Remembrance

“You are wrong! You do not know what you are saying. If only you knew what I have done to help us to be together.” With each word he could feel himself pulling away from her. How could she believe he cared nothing? How could she think he had not lived every minute of his life just for her? Did she not realize that what he did with Lady Alida was for her, for Callie?

“What have you done? Please tell me. I am waiting. You must tell me what you were doing when you were following after Lady Frances as though you were on a leash. You must tell me why you have…” Her voice lowered. “Why you have not asked me to marry you.”

Talis knew that what he was going to say would hurt her, but pain now was better than breaking his vows to Lady Alida and losing their future. He had seen this Peniman Manor and he wanted more than anything in the world to give it to Callie, to see her there with their children.

“I cannot tell you,” he said, hoping she would trust him.

“It is as I thought,” Callie said. “Your pride, that damned honor of yours is everything and I am nothing.” She turned away from him.

“Callie!” He grabbed her arm. “I love you. You are my life. You are everything to me. Surely you must know how much I want you as a man wants a woman. You must know how difficult you have made my life these weeks when

you have…when you have appeared naked before me. You must know that I die with the wanting of you.”

She whirled around to face him, her hair flying about her, almost as though she meant to strike him. “May you always love me and want me but never have me,” she said, and her words sounded like a curse.

“Callie,” he pleaded, reaching for her, but she drew back.

“Then this is your final word? You will not go now and marry me, even though I tell you that this means my life to me?”

“One of us must be sensible. I am bound by vows that make it impossible for me to be free. I cannot tell you of these vows or I would. You must trust me.”

“Yes, I am to trust you but you are not to trust me. I tell you the truth and yet you do not believe me.”

“Callie, my love, you are overwrought now. We should return and—”

“Yes,” she said coldly. “You must get back to that father who is not your father, to that woman who is not your mother. You must get back to that glorious future of yours. When they put the crown on your head will you think of me?” With that she swept past him, Kipp running to catch up to her.

For a moment Talis stood scratching his head, not able to figure out what Callie was up to. This was, of course, merely another of her attempts to seduce him, but today she seemed more upset than usual. But he did not like what she had said. May you always love me and want me but never have me, was what she had said, and just remembering the words sent a chill up his spine.

Tonight, he thought, tonight he would see Lady Alida and demand that she release him from his vows. He could not stand what this separation was doing to him and Callie. Perhaps tomorrow he might take Callie and return to Meg and Will. But whatever Lady Alida said, tomorrow, he would go to Callie and tell her all.

40

Have you heard?” Lady Frances asked Talis, her nose in the air, her head cocked in a way that Talis found very annoying. What nasty little thing was she going to tell him about Callie now?

“I have been too busy minding my own business to hear much,” Talis said as he ran his sword edge across the big grinding wheel. With his training on the farm he was one of the few men who could achieve a proper edge on a sword.

“Your Callasandra was married to Peter Erondell not an hour ago.”

“Is that so?” Talis said, without the least concern. What would those jealous biddies think of next? Of course it pleased him that they were fighting over him but, all the same, it could be most annoying. “And who is Peter Erondell?”

“Your mother brought him here. I heard that she had to pay him a great deal of money to marry that plain-faced girl. But little Callie went along well enough and said all her wedding vows without a word of protest. Even now she eagerly awaits the wedding night.”

Talis had stopped sharpening his sword to look at Lady Frances. “You are a liar.”

“I beg your pardon, sir, but it is true. She met and married him in one day. He is a very good match for such as her. She has done well.”

There was, of course, no truth to this, and Talis could imagine how all Hadley Hall would laugh at him if he believed such lies as this. He had best play along with them and keep what pride he could manage. However, at even the thought of Callie marrying another, he could feel the blood pounding through his head so hard he could hardly think.

Carefully, slowly, he put his sword back to the whetstone. “And where did this fine wedding take place? Were there no guests? No feast?” Talis’s head was so full of blood that he could hardly recall this afternoon, but he did remember that Callie had tried to make him think she was to wed another. But how in the world had she been able to get Lady Frances in on the trick? Now Talis was, no doubt, to go running to Callie in a rage and beg her to marry him. It would not work. He was not going to fall for her—

“Where is she?” he heard himself asking, then was horrified to realize that he was holding his sword to Lady Frances’s beautiful white throat.

“You may kill me if you must, but that will not change what is,” Lady Frances said with the utter confidence of a beautiful woman. No man on earth was going to harm her.

Frances smiled sweetly when Talis lowered his sword. “She is now in the chamber next to Lady Alida’s, awaiting her bridegroom.”

Talis left the woman there, her laughter ringing out behind him as he ran full speed into the house. All he could think of was that he was going to wring Callie’s neck when he saw her. But at the same time he was flattered at this further proof that she loved him. Perhaps Callie was right and perhaps he should be more firm with Lady Alida; perhaps James and Philip and Hugh were also right when they warned him about Lady Alida, this woman who had said she was his mother—but was she?