Vanquished (30 page)

"Right now it's my word against that of a respected Member of Parliament. Given our respective backgrounds, whose story do you think would hold greater weight with the Fleet Street lot, his or mine?"

Gavin, quiet until now, spoke up, "He has a point. We have to find another way." Fixing Hadrian with solemn eyes, he added, "Of course you have to tell Caledonia the truth, the whole of it, if only to warn her."

Hadrian scraped the fingers of one hand through his mussed hair, thinking how good Callie's gentle fingers had felt on his scalp and indeed everywhere else. "I know I must. She'll hate me, of course, but then that's no more than I deserve."

Gavin shook his head. "I shouldn't be so certain of that were I you. At least give her the chance to forgive you. She just might surprise you."

Rourke grinned. "Aye, if she doesna cut off your bollocks first."

Feeling marginally better now that he'd unburdened himself, Hadrian rose and headed for the door.

Gavin looked back over his shoulder. "Where are you off to now?"

Lost soul though he might be, he'd be damned indeed before he'd drag Callie down to hell with him. "Back to my flat, to make myself presentable before I see Callie." He drew the door closed on their astonished faces.

Stepping out into the bracing air, it occurred to him that before Callie sex had been something that took place outside of him, a means to an end or an interlude into which he'd wandered without much or any conscious thought. His body had been engaged but his brain had been far, far removed. As for his heart, well, it had been a very long time since he'd given
that
particular organ any consideration.

But loving Callie had changed all that. Even if he never set eyes on her again after this day, these past weeks together had altered him. Irrevocably. Forever. He'd never be remotely the same and though his heart hurt like hell and he was scared shitless, he also felt . . . relieved. Keeping up with Hadrian St. Claire now struck him as a hell of a lot of work, more trouble than it was worth, and in general a royal pain in the ass. Whoever Harry Stone was, he was finally ready to welcome him back to life.

Lord and Lady Stonevale kept a modest Georgian-style townhouse on Arlington Street. Walking up the marble steps to the facade of mellow brick, Callie felt her first pang of nerves. Contemplating the brass doorknocker shaped in the head of a dog, she mentally reviewed what she knew of Stonevale's political career. Before inheriting his earldom, his lordship, then plain Simon Belleville, had been a protegee of the late Conservative prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli. During his fifteen years in the Commons, he'd earned a reputation as being both shrewd and fair-minded. On more than one occasion, he'd crossed the House floor to back a Liberal bill concerned with the welfare of women and children.

Keeping that latter thought foremost in her mind, she felt her confidence rise sufficiently to let the knocker drop. The butler who answered was a pleasant-faced chap with a wide smile and a broad girth, scarcely the starchy, svelte sort she would have expected to find in the employ of a Parliamentary front bencher. Instead of having her wait in the hallway while he ferried her calling card forth, he simply bowed and beckoned her to follow him with a, "This way, if you please, miss."

He led her through the tiled foyer to the back of the house, bypassing the front parlor in favor of the oak-paneled library. The door stood open. Looking over the butler's shoulder, Callie saw Lord and Lady Stonevale holding hands before the library fire, a tabby cat curled upon her ladyship's lap and a black-and-white-and-tan mongrel dog with floppy ears lounging at his lordship's feet. Chockfull of bric-a-brac, framed photographs, and the miscellaneous clutter of family life, the library apparently functioned as the heart of the house. Indeed, peace and contentment seemed to float in the very air.

Laid out before her like the backdrop to a diorama, the homey scene helped set Callie at ease, but it also caught at her heart. Before her was the very reason that centuries of poets and philosophers had expended so much paper and ink extolling the virtues of hearth and home. In the past, she'd viewed such writings as sentimentalized rubbish to rationalize female subjugation, but now she considered that perhaps she'd missed the point. As busy as the Stonevales were with their respective careers and causes, they had this oasis to come home to. They had each other.

She was almost sorry when the butler's light rap brought the homey tableau to a close as lord and lady turned to the doorway.

"Callie . . . Miss Rivers, I am so very pleased you were able to call." Smile radiant, Lady Stonevale set the cat on the empty seat cushion beside her and rose.

Lord Stonevale stood as well, and seeing them side by side, Callie was struck by what an exceedingly handsome couple they made. Tall, broad-shouldered, and athletically built, Stonevale could easily have passed for a man in his forties rather than one coming on sixty. As for her ladyship, dressed in a simple tea gown that complimented her sylph's figure, she glided across the floor to shake hands with the natural grace of a born dancer.

Lady Stonevale ordered tea to be sent in, and then gestured Callie to one of the pair of overstuffed wing chairs set on either side of the mantel. Seated once more, his lordship honed his keen-eyed gaze on Callie's face.
He's taking my measure,
she thought, and made certain to hold her shoulders back and her spine straight.

They chatted about desultory topics, including the weather, until at length he said, "I have been following your efforts and the progress of your proposed bill with great interest, and since meeting you last night, my wife has talked of little else. I assure she is not easily impressed, which is why I agreed to meet with you."

"I am honored, your lordship, and I appreciate both you and Lady Stonevale taking the time to see me."

"My wife speaks highly of you, Miss Rivers, and I assure you she does not give her endorsement lightly."

The arrival of the tea tray stalled further conversation. While Lady Stonevale poured and passed around cups and plates, Callie contemplated what she knew of Stonevale's private life gratis of Lottie. He had met and married his wife under unconventional if not precisely scandalous circumstances. After twenty-five years, five children, and several grandchildren, the couple was said to still be famously in love. Catching the warm looks that passed between them, Callie could well believe it.

