Song From the Sea (26 page)

“What I'd like to know is how that blasted man ever got wind of our arrangement with the Melbourne girl—he
must
have known of it, Harold, or he never would have gone to Paris to sidetrack her.”

“Adam has his fingers in enough coat pockets that he could have heard of it from anyone—not that
I
ever said a word to a soul, if that's what you're thinking. Maybe he heard about the arrangement from Sir Reginald, or even Lord Fellowes.”

“Well, however Adam heard, he has to be stopped. Heiresses don't just fall off trees, so if you're thinking to land another fortune in that direction, my boy, you can think again. That girl is our only hope—I don't see you making any effort to support us properly, and we can hardly live on the pittance your father left.”

“I am not responsible for my father's stupidity, Mama. If he had managed his affairs better, we wouldn't be in this pickle, so it's no good blaming me.”

“You really are hopeless,” Mildred said with a sigh of disgust. “You've always let Adam walk right over you, and now I have to pay the price, and furthermore, it's no good blaming your father for any of this—he was the one who put the idea in Magnus Melbourne's head to marry his very rich daughter to you. What are you going to do about Adam's interference? That is the question, Harold, and I'd like an answer, not another volley of excuses.” She flung her embroidery to one side and started to drum her fingers on the arms of the chair. “I don't see why I should always be the one to do the thinking for both of us. I'm exhausted, Harold, really I am, and I wish you'd contribute something useful to this discussion.”

Harold turned toward the window and rolled his eyes. His mother never had been able to see when she'd been trumped. Even after Adam in his typical unfeeling fashion had thrown them out of Stanton, she'd refused to accept that they'd never be allowed across the threshold again and had unceasingly harassed her husband to
fix
matters. Well, the truth was that if Harold's father hadn't so badly bungled the running of the estate, he, Harold, would still be living where he belonged by right.

He scowled. This was all Adam's fault, as usual. Adam had been a thorn in his side from the day Adam was born, and he continued to find ways to draw blood. Harold had done his best to remove the thorn, he really had, but this latest scheme of Adam's to deprive Harold of his God-given right to a comfortable life really was the bitter end.

He spun around on his heel, his eyes flashing with renewed anger. He wouldn't be thwarted, not again. “I'll do something, Mama, I will, by God. Just give me time to come up with a proper plan, for it doesn't do to go off half-cocked, not with Adam.”

“Very well,” his mother said, looking only slightly mollified. “Just don't be too long about it, for time is of the essence.”

“I know, Mama,” Harold said, puffing his chest out. “Leave the matter in my hands. I will not be bested by Adam, not this time.”

So saying, he swept up his hat, placed it firmly on his head, and sauntered out of the room, filled with determination to seize the moment and put his cousin in his place for once and for all.

Two minutes later, he'd dismissed the entire issue. He had other, more important things on his mind.

Nigel looked back and forth between Callie and Adam, wondering what had come over both of them. Since sitting down to dinner, he'd had to carry the conversation by himself and he felt like a jabbering idiot. Adam barely bothered to reply to the simplest of questions, and Callie didn't make the slightest attempt to join in, very unlike her.

Even more perplexing was the way they avoided each other's eyes, and he couldn't help worrying that they'd had some sort of disagreement. He could almost tangibly feel the tension in the air.

Callie barely touched her dinner and she excused herself at the earliest opportunity, giving Nigel a distant smile as she bid him good night. To Adam she said nothing at all, drifting out of the room with a preoccupied expression.

“Trouble?” Nigel asked as soon as the servants had cleared the table and left them alone with their port.

Adam, who dangled his glass of port between his fingers as if he'd forgotten it was there, looked up. “I'm sorry? Did you say something?”

“Adam, I haven't the first idea of what happened between the time I saw you this morning and the time you came back from Folkestone, but you seem to be somewhere else tonight and Callie is just as far away.”

