"My father and I used to go together every year." She ran her gloved hand over Hubert's poll, stroking him. "But no one else has very much interest in a cattle show. Lady Shelford doesn't like it, but she didn't forbid me. So… this is the first year I'll go alone."

The boards creaked. He came to the edge of the loft and knelt down. "You won't be alone," he said with a slight smile.

She lifted her lashes. In the dusky light of the stable, his rumpled neck cloth and open shirt points made him appear carelessly dashing, like a dark poet or some hero from a novel. She always felt as if she were living inside a story when she was with Trev, swept along on the excitement of some plot outside her own making.

"You'll bring an abigail, won't you?" he asked.

"Oh yes, of course." She awoke from the brief reverie that he had meant she wouldn't be alone, because he would be there. "Though—" She remem bered that she hadn't yet lit upon on a substitute for the lady's maid that she and Hermione shared. She stopped gazing up like a moonling into his face and busied herself with arranging the pitchfork on a hook. "Well, I must have someone, at any rate. Hermey needs Anne at home for the next fortnight, what with all the callers and visitations. Sir Thomas is taking her on a number of outings, and Lady Shelford has invited a great crowd of people for the hunting and a masquerade ball or some such." She sighed. "It's so difficult now to keep staff. I don't require anyone with experience. I might even borrow Lilly now that your mother has a nurse, if Mrs. Adam will spare her to me."

"Perfect," he said with a grin. He rose and vanished again, keeping watch from some hole in the loft in case Major Sturgeon should return.

Callie looked down at her toes. It really was quite all right. They would have one last lark and save his skin, and then… the rest of her life, she supposed.

She pulled her gloves on tightly. "I should go," she said, taking up a notch in her horse's girth. "He'll be quiet now until this hay is gone. But be sure to keep a full manger and a bucket of water in front of him."

"We will. The lane's empty if you make haste. Wait—do you still have that medicine box in your cattle barn?"

She paused, holding the reins in her hand as she looked up at the loft. They'd used to use the medicine box as their secret place to exchange messages. "Yes, it's there."

He made a satisfied sound. "Check it every morning."

"What of the key?"

For a long moment there was silence. Then he said quietly, "I still have it."