“You don’t sound very convincing about that fact…or pleased,” Theo said.
Callum glanced at his friend.Theo was really far too observant—it was an unforgivable sin.“I should be pleased,” he admitted.“We are having fun together.I have no complaints.And I should know there could be no future in it.She makes it clear she doesn’t want more.”
“But you do.”It was a statement, not a question, and Theo was looking at him like he was daring Callum to deny it.
Only he couldn’t.Because there it was, a fact he’d been trying so desperately to avoid.One he couldn’t say out loud to any other person in this world except for the man standing before him.
“Yes,” he said, his voice barely carrying in the quiet.“If I am honest, I would like more.I would at least like to know her more.To understand why she sometimes has…fearin her eyes.To ease that fear.To show her that she doesn’t have to fear me.”
Theo’s mouth tightened.“Does that leave me to believe that I guessed correctly about the cruelty of her husband?”
Callum sucked in a harsh breath.“That isn’t my secret to tell.”
“I’ll assume that’s a yes.”Theo shook his head.“Not that I ever believed otherwise.But you did.You cared for Silas, not that he deserved you.How do you feel now?”
Callum scrubbed a hand over his face.He’d been trying to avoid that question for days now.Trying not to let his feelings overwhelm when there were so many of them screaming in his head at once.
“I feel,” he said slowly.“I feel like I don’t know anything about the world anymore.Like nothing is entirely real.After all, if I can midjudge someone so close to me for so long, how can I trust anything anymore?”
“You misjudged him because you compared him to yourself.You believed that he would not do anything that you wouldn’t do,” Theo said, his tone remarkably gentle.“That was naïve, perhaps, which you normally aren’t.But if you saw the best in him, that only means the best about you.”
“Perhaps,” Callum whispered.“I’d take naivety over purposefully blind any day.”He sighed.“But now I must mourn what I thought he was, almost like he’s dead all over again.And realize that Valaria’s emotions on him are just as complicated and delicate.More so, because she endured so much.”
“Then perhaps your time together will heal you both,” Theo said.“Assuming she’ll let you get past those walls of hers.”
Callum nodded.If he could have nothing else, the idea that an affair with each other could help her heal even a little was intoxicating.How he wanted to gift her that, as well as pleasure to meter the pain for them both.“And how would you suggest I do that?”
“Show her that however long or short the future you could share would be, that you will protect her.That you will be exactly what you are: ten times the man Silas was.And that trusting you with either her body or something more…important…is something that shouldn’t frighten her.”
There was a thought, and one that Callum knew would haunt him.Share more than her body.Was that what he wanted?He couldn’t think about that at present.
“I have no idea if what you suggest is possible.And I wouldn’t think you’d approve, scoundrel that you are.”
Theo laughed.“If you’re going to moon over some woman, I’d rather see it be someone intriguing like Valaria, not a boring lady connected to fortune and title who drives you to an early grave.And if you think this woman could, at some point, make you happy, I suppose we should deduce that now so you’ll know what your next steps could be.”
“God, is it possible you are a good man in a bastard’s disguise?”Callum teased.
Theo leaned closer.“If you ever tell anyone that, I swear I shall have your head.”
Now Callum laughed, as well.“Well, if my secrets are safe with you, yours are safe with me.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Theo said and held up his glass to Callum.But even as they playfully toasted and the subject turned to something far less fraught, Callum couldn’t help but think of Valaria.And wonder what the future could bring with her if he could ever get past her walls.
* * *
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Valaria muttered as she read the invitation that had arrived in the midst of tea with Flora and Bernadette.“Why can the Duke of Lightmorrow not get it through his pretty skull that I am in mourning and cannot flit around London to parties?”
Bernadette got up from her place on the settee and rushed to her side, snatching the missive from her fingers.“Lightmorrow asked you to a party?”she asked as she scanned the pages with far too interested a gaze.
“No doubt he has invited you two, as well, as he says something about my friends,” Valaria said, and paced across the room.
She was not in a good humor and she rather hated herself for it.She wanted to be light and fun for the sake of these women, but all she could think about was Callum.He had come to her every day for three days and then…poof.He had sent word yesterday that he could not join her and she hadn’t heard from him at all today.
Was he finished with their affair?Had she bored him to tears and he was already off with some other woman?Oh, how she hated the tales she weaved while she lay in her bed, desperately trying to recreate the pleasures she shared with him and cursing her hand for its inadequacies.
“Did you hear me, Valaria?”It was Flora who spoke and Valaria forced herself to look at her friend, who was now holding the note.“You two are so distracted, neither one of you can read.The Duke of Lightmorrow is not having aparty, but merely a gathering of friends.It’s clearly just for the five of us, as it was that night when we went to Blackvale’s London estate.”
“You didn’t mind that, Valaria,” Bernadette said.“Certainly it would be nice to get out and have fun with friends.”
