He ran his hands down her arms and back up again, then held her against him, his lips at her throat. "Callie, I do love you. You know that."
She shook her head again, very quickly. "Don't," she implored. "Do not suppose you have to say that. I know you're my friend, my very best friend, and-that is quite enough."
"Friend," he said with a slight, derisive laugh. "Your friend." With a fierce move he clasped her hard and kissed her, burying his face in her shoulder. "Give me these three days, Callie."
She made a whimper of assent, nodding.
"It'll be our finest adventure," he whispered. "I promise you." He lifted his head and drew a deep breath against her hair. Then he slipped the chemise up over her shoulders and pulled the dress into place. With a few authoritative tugs, he buttoned the fabric over the tight corset while Callie held in her breath and smoothed down the front.
For a moment he stood behind her, resting his cheek on her head and holding her gently. Then he reached down and retrieved her hat.
"Now we must set you to rights and embark upon our first mission," he said briskly. "Procuring a steady source of Bath buns."
Thirteen
HAVING TAKEN DOWN AN ORDER, IN SPITE OF THE heavy accent of his customer, for twelve dozen Bath buns to be delivered daily to the exhibition pen of Monsieur Malempré, an elated baker escorted Monsieur and Madame into the street. He took leave of them with a surfeit of bowing and repeated pledges that his buns would most assuredly contain a generous measure of white currants. Having bespoke the buns, at a price so outrageous that it would have embarrassed His Majesty's pastry chef, Trev took Callie's arm and turned her toward the High Town.
He kept his hat brim low and gave the veiled lady on his arm the benefit of his full attention and gallantry. He was not overly concerned that Hubert would be recognized in the city of Hereford, but he was not so sanguine about himself. Here in the marches of the West Country, close by to Bristol-that first-rate source of burly butchers' boys anxious to enter the prize ring-the very soil seemed to produce prime pugilists. Trev had always limited his own scouting to the south and east, deliberately avoiding Hereford and Shelford and Callie, but he would be a fool to count himself perfectly safe here. He was too well-known among the Fancy.
Jock and Barton had been busy chasing up old acquaintance for the past several days, calling in all favors on Trev's behalf. And he had a wealth of credit to call upon, he found, for the thing he'd done for Jem Fowler's wife and baby boy. The hefty green-coated footman who now walked behind the Malemprés had only recently been pummeling a challenger in some set-to in a Bristol training yard. Across the way lounged a pair of regular brutes in the science, who owed their success and early opportunities largely to Trev's patronage. The men assigned to handle Hubert were experienced both in cattle yards and prizefights. There was a marvelous inf lux of boxing men to Hereford at the moment.
For his own part, Trev had discarded his Belcher necktie and adopted a sword cane and several other sartorial details to camouf lage himself as a continental beau rather than a sporting buck. Walking beside Callie now, he regretted having chosen the name Malempré for their masquerade-he'd been in a hurry, arranging for the van and commanding the painting of the canvas to swathe Hubert's pen, and the first name he'd summoned to mind was a town in Belgium where he'd spent a few weeks of his imprisonment just after Napoleon's first abdication.
It had been an easy enough situation there. On his gentleman's honor to attempt no escape, he'd had the freedom of the pretty village and even waltzed at the assemblée. The sole inconvenience had been the wife of the local chevalier, who had conceived a most ardent fondness for Lieutenant LeBlanc on the basis of a single trif ling kiss, which no amount of diplomacy-or indeed, discourtesy-had seemed to cool. She had been so relentless in her pursuit that he'd become the butt of the captive officers' mess until he was moved to Brussels to await a prisoner exchange that had never materialized-the defeated French apparently having no pressing need for one more LeBlanc littering their countryside.
He'd forgot about her until this morning, and that her name was also Malempré-a silly oversight that annoyed him. It seemed almost an insult to Callie. But it was too late to change now. He carried in his inner pocket several copies of a broadside imprinted with the handsome image of a dark bull and the breathless details of the Malempré Challenge:
The CERTIFIED Measurements of the Celebrated
BELGIAN BULL of Malempré! Freshly Arrived
in England, to Tour the Entire Country! The
PRIZE offered to Any BULL of Any Breed that
can be Proven GREATER in All Dimensions! 500
GUINEAS and a Silver Salver with the NAME of
the Winner ENGRAVED beneath its Likeness!
He had made sure that Colonel Davenport would be absent for the formal announcement by the simple expedient of putting a man to spy on him and discov ering his schedule. The good colonel was engaged this morning to determine which farm laborer had the honor of Supporting the Largest Number of Legitimate Offspring without Recourse to the Parish, for a prize of two pounds, and thereafter to judge turnips. Presumably he would be fully occupied in the counting of children and adjudicating of root vegetables, and unable to attend the public proclamation that Trev had arranged to give under the auspices of the president of the Agricultural Society. The colonel would not remain long in the dark, however, as Trev had caused a copy of the Challenge to be delivered to him by hand, courtesy of Monsieur Malempré, along with a bottle of excellent French wine to rub salt in the wound.
Trev had at first felt a twinge of guilt over leading Davenport a dance, but then he'd thought of how the fellow had taken Callie's bull and refused to sell it back for an honest price. When he remembered her tearstained cheeks hidden under the bonnet, his brief qualm vanished, replaced by a chilly desire to carve a liberal piece out of anyone who made her unhappy. Knowing that he himself was not entirely blameless in that regard did nothing to diminish his ire, but rather made him more inclined to exact revenge on whatever culprit he could reach.
"Something is amiss, Monsieur?" Callie asked in a worried tone, gamely keeping to French as she looked up sideways at him through the netting.
Trev realized that he was scowling, and softened his expression. "I beg your pardon," he replied, smiling down at her. "I was meditating on the shocking cost of pastries in this town."
"I understand you," she said with feeling. "Mrs. Farr would take to her smelling salts if she knew."
"We must pray that my bank will stand against the strain. But we have an hour or two before we issue our announcement-what would you like to do? Take in the shops?"
"I would rather look at the animals," she said. She spoke very pretty French, he thought, when she would venture to do so. It made him want to kiss her, to brush his mouth against her lips while she formed the words. "Would it be possible?"
"Certainly. Whatever would please you the best, ma chérie." He f lourished his cane and pointed as they turned the corner to the wide street that was filling rapidly with all manner of livestock for the show. Under the shadow of the cathedral spire, the scent of a barnyard permeated the air. "Where shall we begin? Let us critique the pigs!"
"Do you make a study of pigs, Monsieur?" she asked, with a muff led note of amusement.
"Of course. I've observed them frequently on my breakfast plate." They had neared the first of the pens, where a stockman was lovingly bathing the ears of an enormously fat spotted sow. Five piglets squealed and gurgled about her panting bulk. "Note the marvelous coil of the tail." He gestured with his cane. "Absolute perfection!"