Twelve

How dare he call me a coward!”

Callie paced the floor of her bedchamber, livid at the events of the evening. She had arrived home an hour before but hadn’t stopped moving long enough to allow Anne to help her undress.

Instead, the maid had taken up residence on the end of Callie’s bed, watching her mistress walk up and down the room as though she were watching a tennis match. “I’m not sure,” Anne said dryly, “particularly considering the fact that you attempted to strike him in a public theatre.”

Callie missed Anne’s amusement, instead grasping the maid’s words, throwing her hands into the air in frustration, and saying, “Exactly! There’s nothing cowardly about that!”

“Nothing ladylike about it either.”

“Yes, well, that’s beside the point,” Callie said. “What is the point is that Gabriel St. John, Marquess of Ralston, accosted me in a public theatre on the way to meet his mistress, and somehow contrived to place me in the wrong!” She stamped her foot. “How dare he call me a coward!”

Anne couldn’t keep the smile from her face. “To be fair, it does sound like you provoked him.”

Callie stopped pacing, turning to the maid incredulously. “For someone who, mere days ago, was concerned about my reputation being ruined for sneaking out to a tavern, you seem awfully quick to take Ralston’s side in this! You are supposed to defend me!”

“And I shall do so until the end of time, Callie. But you’ve set out to find yourself some adventure, and you have to admit that Ralston seems to have given you exactly the kind you were looking for.”

“I most certainly was not looking for him to haul off and kiss me in public!”

One of Anne’s eyebrows raised in a disbelieving gesture. “I suppose you didn’t enjoy it?”

“No!”

“Not at all?”

“Not a bit.”

“Mmm-hmm.” The maid’s response was rife with disbelief.

“I didn’t!”

“So you’ve said.” Anne stood, turning Callie toward the dressing table and setting to work unhooking the long row of buttons on the back of Callie’s dress.

They stood in silence for several long minutes before Callie spoke again. “All right, I may have liked it a little.”

“Ah, just a little.”

Callie sighed, turning in spite of Anne’s still working on the fastenings of her dress. The maid resumed her place on the bed as Callie began pacing again.

“Fine. More than a little. I enjoyed it immensely, just as I have all the other times he’s kissed me.” She caught the maid’s surprised look before saying, “Yes, there have been other times. And why wouldn’t I enjoy it? The man is clearly an expert kisser.”

Anne cleared her throat. “Clearly.”

Callie snapped her head around to look at her maid. “He is! Anne, you’ve never been kissed like that.”

“I shall have to take your word for it.”

Callie nodded seriously. “You shall. Ralston’s everything you’d imagine he would be…one moment he’s all tempting words and wicked glances, then his arms are around you, and you can’t quite understand how it all happened…”

She trailed off dreamily, looking up at the ceiling and clasping her gown to herself. Anne stood, thinking to take the opportunity to finish helping Callie undress, but before she could step away from the bed, Callie’s look had gone from dreamy to irritated, and she was at it again. “And then the rounder pulls away and looks at you with all the smug satisfaction of a complete and utter cad! And when you try to defend yourself—”

“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.