“Mmm,” Adam said. “We had an eventful day.”

“Oh?” Nigel asked, no more enlightened than before. “Do you plan on telling me about it, or are you going to leave me hanging? Or perhaps it's a private matter,” he added tactfully.

“Yes and no,” Adam said, putting his glass down untouched. “We ran into Harold, who claimed to be engaged to Callie. Her surname is Melbourne, by the by.”

Nigel nearly knocked over his port and he had to fumble to catch the glass before it spilled. “You—
what
?” he said idiotically, trying to pull himself together. “What happened? What did you say?”

Adam quickly explained the details of the encounter. “Thank God,” he finished, “that Callie admitted to me yesterday that she does have amnesia, or I might really have wondered what the truth was. Given what I've just told you, I'm sure you can understand why we both might be feeling a little upended.”

“Indeed,” Nigel replied, completely upended as well. He'd been expecting something to happen, but as well as he thought he'd prepared himself, he was no match for the reality—or his own guilt at not having prepared Adam, either. Still, he had to admire Adam's quick thinking, even though he wasn't sure what the outcome was going to be. “You say you claimed to be Callie's fiancé. Isn't that going to be a little bit awkward when Mildred and Harold find out that you're nothing of the sort?”

“It is going to be awkward in the extreme, given that Callie refuses to come to her senses.”

“I don't understand,” Nigel said, unable to make heads or tails of Adam's statement. “Do you refer to her lack of memory?”

“Her lack of memory has nothing to do with it. I refer to her lack of common sense.” Adam pushed his glass around on the table with his forefinger, his brow drawn into a frown. “I, being a practical man and seeing the only logical solution, asked Callie to marry me. She, being inexperienced and idealistic, clung to a misguided romantic sensibility and refused.”

Nigel picked up his port and downed it in one gulp.
Callie
had refused
Adam
? He'd never even considered that possibility. If anything, he'd thought that Adam would be the person who was going to create the difficulty. But Callie? He couldn't imagine her turning Adam down. She had to have had good reason, but he couldn't think what it was, for she showed every sign of adoring Adam—although she hadn't looked the least bit adoring this evening, which led him to believe that Adam had somehow put his foot in it.

He couldn't believe that all of his careful planning was going for naught.

“I see,” he said simply. “Well, if Callie won't marry you, what do you plan to do next?”

“That's the question of the day, isn't it?” Adam said, shoving his hand through his hair. “I'm damned if I know. I have no choice but to go up to London and speak to Sir Reginald, and I'm going to look like a complete idiot trying to explain how all this came about. No matter how I paint the picture, the facts are still the same: Callie's been living under my roof without benefit of a proper chaperon and there will be hell to pay for that alone, never mind the added complication of Harold's claim and Callie's amnesia.”

He stared glumly at his glass. “Quite frankly, Nigel, I'm at a complete loss. I don't suppose you have any helpful suggestions?”

Nigel thought. “Perhaps you might consider telling Callie that you love her?”

“Don't be a damned fool,” Adam said. He stood abruptly. “If that's all you can come up with, I'm going to bed. I've had an insufferably long and difficult day and I'm not in the mood for any of your frivolity. Good night, Nigel. Good night and I hope you, at least, sleep well.”

Left alone, Nigel poured himself another glass of port, deciding that if anyone was a damned fool, it was Adam.

13

T
ossing and turning, Callie found no respite from her misery in sleep. Her restless dreams chased each other in quick succession, a jumble of confused images that shifted and changed: Mildred cackling and poking her with her bony finger like the witch in “Hänsel and Gretel,” checking her for plumpness before stuffing her into the oven, Harold standing next to her with a large napkin tied around his neck, his piggy eyes glittering with anticipation.

A large black gull swooped down and lifted her away with its feet just in the nick of time, but he released her and she tumbled through space for what seemed like an eternity before she plummeted into water that ran up her nose and blinded her eyes, her lungs starved for air.

