Remembrance Read online

“Oh, is that what’s bothering you?” Talis asked. “The fact that I haven’t been to visit you? I have been very busy lately. You know, the duties of helping all the ladies with their sewing and whatnot has taken so very much of my time. I do hope you forgive me.”

  “I do not own you,” she said, trying to keep anger from her voice. “And you do not own me. Do whatever you want. Right now, I would like for you to leave us. I am with a man who understands that I am a woman.”

  At that she pulled Allen’s arm tightly to her side and looked up at him with what she hoped was a loving expression.

  With some effort, Talis managed to put his body between the two of them. “My father has given me the assignment of protecting you and I must obey him. What do you say that we look at the bookstall?”

  Allen laughed. “I do say, young Hadley, you know nothing about women.” Perhaps he wasn’t as tall as Talis, but he was older and more experienced. “Women like excitement, something like bear baiting, not books. Women’s minds were made for romance and love, not for what is found in a book. Is that not right, my dear?” he said as he raised Callie’s hand toward his lips to kiss it.

  “Oh, I do beg your pardon,” Talis said as he practically fell onto Allen, nearly knocking him down and preventing the kiss. “Someone pushed me.”

  “Clumsy bastard,” Allen muttered under his breath, dusting himself off from where he had slammed into a man carrying a bag of flour.

  “Again I beg your pardon,” Talis said sweetly, “but I am not a bastard. My father is Lord John Hadley. Pray, tell me again who your father is.”

  Allen gave Talis a malevolent look, since his own father was not the rank of John Hadley.

  “Allen, please,” Callie said, “pay him no attention. He is trying to make you angry. Let us enjoy ourselves and pretend that he is not here. Come, look at the cloth merchant.”

  Behind them, Talis groaned. “Who wants to look at cloth on a day like this? There are men walking a rope over there, and there are many things to eat.”

  Callie whirled on him so fast her hair spun around and hit Allen in the face. “For your information, other men are not as selfish as you are. Sometimes a man takes a woman out and does what she wants to do. Other men are not as selfish as you are. Right now Allen would love to look at the silks and velvets, would you not, Allen?”

  “Well, I, ah…”

  “There, you see, Mr. Son-of-a-lord Hadley, he wants to look at cloth. If I wanted to stand there all day and do nothing but look at those silks, Allen would love to be with me. Can someone like you understand such unselfishness as that?”

  Talis had no idea on earth what Callie was talking about. He was beginning to think an evil spirit had overtaken her body. The Callie he knew would rather look at books and rope walkers than piles of cloth. So what was different today?

  When Callie saw that Talis had no understanding of what she was saying, her fists tightened and she turned away from him. “Come, Allen, let us go watch the bear baiting.”

  “But that will make you sick,” Talis said from behind her, and there was real concern in his voice. “You hate to see animals hurt.”

  Again, she whirled on him. “You make me sick! You with your ideas that you own me and know everything there is to know about me. You know nothing about me. Absolutely nothing. I happen to like bear baiting. It is a sport of skill and daring and adventure and Allen knows that I am a woman who likes excitement. I am not the dull, lifeless, prim little virgin you seem to think I am. Now, I want you to get away from me. In fact, I never want to see you again in my life.”

  Allen couldn’t help smiling at that, for this Callie was getting prettier by the minute. When she was angry, her cheeks flushed and her eyes were bright with emotion. When she was like that, she was almost a beauty.

  It looked as though at last her words had had some effect on this boy Talis, for when Callie started walking again, he stayed behind. Allen had to run to catch up with her.

  Confidently, feeling that he had won a woman in a verbal joust, Allen said, “The bear baiting is that way.”

  She looked up at him with horror in her eyes. “I have no intention of watching a bear and dogs fight each other. I hate blood sports.”

  “But you said—You told that boy that—I thought you—”

  “Can you never finish a sentence?” she said in an aggressive way. “What is wrong with you and why do you think that a woman has not the intelligence to read a book? Do you think we women waste our lives as you waste yours lounging about under a tree all day watching me hoe a garden? Is that what you think of me?”

  “No, I…I mean, I—”

  “Yes, what do you mean? Come on, tell me. Speak up.”

  Allen took a deep breath. Were it not for all the money Lady Alida was offering him to stay with this girl, he’d walk away now. Let Talis have her, and with his blessing. The two of them deserved each other. “Would you like a cup of wine?” Allen asked, eyebrows raised. “Or perhaps I could buy you a wagon load of intoxicant and you could bathe in it.”

  To his consternation, Callie burst out laughing. Allen had spent his life trying to win women, so he’d kept his sarcastic remarks to himself. Sweetness won women, not hateful, stinging phrases, so he was shocked when Callie laughed at his spiteful remark.

  He had no idea that his remark was exactly like something Talis would have said to her. When she was in a bad mood, he always proposed outrageous things to do to sweeten her up, such as drowning her in honey, or boiling her in sugar syrup. One hot day when they were twelve, she had been too saucy for his taste, so he’d tossed her into a wagon load of peaches, saying she needed the nectar to mellow her temper.

  All Allen thought when he made her laugh was that he was indeed a very clever fellow.

  Several feet behind them, Talis ground his teeth; his nails cut into his palms as he made a fist. He knew when Callie was really laughing and when she was not. Until now her attention had been on him, on Talis. He knew she did not like this white-haired popinjay. But as soon as they were out of his hearing, she laughed at what he was saying. Really, truly laughed. Laughed in a way that, until now, only he had been able to make her laugh. Not Will or Meg or anyone in the village of the place he still thought of as home had ever made Callie laugh like that. Usually, she stayed close by Talis and looked to him for everything, shared everything with him.

  But obviously, now she preferred someone else to him.

  The hell with her, Talis thought. If she did not want him, he did not want her.

  With every muscle in his body rigid, he turned away from the two of them. Let them have each other, he thought. Let them spend eternity together.

  He was so stiff with anger that when he tripped over the obstacle in the path, he nearly fell on his face. He did not have his usual ease of movement, his usual swinging walk; he didn’t even have his sense of balance.

  “Sorry,” Hugh Kellon said, for it was his foot that Talis had tripped on. But his tone implied that he didn’t mean the words. “Why are you rushing about? It’s a beautiful day, there are lots of pretty girls here, but you look as though you’re ready to start a war.”

  “I must go,” Talis said stiffly. “Excuse me.”

  “No!” Hugh said sharply, then softened. “Stay with me. I need the company.”

  “I must return,” Talis said, each word forced from teeth held tightly together.

  “Isn’t that your girl?” Hugh asked, nodding toward the figures of Callie and Allen, walking through the crowd, arm in arm.

  “She is not mine,” Talis said stiffly. “Now, if you will excuse me, I must leave.”

  “Pride is a very good thing,” Hugh said loudly, making Talis turn back. “One should always have much pride. Pride is the backbone of a man.”

  “Yes,” Talis said, glad someone understood. “Pride is very important to a man.”

  “Most important,” Hugh agreed heartily. “Pride has always ruled my life and I can swear to the fact that I have always