“Oh? I should be interested in seeing how you accomplish that, as you cannot reveal my escape without calling attention to your own,” she teased.
“Too true.” Benedick’s white teeth flashed. “Well, then, you can stay.”
“Thank you.” She toasted him with her glass of sherry. “You are too kind.”
Benedick swirled a glass of scotch lazily as Callie drank deeply and relaxed in the chair with her eyes closed, enjoying their companionable silence. After several minutes, he spoke. “And so, what sent you fleeing the familial rite?”
Callie did not open her eyes. “Aunt Beatrice.”
“What did the old bird do now?”
“Benedick!”
“Are you about to tell me that you don’t think of her in a remarkably similar way?”
“Thinking of her in such a manner is one thing. Saying it aloud is quite another.”
Benedick laughed. “You are too well behaved for your own good. So what did our dear, revered, valued aunt do to send you fleeing to a darkened room?”
She sighed, refilling her glass. “She did nothing that no other member of the two families represented in that room failed to do. She simply did it more rudely.”
“Ah. Marriage.”
“She actually said—” She paused, taking a deep breath. “No. I will not give her the pleasure of repeating it.”
“I can imagine.”
“No, Benny. You cannot.” She sipped her sherry. “I vow, had I known that this was how spinsterhood would be, I would have married the first man who proposed to me.”
“The first man who proposed to you was an idiot vicar.”
“You shouldn’t speak ill of the clergy.”
Benedick snorted and took a long pull of scotch.
“Fine. I would have married the second man who proposed. Geoffrey was quite attractive.”
“If you hadn’t turned him down, Callie, Father would have. He was an inveterate gambler and a notorious drunk. He died in a gambling hell, for goodness sake.”
“Ah, but then I would be a widow. No one insults widows.”
“Yes, well, I’m not sure that’s true, but if you insist…” Benedick paused. “Do you really wish you were married to one of them?”
Callie drank again, letting the sweet wine linger on her tongue as she considered the question. “No, not to anyone who has ever asked me,” she said. “I wouldn’t like to be chattel to some horrible man who married me only for money or land or to be aligned with the Allendale earldom…but I wouldn’t refuse a love match.”
Benedick chuckled. “Yes, well, a love match is an entirely different thing altogether. They don’t come along every day.”
“No,” she agreed, and the two lapsed into silence. After several long moments of contemplation, Callie said, “No…what I would really like is to be a man.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I would! For example, if I told you that you had to spend the next three months suffering unfeeling remarks related to Mari’s wedding, what would you say?”
“I should say, ‘Hang that,’ and avoid the whole thing.”
Callie used her sherry glass to point in his direction. “Exactly! Because you are a man!”
“A man who has succeeded in avoiding a great number of events that would have led to criticism of my unmarried state.”
“Benedick,” Callie said frankly, raising her head, “the only reason you were able to avoid those events is because you’re a man. I, unfortunately, cannot play by the same rules.”
“Whyever not?”
“Because I am a woman. I cannot simply avoid the balls and dinners and teas and dress fittings. Oh, God. Dress fittings. I’m going to have to suffer through all these horrid piteous stares again…while Mariana is in her wedding gown…in a modiste’s shop. Oh, God.” She covered her eyes against the image.
“I still fail to see the reason why you cannot just avoid the horrid events. Fine, you have to be at the ball announcing their engagement. You must attend the wedding. But beg off everything else.”
“I cannot do that!”
“Again, I ask, whyever not?”
“Decent women no more beg off events like that than they take lovers. I have a reputation to worry about!”
Now it was his turn to snort. “What utter nonsense. Calpurnia. You are twenty-eight years old.”
“It’s not very gentlemanly of you to speak of my age. And you know I hate it when you call me Calpurnia.”
“You’ll suffer through. You are twenty-eight years old, unmarried, and have, quite possibly, the most pristine reputation of any member of the ton, no matter their gender or their age. For God’s sake, when was the last time you went anywhere without your lace cap?”
She glared at him. “My reputation is all I have. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Benedick.” She reached down to pour another glass of sherry.
“Indeed, you’re right. It’s all you have now. But you could have more. Why not reach out and take it?”
“Are you encouraging me to tarnish our good name?” Callie asked incredulously, freezing, decanter in one hand, glass in the other. Benedick raised one eyebrow at the tableau. Callie set the bottle down. “You do realize that if I do so, you, as the earl, will likely suffer the repercussions?”
“I’m not suggesting you take a lover, Callie. Nor am I hoping that you’ll cause a scene. I’m simply arguing that you hold yourself to a rather high standard for…well…someone who need not worry so much about a slight mark on her reputation. I assure you, skipping odious wedding-related events will not impact the state of the earldom.”
“While I’m at it, why not drink scotch and smoke a cheroot?”
“Why not?”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Callie, I feel certain that the house will not crumble around us if you have a drink. Though I’m not certain you would enjoy it.” He let silence stretch out for several minutes before continuing. “What else would you want to do?”
