Remembrance

But her temper had not been raised. Instead, it was Talis who had been angered. “What is wrong with you?” he’d snapped at her.

She gave him an arch look, as though she knew exactly what he was trying to elicit from her. “A woman will die for a man who wants her, but she will do nothing for a coward.”

He hadn’t understood her meaning, but he had been enraged by her tone. He’d ridden away and stayed away from her, sure that soon she’d come to him and beg his forgiveness for calling him a coward. But Callie had not come to him to beg his forgiveness, and when she didn’t, Talis had found that with each day his strength faded. Mere weeks ago he was the strongest man at Hadley Hall, but now he found himself looking at each shadow, wondering if Callie could be hiding there. All day he wondered what she was doing up on that hill with that…that person who stayed near her. At night he knew that she cried. If she was so unhappy, why did she not come to him? Why did she not do what the Callie of old did when he flirted with the gypsy girl? Then she had knocked over a food stall onto his head.

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Right now, all Talis wanted was to get things back to the way they were. He wanted the strength Callie gave him. That was absurd, of course, since his strength could not possibly depend on her presence, but it seemed to.

What could he do to win her back, he thought. Something quick and simple, something not much trouble.

As he wandered through the fair, he saw a man with some trained monkeys ready to step onto a stage to perform. He and Callie had once sneaked away from Will to watch just such a man who had been traveling through the village. While Will’s back was turned, Callie had stolen a bucket full of Will’s best vegetables from the stall and taken them to the monkeys. And while she was feeding them, she had laughed in delight at their little pink hands clutching at her fingers. She had said silly things, such as they needed love and she wished she could take all of them home with her. To which Talis had replied that they wouldn’t be much use to anyone if she did own them—unless she could train them to milk cows, a chore Talis hated.

Now, standing there and looking at the man and his monkeys, on impulse, Talis said, “I want to buy one of your little apes.”

At that the man laughed and said that none of them were for sale, that there wasn’t enough gold on earth to make him part with one of his beloved monkeys. Thirty minutes later, Talis had given the man every coin Lord John had given him since he’d arrived at Hadley Hall, and he was also minus some beautiful embroidered gloves Lady Alida had given him. But squirming under his shirt was a small, young monkey. (At first the man had tried to palm a toothless old creature off on Talis, but he’d not spent his life on a farm and learned nothing.)

Feeling very confident, Talis made his way through the crowd toward where he knew Callie was walking with that emaciated Frobisher. Talis was sure that all he had to do now was present the monkey to Callie and she would fall into his arms and everything would once again be all right. They would leave this fair and go to her hill and sit there and do nothing. She could spend the afternoon telling him stories and peeling peaches for him. And he’d like to tell her about his latest escapades in training. It would be nice to have her tell him he was great and strong and brave, as she used to do.

“Callie,” he said, stepping in front of her, a smile of anticipation on his face. When she saw what he had for her, she was going to melt with gratitude.

“What do you want?” she asked coldly.

“I have something for you.” From inside his shirt he withdrew the little monkey, holding it in his hands as it blinked against the light.

“Oooooh,” Callie said, and reached for the animal, her face softening, just as he’d hoped it would.

“Talis! We have been looking everywhere for you.” “Where have you been?” “You must escort us through the fair.” “We want to see everything and only you can show us.”

At the sound of the women behind him, Talis acted instinctively, shoving the monkey back inside his shirt, hiding the animal from the women.

“And I have been looking for you,” he said, turning, trying to smile at the five women, all gorgeously dressed, all looking up at him with expectant eyes. Why did they have to come now? he thought. Three minutes later and Callie would have been his. “I will take you in—” he began then turned back to Callie, only to discover that she wasn’t there. Already, she had taken Frobisher’s arm and was walking away.

For a moment, Talis’s head spun, not understanding what was going on. What did Callie want from him? What was wrong with her?

It was then that he began to understand some words he’d heard in the last few days: coward and fight. Will had said that Callie didn’t think Talis loved her and Talis had laughed at him. “Have you ever told her you love her?” Will had asked. “Women always want words.”

“Of course I have,” Talis had said, but he hadn’t been able to meet Will’s eyes. Well, so what if he hadn’t actually said the words? Callie knew how he felt. He let her know every day how he felt, didn’t he? He allowed her to…

What was it Will had said? “Women want more than to feed you and tell you how handsome you are. In all of Callie’s stories, a man slays a dragon to win his lady fair. The man works to win the woman he loves.”

At that moment, Talis looked at the phalanx of women coming toward him, and their glittering silk dresses seemed to be the scales of some magnificent dragon; their jewels were its eyes; the excited faces of the women were the fire coming from the dragon’s mouth. And Allen Frobisher was the keeper of the dragon.

“Callie!” Talis called, running toward her—and the women picked up their skirts and ran after him. They had indeed been searching for him all day and now that they’d found him, they weren’t going to allow him out of their sight.

“Callie, Callie!” Talis shouted again until she halted, an expression of disgust on her face.

Talis stopped in front of her and he was very aware of the women behind him, the insolent Frobisher in front of him, and in his peripheral vision, he could see Philip and James approaching. He did not, not, want to make a fool of himself in front of all these people. He didn’t want them laughing at him. He wanted to be a knight of great honor, someone looked up to by everyone, someone—

“What could you want with me?” Callie said, her voice dripping venom. “You have so many others waiting for you.”

“Callie, I…” He swallowed. Then he took a deep breath. “I love you.”

Heaven help him, but he was so nervous that the last words came out so loud he halted about fifty bystanders. And of course the women, Frobisher, Philip, and James, were riveted to the spot.

“Talis!” Callie said, her eyes wide. “People are staring.” She was trying to let him know that this was something private, not something others should hear. They had always been careful to keep their feelings from others—at least they thought they did.

To his astonishment, Talis could feel sweat on his brow. He usually loved a crowd watching him; he was a natural exhibitionist and loved an audience. But pouring his most intimate feelings out for everyone to hear was not something he relished doing.