Chapter Nine #2
Calliope. Not a name one ran into often, and Montague was fast realising it was the most beautiful name anyone could have.
No one would suit it quite like Miss Calliope Oliver, though. She was beauty personified.
‘Calliope,’ Montague said in a low voice.
It sounded like a promise, like something had been sealed between them. He was not surprised to see Calliope’s cheeks flush.
‘Are you quite well, Montague?’ she asked in a low voice as two ladies passed them on the Royal Pavilion Gardens path. ‘You…well, forgive me, but you do not look yourself. You did not seem yourself, the last time we spoke.’
Montague gave a dry laugh.
What was he to say? That he and the whole household had been awoken in the night because the boy had had such a terrible nightmare it had taken two maids, a footman, Mrs Draveham—curlers still in her hair—and himself to calm the boy down?
That the boy’s face, full of fear and dread and the expectation of more punishment, had been more than he could bear?
That he, Montague, had returned to his bedchamber after the boy was settled but had been unable to sleep, still pacing his room as the sun rose up?
How did one explain such a thing?
‘You are not well, then. Or you have had bad news.’
He laughed again, the bitterness of his thoughts flowing into the sound. ‘I received news a few weeks ago which should have been bad, but with each passing day I wonder if it was the best thing that ever happened. Not to me, certainly. But to another.’
Glancing at the elegant young woman beside him, Montague wondered if he could bring himself to tell her. She was a refined woman of good family and the last thing he should be doing was spreading gossip about his own.
Even if it were true.
Calliope’s cheeks were flushed, but she did not shy away as he had expected. ‘You are…’
Montague swallowed. ‘Yes?’
She half-smiled. ‘You are the most irritating man I have ever met.’
He had to laugh at that. ‘Not precisely the encouragement I sought in my hour of need!’
‘You did not let me finish,’ Calliope said sternly.
Her hand was once again on his arm and Montague tried not to notice just how pleasant it was to have it there.
‘You are irritating—but I wonder whether you and I are designed, in our characters I mean, to bother each other. That does not mean you are not a good man. That does not mean you should not have someone to talk to. Do you not have a brother? A sister?’
She was being so kind. It was most strange, considering he had done what he could to torture and tease her since their very acquaintance began.
Montague was not the sort of person who opened up easily. He was not the sort to spill family secrets to anyone, let alone ladies. He was not the sort to share anything with someone in public, on a bench.
Which was why he did not quite understand why he was tempted to open up, spill family secrets to this lady in particular, in public, on a bench.
He exhaled slowly. ‘My cousin died.’
Calliope squeezed his arm. ‘I am sorry to hear that.’
‘You are?’ Montague looked up and tried to smile, but the pain he had been supressing for so long was fighting back. ‘I am not.’
She withdrew her hand and he did not blame her. What man would speak so ill of his relative? To be sure, she did not know the full story, did not know, could not comprehend what he had been through—
A sudden weight. Warmth. Comfort.
Montague looked down…to see Calliope’s hand had returned to his arm.
‘Now, with anyone else, I would have remarked that your retort was a little flippant,’ Calliope said quietly. ‘But I think you, Montague, are not the sort of man to be flippant about the things that truly matter.’
How did she do it? Peel back the layers of his soul and have a good look?
‘If my sister were here…but then she did not live with…’ Montague cleared his throat. ‘I do not wish to burden you.’
‘I do not think I will be that burdened. It is not my family, or my past, as I suspect is the problem,’ said Calliope quietly, painfully perceptive in her comments. ‘And you do not have to tell me. This—burden, as you call it, is yours to carry and put down whenever you wish.’
Her hand was removed, but it was not done so in punishment or statement. Rather, Calliope used it to open up her sketchbook and start to move her pencil firmly and confidently across the page.
The opposing page contained half a squirrel—the bottom half and the tail. The whole thing was only just legible, however, for she had scribbled over it.
Montague grinned, despite himself. This passionate woman of his.
‘The first time I saw a squirrel was at Trefusis House,’ he found himself saying. ‘My uncle’s home. He was the Earl of Trefusis, before…before my cousin.’
Calliope did not look up at him, but instead focused on the drawing coming to life underneath her fingertips. ‘The cousin who died.’
‘Yes. He, my uncle, he took me in when I was orphaned.’ Montague swallowed. ‘I was but thirteen.’
‘That is no age to lose a parent, let alone both. I speak from experience,’ said Calliope, her voice quivering ever so slightly. ‘That was the age I lost my father.’
So she did understand.