‘As senior schoolmistress I take a small stipend out of the fees, but it’s not enough to turn myself out in the sort of style you seem to expect, Gideon,’ she said as if he was being deliberately obtuse and the notion of who gained most from their estrangement took firm root in his mind as Virginia’s warning about Callie’s aunt rang true yet again.
‘At first I could only send enough to clothe you decently and live in modest comfort, but now the money I pay into an account in your name every month could easily run a house twice this size and still allow you to dress in style without penny pinching.’
‘It would? Why don’t I seem to be receiving any of it then?’
‘An interesting question, don’t you think?’
Callie looked thoughtful as they rounded the corner into a modest stableyard and he saw two good carriage horses and a trio of fat ponies looking curiously back at them from a nearby paddock.
‘You keep a pair of carriage horses, yet I see no riding horse? How do you endure it, Callie?’ he asked as the memory of her riding like the wind at his side slipped into his mind and made him wonder what other privations she suffered while he had been coward enough to take her at her word and stop away all these years.
‘I’m not a wild young girl now, I grew up.’
‘Did you? Have you ever taken a good look at what you prefer to a life with me, Callie? By heavens, you have a very effective way of making me humble for all the sacrifices here seem to be yours and the luxuries your aunt’s.’
‘She stood by me. She made a home for us both and at least we had each other—there was precious little else to be glad about at the time.’
‘A far more comfortable home than she could afford without you.’
‘No, Gideon, you don’t understand. The school produces a reasonable income, but I have no desire to cut a figure in local society. My aunt likes to pay calls and it keeps our school in the minds of potential clients. She sees to the business side of our enterprise while I tend to the girls in our care. We do well enough without you.’
‘So you must always believe her before me?’
‘No, of course not,’ she argued half-heartedly.
Gideon had to bite his lip as he helped her out of the saddle, then steadied her, because she had endured a great shock today and, if his suspicions were right, there were plenty more of those to come.
* * *
‘The household has been at sixes and sevens since we found you gone,’ Aunt Seraphina scolded benignly as she bustled towards them as soon as she and Gideon walked out of the baking stableyard and into the cool of the stone-flagged hall of Cataret House by the garden door. ‘How could you wander off on an afternoon like this, Calliope? You should be resting or keeping yourself occupied indoors during the heat of the day if you really must be busy.’
‘I felt restless and miss the girls, Aunt, but you must see we have a visitor. I’m sure you don’t mean to scold me in front of him,’ Callie said.
Gideon was right here and Aunt Seraphina knew her niece had come home on a hired horse led by a stranger in shirt sleeves, because the maids were on pins at the sight of any man in this out-of-the-way place. One as handsome as Gideon would set their hearts aflutter and their tongues wagging nineteen to the dozen, but Aunt Seraphina was stalling while she took stock of the situation. Callie knew her aunt a lot better than she had when Aunt Seraphina was a rather aloof figure during her childhood and she had seen that look before. The sight of Gideon had unnerved her and she was turning over ways to turn the situation to her advantage in her mind before she acknowledged his presence. A little while ago Callie would have blamed him for the unease between him and her aunt, but now she wasn’t quite so sure all the faults lay on his side, after all, as she sensed a mighty fury kept under iron control in her apparently calm relative.
‘I considered it best to pretend you are not here, young man. You have more cheek than I thought you possessed to walk in here and expect to be welcomed after what you did,’ Aunt Seraphina said as if he was a naughty schoolboy.
‘My husband has a right to be here, Aunt Seraphina,’ Callie surprised all three of them by asserting.
One of the maids listening on the stairs let out a gasp and another nudged her to be silent so they could keep listening, but Callie knew they were shocked Miss Sommers was claiming a husband at all, let alone one like this.
‘The man isn’t fit to black your boots, let alone saunter in here as if he has a right.’
‘Since I’m not one to wash my dirty linen in public, I suggest we adjourn to a less public space for the rest of this discussion, Mrs Bartle,’ Gideon said smoothly, and it said much for his new air of authority that all three were inside the drawing room with the door shut before her aunt protested his use of her true name when she was known as Mrs Grisham here.
‘Now, how do you explain yourself, young man? As if that’s possible,’ Aunt Seraphina said in a voice that made schoolgirls tremble, but didn’t affect Gideon at all.
‘Later. Now your niece needs peace and a cool bath after her exertions and if you had half the real concern for her welfare that you managed to fake all these years you would stop arguing with me and see she is cared for.’
For a moment there was such tension in the carefully gentrified parlour that Callie fancifully wondered if it might become visible as a lowering mist in the overheated air. She blamed this odd sense of detachment on her faint. Her aunt’s gaze fell under the chilly challenge in Gideon’s and she waved a long-fingered hand to concede a skirmish, but not an entire war.
‘Calliope is very pale, but you insisted we come in here to argue over the matter whilst she could have been resting before her bath, so you can ring for the maids and see if you can get them to do anything sensible now your arrival has set them atwitter,’ her aunt said as if recovering from the sight of Gideon walking in through her garden door as if he had every right to be here.
‘You’re giving me carte blanche to reorganise your household then, ma’am? Rather reckless of you, don’t you think?’
‘What does a man know of domestic economy?’ Aunt Seraphina scoffed and Callie reminded herself they always brought out the worst in each other.
‘Enough,’ Gideon said wearily and surprised Callie into staring at him again.
Once upon a time he would no more have dreamed of running a household than he would of swimming to the Americas. Now he rang the bell, ordered tea and a bath for her and approved a light menu for dinner in an hour’s time before Aunt Seraphina could regret her dare and take back the reins of her household. Callie had made him into this self-sufficient man by refusing to be any sort of wife to him, so why was she feeling nostalgic for days when he would look helpless and wait for her to correct his feckless bachelor ways?
‘Well, I’m ready to admit you have changed in that aspect at least. It proves nothing about the rest of your life,’ Aunt Seraphina told him severely.
‘I have no need to prove anything to you, madam,’ he replied shortly and they waited in stiff silence for news that Callie’s very necessary bath and tea were ready for her.
* * *
‘There we are, miss. No, I mean madam, don’t I?’ Kitty the upstairs maid told Callie as if she might not be able to see the bathtub and waiting tea tray herself.
‘Thank you, Kitty. I can manage very well by myself now,’ she said quietly and refused the silent invitation to confide her secrets. ‘You may go,’ she added as the inquisitive young woman stood as if expecting to outwit her mistress’s unassuming niece by sheer persistence.
‘Don’t you want your back soaped, ma’am? Oh, no, of course you don’t. You’ve a fine husband to do that for you, don’t you?’ the girl said impudently.
‘If