Again, My Lord: A Twist Series Novel (5 page)

“But you
must
. I have a lovely little parlor in the next room. Come for tea. Oh,
do
say you will, dear Calista.”

Tea
. Free food. She might make it through this day without fainting from hunger after all.

“Thank you. Now I really should go see to this.”

“Splendid!” Harriet Ryan clapped. “Until later.”

Mrs. Whittle came from the kitchen with a tin and cloth. “Molly’s all broken up about mussing your pretty gown, milady. I’ve told her she’s to pay for it out of her wages.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Calista said through tight teeth. “Is there a dress shop in this village?”

“Surely, milady.”

“I will need a replacement from that shop for the day.”

The innkeeper’s smile faltered. “Molly will run straight over there with a message.”

“When the dressmaker arrives, send her to my bedchamber.”

“Of course, milady.”

Snatching the tin of soda from the innkeeper, she hurried up the stairs, her stomach tight and empty, and alarm crawling all over her skin. Praying for the dressmaker to accept credit from a stranger, for a boat to materialize in the middle of farmer Drover’s east field, and for her husband to disappear off the face of the Earth, she stripped to her shift and began scrubbing the stain from her clothes.

After the dressmaker brought her a clean gown to wear temporarily, she would go to the stable and insist that Jackson find an exit from this village as soon as the rain ceased. Then she would return here and curl up in bed until it was time to go to tea at Harriet Ryan’s shop. She wanted sleep. Here was her opportunity to steal some. And for a few precious hours she would try not to worry. If she managed for even a moment to forget what awaited her at Herald’s Court tomorrow, it might be almost like a holiday.

From the taproom
where he had settled into a game of cards with several of the other guests, Tacitus saw when Lady Holland returned from tea with the milliner. He had been watching for her. Some habits, he supposed, died hard. Or never died. Or were thoroughly imprudent from birth to death.

Peeling off her gloves and cloak, she handed them to the innkeeper’s wife and spoke to the woman closely. Mrs. Whittle nodded, her face a flush of obsequious good cheer and anxiety.

Over the course of the morning, the rain had tapered off. Now the clouds were tentatively parting, and pale winter sunshine cast the noblewoman’s features in silhouette. Without the light full on her face, she looked just like the girl he had known six years earlier.

Quite obviously, she was no longer that girl. The smudged crescents beneath her eyes and the pinched V between her brows had not been there before. And yet a spark of defiance still lit her eyes. Indeed, the little he had seen of her now confused him. All fierce tenderness with her son the previous night, she had been prickly with Pritchard and the serving girl this morning. Given his own mother, he might expect tenderness from any woman toward her small child. But knowing Peyton’s mother well enough, he realized this was not universally true.

He folded his cards. “Gentlemen, you have nearly emptied my pockets. I am afraid I must bow out now. Thank you for the game.”

The accountant’s clerk grinned. “Thank you, my lord. It was a pleasure relieving you of your gold.”

“I’ll wager it was, you blackguard,” he said, and went from the taproom into the foyer.

Lady Holland glanced at him, then turned back to the innkeeper. “As swiftly as you are able, please, Mrs. Whittle.”

“Yes, milady.” The innkeeper cast him an apologetic glance. “Milord, I’m terribly sorry, but the milk’s all gone.”

“Milk is highly overrated anyway,” he said, smiling. “But that boiled beef at lunch was delectable. I must have that receipt for my cook, if you will share it.”

Pride shone in her round cheeks. “You are a tease, aren’t you, milord?”

“Absolutely not. If you refuse to furnish me with the receipt, I will go into that kitchen and find it myself this very minute.”

Mrs. Whittle chortled. “Oh, I won’t be having that! Dear me, milord, you’ve gone and cheered my day right up. And what a day it’s been.”

“But finally it looks as though the sun wants to shine. How was the state of the high street, Lady Holland?”

“Six inches deep in mud, even on the verge.”

“How uncomfortable. But the constable assures me that if the deluge does not renew itself unexpectedly, the ford will be crossable by morning. Mr. Whittle will return before you know it,” he said to Mrs. Whittle, “with the cow, one is assured.”