Then Adam was there, leaning over her, saying something over and over again. “Breathe, little one, please breathe …”

Cold … she was so cold, and gasping and coughing, fighting for life.

A great hole yawned in the earth and she stood at the edge, looking down at a coffin, her eyes filled with tears. She wondered if it was her coffin, but then she heard singing and realized it was she who sang, the notes pouring through her with a tide of grief so profound that it threatened to overwhelm her. The gull came again and whispered in her ear. “You mustn't be afraid of death … it's all a part of living.”

“No, Papa, please don't leave me!” she cried out, a desperate keen of heartbreak that came from the depths of her soul.

Callie woke with a start, the front of her nightdress damp with tears, the ache in her heart as great as the gaping hole in the earth that she'd seen.

Abruptly sitting up, she gripped the covers so hard that her fingers hurt. Staring into the moonlit recesses of the room, she tried to calm the erratic pounding of her heart, so loud that it echoed in her ears.

Callie thought she might break apart with grief. She covered her face with trembling hands, her head dropping onto her knees. She could no more stop the sobs that shook her body than she could stop the slicing, brutal anguish of the memory that had caused them.

She felt arms come around her, pull her close against a solid, bare chest, a hand stroke gently over her hair. She turned her face into the comfort of that hard chest, barely able to comprehend who held her but infinitely grateful to feel protected.

“Callie? Callie, you're awake now. It's all right. I heard you cry out, but thank God you were just dreaming. It's all over, just a nightmare, that's all.”

Callie took a deep, shuddering breath, and then another one, the soft, soothing words reaching deep into the terrible ache and easing it. “Adam?” she whispered, realizing whose arms held her so tightly. She reached up and wrapped her hands around his forearm as if she could draw him deep inside her and keep her safe.

“Yes?” he said. “What is it, Callie? What troubles you so?”

Callie rubbed her wet cheek against the lightly furred skin of his arm, drinking in his warmth, his familiar scent. “I—I remembered my father,” she said, taking another shuddering breath. “I remembered his funeral. I couldn't bear it. I didn't think I could go on.”

His arms tightened around her. “I know, I do know,” he said, resting his cheek on the top of her head. “Funerals are fairly dreadful occasions. One thinks at the time …Well. I'm sorry you didn't have a happier memory, but I'm glad at least that you do remember how much you must have loved him. I'm sure he was a very fine man.”

“He was, Adam. I know he was.” She shifted, sitting up so that she could look into his face. “I thought some terrible things about him today when I found out what he'd planned about Harold, but they can't have been true—I can't believe that he ever wanted anything but my happiness or I never could have loved him so much,” she said, wiping her eyes with her fingertips. “I don't understand anything at all.”

“I know how that feels, too,” he replied, turning his head toward the window. “Grief leaves one with too many questions and absolutely no answers.”

She reached her hand up and rested it on the side of his cheek. “I'm sorry. I was so caught up in my unhappiness that I forgot about your own suffering.”

Adam wrapped his own hand around her fingers and squeezed them tightly. “I don't know that one ever recovers from such a blow. I have no knowledge of your father, but I assume he must have been getting on in years, not that your grief should be any less for that.”

“No, Adam, but I do think it's different. My father died from illness, not by violence, and he had lived a good portion of his life. Your wife, and especially your little boy, didn't have that chance.”

He turned his head back to look at her, his eyes filled with pain. “I suppose that's one of the worst parts. I can't help but think that Ian had his entire life before him, and it was cut off so quickly and unfairly. Caroline, too, was only beginning to experience the joys of marriage and motherhood. What makes it all the harder is the knowledge that I bear the responsibility for what happened. I left them on the lawn that day to go back to the house and look after business, promising to join them later. If only I'd focused less on what I ought to be doing, and instead gone with them then to enjoy a lovely spring afternoon in the woods as they wanted, maybe everything would have turned out differently.”