She thought carefully about the answer to that question. What if there were no repercussions? What would she do? “I don’t know. I’ve never allowed myself to think of such things.”
“Well, allow yourself now. What would you do?”
“As much as I could.” The answer came fast, surprising them both, but once the words were spoken, Callie realized the truth in them. “I don’t want to be impeccably mannered. You’re right. Twenty-eight years of perfect behavior is too long.” She laughed as she heard herself say the words.
He joined her. “And, so? What would you do?”
“I would throw away my lace cap.”
“A given, I would hope.” He scoffed at her. “Come now, Calpurnia. You can be more creative than that. No repercussions, and you choose three things you can do in your own home?”
She smiled, cuddling deeper into her chair, warming to the game. “Learn to fence.”
“Now you’ve got it,” he said, encouragingly. “What else?”
“Attend a duel!”
“Why stop there? Use your newfound fencing skills to fight one,” he pointed out matter-of-factly.
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think I actually want to hurt anyone.”
“Ah,” he said, all seriousness, “so we have found the line you do not wish to cross.”
“One of them, it seems. But I should enjoy firing a pistol, I think. Just not at another person.”
“Many do enjoy that particular activity,” he allowed. “What else?”
She looked up at the ceiling, thinking. “Learn to ride astride.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “Really. Sidesaddle seems so…missish.”
He laughed at her disdain.
“I would—” She stopped as another item flashed through her mind. Kiss someone. Well. She certainly couldn’t say that aloud to her brother. “I would do all the things men take for granted. And more,” she said. Then, “I would gamble! In a men’s club!”
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“Oh ho! And how would you manage that?”
She thought for a moment. “I suppose I should have to masquerade as a man.”
He shook his head in amusement, “Ah…mother’s Shakespeare fascination finally becomes relevant to our lives.” She giggled as he continued, “I think that’s where I would draw the line. The Earls of Allendale could lose privileges at White’s if you tried that.”
“Well, lucky for you, I am not about to attempt to sneak into White’s. Or do any of those other things, either.” Was that disappointment in her tone?
Silence descended again, both siblings lost in their own thoughts, until Benedick raised his glass to his lips to finish his drink. Before it reached his mouth, he paused and, instead, held the glass out, arm extended toward his sister in a silent offer. For a fleeting moment, Callie considered the crystal tumbler, knowing full well that Benedick’s offer was for more than the finger of scotch left in the glass.
She shook her head finally, and the moment passed. Benedick threw back the liquid and spoke again. “I am sorry about that,” he said, rising from his chair. “I should be happy to hear of you taking a risk or two, sister.”
The comment, spoken carelessly as he moved to leave, landed heavily on Callie’s ears. She barely listened to the dry question that followed, “Do you think I’m safe in leaving this room? Or will we have to hunker down until the wedding?”
She shook her head distractedly, and replied, “I should think you’re safe. Tread carefully.”
“Will you join me?”
“No, thank you. I think I shall remain here and ponder a life of adventure.”
He grinned at her. “Excellent. Let me know if you decide to set sail for the Orient on the morrow.”
She matched his smile with her own. “You shall be the first to hear of it.”
With that, he made his exit, leaving Callie to her thoughts.
She sat for a long while, listening as the sounds of the house quieted, guests leaving, the family retiring to bed, the servants clearing the rooms that were used for the dinner, all the while playing the last moments with Benedick over and over in her mind and wondering, What if?
What if she could live a life other than the staid, boring mockery of one that she currently lived? What if she could do all the things that she would never dream of doing? What was to keep her from taking such a leap?
At twenty-eight, no one much thought about her. Her reputation had been impeccable for years—for all the years that it had mattered that she retain such an untarnished name. It wasn’t as if she were about to traipse off and completely destroy that reputation, anyway. She wasn’t going to do anything that a well-respected male member of the ton wouldn’t do on any given day without a second thought. And if they could, why shouldn’t she?
She reached up and removed the pins securing her lace cap. Once it came free from its moorings, she plucked it from her head, several long curls of hair tumbling free as she did so, and held it in her hands, turning it over and over as she considered her next move. When had she become the type of woman who wore lace caps? When had she given up hope of being en vogue? When had she become the type of person to allow Aunt Beatrice’s malice to send her into hiding?
She stood, slightly unsteady, and moved slowly to the fireplace, wringing the cap in her hands, the heady combination of her conversation with Benedick and the sherry offering a heightened sense of power. She stared down at the dying embers, the hiss of the orange coals taunting her.
What would she do if she could change it all?
Without pause, she tossed the lace cap into the fireplace. For a few long moments, nothing happened; the round disk of cloth simply lay there, its pristine whiteness in stark contrast to the hot, charred wood. Just as Callie began to wonder if she should reach in and retrieve the now-ruined garment, it burst into flames.
She gasped, taking a small step back in the face of the angry orange fire that engulfed the small piece of lace, but was unable to stop herself from crouching low and watching as the finely wrought fabric took on a life of its own, curling and coloring until every inch of it was aflame.
