Song From the Sea (24 page)

“I'll bring a breach of promise suit against you,” Harold shouted. “I'll make you sorry for this, I swear it! I'll—I'll ruin you both!”

Adam paused, then stopped and turned. “If you say or do anything that in any way causes Miss Melbourne or myself the slightest distress, Harold—anything at all—I can promise you that you will come to regret that action very deeply. If you remember, I always keep my promises.”

“Damn you to hell,” Harold muttered, shooting Adam a baleful glare.

“You needn't bother,” Adam said coldly, looking bored. “Oh,” he added as a parting shot, “be so good as to have Miss Melbourne's luggage immediately sent to Stanton. I don't believe her belongings are of any use to you.”

He led Callie to the carriage without another word, and Callie was very, very grateful for his silence. She had a strong feeling that she was going to be hearing a great many words from Adam in the very near future, and not one of them was going to be pleasant.

12

A
dam, I'm so sorry,” Callie said as soon as the carriage had started on its way back to Stanton, desperate to clear the air between them, since Adam was obviously so angry that he didn't intend to speak to her at all. “I never intended to put you in such an awful position, and I can't think why I blurted out that you were my fiancé, but please know that I didn't …I mean I wouldn't …” She halted, trying to find the right words to explain, but she felt at a complete loss. “Oh, I've made such a hash of everything,” she said, miserably staring down at her hands.

“You certainly made a hash of Harold and Mildred's plans, and very neatly.” Adam casually crossed his legs and leaned back in the seat, resting one arm against the green velvet squabs and not looking the least bit concerned that she'd just made liars out of them both. “I must confess that I enjoyed helping you. The last time I saw Mildred look so put out was the day I reached my majority and ejected her, her husband, and pathetic Harold from the abbey after twelve long years. You might have gathered there is no love lost between me and my charming relations.”

“I did gather that, and very quickly,” Callie said, wondering when he was going to take her head off. Perhaps he intended to let her stew in her guilt and misery before he struck the fatal blow and summarily ejected her from Stanton and his life. “I cannot think how you have come to have such dreadful relatives, but then I don't know what my own father could have been thinking to want me to marry into that family.” She stopped abruptly. “I can't take it all in,” she said after a long moment. “There's so much to absorb, my real name, I mean, and where I actually lived, and that my father—well, that he's dead and I can't even remember him.” She suddenly wanted to cry and had to bite the inside of her cheek hard. “His name was Magnus. That must be why I gave myself the surname. I remembered that much, at least.”

“Callie,” Adam said, finally looking over at her, his eyes not dark and stormy with anger as she'd expected but that lovely clear blue of a summer sky, “please don't distress yourself unduly. You will probably remember more with time, and at least we've begun to uncover the details of your history.” He rubbed the side of his mouth. “I cannot say that I ever expected it to be tied up in such an unexpected manner with mine, but life has its odd twists and turns.”

She nodded. “It does. I never would have invented you as my fiancé if I'd known that those—those people had anything to do with you. What I've been trying to say is that I appreciate your helping me out of a terrible scrape, but that—that naturally I don't expect you to actually
marry
me. You can just tell Harold and Lady Geoffrey that you cried off. Or better yet, that I cried off—I'm sure they already think that I'm in the habit and I don't mind in the least if they think I'm fickle-minded.”

“I believe I am feeling wounded,” Adam said, the corner of his mouth turning up. “Are you trying to tell me that you
want
to cry off? Really, Callie, I think that most inconsiderate of you. It's not the done thing to propose to someone and then change your mind only a half hour later, you know.”

“Please don't tease,” Callie said, about to start crying in earnest. “I don't think I could bear for you to poke fun at me right now.”

Adam's face grew serious. “But I'm not poking fun. Quite frankly, I think that my marrying you is a perfect solution to your problem. I don't know why I didn't think of it myself. If you don't wish to marry me, that's something else, but at least you might consider the idea before dismissing it out of hand.”

Callie stared at him in disbelief. She couldn't possibly have heard him correctly. “You—you're saying that you w-want to marry me,” she finally managed to stammer.

“Why not? I remember what you once said about not thinking yourself well suited for marriage, but we get along nicely, you like living at Stanton, and being my wife would be a far more suitable and comfortable position than becoming some demanding old woman's companion.” He tilted his head to one side and regarded her dispassionately. “Of course, now that we know you are a woman of independent means, my offer might not be so attractive. Would you like to think it over for a few days?”

Think it over? The man Callie loved with all of her heart had just asked her to be his wife. He offered a fairy-tale ending to the confusion and uncertainty she'd been living with for an entire month, a perfect antidote to the dread she had of leaving him and the only home she knew. Why, then, wasn't she filled with joy?

The answer came to her immediately and from a place in her heart just as deep and honest as her love.

“I don't have to think it over. I can't marry you,” she said before she could change her mind and succumb to temptation.

Two deep lines scored his brow and he sat up straight, regarding her with genuine surprise. “You can't? Why ever not? Have I done or said something to offend you?”

“No,” she said, feeling a terrible sadness rush through her as she forced herself to let go of her beautiful dream. “You could never offend me. But you don't love me, Adam, and without that, you would never be truly happy and neither would I.” She thought her heart might break as she spoke the words.

His reaction was not what she expected: his face cleared as if she'd said something entirely satisfactory. “Ah. I think I understand. You believe that marriage must be based on love. I never thought you, given your well-trained mind, a romantic, but you have proved me wrong. Let me think how to properly explain the logistics of marriage to you.”