“I do hope so, milord,” the innkeeper said.

“If you will, Mrs. Whittle …” Lady Holland said, her hands clenched at her waist.

“Oh, yes! Right away, mum.” Mrs. Whittle bobbed another curtsy and hurried off.

“I am just now venturing out for the first time today to study the situation,” he said, trying very hard not to peer too closely at her. The sensation he was experiencing now was utterly disconcerting: as though he had been in a dark closet for months and was seeing the sunshine for the first time, or like a man with blocked-up lungs abruptly able to breathe again. Looking at her—at her pert nose, clear eyes, perfect teeth, and lips that were still damnably kissable—was a dramatic shock. He had forgotten how thoroughly her slightest smile had knocked him over.

But she was not smiling now. He had not seen her smile yet, in fact.

He wanted to
. Quite a lot.

“Given the clouds and sun at once,” he heard himself saying, “I daresay there is a rainbow out there somewhere that needs admiring. I am all prepared to gape and coo. Would you care to join me?”

“I’ve just said the street is six inches deep in mud. And a herd of sheep are wandering about with apparently no one to shepherd them.” The V deepened between her eyes that were now crackling clear blue sparks. “Therefore, no, my lord. I do not care to traipse about this little village searching for rainbows. Most especially not with you.”

He sucked in air. “Well, that’s a clear enough rejection, I suppose. It seems that six years has done nothing to improve your manners.” He took his coat off the peg by the door. “Good day, madam.”

He left, striking out in the direction of the ford where he could assess the depth of water and determine if it were deep enough cast himself in, like the blasted fool that he was. Six years, and she had apparently not changed.

Most unfortunately, neither had he.

~o0o~

Calista grabbed up the mud-caked hem of her borrowed gown and swallowed over the burning in her throat as she hurried to her bedchamber, tracks from her boots following her all the way up. The promise she had made to the dressmaker, that she would not stain or dirty the gown, had gone down the river the moment she’d stepped onto the street. But she had been too hungry to care about the consequences when she forged on to Harriet Tinkerson’s shop. There, the horrid woman shoved bonnet after bonnet in her face and then served her a single cup of tea and two biscuits.

She had
tried
to appreciate the day’s unexpected reprieve from Richard, to allow herself a few hours free of the fear and worry that were her constant companions. Now she owed the dressmaker the price of a gown and petticoat, her stomach ached, and she was weak with dizziness and twisted with frustration.

As soon as Mrs. Whittle brought dinner to her room, however, she would revive, with the added benefit that she would not be obliged to sit in the taproom with the Marquess of Dare for the duration of an entire meal. Of all the discomforts of this day,
that
she could not endure.

Just as six years ago, when he looked at her with those beautifully intense eyes, she felt entirely lacking.

From across the bedchamber, the Aphrodite statue stared at her as though it agreed with the marquess’s assessment of her.

Then it smiled.

It
smiled
.

A playful curve of sensuous alabaster lips.

And for a moment, as though a candle flickered beneath its surface, it glowed. Golden, fluid light stole from the stone and seemed to set the goddess’s skirts to swirling with glittering warmth as the scent of freshly baked cakes teased Calista’s nostrils.

Then, in an instant, the figure was again only a hard, white sculpture, and all Calista smelled was rain.

“Wh—” She blinked.
“No.”

She shook her head and blinked again. The statue remained merely a statue.

“I need food. That is all. Food and rest.” She moved toward the dressing table. “And
you
.” She grabbed up the statue, shoved it into the box, and covered it with wood shavings. Plunking the lid atop it, she pressed the nails back into their holes. “Take that, you wretched witch. That will teach you to tease a naïve, eighteen-year-old girl.”

Tearing off the borrowed gown, stained petticoat, and her encrusted boots and stockings, she fell onto the bed and wrapped herself in the blanket. After she ate, she would scrub the gown and boots clean of mud, sleep through the remainder of this day, and tomorrow she would depart as soon as the sun rose. Then, back at home, she would devise a plan for wresting her son from her husband forever.