Once they'd settled in with tea and finger sandwiches, Stonevale picked up the thread of conversation. "As I was saying, Miss Rivers, while I can appreciate the merits of your argument, I do hold some reservations."

Looking up from her steaming teacup, Callie met his flinty gaze. "And they are, milord?"

"There is a certain contingent of your group who seem to think smashing shop windows and other destruction of property is a fine means of getting their point across. I can assure you that such methods find you few friends in Parliament or elsewhere."

He was testing her. She sensed it in the intensity of those dark eyes trained on her face. Determined to hold her own, Callie replied, "I assure you, Lord Stonevale, that such militancy is not countenanced by either the London Women's Suffrage Society or the national confederation with which we are aligned. That said, the ladies' frustration is not without basis. It has been more than twenty years since John Stuart Mill first put forth a Parliamentary bill for women's suffrage and still we continue without representation, without voice. Plainly put, it is a case of taxation without representation, a circumstance on par with what prompted the American colonies to revolt more than a hundred years ago. It is quite simply
wrong,
milord, and with all due respect, the time for change is now."

He shook his head, toying with the untasted tea biscuit on his plate. "Female suffrage on the national level is a radical concept to many. Like all young people, Miss Rivers, you have yet to learn the art of patience. If there is anything my time abroad in the Orient has taught me, it is that the British are glad enough to impose change on others but painfully slow to accept it on their home shores."

Callie took a sip of her tea before answering, "And yet, milord, our countrywomen have held voting privileges in most localities for two years now, and British society is none the worse for it."

Balancing his cup and saucer on his knees, Stonevale answered, "You put forth a compelling case, Miss Rivers, and yet I must admit that in my bachelor days I likely would have opposed such a measure. Nevertheless, a quarter of a century of marriage to an intelligent, brave, and wonderful wife has opened my eyes to many things, not the least of which is the amazing strength and compassion of women." Casting a fond look at Lady Stonevale, he reached for her hand on the cushion between them. "Christine is my most loyal supporter as well as my most honest critic. She is more to me than wife, helpmate, and mother of my children though she is all of those things in abundance. Above all, she is my conscience, my heart. There are precious few issues on which I do not seek her wise counsel."

Callie glimpsed the sparkle of tears in her ladyship's amber-brown eyes and felt her own eyes moistening as well. To be wanted like that, respected like that,
loved
like that, must be a wondrous thing indeed. As grand as it had been to spend the night before in Hadrian's arms, she knew she wanted more from him than a single night or even a succession of nights. She wanted him by her side through thick and thin, good times and bad, year after year.

Tearing her gaze away from her husband, Lady Stonevale looked to Callie and said, "What Simon is a long time in saying is that he has decided to throw his backing behind your suffrage bill, is that not so, darling?"

"As always, my dear, you are the very soul of brevity." Smiling, Stonevale raised their joined hands to his lips. Brushing a kiss over the tops of his wife's slender fingers, he looked across to Callie. "Indeed, I've a meeting with my old friend, Lord Salisbury, at our club later this evening. Before supper is through, the prime minister will know that I support your female suffrage bill unequivocally."

The most Callie had hoped for was that Stonevale would not dismiss her arguments outright, that after careful consideration he might quietly cast his vote in their favor. Never had she thought he would go so far to agree to stand as their champion before the prime minister.

Overwhelmed, she very nearly let her plate slip from her lap. Gathering herself, she said, "Lord Stonevale, you cannot imagine what your support means to me personally but more importantly to the thousands of British women who have fought for decades to secure the parliamentary vote for, if not themselves, their daughters and granddaughters. I assure you, sir, time will show that your confidence in me, in us, was not misplaced."

Stonevale nodded. "In that case, Miss Rivers, you have my word that I will do everything in my power to see that your suffrage bill carries through to a third and final read, including being among the very first to rise from my bench and proclaim 'Votes for women now'."

"You may fool all the people for some time, and some of the people for all time, but you will never fool all the people for all the time."

--A
BRAHAM
L
INCOLN

W
hen Hadrian left Gavin's, he headed for Callie's office at Langham Place only to learn from the hawk-eyed secretary guarding the front desk that she'd not been in all that day, an oddity or so everyone within earshot agreed. Knowing how late or rather how very early she'd left his flat, Hadrian wasn't nearly as surprised. If she'd decided to treat herself to a day in bed at home, she more than deserved it. Weary as he was, the mere thought of Callie in bed was all it took to make him hard. Only too glad to exit the office and escape the scrutiny of all those pairs of sharp female eyes, he walked out onto Regent Street and flagged down a hansom.

Directing the driver to the Rivers' house on Half Moon Street, he leaned back against the leather seat and mentally rehearsed what he would say once he got there. Several scenarios played out in his head, but the truth was the truth regardless and, in his case, none of it was remotely complimentary. Callie was going to hate him, that was a given, but at least putting her on to Dandridge would make her safe or at least as safe as any controversial public figure might hope to be. If so, the sacrifice would be well worth it.

Nerves drawn tight as piano wire, when the driver pulled up in front of the Rivers' gated front yard, Hadrian felt poised to spring jack-in-the-box style out of his seat. The bright-eyed young maid who answered his knock shook her capped head when he handed her his calling card, explaining that "Miss Callie" was not at home. Hearing that, he wasn't certain whether or not to be grateful for his reprieve or fearful for what that so-called reprieve might signify. Could it be Callie who had entertained second thoughts about their night together--and was even now hiding out in the house to keep from seeing him? Worse yet, had Dandridge grown tired of waiting for him to produce the damning photograph and moved forward with other, more expedient means to vanquish her?