Making a steeple of the tips of his fingers, he pressed them sideways against his mouth for a moment, organizing his thoughts in a manner with which she'd become achingly familiar. Dear, dear Adam—he always approached a problem with the same thoroughness, like a scholar who had only to apply logic and perseverance to a puzzle in order to come up with the correct solution.

When he lowered his hands and rested them flatly on his thighs, Callie knew he'd found his line of reasoning. She could have told him he was wasting his time, but she at least owed him the courtesy of listening.

“Now then,” he said, “given that we're reasonably certain you were not raised as I was, meaning that you didn't have the rules and regulations of society and your duty toward it shoved down your throat as a daily diet, I can understand why you might have formed this romantic attitude regarding marriage. I cannot entirely regret your position, if it kept you from doing the unthinkable and marrying Harold to satisfy your father's dying and utterly perplexing wish.”

“I am not entirely stupid,” Callie said, beginning to be annoyed by his superior attitude.

“You are anything but stupid, Callie, but we digress. What you might not understand is that marriage in the upper reaches of society is rarely based on love. It is an institution primarily motivated by financial and dynastic concerns. If one is incredibly fortunate, love will follow. Sometimes, and even more rarely, two people do actually fall in love and the marriage is happily deemed suitable. If they are blessed with a plethora of good fortune, they actually manage to keep that love alive and flourishing.”

“As you and Caroline did,” Callie said, knowing she was treading on dangerous territory, but determined to make her own point.

“As Caroline and I did, yes,” Adam replied evenly enough, but Callie could see that she'd knocked him off balance. “We were very fortunate indeed. Our natures were also well suited, which is more to the point. Many times what one believes to be love is nothing more than a strong physical attraction, and when the brightness of that flame dies down, nothing is left on which to build a lasting relationship.”

Callie's annoyance grew. She really didn't need a lecture on the emotional and physical joys of his life with Caroline right now, even if she had been foolish enough to bring up the subject. She felt small-minded and petty, but the way Adam was talking, she might have been a fund he was interested in investing in, not a flesh-and-blood woman with a heart that needed cherishing, never mind a body that constantly ached for his touch. She couldn't help herself. “I gather you didn't have that problem in your marriage. With the flame, I mean.”

Adam's eyes narrowed as if he suspected her of being exactly the low-crawling, jealous creature she was, but he controlled himself admirably despite her deliberate provocation. “My life with Caroline is not the matter under discussion. As I said, we were well suited to each other and we were very happy as a result. I miss her more than I can say.” His face took on that hollow expression she'd come to know, and he quickly looked away as if to disguise his grief.

“Forgive me,” Callie said in a low voice, immediately repentant and deeply ashamed of herself. “I know speaking of Caroline is deeply painful for you, and I should never have mentioned her.”

Adam released a barely audible sigh and turned his gaze back to her, his eyes filled with a bleakness that made him look weary and old beyond his years. “Callie, I did ask you to marry me. How can you help but wonder about Caroline?”

“I can't, but I still have no right to intrude. I have no right to ask for anything beyond what you have already given me. I certainly have no right to ask for your love, for that is a gift that has to be given freely and from the heart.”

He shook his head, a gesture of helplessness and defeat. “I wish I could give you the answer you want, but something essential died in me the day my wife and son were killed. I don't have that kind of love to give, not any longer. I can give you my friendship and my loyalty, and I can give you my name and my possessions and a place to belong to. But I can't give you what I don't have, and I respect you far too much to lie to you.”

“Thank you for that, Adam,” she said quietly. “I'd far rather have the truth than some empty platitudes that would make us both unhappy.” But, oh, how she wished the truth could have been different.

He managed a smile. “Well, then. The truth is that I honestly am very fond of you, and if that counts for anything, maybe you could reconsider my proposal, for I'd like very much to see you stay on at Stanton. Being married to me might not be your heart's desire, but it wouldn't be the most miserable of existences, would it?”

“You know how much I've come to love Stanton,” she said, not willing to address the dangerous subject of her heart's desire, for Adam would be shocked to his core if he had any idea how much she loved him. Given his overdeveloped sense of responsibility, he'd probably put all the blame on himself for the state of her unruly emotions and end up being forced to send her away for her own good. “I don't suppose we can just go on as we have been, two friends who enjoy each other's company?” she said in a hopeful voice.

“I'm afraid not,” he said. “The cat's out of the bag. Harold and Mildred know about your not only being at Stanton, but also about your supposed engagement to me. You can be very sure that if we don't marry and you continue to live under my roof they will do everything possible to besmirch your reputation, and that I will not have.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling more wretched by the moment. She could see that knowing she was Miss Callista Melbourne had its drawbacks, for Adam hadn't worried at all about her living under his roof when she had no name or reputation to worry about.

“There's another point, Callie, and one that I didn't want to mention unless I had to, but you haven't given me much choice. Until we know a great deal more about the exact way your father did leave his affairs, you might still be in jeopardy from my relatives unless I do marry you in short order.”

“I don't see how,” Callie said. “I told Harold I don't want anything to do with him, and I'm well over the age of consent, as he was kind enough to point out.”

“It's not a matter of your consent, it's a matter of what your father did actually stipulate in his will, or possibly wrote in a codicil. I don't ever trust Mildred to speak anything approximating the truth, so I'm not clear on whether you actually have to marry in order to inherit. If that is the case, far better that you marry me than some fortune hunter like Harold, who will be sure not only to spend every penny, but also to take away your freedom and make you more miserable than you can possibly imagine.”