The bell’s horrendous toll
jarred Calista awake, crashing through her head like a mallet. She bolted upright.

She could not possibly have slept past seven o’clock. She hadn’t done so in years. But she must have. According to the innkeeper, the church bell did not ring until eight o’clock on Sundays.

Yesterday she had told Jackson she would be ready to leave by half past seven. Today he should have inquired after her when she did not come to the stable. But yesterday he had been thoroughly intoxicated. He was probably drunk again. Rather, drunk still.

Superb
. She could not drive anything larger than a gig. But she could not wait for Jackson to sober up to set out for Herald’s Court. She would have to let him drive, and pray that they arrived home intact.

She rubbed her hands over her cold arms. Her bedchamber was frigid and nearly dark.

Sliding her feet to the chill wooden floor as the bell’s ring continued to throb through the walls, she brushed aside the curtain over the window. From the dim gray dawn above, sheets of rain rushed past the glass.

No.
No
. This could
not
be. More rain meant the ford would not be crossable. But she simply could not spend another day in this village. Richard would wonder where she was. He would send to Dashbourne. Worse yet, he would go there himself via the direct route, despite his gout. He was obsessed enough with controlling her to do it. And when he arrived there to find her missing, her son would bear the brunt of his anger.

She
must
find a way to leave Swinly today, even it meant swimming across the swollen river.

Blowing on her hands to warm them, she went to her clothing hanging from the bedpost, and paused.

The Aphrodite statue sat atop the dressing table.

“I put you away last night.”
Hadn’t she
? Perhaps she had been so weary and hungry she only imagined packing it away, just as she had imagined it glowing and smiling.

Drawing her stays and petticoat off the bedpost, she felt their cold dampness. They should have dried by now. But the coal Molly had laid on the grate when she took the dinner tray away had probably burned out early. It had seemed like plenty of coal at the time. Perhaps the shadows and her worry had confused her. She did not remember Molly taking the dressmaker’s garments away, either. But she must have. Undoubtedly the girl wished to make up for dousing her with coffee.

She buttoned up her gown and pelisse, glad at least that the scrubbing had removed all hint of stain from the fabric.

Glancing once more at the statue, she left the room. The cat was slinking up the stairs toward her. Its ears went straight up and it came at her ankles just as it had the day before.

“I told you, do not
touch
me. I don’t like cats.” She hurried past its curling tail.

A murmur of many people in conversation came from the taproom. It was Sunday. Perhaps all the other guests had overslept too.

The door off the foyer opened and she caught a glimpse of a neatly furnished parlor as Mrs. Whittle came from it, her hands loaded with a tray of plates.

“Good day, milady!” She smiled in her usual harried fashion. “The inn’s all filled up with the rain bringing people in off the road last night, and I’ve my hands full at present. But I’ll be with you right quick. Will you be having tea or coffee?”

Calista frowned. “Tea and eggs, just as I requested of Molly last night.”

“Did you? That girl is as flighty as she is clumsy. I’ll see to it.”

“Mrs. Whittle.” She lowered her voice. “Has Lord Dare departed yet?”

“Not at all, milady! His lordship told me as you’re acquainted, he’s glad to share a table with you, bless his heart.” She hurried into the kitchen.

Calista set her shoulders back and went to the taproom door. Tradesmen again crowded the little room, and the Marquess of Dare again sat at the corner table, reading his journal. He looked up at her approach, unfolded himself from the chair with swift grace, and tucked the journal beneath his arm.

“Good day, madam. The table is yours.”

“But you haven’t finished your coffee.”

He drew out a chair for her. “I have had enough,” he said and glanced at her, then seemed to study her face.

“Say what you like,” she said. “After yesterday I am certain you wish to.”

“I was only thinking it’s a shame that Mallory continued on to his destination last night. If he were taking breakfast here now, I am certain he would be delighted to share the table with you. You’ve had a near miss. He never forsakes the opportunity to flirt outrageously with a beautiful woman.” He offered her a shallow bow. “I wish you a good journey.”

