said, but for a moment she thought her aunt’s gaze was hard when it met hers this time. She was wrong, of course she was. They couldn’t have lived and worked together all these years if her aunt secretly hated her, even though her aunt was so distant and disapproving when Callie was a child. ‘I shall always be grateful to you for standing by me when I needed you to so badly, Aunt Seraphina, but I’m a relatively young woman and can be permitted a little vanity on occasions like this,’ she teased, but Aunt Seraphina’s lips tightened and her hands clenched before she managed a polite titter and an airy gesture to deny she was a killjoy.
‘Of course, my dear, you will have to excuse an anxious old woman who wonders if you’re playing with fire.’
‘I’m hardly flaunting myself like a houri because I left a few hairpins out of my toilette tonight,’ Callie protested because she couldn’t imagine how anyone could see her plain gown and simple hairstyle as provocative.
‘I’m glad to see you looking more like yourself, but Mrs Bartle obviously takes her duties as chaperon and mentor seriously, my dear,’ Gideon said silkily.
Her lamentable wardrobe and lack of a riding horse might be behind his suspicion her aunt had not been acting in Callie’s best interests all these years. She thought of his assertion that he had sent large sums of money to her over the years and noted a bead of sweat on her aunt’s upper lip. It was very hot, perhaps even she couldn’t stay cool and composed in such weather.
‘Of course, Calliope is my niece,’ the lady said stoutly. Once it would have been a huge concession to call Callie niece, as she was the by-blow of Mrs Bartle’s younger sister. The fact she owned up to her now persuaded Callie this was all a misunderstanding.
‘Thank you, Aunt,’ she said sincerely.
‘And therefore you must want her to be happy,’ Gideon said so smoothly that Callie really didn’t know why her aunt shifted under his steady gaze, ‘must you not?’
‘Of course, which is why I never encouraged Calliope to get in touch with you,’ Aunt Seraphina countered as if it were war.
‘Or to reply to any of my letters, perhaps?’
Callie had difficulty not gasping out loud at the implication he had written more than once. A single letter would have soothed some of the jagged places in her heart, but more than one? That would have been like a bridge between the old Callie and Gideon and the new world she had no map for after he left. She eyed them both warily and wondered who was lying now.
‘I have no idea what you mean,’ Aunt Seraphina said smoothly, but Callie saw a few giveaway signs under her front of unruffled confidence that her aunt was less sure of herself than she pretended.
‘What a convenient memory you do have, ma’am,’ Gideon countered.
‘A very inconvenient one as far as you are concerned, young man. Time has not wiped out any of your past sins for me even if my niece seems to have lost her memory of them tonight. I might have kept one or two letters from Callie when we came here, but she was in no state to read your self-serving excuses for what you did at the time.’
Memory of exactly how painful that period of her life had been made Callie glare at her husband and wonder why she doubted the one person who stood by her. ‘Thank you, Aunt Seraphina. I don’t think there was any excuse for what you did either, do you, Gideon?’
He held her gaze as if he had nothing to be ashamed of and suddenly Callie felt weary half to death and wished he would simply state his business with her then go.
‘Of course there isn’t,’ her aunt answered for him.
He was about to deny it, but Kitty came in to say dinner was ready before either of them could say another word and then they only exchanged small talk. The maids were in and out with this and that and Kitty’s busy ears were always on the alert for gossip. Tonight they must be aching with the need to know more about the handsome husband Miss Sommers had brazenly owned up to as if she had never lied about him in the first place.
Somehow Callie got through the meal without blurting out something indiscreet through sheer tiredness. She felt horribly confused every time she glanced at Gideon and wondered if he was right to jolt her out of the settled life she had made without him. Maybe Aunt Seraphina had got carried away by a desire to protect Callie. If she had to walk the line between protecting a close relative or telling the strict truth, how would she cope with the dilemma her aunt faced?
The idea she would have preferred to make her own choice slipped into her mind. She had a right to know Gideon had tried to contact her or even win her back. At first she would not have listened, of course, but what about later? Maybe, she let herself know. She wasn’t quite sure if she should despise herself for being weak or add another reason not to trust Aunt Seraphina as unquestioningly as she had for too long to the list.
‘I believe we may have a thunderstorm tonight,’ her aunt announced once it was clear none of them could take another bite of whatever it was Cook had served them.
Callie had no idea what she ate while she struggled with her confusion in silence. Grandfather would be appalled by her lack of manners tonight and she wondered if either of her dining companions had noticed. The other two were probably too busy eyeing each other suspiciously to note that conversation wasn’t flowing merrily tonight.
‘Your stableman assures me the weather won’t break for another day or two. I agree it feels clammy enough to whip up a storm at any moment, though,’ Gideon said, as if trying to pretend there wasn’t an atmosphere of sticky tension in the room that was nothing to do with the summer heat. He shot a concerned look at Callie and she realised he was doing his best to stop more worries adding to her growing pile of them tonight.
‘I don’t fear thunder and lightning as I used to, Gideon,’ she said calmly enough, for if she had gone pale it was out of weariness and not her old terror of storms. After their baby, Grace, died at birth the weather was the least of her worries and since then she’d comforted so many terrified schoolgirls she could endure the worst storms without flinching.
‘I’m glad to hear it, but you do look weary, my dear. Perhaps we should all retire early to try and sleep as best we can, despite this ridiculous heat?’ he suggested.
‘Where will you sleep?’ she asked unwarily, then blushed at the impossible notion a husband might expect to share his wife’s bed.
‘Apparently there are plenty of rooms that lie empty here over the summer,’ he said as if the idea had never occurred to him.
‘I will ask Kitty to have a bed made up for you then,’ she said stiffly. She wouldn’t have welcomed him if he’d made a move to share her bed, but it felt a little bit unforgivable that he hadn’t bothered to try.
‘No need, the kitchen maid found me bed linen and we sorted it out between us. I shall be sleeping in one of the pupil-teacher’s beds tonight, since none of the younger ladies’ accommodation is big enough for a full-grown male,’ he said with a shrug that told her he understood her inner conflict about his sleeping arrangements and wondered why she thought he was so insensitive as to demand his marital rights when she was so pleased to see him she lost her senses this afternoon.
‘Then can I be rude and retire betimes, Aunt? I am very tired.’
‘Of course you must do so, my love. Little wonder you feel exhausted after such a shock as you suffered today, although I still have no idea what you
