“You are flushing!” Jo observed. “You look ridiculously happy, dearest. The earl is not mistreating you, I take it?”
“Quite the opposite,” she admitted.
“That is wonderful,” her friend exclaimed, grinning.
“Perhaps too wonderful,” Callie said on a rush.
All the emotions that had been building within her over the course of the last month were ready to be set free. All the longing, the fears, the desire, the need, the dread, the caring, heavens help her, the love…
Jo frowned at her. “What is the matter, Callie? I would think the earl treating you well would be a source of relief for you. Not long ago, he was your bitter enemy. Do you trust him now?”
“I do.” Callie sighed, searching for the proper words to convey the confusing mix of feelings inhabiting her. “That is the problem. I trust him implicitly. I have realized I was desperately wrong to ever think him capable of hurting another. I have learned so much about him in the last month. He dotes over his hard-of-hearing, near-sighted butler. His mother’s mind is frail, but instead of sending her away, he has been looking after her, seeing to her care even when he had to sell off nearly all the pictures and household possessions of value to pay his debts. Everything I have seen of him thus far is surprisingly noble and good.”
Jo pressed a hand to her heart. “The butler is hard of hearing? And there is a mad mother-in-law? Please tell me she is not hiding in the attics.”
Callie laughed weakly. Leave it to her friend to find some lightness in the moment. “She is ensconced in a regular chamber, and she is being looked after by a nursemaid. We have hired a replacement because Sin did not trust the previous woman in his employ, but she was all he had been able to afford. When I think of how I set out to ruin him, I feel sick.”
“You were hurting, Callie. Your brother’s death was unusual, and Lady Sinclair passing away on the same night was suspicious. I do not blame you for wondering and for wanting to do everything in your power to find the truth.” Jo’s voice was sympathetic.
Callie did not think she deserved her friend’s sympathy or understanding.
“But was I trying to find the truth, or was I only seeing what I wanted to see and believing what I wanted to believe, regardless of who I hurt in the process?” Sadness cut through her. How wrong she had been.
How selfish.
How careless.
She had ruined a good man. A man who was far better than she had ever imagined. A man whose bed she slept in each night, who touched and kissed her with such tenderness that it made her ache just to think of it now, when he was nowhere in sight.
“You have a good heart, Callie,” Jo said. “It looked damning. There is no denying that. And his reputation was blackened before you even wroteConfessions of a Sinful Earl.”
He had indeed achieved a reputation for running with a fast set. For seducing legions of women. For being wicked. For doing whatever he wished and not giving a damn about the repercussions.
But it was increasingly difficult to reconcile the Sin she had heard about with the Sin she had come to know. The Duchess of Longleigh had told her Sin was a good man, and Callie had seen the evidence herself.
“I know all that, but he is nothing like what I expected him to be.” She sighed. “Oh, Jo. What if I am falling in love with him?”
There it was, her biggest fear. Because Sin himself had told her theirs was a marriage of convenience. He had told her he did not believe in love. His last wife had left scars upon his heart, that much was undeniable.
Jo’s brows rose. “In love? You think you are fallingin lovewith the Earl of Sinclair?”
Callie gave a miserable nod. “I never expected to like him, let alone care for him. But there is something about him that makes me feel emotions I never felt before. Not even with Simon.”
The last admission came with a pang of accompanying guilt. She could not help but to feel she tarnished his memory by feeling such a depth of emotion for another man, and in such a short amount of time. A man who she had not long ago considered her enemy. A man she had been determined to destroy.
“Do you think he feels the same way?” Jo queried softly, giving voice to another of Callie’s fears.
“I hardly know.” Her voice trembled. “He has not been forthright with his emotions.”
“But he is otherwise attentive?” her friend pressed.
Quite attentive.
Deliciously so.
Her cheeks went hot all over again. She could not meet Jo’s inquisitive gaze. “Yes, I dare say he is.”
“Your cheeks are red as an apple,” Jo accused, chuckling. “Good heavens, I never thought to see the day Lady Calliope Manning was embarrassed over something.”
