"Not often, just sometimes when I get tired-it makes it easier to move around."
She walked over and reluctantly plucked the stick from his hand. Her eyes were intense. "My mother left this with me. It was the last time I saw her. She thought she had enough time to run back into the burning house."
Sadness and pain darkened her face. The expression tore at him.
"Why did she run back?"
"She tried to save the documents my father left with her. I’ve always blamed him for her death."
She said it nonchalantly. They could have been discussing the weather, but her eyes were anything but calm.
"You’ve saved the cane all these years."
"Yes, I generally keep it close at hand, although I don’t use it. It’s a reminder. "
"Maybe it would ease the pain if you started thinking of the cane as just another object."
She was silent for a long minute.
James wasn’t sure what to do or say; the lost look on her face was making him crazy. He was about to take the offending object away from her when she became a whirlwind of motion.
She struck a fencing pose. A rather good fencing pose.
Astonishment pierced him. "You fence?"
"I was once a pirate at the Adelphi when one of the actors fell ill. I practiced other stances after that. It is rather a fun hobby. "
A pirate? "How many other roles have you played?"
She shrugged and jabbed toward his stomach with the blunt end of the cane. "I’ve filled in as needed. Small roles. Chorus parts, mainly. If one of the stars falls ill, an understudy steps in and sometimes I assume the smaller part. It’s actually rather fun. Performing is quite exhilarating. One doesn’t get noticed much in the chorus, so no stage fright."
Calliope was thrusting and parrying across the room. She lifted her left leg at the knee, balancing on her right leg. The cane was gripped in her right hand and perched horizontally over her head.
Two fingers on her left hand were pointed upward at the end of the cane. She then dropped the raised lingers to her right wrist and thrust her left hand and the cane away from each other in diagonal directions.
"What posture is that?" He was considered an expert swordsman, but he had never seen that particular move.
She looked at him in surprise. "I don’t know. An extra who returned from the Far East taught me that maneuver." She coughed discreetly. "Well, not exactly taught, but I secretly watched him practice enough times to learn."
James was intrigued. He moved toward her. "Do it again."
She repeated the movement.
He studied the move, trying to think of ways to incorporate the technique. "Shouldn’t the sword be pointed more at an angle for better entry?"
She sent him a dark look as he came closer. "Look here, I know what I saw. "
Calliope jabbed him in the side with the cane to emphasize her point. He scowled and pushed it aside. She twisted the handle to yank it back and it made a clicking noise.
"What the-" James stared down at his midsection.
Calliope followed his gaze and gasped when she saw bright red blossoming across his stark white shirt. The cane dropped to her side and she rushed to him. "My God, James, your shirt!"
James frowned at the cane and picked up the end. A sharp blade protruded from its tip. Calliope gasped and lifted his shirt. Blood seeped from the wound.
"Stand still. You’re hurt," she said, blanching as she inspected the wound.
"Luckily the bloody thing was too far away to do major damage. But I’d be most appreciative if you could stop trying to kill me with that thing."
She gave him a worried look. "Sit and don’t move. I’ll have Grimmond call for the doctor."
"Relax, I was teasing. It’s just a scratch. I’ve endured worse during fencing practice."
"Apply pressure here, and sit down so you won’t pass out and bleed all over Stephen’s carpet," she replied tartly, and left the room quickly to find a clean shirt and medicinal supplies.
James remained stoic as she cleansed the area around the wound, but Calliope grimaced, fearful she was hurting him. For a lord of the realm he was in superb shape. His broad chest was tanned and lightly brushed with hair. How would it feel to run her fingers across the planes of his muscular chest and back?
Her hands paused. Cleaning and applying ointment to the area was an intimate act of a lover or wife.
Calliope felt a light blush and continued working. She bandaged the gash and assisted him with his shirt. He grumbled about flesh wounds.
Calliope plunked down on the settee and inspected the cane. She turned it to the left and the blade retracted. She turned it to the right and it protruded.
.
"I should have been using this long ago."
James said something unintelligible.
She leaped from the seat, struck a pose and twisted left. It retracted. Right. Protruded. Left. Right. Left. Right. She giggled. "I feel like a real pirate now."
"Calliope, will you please sit down?"
Now that the cane had lost some of its hold on her, she didn’t want to put it down. The connection to her father was still present, but it felt different somehow.
She sighed. The blade was out. One twist left and it was in. She decided to make sure it wouldn’t do any unintentional damage and twisted left again, hoping to lock it in place. To her surprise, the handle twisted open.
"What is this?" She peered into the hole. There was something wedged inside. She gingerly slipped two fingers inside and pulled out a wrapped object. Handing it to James, Calliope searched for anything else. She gave the cane another twist, but it appeared to only have the three settings.
Satisfied the cane was closed, she set it down and looked up at James’s shocked expression.
"What is wrong? Does your wound hurt?"
He sat in stunned silence staring at the object in his hand.
Calliope peered at it. It was a ring. The ring looked vaguely familiar.
James just shook his head. "This can’t be."
"This can’t be what?"
He held out his hand to her and she plucked the ring from his palm and noticed the image of a bird engraved in the gold.
"This is what we’ve been searching for, isn’t it?"
He nodded, a wry grin spreading across his face.
"Stephen must have found it and made an imprint."
The grin slipped from his features. "The cane belonged to Salisbury. " It wasn’t a question.
The pain spread through her again. "Yes, he left it with my mother. That is why she made sure it survived the fire. The papers were destroyed with her."
Calliope felt a reassuring grip on her shoulder.
" Salisbury must have assumed the cane and papers perished in the blaze with the two of you. Possibly whoever set the fire thought so as well."
She glanced up at him, startled out of her reverie. "What do you mean, whoever set the fire?"
He was gazing at her in a cautious manner. "It’s too coincidental and the timing was too close to Salisbury ’s own assassination."
Had her heart stopped? Calliope took a few deep, steadying breaths.
"Are you implying that my father really did cause my mother’s death?"
"Absolutely not. Believe me, Salisbury blamed himself enough for both of you. One had only to see him to know it. Someone murdered them both." He rubbed her hands. "I need to call on a friend of mine. He knows all sorts of interesting things and may be able to tell us about this ring."
"All right, let’s go."
"No. He is a cautious fellow and doesn’t like unfamiliar faces. It will only take a few hours. I’ll be back shortly."
Calliope let him leave without her. She had used enough contacts when researching caricatures to know how skittish people could be with their information.
She walked aimlessly around the townhouse. The servants were keeping to themselves. Ever since the new footmen had arrived, they had been strangely quiet. Almost fearful. The atmosphere was driving her mad.
She plopped onto the sofa and thought about what James had said. It was hard not to blame her father. She had been blaming him for so long that it was hard to break the habit.