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With a deep breath, she nodded. “I will be.” She lifted her chin. “I always am.”
Calliope looked outside and watched the scenery of London pass by her window, until it was replaced by green hills dotted with fluffy sheep. It was so peaceful and serene that she couldn’t help but be transported to another time and place, where she had lived in harmony with her father and sisters. She yearned to return to those carefree days at times, but with the passage of the seasons, so too, did life change. She was no longer a little girl, but a woman grown, who had to find a way to manage on her own if she didn’t wish to be tied down to the strictures that came with a husband.
Although that had initially been the objective of all the Bevelstroke women, Araminta had been the first to fall to Cupid’s arrow with Lord Somers, followed almost immediately by Olivia with the Duke of Gravesend. They had found a true and everlasting love to keep them company for the rest of their days. While Viscount Blakely might be adept in the bedchamber, he was far from someone who could offer such abiding devotion.
She snorted, just imagining him being coerced to walk down the aisle. He would likely rather drown in the Thames. Honestly, his devil-may-care attitude was quite similar to hers, and yet, she would detest the fact she might cause injury to someone, whereas she was quite sure he had left a trail of broken hearts in his wake.
But perhaps she was being too harsh. He had been good friends with Araminta’s husband, so surely that commended him if nothing else. Then again, she knew his particular weakness for women with red hair, which she just happened to have. That alone was enough to steer clear of him, because flirtation could easily lead to more and she wasn’t willing to blur that line.
She realized that she should have refused to dance with him at the Langston Ball, as being in such proximity with him during the waltz, and again during supper, was enough to make her shudder in remembered awareness.
Thankfully, she could content herself in knowing that they would be separated for some time. Her absence should give him enough time to move on to his next paramour, and for her to put him out of her mind as well. Truly, he should have never found a way within her thoughts in the first place.
With determination, she directed her attention toward the task ahead. She had promised Mr. Bullock that she would send regular updates regarding her progress, and he was anxiously awaiting word from her.
Now all she had to do was follow through on her promise.
“This is the best you could come up with?”
Sebastian rolled his eyes as his grandfather, Harold Clearwater, Marquess of Abersheen, looked around their rented rooms at the Three Cups Hotel. Stooped over slightly from age, and limping from the gout that affected his right foot, he still held himself with the pride of the aristocracy. Even his wiry gray hair was neatly combed, when most of the time it appeared as though he’d spent the last few minutes trying to pull it out for some reason or another.
He turned in a slow circle. “Bah!” He waved a hand through the air. “It’s not fit for a rat.”
Of course, his reaction didn’t come as any surprise to Sebastian. “It was the best accommodations I could find since you adamantly proclaimed that you would not be staying with your cousin, Lord Grammel—”
“Damn that man’s eyes!” He jammed his cane onto the floor, emphasizing his displeasure. “He would like nothing more than to poison me so that I should die and his son might inherit my fortune.”
Sebastian’s mouth kicked up at the corner. “I doubt that’s the case—”
“I may be nine and eighty,” he continued, as if his grandson hadn’t even spoken, “But I am determined to outlive them all, just for spite.”
“I have no doubt that you will be successful in your endeavors,” Sebastian drawled. “I have always heard that the good die young.”
This earned him a sharp glare, but Sebastian merely lifted a brow as he waited for the rejoinder. It never came, likely because the marquess knew that he was right.
He continued to grumble as he made his way into his bedchamber that connected Sebastian’s by a solitary door in the middle. It was the nicest room that the innkeepers had available when Sebastian had written ahead with his request for lodgings, and he wasn’t about to let his grandfather’s displeasure keep him from accepting the offer. It wasn’t as though the old codger would have been content with any other place they had chosen to stay at.
Sebastian walked over to the window and glanced outside at the quaint village nestled along the Dorset coast. Situated directly across the street from the Three Cups Hotel was another coaching inn. The Royal Lion boasted the whitewashed exterior and timber framing that most of the historic buildings from the Tudor period were known for.
It was while he was observing the activity in the yard below that he abruptly forgot all else. A lady who looked entirely out of place in her peach day dress and straw bonnet was walking along the street, but the moment she turned her head, a copper tendril escaped her coiffure and blew across her face. She smiled at a woman walking beside her and the sight nearly knocked the wind from his chest.
It had been more than two weeks since he’d laid eyes on Lady Calliope. It had been the longest that he’d been deprived of her beauty since her initial arrival in London with her sisters during the Christmas season.
He drank in her loveliness and couldn’t force himself to turn away. It wasn’t until she rounded a corner and disappeared that he realized he was no longer alone.
He swiveled his head around to find that the marquess was peering in the same direction with a narrowed glare. “Is that the gel?”
Sebastian blinked in confusion, because he hadn’t spoken a word about Lady Calliope. “What?”
The cane slammed against the floor. “The gel that caused you to haul me all the way out here under some ridiculous pretense about my foot.” He tapped the bandaged appendage in question.
“I don’t know what you mean—” Sebastian tried to ease over the situation with a dose of his usual charm. When his grandfather struck his cane again, he gave up any further pretense. If this continued, they might be thrown out on their arses for disturbing the peace. “Very well.” He sighed. “Yes.”
The marquess snorted. “I should like to meet her, and since we’re already here, you might as well take me down to the shore to soak this blasted leg.”
Sebastian’s lips twisted as he bowed deeply. “Of course, my lord.” And then went to retrieve the three-wheeled Bath chair.
“You are too kind to meet me at the inn, Mrs. Anning,” Calliope said to her companion. “I had planned to call on you at the shop when I arrived, as I had mentioned in my letter.”
