Remembrance

There were too many thoughts in his head for him to sort them out as he tore up the stairs to the chamber.

Callie was alone in the darkened room, only one candle burning on the far side. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, and when he entered, she did not turn to look at him, but he could feel her misery. This time she was not joking; this was no trick.

Going to her, he knelt before her on his knees and took her hands in his—and his heart almost stopped. There was nothing in her eyes. Absolutely nothing. It was almost as though her soul were missing from inside her body.

Talis refused to think of what he had just heard. That is not what could be wrong with Callie. “What has happened?” he asked. “Is it Meg? Or Will? Have you had news from home?” As he said the word he realized that with Meg and Will he had been home, and now, more than anything in the world he wanted to go back there.

“Come,” he said, “we will leave this place. We will go home.”

Callie did not move. Instead, she put out her hand and caressed his cheek.

Taking her hand, he kissed the palm. He might be unable to think, but he was still able to feel and what was in her poured into him. “What have you done?” he whispered, some part of him knowing, but almost too frightened to hear the words.

When he looked at her, he knew. He knew. He knew that she had done what she had threatened.

What ran through him was more than rage. It was white hot hatred. Hatred, the other side of the coin of love. Rising, he went to the window to stare out sightlessly. “You have married another?” he said, his jaw tight with his anger, his sense of betrayal, the full extent of which had not yet hit him.

Mutely, Callie gave a nod, her eyes on her hands.

A thousand words ran through Talis; a thousand visions of the two of them together as children, as adolescents. He saw her as she was the day she fell face down in the pig pen; he saw her sitting in an apple tree, her bare legs hanging down. He saw her last week standing naked in the straw. He saw her with their children. He saw all that he had done to make a future for them, to win them a place to live.

“Why?” was all that he could say. Thousands of words and thousands of dreams condensed into one.

“With this deed of mine I have given you the world,” she said. “Your father can make you king.”

At first this made no sense to him, but then he remembered things that Lady Alida had said to him, about Gilbert Rasher being related to the queen. She had talked to him about this more than once. But Talis had not thought much of it. She had even once asked if he would like to be king and Talis had laughed at her. “I want only Callie and what is mine,” he’d said and had never meant anything so much as he meant those words.

Now, looking at Callie, his lip curled into a snarl. “You know me so little that you think I would want such as this? Do you think I would want to give my life to a country when all I want is…” He could not say the words. As he looked at her he knew that he was looking at another man’s wife. Wife!

“You did not want me,” she whispered. “I asked you and you did not want me.”

Talis was so angry he could feel his entire body trembling. And so he told her the truth. His vows to God no longer meant anything to him. What did he care about his immor

tal soul if he lost Callie? He told her of his vows, how he had worked so hard to win Peniman Manor for her so they could live together there with Will and Meg.

“But you could not wait for me,” he said. “You could not trust me, or believe in me. You…” He could not speak; could not bear to be in the same room with her. He had lived all his life for her and she had betrayed him.

“So now you have your husband,” he said, his voice beginning to break. He could not think of anyone else touching Callie, could not bear the thought.

“May you never love anyone but me,” he said and strode from the room.

It was an hour later that it was discovered that Callie was missing. Lady Alida set the household to trying to find her. When it was discovered that Talis was also missing, it was at first assumed that they had run away together.

But it was Dorothy who was sure that Callie and Talis were not together. When she heard what her mother had done, she was furious. Breaking Callie and Talis apart was like splitting a house down the center; neither half would be able to stand alone.

When Dorothy saw Penella in a state of agitation, she crossed herself, for she had an idea of what the maid was going to say.

“Where is she?” Dorothy asked.

“It is my fault,” Penella said and she was nearly insensible. “I should not have interfered. God has punished me. It is my fault. I should not have stopped the fire.”

Dorothy gave the woman a shake. “Where is Callie?”

“The fire. The fire,” Penella kept repeating. “I could not wake her. She had died there twice.”

When Dorothy saw that the maid’s hands were black with soot, Dorothy knew that Callie must be in the old burned tower. She did not like to think about the second half of what Penella was saying.

It seemed to Dorothy that all of Hadley Hall was in chaos. Her father had found out that his wife had done something to anger his precious Talis and was shouting at everyone.