Page 37 of The Wedding Challenge

CHAPTER NINE

CALLIE’S HAND CLENCHED involuntarily on the reins, and her mare shifted nervously beneath her. By the time Callie settled her down and looked back at Bromwell’s sister, Lady Daphne was smiling sweetly at her.

“What a vision you are on that horse, Lady Calandra,” the older woman said. “That black hair of yours and on a white horse—la, I fear you put the rest of us to shame.”

“None could eclipse your beauty, Lady Swithington,” Mr. Swanson assured her.

“Indeed not,” Archie Tilford chimed in. “That is to say, not that Lady Calandra is not exceedingly beautiful, as well. Indeed, none could be lovelier.” He glanced around, his face beginning to redden. “Of course, Lady Haughston, Lady Radbourne, Miss Swanson, you are no less lovely. I mean, can one really compare Aphrodite and Helen of Troy? Except, of course, that there are five of you, not two, and, uh…”

Lord Radbourne let out a sharp laugh, hastily turned into a cough, which seemed to cause Lady Radbourne to turn away and clamp her hand over her mouth, her shoulders shaking.

“Leave off, Archie, do,” Lord Bromwell told his cousin bluntly. “We haven’t long enough for you to work your way out of that one. Ladies, suffice it to say that you are all at the absolute pinnacle of beauty, and I daresay there is not a gentleman in London who would not trade places with us right now. And now, I think, we should get on our way.”

Nodding in agreement, they started off, some in front of the carriage and some behind it. It required concentration to move through the crowded streets of London, and they were spread out, so there was not much conversation at first.

Callie was glad of the silence, for she was lost in her thoughts. Her mind kept returning to the glimpse of dislike—was it too much to call it hatred?—that she had seen in Lady Swithington’s eyes. Had she really seen it, or had it been merely a trick of the light? She could not imagine how she could have mistaken it. But why would Bromwell’s sister despise her?

Her thoughts kept her occupied for some time, but conversation increased as they reached the outskirts of the city, and she put the incident aside, determined to enjoy the afternoon before her.

The party fell into groups of two and three, talking and laughing as they rode into the country. Callie had been concerned about Francesca and Bromwell’s sister being thrown together, but she noticed that from the first Lady Swithington chose to ride beside the carriage, flirting with young Reginald Swanson—and trying her utmost to flirt with Lord Radbourne, as well.

Callie glanced over at Irene, who after one look at the carriage, simply rolled her eyes and continued to blithely chat with Francesca, riding beside her. Callie could understand her lack of concern; Gideon, rather than flirting back, looked patently bored, and his gaze wandered more to his wife some distance away than to Lady Daphne riding beside him.

Bromwell positioned himself at Callie’s side, and, somewhat to Callie’s surprise, Francesca was content to let them ride alone together, for she stayed with Irene. Since Mr. Tilford seemed to have appointed himself those two ladies’ guardian, it left Callie alone with Bromwell for most of the ride.

Though for the past week or more she had been eager to have exactly that opportunity, now she found herself suddenly shy and unsure of what she should say. It was a new position for her, as she had always been a lively girl. Her grandmother’s constant admonition to her before a party had always been not to talk too much and draw attention to herself, though it was not, Callie was the first to admit, an admonition she had endeavored very much to follow.

She realized that her reticence stemmed from the fact that for perhaps the first time in her life, it mattered very much to her that her companion found her pleasing. Finally, having rejected a comment on the weather as much too commonplace and one on the beauty of the scenery as entirely insipid, she began, “’Tis an excellent mare you purchased.”

Immediately it occurred to her that what she had said was probably worse than either of the other possibilities, but Bromwell turned to her and smiled, and her inner criticisms vanished in a flood of warmth.

“Do you like her? I hoped you would,” he replied. “I thought of you when I bought her.”

He stopped abruptly, an odd look in his eyes, as though what he had said surprised him, then went on quickly, “That is to say, I had thought of a trip to Richmond Park, and I had hoped that you and Lady Haughston would be able to join us. I bought her for the estate, of course, but it occurred to me that you could use her for the ride to the park.”

“I am very glad that you did,” Callie told him, and reached down to pat the horse’s neck, hiding the rush of pleasure in her face at his words. “She is a smooth goer, but she is very lively, as well.”

“I was not sure but what she might be too lively,” he confessed. “But she was too good to pass up. And I can see that I needed to have no worries about your ability to handle her.”

“My father put me up on a pony as soon as I could walk,” Callie said, smiling a little. “He was an avid horseman. Indeed, one of the few things I remember about him was his walking beside me on my pony so that he could steady me if I needed it.”

Bromwell looked at her, frowning a little. “He died young? I am sorry.”

Callie nodded. “Yes, he contracted a fever one winter, and within a few weeks he was gone. I did not even see him before he died. My mother was afraid that I might come down with it, too.”

“I am sorry,” he repeated. “I hate to have brought up painful memories.”

She smiled at him. “Thank you. But they are not painful. In truth, I barely remember my father. I was only five years old when he died, and I have only a few memories of him, some of them quite vague. Sometimes I am not sure whether I remember his face from actually seeing him or from the painting of him that hung in my mother’s room. I envy my brother because he knew him so much longer, you see.”

“For some of us, ’tis not a joy to know our fathers longer,” Bromwell responded with a wry twist of his mouth.

Callie glanced at him. “Did you not—I mean…” She stumbled to a halt, aware that her question was probably too personal.

“No, I did not,” he replied flatly. “I did not care for him while he was alive, and I did not miss him when he died.” He shrugged.

“I am so sorry!” Callie exclaimed, reaching out toward him, then, remembering the others around them, quickly drawing her hand back.

“No, I am the one who is sorry. ’Tis considered disloyal, I imagine, not to say that one honors one’s father. But I am not good enough at pretense to say that I did. He was a hard, cold man who cared for little but himself, and I would warrant that one would be hard-pressed to find many who knew him who regretted his passing. However, I should not have introduced such a dismal topic into our conversation.” He smiled at her. “And I shall dismiss it right now. Let us talk about you. How was it that your training on horseback continued after your father’s death? Was your mother an avid horsewoman, as well?”