"Acquainted with her!" Trev stopped in the motion of lifting his cup. "The deuce you say."

Callie raised her face. "He says he met her in Belgium, at a picnic after Waterloo. He seems to"—she cleared her throat—"to know her rather intimately."

He swore under his breath. "That's impossible. He must be feigning it. He suspects something. Damn, he followed you here?" He paced a step and turned. "It's as well you didn't go out again."

"He isn't pretending," Callie said. "I think he does know Madame Malempré. I think he knows her very well."

Trev looked at her sharply. "You do?"

Callie nodded. She lowered her eyes and took a sip of her tea.

"What did he say to you?" There was a taut edge in his voice.

"Not to me," she said. "He thought he was speaking to her."

"Indeed," Trev said suspiciously. "And just what did he say?"

Callie thought a moment. She wasn't sure she wished for Trev to know everything he had said. "He seems to have had an encounter with her, in a garden summerhouse."

He snorted. "An encounter in—" He stopped short. He stared, as if at some distant place, and then turned his back to her, looking out the window.

"Who is she, this Madame Malempré? Do you know her too?" Callie asked.

"Mordieu, it's just the name of a town I passed through once!" He made an impatient gesture, as if tossing something away from him. "I remembered it when I ordered the tarpaulins, that's all."

She gazed at his back. "It was quite an unfortunate choice, then." She gave a little shrug. "He would like to renew his acquaintance with her."

"Oh, he would, would he?" He turned back swiftly his jaw hardening. "He didn't touch you? You should have called Charles—" He stopped again. He frowned and then gave Callie an amazed look. "And he's been courting you, hasn't he?" It had taken a few moments longer for him to notice the incongruity of the situation than it had for her. He seemed shocked, as if he could not quite comprehend what he had just realized. "Callie!"

She lifted her eyebrows, trying to look arch. "Yes, it's rather a blunder on his part. That's why I think he isn't pretending."

"That whoreson bastard!" he exclaimed, striding across the room. He followed it up with several words in French that she had never heard in any lessons. He was not as amused by it all as she had expected. "By God, I'll kill him."

He had reached as far as the door by the time Callie had untangled herself from the robe and shawl. He seemed to have come to his senses, or at least paused to consider what method by which to eradicate the major, for he stopped and turned around. Callie was on her feet by then.

"Let me be certain I understand you," he said. "Sturgeon has asked you to marry him?"

"Yes," she said.