“I … Thank you.” Calista blinked.
A beautiful woman
. He had called her that yesterday, too. How on earth hadn’t she noted it then? Perhaps because her empty stomach had been full of nerves over seeing him. “I thought Lord Mallory went ahead the night before last. Didn’t he, after all?”

“He left last night,” he said with a slight frown and a tilt of his head, “shortly after we rode in and I nearly ran over your son, actually.” His face had sobered. “Mallory has pressing business elsewhere and could not delay his journey any longer.”

“No one’ll be making any journeys from here today.”

Calista pivoted with everybody else to the constable standing in the doorway. He looked about the room with the air of a man full of news. “The ford’s four feet high if it’s an inch, and the north road’s flooded out clear across the valley.”

“Again?” she said.

“’Fraid so, mum.” He shook his grizzled head. “But I don’t know how a young lady like you would be knowing it flooded up the same after the storm of ’09. Swinly turned into an island that day too.”

“What do you mean?” the marquess said behind her. “This village is now encircled by water?”

“Like a sailing ship upon the ocean, sir,” the constable said. “Not only the village. Butcher’s fields to the north and Drover’s field to the east as well. Hip deep, they are.”

“Glory be!” Mrs. Whittle stood in the doorway, laden with coffeepot, cup and saucer. “And Mr. Whittle still in Wallings. I told him he’d best return yesterday, but he’d hear nothing of it till he’d got that new milking cow he wanted. Stubborn man.”

Molly appeared beside Mrs. Whittle and accepted the pot and cup thrust at her.

“Here now, Molly, wipe that table over there and pour her ladyship a cup. Then fetch breakfast for her. My heavens! We’re nearly run out of milk already and it’s not even eight o’clock yet.” With a bustle of skirts, she went out.

Eight
o’clock?

“But the rain was supposed to halt last night.” Calista went toward Mr. Pritchard. “It did halt yesterday afternoon. The sky was clear when I retired.”

“I don’t know about that, mum. I’ve just come from Drover’s place, and that field is filled halfway up the wall, so it must’ve been raining straight through the night.”

“But I thought it was supposed to have ceased. Have you actually seen the ford this morning to compare it to yesterday’s flood?”

“Yesterday’s?” He frowned. “Now miss, I’ve been the constable of this village since ’05, and I’ve only seen that ford up this high that once in ’09.”

“Sir,” Lord Dare said. “I am D—” He glanced at her, just as he had the day before, then swiftly away. “I am Everard. You are soaked through and must be chilled to the bone. May I offer you a pint? Then you can tell me more about the flood at your leisure.”

The constable bowed. “Eustace Pritchard at your service, Mr. Everard. Glad to make your acquaintance. Molly, bring over that coffee.”

“I believe that pot is intended for Lady Holland,” the marquess said. “Molly, if you’ll bring another pot and cup for Mr. Pritchard, I would appreciate it.”

“My lady.” Mr. Pritchard ducked his big frame into a bow.

Every hair on the back of Calista’s neck was standing on end.

“Mr. Pritchard,” she said, “you are saying that the ford is impassable today, again, and the river beyond the fields has flooded all exits to the village?”

The constable squinted at her. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Still?” she pressed through her lips. “Flooded. Everything.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He glanced at the marquess, then back at her. “But the rain’s already lightening up. If it ends this afternoon the ford should be clear by dawn. We’ll have you out of here tomorrow, my lady.”

“Lady Holland,” Lord Dare said, coming to her side, his brow creased. “Would you care to take a seat?”

“I … Yes.” She lowered herself into a chair.

“Molly, that coffee, if you will?” Tacitus called across the room.

“I take tea,” the lady mumbled. Her eyes were peculiarly round and unblinking. She peered around the room as though she did not quite recognize where she was.

“Rather, tea for Lady Holland, Molly.”

“Yes, milord.”

“Lord?” the constable said.

“He is the Marquess of Dare,” Lady Holland said in an odd voice.

“It’s an honor, my lord! What a stew we’re in here.” Pritchard settled at the table across from her and shook his head. “A shame we’ve nothing more than the ferryman’s raft, but that’s on the other side of the river and it’s far too high to use now, of course.”

“You said that yesterday,” the lady said, staring at Pritchard.

