Authors: Katherine Kingsley
“Mmm. I have to agree,” Adam said. “It's not a common sort of treatment in this country, but I like it. Of course, it's my home, and having grown up here I'm accustomed to it.”
“But I like it very much,” she said. “I think it's absolutely beautiful—truly breathtaking.”
Adam chuckled. “How gratifying. I assure you, you will soon become accustomed to Stanton and its glories. The next thing I know, you'll be pointing out all the cracks in the plaster.” He steered her toward the river and resumed his slow, steady pace, careful to keep her at his side.
“I would never be so presumptuous,” Callie said, but she couldn't resist smiling. She did have a keen eye for detail, that much she did know about herself. In the week that she'd been shut up in her bedroom, she'd noticed a great many things. The tapestry hangings on the four-poster bed were in need of mending in the right-hand corner next to the headboard, and the farthest window to the left had a tendency to leak rain from the topmost edge behind the drapery. It was only a very tiny leak, hardly visible unless one happened to be leaning against the window itself and looking up at the sky, as she'd done last night in the small hours when she'd been unable to sleep.
“You do not strike me as being a presumptuous person,” Adam said quietly. “I find that an admirable quality. I don't often meet people who do not presume a very great deal.”
“Perhaps that is the misfortune of your position, my lord. It is human nature for man to want what he does not have and to expect those more fortunate to supply those needs as a matter of obligation.” She glanced up at him. “The trouble is that in general, people have a difficult time distinguishing between what they think they want and what they really
do
need.” She covered her mouth with her hand as she heard what she'd said. “Now I really am being presumptuous,” she said, her cheeks flushing hotly. “Forgive me—I have no place saying such things to you.”
Adam met her gaze evenly enough, but she could see a spark of surprise in his eyes. “To the contrary,” he said. “I appreciate your candor. As it happens, I agree with you. It is a wise man indeed who knows that happiness does not lie in material possessions, as pleasant as they can be. One can be the richest man on earth and still the most miserable.”
He fell silent, seemingly lost in thought, and Callie wondered why his eyes had suddenly seemed sad before he'd quickly turned his gaze away. For the first time it occurred to her that his life, as privileged as it was, had not been a perfectly orchestrated harmonic symphony without a single discord to disturb the arrangement, that he must have suffered the usual disappointments and losses—that he was, in fact, a perfectly ordinary man who happened to have been brought up in extraordinary circumstances.
Thinking about it, what she might have mistaken for arrogance was possibly the natural bearing of a man accustomed to power and responsibility. Maybe he really didn't have an ulterior motive after all.
He had rescued her at great risk to himself, after all, taken her into his home without complaint, and treated her with kindness. If he tended toward brusqueness at times, what right did she, a complete stranger, have to expect anything else from him? He had gone far beyond the call of duty as it was; really, she must have stretched his patience to the limit with her evasions and stubborn refusal to let him help her find a position for herself.
Callie felt thoroughly ashamed of herself for ever thinking him cold, beastly, and manipulative. In this moment he seemed anything but. She realized that she knew next to nothing about him, but then Adam Carlyle was not the sort of man who invited personal questions. She doubted he would appreciate an inquiry, especially given her reticence in providing him with any of her own details.
A light silvery mist hung over the river as they approached the triple-arched bridge and Adam guided her over to a bench placed on the river's grassy bank under a large beech tree, its outspread branches providing a dappled shade from the warm sun that spilled down.
“This would be a nice place to rest,” he said comfortably enough, as if the melancholy she'd sensed in him had blown away with the soft westerly breeze that had come up, bringing with it a faint tang of warm, wet earth mingled with the fresh clean scent of water.
Callie settled next to him, her hands in her lap. The silence between them felt natural, as if there was no need for speech. She focused on the gleam of the water and the shifting mist, enjoying the sense of sunlight and space, of the gentle cooing of doves in the distant wood, and the varied calls of songbirds going about their business.
Adam shifted and drew a small bag from the pocket of his jacket, then gave a series of low, soft whistles. “Watch,” he said, smiling over at her. “We shouldn't have to wait long.”
