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 were doing wandering about the countryside alone?’
It seemed a good idea to pretend she hadn’t noticed it was a question, not a statement of exasperation. Callie placed a dutiful kiss on her aunt’s expectantly raised cheek and gave Gideon a look that challenged him to demand the same. Surely he couldn’t expect her to take up marriage where they left off, even if he was willing to sleep elsewhere tonight?
‘I can’t do right for being wrong, can I?’ he whispered when he opened the door for her, then lit her a candle from the store in the hall, despite the fact it only ever seemed to get half-dark at midsummer.
‘No,’ she said as she went past him with as much dignity as she could manage. ‘Goodnight, Gideon.’
‘Goodnight, Wife,’ he murmured and the shiver that softly spoken challenge sent down her spine sped her upstairs more swiftly than her weary feet wanted to go.
* * *
Gideon wished his reluctant hostess goodnight and retired to the narrow room a girl who wasn’t rich enough to continue her education without acting as an unpaid teacher to the littlest members of this school warranted in this household. He was sure Callie tried to prepare her for life as a governess or schoolteacher as best she could, but all her aunt would care about was that she cost next to nothing.
He shivered at the thought of any daughter of his enduring such a regime at this school without Callie here to soften its hard edges. He must be very weary, because the idea of his lost child made tears stand in his eyes. They lost so much when their little Grace died before she was born. His little girl wouldn’t be so little now. Nine years old, he thought, as he stripped off the stifling correctness of summer coat, neckcloth and waistcoat. He could almost hear her furtive giggle as she peeked into her father’s room to see if he was asleep yet and might not notice if she crept downstairs now the house was settled for the night.
Perhaps she would be leading the rest of her parents’ brood astray by now, as well. Encouraging the little ones to join her illicit feast of whatever leftovers sat in the larder from dinner, or daring them to join her in the gardens by moonlight to pick strawberries and peer at a nest of kittens in the gardener’s bothy. He missed her so much tonight. Now he and her mother were under the same roof for the first time in years he felt she should be here, too. Even the slight chance of being properly married again made their daughter seem so alive he could almost hear and touch her. The one ghost he desperately wanted to see was never quite there to be marvelled at; his little girl was always just outside his field of vision, hinted at in the odd little whisper and gleeful laugh his imagination allowed him to know of her.
‘Ah, Callie, we would have loved our little angel-devil so much, wouldn’t we?’ he whispered to the still hot air and called himself a fool.
Hope was almost as bad as despair in the still silence of this sultry night. Yes, there was a slim chance he and Callie could try again, but it wouldn’t work if she carried on relying on her aunt to tell her what to think. He could force himself on his wife; take her away from here and show her how skewed her aunt’s view of him and the rest of the world was. Legally he could make her take him back into her life. It wouldn’t feel much better than enduring life without her if she didn’t want to be with him, though, and he sighed bitterly at the very idea of such a hostile and empty marriage.
Impatient with himself for wanting the whole loaf when half a one might be all he could have, he opened the window as softly as he could on to a listening sort of night. He’d learnt years ago there were far worse terrors lurking in the darkness than the suggestion of a breeze. Too on edge to undress fully, he heeled his evening shoes off and pulled back the covers on the pallet-like bed, so he could let his body rest while his mind went round in circles like a spit dog on a wheel.
* * *
‘Good morning,’ Callie greeted Gideon the next day.
She wasn’t fully awake yet, after swearing to herself she wouldn’t sleep a wink, then dropping straight into it as if she hadn’t done so for a week. Still she felt her heart flutter at the sight of him so vital and handsome as he strode into the breakfast room. Part of her had missed him every hour of every day since they parted. That Callie saw the world in richer colours now the love of her life was back in it; the rest was deeply sceptical about his return and eyed him warily.
‘Is it? I thought we might have slipped into