Watching her lace cap burn, Callie started to laugh, feeling at once scandalous and wonderful—as though she could do anything she had ever dreamed.
Spinning on one heel, she marched across the room to the earl’s desk. After lighting a stubbed candle, she opened the top drawer and removed a clean sheet of paper from its place. Smoothing her hand across it, she pondered the vast, ecru expanse before nodding emphatically, opening the silver inkpot that sat nearby, and reaching for a pen.
She dipped the nib of the pen in the black ink and considered the list of things that she would do…if she had the courage.
The first answer was obvious and, while she hadn’t wanted to share it with Benedick earlier, she felt strongly that she should be honest with herself and commit it to paper. After all, it was the only item she could think of that she truly dreaded never being able to complete.
Setting the nib to the parchment, she wrote, her script strong and certain.
Kiss someone
She looked up as soon as the words were written, half-afraid that she would be discovered writing such a scandalous thing. Returning her attention to the words on the paper, she cocked her head to one side. It didn’t seem enough, did it? “Kiss someone” didn’t seem to capture exactly what she meant.
Biting her lower lip, she added one word.
Kiss someone—Passionately
Callie let out a long breath—one that she hadn’t known she was holding in. No turning back now, she thought to herself, I’ve already written the most scandalous thing.
The next few items came easily, born of her conversation with Benedick.
Smoke cheroot and drink scotch
Ride astride
Fence
Attend a duel
Fire a pistol
Gamble (at a gentleman’s club)
After a flurry of activity, Callie brought her head up and sat back, looking at the words she had written. A hint of a smile played across her lips as she considered each item, imagining herself seated in a smoky room at White’s, scotch in one hand, playing cards in the other, sabre lying at her feet, discussing the duel she was to attend the next morning. The image brought a deep chuckle from far within. Imagine!
She almost stopped there, with the seven items that had come quickly. But for all that the list was a flight of fancy, Callie knew that it was much more. It was a chance for her finally to be honest with herself. To write down the things that she would most desperately like to experience. The things that she had never admitted to anyone—not even herself. With a heartfelt sigh, she eyed the list, knowing that the next few items would be the most difficult to write.
“Right, then.” She spoke the words in a strong tone, as if preparing herself for battle. Then, she set pen to paper.
Dance every dance at a ball
Her lips twisted in a self-deprecating smile. Well, Callie, that item proves that this is an imaginary list. She adored dancing. She always had. When she was a child, she used to sneak from her bedchamber to watch the balls her parents had hosted. There, high above the ballroom, she would twirl and twirl in time to the music, imagining that her night rail was a beautiful silk gown to rival the ones swirling below. Dancing was the one thing that Callie had looked forward to when she had her first season; but as she had aged into spinsterhood, invitations had tapered off. She hadn’t danced a country dance in—well, it had been a long, long time. Too long.
There in the darkness, she allowed herself to admit that all those years of standing on the edges of ballrooms across London had taken their toll. She loathed being a wallflower, but she had never been able to lift herself out of that position. And, in the ten years since her debut, she had become so comfortable as a witness to the elegance of society that she couldn’t imagine actually being at the center of it. Of course, she would never be at its center. The women at the nexus
of the ton were beautiful. And Callie was too plain, too plump, too boring to be considered beautiful. Blinking back tears, she scrawled the next item on the list.
Be considered beautiful. Just once.
It was the most unlikely item on the list…she could only remember one time, one fleeting moment in her life when she had even come close to achieving the goal. But, thinking back on that night long ago, when the Marquess of Ralston had made her feel beautiful, Callie was certain that he hadn’t perceived her that way. No, he was just a man who did what he could to make a young girl feel better so that he could escape to a midnight tryst. But in that moment he had made her feel beautiful. Like an empress. How she wanted to be that girl again; how she wanted to feel like Calpurnia again.
Of course, she couldn’t do it. It was just a silly exercise.
With a sigh, Callie stood from the desk, folding the paper carefully and tucking it just inside the bodice of her gown before she replaced the ink and pen. Snuffing the candle, she moved quietly toward the door. Just as she was about to exit the study and make her way upstairs, she heard a noise from outside—quiet and unfamiliar.
Opening the door carefully—just a crack—Callie peered into the darkened hallway, squinting to make out anyone who might be there. The blackness beyond made it impossible to see, but there was no question that she was not alone; the open door allowed a soft giggle to reach her.
“You are beautiful tonight. Perfect. The Allendale Angel indeed.”
“You’re required to say so…to flatter your fiancée.”
“My fiancée.” The reverence in the words was palpable. “My future duchess…my love…”
The words trailed off on a feminine sigh, and Callie’s hand flew to hold in her shocked laughter as she realized that Mariana and Rivington were in the darkened foyer. She froze for a moment, eyes wild, uncertain of her next move. Should she close the door quietly and wait for them to leave? Or should she contrive to stumble upon them and end what was most definitely a lovers’ tryst?
Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake Page 4
