Damnation.Of all the times for the not-so-distant past to return in his mother’s mind, now was not it. Sin could feel his wife’s gaze upon him, questioning. But he had revealed enough to her for one day. He could not bear to relive the death of his daughter as well.
“I am not certain,” Callie said, her voice hesitant as she began weaving the strands of his mother’s hair into a braid.
“Why do you look so bloody Friday-faced, Ferdy?” Mama asked him. “You know I cannot abide by sadness. Smile, if you please.”
Sin did as his mother asked. For her, he wouldalwaysfind a smile.
Chapter Eighteen
How wicked is the heart, dear reader, that it leads to such vile treachery?
~ fromConfessions of a Sinful Earl
Callie stared ather reflection in the looking glass, wondering if Sin was going to come to her. Her hair was unbound, and she had already had her bath, partially in the hopes he would interrupt.
But he had not.
He had been quiet after their visit to his mother’s chamber. Withdrawn and cooler than he ordinarily was. He had excused himself and told her that she ought to go to bed without waiting for him. She had sensed he had not been ready to discuss everything that had been revealed to her this evening.
Of all the secrets she had suspected him of keeping, she had never supposed that one would be a beautiful, white-haired woman who had lost her mind. Or that his former wife had been pregnant with his child, a child who had obviously not survived. The haunted expression on her husband’s face had revealed far more to her than his mother’s confused jumble of memories ever could.
Her heart ached for him.
The love he felt for his mother had been apparent. And as the elder woman had wandered in and out of the past and present, mistaking him for another and then seeming to remember him for a moment, Callie’s inner anguish for him had grown. As had her compassion. Although her relationship with her own parents had never been close prior to their deaths, she could not imagine how difficult it must be for him to know his mother no longer recognized him.
And yet, he had navigated the situation with effortless aplomb, answering to Ferdy, smiling for his mother when she had demanded it. His mother had been in good spirits when they had left her in the care of her nursemaid. And as for Callie…well, something had shifted for her tonight.
The more time she spent in his presence, the more apparent it became that there was much more to the Earl of Sinclair than she had previously supposed.
Deciding she had spent too much time awaiting him, Callie took a deep breath and straightened her dressing gown. Beneath it, she was nude. Not even a night rail. After the tattered remnants he had left her last gown in, she had deemed it best. Besides, there was something about her naked flesh against the softness of her robe that heightened her awareness.
If only her husband would come to bed. Or invite her into his.
She knocked on the door joining their chambers and received no answer. Suspecting he had yet to come to bed, she opened the door to find his apartments empty, just as she had thought. There was only one solution to her problem—if Sin would not come to her, she would go to him.
Callie made certain all the buttons on her dressing gown were buttoned up and she was not showing any excess skin lest she cross paths with a servant, and then she left her chamber. It did not take long to find him, for there was a light glowing beneath his study door.
She knocked.
“What is it now, Langdon?” her husband asked, his tone irritated. “I thought I told you and Eloise to go to bed.”
Callie opened the door and crossed the threshold, closing it at her back. Sin was standing near the fireplace, holding a glass of amber-colored liquid in his long fingers. His dark gaze settled upon her, seeming to devour her from where he was, halfway across the room.
Her nipples went hard beneath her dressing gown.
“It is not Langdon,” she said quietly, feeling unaccountably nervous.
Perhaps he wanted to be alone. Mayhap he did not wish for her company. Surely there was a reason he had delayed in coming to bed. Why would he prefer to remain in his study, drinking, by himself?
“I would like to think myself capable of telling the difference between my wife and my butler and his dog,” he said, passing a hand over his angular jaw.
“Have you spoken with him?” Callie asked. “About a cottage in the country?”
“I have.” Sin raised his glass to her in a mock toast. “The stubborn old goat insists he must remain here, where he is needed.”
She had wondered whether or not Langdon would truly wish to leave. And whether or not her husband would make him. It would seem she had her answer. Sin’s mother had been right. Her beautiful son did have an endless heart.
“You will allow him to stay?” she queried.