“I don’t know if I did, ma’am.” He chuckled with good nature. “There wasn’t any flood until this morning, after all, now was there?” He smiled at her as though she were a simple girl. Tacitus could have told him that assumption was a load of grapeshot. He had learned that the hard way.

“Milady,” Molly said, just as Lady Holland sprang up from her chair, knocking Molly’s hand clutching a cup. Coffee sprayed everywhere—on his coat, the constable’s moustaches, the maid’s apron, but mostly down the front of the lady’s gown.

“Oh.”

Molly gasped. “Oh, milady! I’m that sorry, I am! I’ll fetch a rag right quick.”

She stared at the maid. “You really are as clumsy as Mrs. Whittle said.”

“Now there,” Tacitus said as the maid hurried away. “It was an accident. She didn’t mean to spill it.”

She blinked at him. “You did not say that yesterday. You didn’t say anything about the coffee spilling yesterday, though I’m certain you must have seen it happen. So I must be dreaming, inventing your concern about me to soften the distress of meeting you here. That’s it. I am dreaming.” She looked about the taproom. “Where has Molly gone? I need her. Or Mrs. Whittle. Is there no other woman in this inn at present?” She frowned and looked at him again. “It will have to be you. How Evie will laugh at me when I write to her about this. Pinch me, my lord.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Pinch me.” She held out her arm. “Go ahead. I must wake up and this does seem the most fitting end to the dream, not to mention my awful tenure in this village.”

“My lady, I’m afraid that I—”

“Oh,
please
.” She rolled her eyes. “Even in my
dreams
you won’t touch me? Aphrodite, you are a horse’s ass of the highest order!” she shouted to the ceiling, abruptly silencing every soul in the room. She grabbed his hand and smacked it to her arm. “
Pinch me,
my lord. If you don’t, I shall ask this farmer beside me to do it instead. As he is already blushing to his red roots, it might cause him an apoplexy.”

He pulled his hand out from beneath hers. “You are the oddest woman. I will not pinch you.”

“The blushing farmer it must be, then.” She turned away from him. “Sir, would you be so kind as to— Oh!” She smacked her hand over her hip and pivoted back around. Her lovely face was suffused with surprise.

“Well.” Tacitus allowed himself a slight smile. “You did not specify where I was to pinch.”

“Y-You— You—” she stuttered. Then her lips closed and she blinked. Then she blinked again. “I did not wake up.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I did not wake up. I am still dreaming. You pinched me and I felt it, but only in the dream. I am still asleep.”

“On the contrary. You are awake and I did actually just pinch you. But if you’ve been dreaming of me doing so, then perhaps we should have this conversation in a more private location.” Two could play at the game of teasing. That was one thing he
had
learned in six years.

But she did not respond like he expected her to.

“Excuse me, if you will,” she said blankly. “I should return to bed so I can wake up.” She went toward the doorway and nearly collided with a woman coming through it.

“Lady
Calista
? Lady Calista Chance? It
is
you. Calista Chance—oh, but I’d heard you
married,
of course. Oh, what a delight to see you after all these years!”

Tacitus swallowed over the anvil lodged in his throat. For a brief moment he had entirely forgotten she was
married
. And a
lady
. And entirely
unpinchable
. She had demanded that he pinch her and he’d done it, just as all those years ago he had driven her siblings around the countryside for a month, gave Lady Evelina all of the books he’d had and ordered more from the shop ten miles away, and lent his saddle horse to a boy of fifteen. All simply because she wished it. For God’s sake, he didn’t even pinch barmaids. And in the middle of a taproom, no less. What in the hell was he thinking?

Nothing. In the presence of Calista Chance, his brain had always gone to porridge.

“Dear Lady Calista, don’t you remember
me
?” the woman was saying.

“Harriet Ryan?” Lady Holland mumbled.

“Yes!” She clapped her hands covered in brilliant yellow gloves. “I’m married now, of course, as we
all
are, naturally. I am Harriet Tinkerson now. I
knew
you would remember. We sat beside each other in watercolors at the Bailey Academy for Young Ladies for two full years, after all.”