Eliza was not, however, so easily dissuaded. “Let’s see how the week progresses, shall we? I could always send a note to Lady Sharp and ask about making dinner arrangements for another time.”
The soft smile on Reid’s face turned to a frown. “There is no need to do that.”
Eliza huffed. “Just remember that it was you who decided to invite your friends to come and stay with us at Follett House for the rest of the summer. You can’t seriously expect me to spend the next ten weeks avoiding Callum when we are both living under the one roof.”
Point made, she took her brother by the arm and gave him a gentle pat. It was not the time nor the place for them to hold yet another argument about the subject of Callum. “Go and have a fabulous time with your friends. I shall let his Royal Highness know that I have had a change of plans and will now be attending the formal dinner he is hosting this evening. I expect the entertainment Prinny has organized will be much more in line with my tastes than what you and your miscreant friends have in mind for tonight.” As she spoke those last words, her attention settled once more on Callum.
And you have the wickedest taste of them all.
She let her gaze linger for a little longer, taking her time to appreciate the man who held her heart. Tall, with a chiseled jaw, Sir Callum Sharp looked every inch the Viking invader that was somewhere in his distant heritage. As their gazes met, she sensed his deep blue eyes piercing right through to her soul. It was as if he could read her every thought.
You are so beautiful, and I wish you were mine. You should be mine.
Callum reached out and offered Eliza his hand. She took it, gracing him with a knowing smile. A smile she only held for him. One which said that their secret understanding still held.
“Lady Eliza,” he said, and kissed her gloved hand.
“Sir Callum. Congratulations. You look magnificent in your uniform, with your sash and star,” she replied. She swallowed as her gaze drifted down and took in the way he filled out his trousers: solid, muscular thighs which she itched to wrap her legs around. The placket of his pants covered but did little to disguise the bulge of his manhood.
Eliza had tasted something of Callum’s sexual prowess; what he could do with his skillful lips and fingers. He was a man who left a woman satisfied. He had also taught her what to do with her mouth and his hard cock.
She ached to reestablish their connection once more. To finally move their sexual relationship, forward and have him take her to his bed. There, he would become hers and hers alone. He would finally make good on his promise to marry her.
“Thank you for coming to the investiture service today, Eliza. It means a lot to me to know you are here,” said Callum.
The warm, deep tone of his voice made her hot in all her secret places. She smiled back at him and prayed that her face was not showing everything she was feeling. She would die of embarrassment if just one of those emotions he stirred within her was on display for all the world to see.
Eliza’s heart beat the familiar quick pitter-patter that it did whenever he was close.
When will you come back to me? When will you be mine?
She was so caught up in her private thoughts and desire for Callum that it took a moment for her to realize he had released his hold on her hand. By the time she did, Callum had shifted to his right and was accepting a congratulatory slap on the back from Kendal.
She withdrew her hand and lifted it nervously to her face, brushing away an imaginary stray lock of hair. Of course, Callum had moved on. At times, he barely seemed to notice her.
The Callum who had returned from war was a puzzle she was yet to solve. Just when she was certain that they were over, that there was nothing left between them, that he had forgotten her, he would suddenly turn up the charm and make her start to question her heart once again.
She had endured a long torturous ten months of Callum playing his game of hide and seek.
I should go and find someone else—marry them just to spite you. I would if only I didn’t care for you so bloody much.
Eliza took a deep breath, then turned to her brother once again. There were other things to concern herself with today aside from the usual unanswered questions regarding Sir Callum Sharp.
“Well, I had better be off. If I don’t hunt down the prince’s private secretary and get my name added to the guest list for tonight’s dinner, I won’t get fed,” she said.
At the pained smile which appeared on Reid’s face Eliza did her utmost to dampen her feelings of sadness. The last thing she wanted was his sympathy.
He leaned in close and placed a kiss on her cheek. “Have a good time tonight. I am not sure when I will make it home, but I don’t expect it will be much before dawn. Please don’t wait up for me—or for any of the others.”
Eliza nodded in the direction of Callum, who was now receiving a hug from his beaming father. “I won’t wait up but promise you will try and look out for him. I don’t want him hurting himself.”
Reid gave a pained sigh. “You know as well as I do, that he is a grown man and in charge of his own life. Callum would not take kindly to any effort on my part to play nursemaid. I would rather that you didn’t view Sir Callum as being any of your concern.”
