"And where is that nurse?" Trev asked. He guided her away from the door, but she set herself against climbing the stairs.
"No. And no. I will… sit up," she said as firmly as her weak voice could manage. "And we will discuss, Trevelyan!"
"May I remove this bull from the premises first?" he asked courteously.
"You may," she said with a little smirk at him. "Only do not… destroy what Limoges ware I have left to me."
"I make no guarantee of that," Trev said, guiding her to a chair in the modest drawing room. "I can only hope he doesn't lodge at the turning and pull the whole place down around us."
Hubert proved himself a splendid gentleman, worthy of his exalted lineage and genteel upbringing, in his transit from the kitchen to the front door. Following Callie and a trail of carrots, he moved one ponderous step at time, his big head swaying gently under the replaced blindfold. There were a few breathless moments at the turning, in which his hip caught on the doorjamb and the ancient f loorboards squealed in protest at his weight, but a mighty shove against his rib cage by Trev, and Callie's encouraging voice, swayed him just enough. His hind foot found purchase on the top stone stair, and he pushed through.
Once he reached the garden, however, he summarily shed his well-bred manners and showed a loutish tendency to trample the dahlias and browse on the tender shoots of a sweet pea vine. Trev had tied the horses in the stable yard and made sure the lane was empty of passersby before they brought Hubert through the door, but he felt his alarm rising as the bull disregarded the carrots and planted himself amid the f lower beds, cropping great swaths of blossoms and vegetation with each mouthful.
"Callie!" Trev hissed, pushing at Hubert's rump. "Move him along!"
"I'm trying!" she returned in a fierce whisper, as if they weren't standing in full view of the lane with a massive black bull taking up the twelve feet of garden between them. She clucked and tugged at the animal's nose ring. "Hubert! Walk on!"
Hubert f licked his ear, lifted his nose an inch, and then went back to tearing up daisies.
Trev had been praying that Jock and Barton's absence meant that the pursuit was still decoyed away. Jock knew full well they needed time, and plenty of it, but Sturgeon had not left the premises willingly-not unless it was to go for a musket. So when Trev saw a f licker of motion through the leaves and overhanging branches far down the lane, a warning that someone was marching briskly toward them, he felt a surge of true panic.
"Someone's coming." He would have stampeded the bull in any way he could, but with Callie standing in front of the bull he didn't dare. She'd be crushed in an instant if the beast overran her. He threw a wild look round, saw a white expanse of bed linens hung out to sun over the side fence, and finished off Hubert's work by trampling down the delphiniums to reach them. He tore the sheets off the fence and waded back, dragging them in his arms, tossing the whole spread over Hubert's back. "Take the ends! We're airing linen."
Callie nodded, with a wide-eyed glance toward the lane. She grabbed a sheet corner, pulling it toward her. Hubert ignored the drape as Trev hurriedly arranged one edge over a rosebush, trying to cover him entirely under a tentlike affair of bed linens. Callie held out the ends, waving them up and down as if to shake out wrinkles while she made a pavilion over Hubert's lowered head.
To the nondiscerning eye, he might possibly resemble the lumps of covered garden bushes, assuming the bushes were small trees, but Trev feared he looked very much more like a bull with a pair of sheets and a counterpane laid over him. Trev was frantically trying to invent a reasonable tale to cover the situation when the advancing pedestrians appeared round the curve of the lane.
Trev looked toward them. Then he closed his eyes, let go of a harsh breath, and thanked every saint in heaven and a few well-known sinners in hell. It was only the new cook and his mother's nurse, with no other companions.
The cook paused a moment in her stride, gave the tableau in the garden an appraising look, and then walked stoutly forward, carrying her covered basket. The nurse stood stock-still, eyeing them suspiciously.
"Giving the linens an airing!" Trev said, trying for a lighthearted tone in the face of the nurse's glower. "We thought they could use more sun."
She did not appear to be amused. Indeed, she seemed to be making some effort to breathe, her chest rising and falling as she held herself ramrod-stiff.
"I told Nurse, him's a Frenchie duke," Cook said conversationally. "Eccentric."
Callie f lapped one corner of her sheet a little, to free it from where it threatened to tear open on the tip of Hubert's horn as the bull lifted its head. He took a step forward. The sheets began to slip.
Trev speedily altered his tactic, injecting a note of curt haughtiness into his voice. "My mother is sitting up in the parlor, Nurse. She's been awaiting you for some time to help her back to bed. You may use the back entry. Cook, if you will delay a moment, I'd like to see what you've brought in that basket to tempt her."
"Ah, sir," the cook said, nodding. "As you likes. The kitchen door's back round that way." She pointed obligingly for the nurse.
With a little scandalized shake of her skirts, the nurse strode round the corner of the yard, avoiding a collapsed sunf lower that lay across her path like a fallen soldier. She vanished just in time. Hubert was beginning to move, easing himself forward, his great nose lifted under the sheets in the direction of Cook's basket.
"What do you have there?" Trev asked.
"Bath buns," the cook said.
"Bath buns?" Callie exclaimed, taking a step back as Hubert pressed forward, moaning eagerly and trailing sheets. "Oh, thank the good Lord! Bath buns are his favorite. He'll do anything for them."
Eleven
"SEIGNEUR," HIS MOTHER SAID, HER WHISPERY VOICE drifting from the parlor as Trev attempted to pass the door unnoticed.
He halted. Most mothers rebuked their sons by their full names when they were in hot water, but Trev had simply been "Seigneur" since he was old enough to dread the word. He knew he should have left by the stable gate, but he'd hoped the nurse had escorted his mother upstairs and back to bed by now.
He considered feigning that he had not heard, but Callie was already stepping past him. She had lured Hubert to the rear of the property and established him comfortably in the closed stable, surrounded by ample hay spiked with scattered pieces of Bath buns to keep him occupied. Trev had feared that the bull would bellow again if she left him, but she claimed the hay and buns would be sufficient distraction for the moment. They'd left Callie's mount with him and tied Major Sturgeon's horse again at the garden gate. Now, as Trev paused, plotting how best to abscond before he was obliged to explain himself, she took his sleeve and called, "He's right here, Madame." She gave him a little tug toward the parlor door.
Trev made an accusing face at her. She knew perfectly well what that "Seigneur" portended for him. He could bear any number of whippings from his grandfather, but to have his gentle maman call him on the carpet was more excruciating by far. Callie gave him a pert glance and a mock curtsy. She turned back as if to join Cook in the wrecked kitchen, but the grim-faced nurse appeared at the parlor door.
"Madame wishes to speak to my lady also, if she would extend the honor," she said in a stern voice.
"Hah," Trev said softly. He smirked and gave a bow as he gestured for Callie to precede him.
She shook her head quickly, but he took her elbow and used his superior height and leverage to grossly unfair advantage, ushering her bodily through the parlor door ahead of him. Then he stood with her in front of him like a shield.