“By striking him?”
“And when you try to defend yourself,” Callie repeated, “do you know what he does?”
“He calls you a coward?” Anne asked wryly.
“He calls you a coward! He’s utterly infuriating!”
“It seems so,” Anne said, making her way to work on Callie’s buttons once more.
This time, Callie allowed her access, standing still as the gown came loose in her hands and she stepped out of it. Anne then set to work on the laces of her corset, and Callie sighed as the tight garment came undone. A modicum of Callie’s anger was released with the stiff confines of the stays.
Standing in her chemise, she wrapped her arms around her middle and took a deep breath. Anne guided her to sit at the dressing table and began to comb Callie’s long brown hair. The feeling was rather glorious, and Callie sighed, eyes closed.
“Of course, I enjoyed the kiss,” she muttered after a while.
“So it seems,” Anne said, matter-of-factly.
“I wish I wasn’t such a fool around Ralston.”
“You’ve always been a fool about Ralston.”
“Yes, but now I am near him far more. It’s different.”
“Why?”
“Before I merely daydreamed about Ralston. Now I find myself actually with him. Actually talking to him. Actually discovering the real Ralston. He is no longer a creature I invented. He is flesh and blood and…now I can’t help wondering…” She trailed off, unwilling to say what she was thinking. What if he were mine?
She did not have to say the words aloud; Anne heard them anyway. When Callie opened her eyes and met Anne’s gaze in the looking glass, she saw Anne’s response there. Ralston is not for you, Callie.
“I know, Anne,” Callie said quietly, as much to remind herself as to reassure her friend.
Of course, she didn’t know. Not anymore. Mere weeks ago, Callie would have laughed at the idea that Gabriel St. John even knew her name…let alone was willing to engage in conversation with her. And now…Now he was kissing her in darkened carriages and darkened hallways…and reminding her why she had been such a fool for him since the beginning.
He had been on his way to see his opera singer that evening—Callie was sure of it—and there was no question that she was no match for the Greek beauty. He could not be attracted to her.
She faced herself in the looking glass, cataloging her flaws: her brown hair, so very common and uninteresting; her too-large brown eyes; her round face, so unlike the heart-shaped faces of the beauties of the ton; her too-wide mouth, not at all the perfect bow that it should have been. With each feature, she considered the women to whom Ralston had been linked before, all Helens of Troy, with faces that stopped men in their tracks.
He had left her and gone to his mistress, who had most definitely welcomed him with open arms. What woman in her right mind wouldn’t?
And Callie had returned home to her cold, empty bed…and dreamed of the impossible.
Tears sprang to her eyes, and Callie tried to dash them away before Anne could see, but soon they were coming fast, on top of each other, and she couldn’t hide her sadness. She sniffled, drawing attention from the maid, who, with one look, stopped combing and crouched low next to her lady.
Callie allowed the older woman to put her arms around her, and she placed her head upon Anne’s shoulder and allowed the tears to come. She sobbed into the rough wool of the maid’s gown, exposing the sadness that had consumed her for years. Through a decade of seasons, the weddings of all of her friends, Mariana’s betrothal—a decade of being moved higher and higher upon the shelf—she had hidden her sorrow, refusing to allow her regret to shadow the happiness of others.
But now, with Ralston wreaking havoc on her senses and reminding her of everything she had always wanted and would never have, it was too much. She could no longer hold it in.
She cried for long minutes, Anne murmuring soothing sounds as she stroked Callie’s back. When she was done, unable to find the energy to continue with tears, Callie sat up straight, pulling back from Anne and offering a watery smile of self-conscious thanks. “I don’t know what’s come over me.”
“Oh, Callie-mine,” Anne said, her voice taking on the tone she’d used when Callie was a little girl and crying over some injustice, “your white knight, he will come.”
One side of Callie’s mouth kicked up in a wry smile. Anne had said the words countless times over the last two decades. “Forgive me, Anne, but I’m not so certain that he will.”