She said those words and actually felt them.That was exactly what he’d done.He’d asked for what he desired and then sent her on her way, making no attempt to push anything on her that she didn’t want.
Which only made her want him more, truth be told.Perhaps that was his game.
“I just hope you’ll be careful,” Fanny said with a shiver.“A man can snatch power back so quickly one’s head will spin.”
“Indeed, I know that,” Valaria whispered as the carriage rolled into the drive in front of her home.She glanced out the window and saw that the front door was open and standing on the top step leading in were Flora and Bernadette.
“Oh dear, I had forgotten we had planned for tea this afternoon,” she gasped.That was what spending time with Callum did to her.Made her only focus on him.
She hopped from the carriage the moment it stopped and rushed toward her friends.“Goodness, you must think I’m the worst featherhead,” she gasped.
Flora and Bernadette both laughed as they embraced her in turn.“Of course not,” Bernadette said as they all moved inside together.
“Will you have tea readied for the parlor?”Valaria asked Higgins as they began to make their way to that very room.
“Of course, Your Graces,” the butler said with a swift bow as he hustled away.
“I swear my new staff will all despise me, I’ve so been distracted of late.I’m certain I create a great deal of work for them,” Valaria said as they all took their seats.Flora and Bernadette sat together on the settee, Valaria on a chair across from them.
“You are too hard on yourself,” Flora said gently.“It sometimes feels you expect a perfection I do not think you would ask for from anyone else.”
Valaria blinked as the truth of that statement sank in.And the root of it was equally clear to her.Her parents had expected perfection, for her never to make a peep or ask for too much.And they had married her off to a man who punished when great lofty heights had not been reached.
It was an almost instinctual thing to see failure in any flaw now.To await censure when she was not exactly as she “should” be.
“Perhaps that is true,” she murmured.“I suppose it is something I do not have to force upon myself now that I am a widow of means and independence.I can make mistakes with impunity.”She shuddered at those words, which now hung in the air around her.“Well, almost impunity.”
Flora tilted her head.“What kinds of mistakes would you like to make?”she asked with a slight smile.
“Oh yes,” Bernadette said, and her laughter was like music in the air.“I would love to plan some good old-fashioned mistakes that we can giggle over later.Make a scandal together.”
Valaria shifted.A scandal was exactly what she wanted to avoid and what she could easily create if she took Callum up on his offer to become her lover.Oh yes, widows had far more leeway in how they managed their paramours, but not mere months into their “grief”.
And yet…it was the mistake she most wanted to make.
“Dearest,” Bernadette said, and Valaria jolted as she reached across the distance between them and caught her hand.“You are distracted and seem worried.I know it’s…it’s hard for you to trust new people, I think.That’s understandable.But Flora and I consider you a friend.And perhaps if you talk to us, we could help you.”
Valaria stared at these two women, with their kind eyes and easy kinship that had been such a balm on her soul in the short time she’d known them.She couldn’t tell them everything, but couldn’t she just tell them…tell them this?
She cleared her throat.“I admit, I fear you would judge me.”
“We wouldnever,” Flora said with a firm determination that was hard to deny.“I promise you that if nothing else.You’ll find no judgment here.”
That was impossible to believe, of course.But she found herself drawing a deep breath regardless.“What do you think of a lady—hypothetically, of course—who took a lover while still in mourning?”
Both women drew back a fraction and exchanged a quick look.Valaria tensed immediately, but swiftly realized they were both simply surprised, not disapproving.
“I-I think it is none of anyone’s business how a person grieves,” Flora said carefully.
“Or doesn’t grieve,” Bernadette said, and met Valaria’s gaze as if she understood better than Flora what the situation was.
“I-I do grieve what was,” Valaria said softly.“And what never was.”She hesitated.No, she would not go further than that.She was already in dangerous waters with Callum, she wasn’t about to add these two to the mix.“But today something happened that made me feel…”
She trailed off and briefly thought of Callum between her legs, bright eyes watching as she shattered against his tongue.His fingers pressing into her thighs, his mouth so perfectly attuned to what she wanted.Needed.
“It made me feel alive for the first time in a very long time,” she whispered.“And I don’t want it to stop.”
“Oh my,” Bernadette said, and lightly fanned herself.“It sounds like something amazing.Why should you want it to stop?”
