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Chapter Seventeen
“I’m ready to return to London.”
Sebastian blinked and glanced over at the marquess. They had made their way back to the shore the next morning, but no matter how much Seb might try to forget Calliope’s presence there the day before, he was hard pressed to ignore the loss. Although his grandfather’s abrupt announcement had certainly captured his attention. “What?”
“Has your hearing started to deteriorate so quickly then?” The marquess snorted. “If not, then I’m sure you understood me quite clearly.”
Sebastian frowned. “Don’t tell me your gout has been cured this soon?”
“It would take months for me to go without the use of a cane, and maybe not even then,” he returned gruffly. “We’ve overstayed our welcome, and it’s time we return to London where we belong.”
Sebastian didn’t miss the emphasis he put on the plural. He narrowed his gaze sharply. “Is this because of Lady Calliope?”
The marquess sniffed. “I could care less about Marlington’s gel.”
“I don’t believe you.”
His grandfather clenched his fist at his side in annoyance, and Sebastian was confident that he would have slammed his cane onto the nearby bathing machine if it had been within reach. It was his favorite way to get his point across. “You dare to call me a liar?”
“I do.” This was one fight that Sebastian wasn’t about to back down from. For all the years he’d known his grandfather, the man had been gruff, but never actually unkind toward anyone. “What really bothers you about the lady?”
“I answered that already. When it comes to a suitable viscountess—”
“No. I’m not accepting that. While you might have issue with the duke, the fact of the matter is, she comes from a good family and knows how to comport herself like a lady.”
The marquess snorted. “Has she, indeed? Cavorting with you at all hours of the night isn’t what I would exactly call proper behavior.”
Sebastian stilled. “I would be very careful what you say next.”
“Or what?” his grandfather challenged. “Shall you challenge me to a duel? Or push my wheeled chair down a flight of stairs and pray I break my neck?”
Rather than engage further, Sebastian shook his head. “I’m not staying here and listening to any more of the nonsense you spout. I used to tolerate your outbursts because you were all the family I had left, but if you dare to impugn Lady Calliope’s good name, trust me when I say I will disown you, blood or not.”
Sebastian didn’t wait for any sort of reply but turned his back and swam back toward the bathing machine to go back to shore. His grandfather could spend the rest of the day alone. If he wasn’t careful, that’s also how the marquess would end up. Without anyone else to care for him in his aged years, as Sebastian’s mother had been his only child and Sebastian was her only son, the marquess should think very hard about pushing away anyone that might give a damn whether he lived or died.
It was that very thought that caused Sebastian to pause amidst pulling on his trousers. With his vow to never marry and sire children, is that how he might end up?
The very image of him sitting alone in a dark room with a glass of brandy and a staid butler as his only company was rather sobering. He didn’t care to picture that sort of existence, but he didn’t know how to overcome the uncertainties about taking a wife. He wasn’t about to become a cuckold to any woman.
And yet…
He brought Grey to mind. The earl had his own misgivings about the wedded state throughout the years, but with one glance at Araminta Bevelstroke, he had known she was the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Sebastian had nearly had the exact same reaction when he’d spied Calliope that very night at the opera.
Attraction and lust weren’t enough to build a solid foundation for the future, but what they had shared in Lyme Regis had surely surpassed that. At least, he had never felt this way before. Perhaps it was the same for her.
He supposed there was only one way to find out.
After visiting with Mary the next morning, Calliope decided that she would return to the cliffs to search for fossils without her devoted guide. If nothing else, it would give her the chance to clear her mind of Sebastian—if that was even possible.
She sighed, as she feared that she was in very real danger of falling in love with him. Even though every instinct warned her to stay far away from him, she found it impossible to do so. All he had to do was crook his finger at her and she was running into his arms.
Walking along the strand would hopefully remind her that she was here for a purpose that didn’t include finding a prospective suitor. If that were the case, there had been no need to leave London, as she’d had her pick of gentlemen. She had come to Lyme Regis with the sole intention of making a name for herself, a way to leave her mark on society without claiming to just be the wife of one lord or another. She yearned to have her own voice, to be an individual, instead of a decorated lady on someone’s arm.
Calliope scanned the popular areas that Mary had pointed out to her, the places she had been the most fortunate to find something of import. She was bending down to inspect something that had just washed up on shore when the back of her neck prickled with awareness. She knew who was there before she straightened and turned around to spy Lord Blakely striding down the beach toward her.
He was so handsome that her heart started to beat a steady staccato. With the way his greatcoat flew out behind him, and his light hair blowing uninhibited in the breeze, he put her in mind of a fallen angel.
She waited patiently for him to meet her. The smile he flashed was devastating, and compared to his dark, enigmatic eyes, she was quite captured for a moment. “My lord,” she breathed.