He was right. Only moments later she heard a staccato of quacks, and out of the mist came a mother duck trailed by a series of five ducklings, all wagging their tails and paddling swiftly for the near shore.
He handed her the bag. “Go ahead,” he said. “They're spoiled silly. Someone sees that they're fed every day, come rain or shine.”
Callie took the bag from him, filled with a foolish pleasure. She stood and scattered a handful of bread onto the river's surface and watched with delight as the ducks attacked the treat, making a great deal of noise as they went about bobbing and diving for the crusts, stopping only to shake the water from their backs.
“Save a few last crusts to throw,” he said, a hint of laughter in his voice as he watched her toss bread around like a five-year-old child. “You'll need a good arm to get them far enough out.”
She looked over her shoulder at him in question. He nodded toward the shadows under the bridge where the mist swirled and parted, revealing two magnificent white shapes gliding silently and regally toward them. Their necks stretched in a long, graceful arch, their black beaks brilliantly contrasted by bright yellow markings on each side. The ducks disappeared as they approached, as if in deference to royalty.
Callie released a long sigh of pure happiness. “Swans,” she whispered. “Oh, you beauties, you lovely, lovely creatures!” She crouched down on all fours, oblivious to how she might look, and took a crust sideways between her fingers, extending her hand out as far as she could, holding it perfectly still. “
Ella, kykno mou
,” she crooned softly. “It's not exactly the food of the gods, but it should do in a pinch.”
The larger of the two, clearly the male, drifted forward, eying her carefully, making a full circle as he examined her from every angle, his mate hanging back.
“Callie, for God's sake be careful,” she heard Adam call softly but sharply from behind her. “They can be dangerous if they get too close.” But she knew she had nothing to fear.
The male floated directly up to her and reached his head forward, delicately taking the crust from her as if he'd been doing it all his life. He moved to one side and his mate took his place as Callie took a fresh crust and extended her hand again. The female swan didn't hesitate. She took the bread without haste, as delicately as her husband had. And then they turned and drifted back into the shadows, the silver mist slowly closing over them.
Callie propped herself up on her knees, watching them with pure pleasure, her hands clasped against her chest.
She felt Adam's light touch on her shoulders, then his hands reaching down to help her to her feet. “Wasn't that
wonderful
?” she said, her eyes shining as she rose to face him.
“Extraordinary is more like it,” he said, his voice unsteady. He took her by the shoulders again. “Callie …you do know that wild swans don't generally let you get anywhere near them? They're apt to attack you if you try, and they can do considerable damage.”
“Oh, not those two,” Callie said, laughing. “They're far too well mannered.”
“Don't you believe it. They went after one of the housemaids and she was twice the distance from them. She was lucky they didn't take out her eye.”
Callie shrugged, looking away from his curious, puzzled stare. “She must have come too close to their nest.”
He looked at her hard, his expression appraising. “I gather you have an affinity for birds?”
She considered. “I like all creatures, feathered or otherwise.”
His mouth curved up in a wry smile. “I gather they must like you, too. Honestly, Callie, you must stop giving me these shocks. My nerves won't stand for it.”
“I—I'm sorry,” she said, not sure exactly what she was apologizing for, but from the shaken look on his face, she knew she had genuinely given him a fright. “I knew they wouldn't hurt me, you see, but I suppose you couldn't have known that.”
His hands still held her shoulders and the warmth of his palms seeped through her pelisse directly into her skin. “Would you mind explaining how you could possibly have known such a thing?” he asked on a note of exasperation. “Next you'll be telling me you could read their minds.”
“No … not exactly,” she said, trying to think how to explain. “I just knew, just as they knew I didn't mean them any harm.” She colored, feeling a little ridiculous.
“Mm-hmm. And do you always speak to swans in Greek?” He released her and took a step back, but his intent gaze didn't leave her face.
Callie stared at him. “Did I?” she said, genuinely amazed. “I hadn't realized. I suppose it seemed the natural thing to do. After all, Zeus took on the form of a swan when he seduced Leda.”
