventing the kiss. “Someone pushed me.”

“Clumsy bastard,” Allen muttered under his breath, dusting himself off from where he had slammed into a man carrying a bag of flour.

“Again I beg your pardon,” Talis said sweetly, “but I am not a bastard. My father is Lord John Hadley. Pray, tell me again who your father is.”

Allen gave Talis a malevolent look, since his own father was not the rank of John Hadley.

“Allen, please,” Callie said, “pay him no attention. He is trying to make you angry. Let us enjoy ourselves and pretend that he is not here. Come, look at the cloth merchant.”

Behind them, Talis groaned. “Who wants to look at cloth on a day like this? There are men walking a rope over there, and there are many things to eat.”

Callie whirled on him so fast her hair spun around and hit Allen in the face. “For your information, other men are not as selfish as you are. Sometimes a man takes a woman out and does what she wants to do. Other men are not as selfish as you are. Right now Allen would love to look at the silks and velvets, would you not, Allen?”

“Well, I, ah…”