Adam looked startled, then burst out laughing. “Oh, of course. How silly of me not to have thought of that. The next thing I know we'll have Zeus and Hera and the rest of Mount Olympus here at Stanton, creating their usual chaos and mayhem and transfiguring chambermaids into laurel trees and God only knows what else. I can just imagine what Mrs. Simpson will have to say about that.”
Callie grinned. “Really, my lord, I do think you should take more care with the quality of guest you invite into the house,” she said, imitating the housekeeper. “These Dionysian revelries are keeping the servants up until all hours, and the lack of proper clothing is positively shocking! Whatever will the poppet think?”
Adam merely shook his head. “You, Miss Calliope Magnus, are proving to be one surprise after another.”
“Am I, Lord Vale? I am sure I don't mean to be,” she said uncertainly, wondering if she'd said something she ought not to have. “I believe it's very unladylike to be full of surprises.”
“Do you? How very interesting. And I wish you'd stop calling me Lord Vale. I'm perfectly content to be addressed as Adam, unless you find that unladylike as well.”
“Not at all,” Callie said cheerfully. “I've never been much good at behaving like a lady.” She bit her lip and winced. Another thing she knew to be true, but how? A hazy image played somewhere in the back of her mind of a wild girl tearing around in torn skirts, hair tumbling every which way and full of brambles, thin arms and legs unfashionably tanned from the sun, with no care for what anyone thought. “I—I mean I haven't had any real training, not like proper British girls who were brought up to be presented at court and marry lords.”
“I shouldn't worry about it,” he said. “Your table manners are perfectly adequate, you enter and leave a room without creating a shambles, and you seem to be able to make intelligent conversation—although believe me, that is not a prerequisite for being presented at court, nor for marrying a lord. Indeed, it seems in that area you might be overqualified for the position.”
“I don't understand,” Callie said, baffled by this last statement.
“To clarify, women who have been educated to the point that they have mastered Greek and Latin tend to horrify the very gentlemen they have been reared to marry. Are you not familiar with the term ‘bluestocking’?”
“Oh,” Callie said with a grin. “That.”
“Exactly: that, as you so succinctly put it. But then perhaps your parents did not wish for you to waste yourself on an English aristocrat, which is why they removed you from the country altogether. I feel sure that you had a much more amusing time growing up abroad than you would have had if you'd been raised here under the rules and regulations deemed fitting for young girls.”
“I wouldn't know,” Callie said honestly. “One has to have had the experience to be able to make a just comparison.”
Adam cocked an eyebrow. “Is that so?” he said, and she could have sworn she detected a note of irony in his voice.
“Yes, that's so,” Callie said firmly. “Furthermore, I have no intention of marrying, so whether I was raised as a hothouse flower or a hoyden is of no import.”
“Do you have something against the institution of marriage?” He regarded her lazily.
“Not in principle, no. I am sure it is a very fine institution if the two parties are well suited to each other and willing to be tied together for life. I am only saying that marriage would not suit me.”
“Why is that, Miss Calliope Magnus? Do you have an aversion to men in general or just marriage in particular?”
“I have no aversion to men that I am aware of. I just—I prefer to be independent, to make my own decisions and go my own way.”
“Hmm. So far going your own way seems to have led you into the English Channel and onward to Stanton.”
“Heartless wretch,” she muttered, but his grin took the sting out of his words.
“True on both counts,” he answered softly, his smile fading, “but that is neither here nor there. We are not discussing my character, but yours, which so far has revealed a stubborn streak aided and abetted by a considerable amount of backbone and determination, a definite degree of whimsy, and an acuteness of mind that would make most men quake in their boots.”
“Really?” she said, highly amused, discovering that she liked Adam more and more by the minute. “Do you quake, Lord Vale?”
“Adam, and certainly not. I gave up the habit many years ago.” He glanced over at the river, where the sun had burned away most of the mist. “Perhaps that's not entirely true. I had a slight episode of quaking when you put your face in the direct aim of a swan's bill, but I have since recovered and have no intention of repeating the lapse.”