“I know,” she replied wearily.
She turned and walked away, headed in the direction of the Prince Regent and his party. There would eventually come a time when Reid would be forced to accept that her love for Callum was an indisputable truth. And whether her brother liked it or not, she was determined to be Callum’s wife.
She smiled a secret smile. If there was one thing that she and Reid could both agree upon, it was that Lady Eliza Follett was a woman who always got her way.
You can hope for otherwise all you like, dear brother, but you know as well as I do that I am not in control of my heart. It yearns for what it loves.
And what it loves is Callum.
Chapter Three
“No man leaves unless he is unconscious and has to be carried out!” Sir Callum Sharp wobbled on his perch high on the top of Napoleon’s glossy imperial carriage. He swung a large bottle of gin wildly about.
The Royal Dragoons’ motto usually applied to the battlefield. Tonight, however, it was being used in celebration. If a man was sober enough to walk, he did not have the right to leave the party.
“And that applies to officers as well. Come on, you lot. It’s time to get seriously drunk and engage in maggotry!” he cried.
He pointed at his friends, who were standing safely on the floor of the exhibition room in the London Museum. As one, Lord Reid Follett, Lord Owen Morrison, and Lord Kendal Grant raised their more modestly sized bottles of whisky and saluted him.
“I don’t think I can keep up with this pace of imbibing,” grumbled Owen.
Reid and Kendal both nodded. Few men could go drink for drink with Callum for very long.
“My liver is already protesting,” added Kendal.
“How about we keep the noise level down a touch? We don’t want to upset the museum’s owner and get kicked out,” said Reid.
Callum laughed long and loud. “Considering I was the one who led the charge to relieve Bonnie of his prize, I don’t think there is much chance of that!”
He produced a set of keys from his jacket pocket and threw them in the direction of the others. Reid caught the badly aimed missile, took one look at it and sighed. “Fuck me. The owner of the museum gave Callum the bloody keys. We will never get out of here.”
With a loud huff of disgust, Callum climbed down from the carriage and staggered over to his friends. “You lot are a bloody disgrace to the Royal Dragoons. How the hell did we beat Bonnie when we had you girls fighting on our side?”
Owen chuckled. “We had you; that is all we needed. Why else do you think Prinny decided to give you a knighthood? It sure as fuck wasn’t for your good looks, though I must say you do look a pretty wench with your ribbon and badge.”
Callum laughed and gave him
a two-finger gesture in response before stopping and taking another deep slug from his large bottle of gin.
Reid slapped Callum on the back and nodded toward the carriage. “Ignore him. He is just jealous that you beat him to Napoleon’s shiny toy.”
Kendal yawned and scrubbed his hand over his face. They had all been up since well before dawn in readiness for the many ceremonies and celebrations of the day.
“I need to go home and get some sleep,” sighed Kendal.
“I second that. I am bone-weary,” replied Owen.
“You are fucking kidding me. You’re really going home? Oh, come now, gentlemen. It’s not every day that a man becomes a bloody knight of the realm. And a chap should be able to rely on his friends to celebrate with him. You all promised to get legless with me.”
The others exchanged guilty looks. Callum’s plea had hit its target.
“Alright, but once the fireworks at Vauxhall are done and dusted, so am I. We have rehearsals this week,” replied Reid.
Callum snorted. His mind was focused on other things—those things being celebrating and getting wasted.
Rehearsals are for sweet little misses and their musicales. A real man doesn’t need to practice his music.
“You disappoint me. But I understand that you ladies need to learn your instruments,” said Callum.
He shot a sly grin in Kendal’s direction, enjoying the fire which brimmed in his eyes.
Owen placed a hand on Kendal’s shoulder and smiled. “Relax, you know he doesn’t mean it.”
Kendal frowned, not looking the least bit placated. Callum huffed. Trust Owen to play peacemaker when he was doing his best to get Kendal riled up.
“Just promise us that you will attempt to be in some sort of human form for our rehearsals this week. Eliza is working hard to secure the Noble Lords their first bookings and we wouldn’t want to disappoint her by giving anything less than our very best,” said Reid.
The mischief in Callum’s heart dulled a little. Eliza had been her usual supportive and enthusiastic self when it came to the Noble Lords; nothing was too much trouble for her. They were all in her debt, he especially.
He was relieved that she had continued to remain silent about their private agreement. Many other women would have pressed him to make good on his promise as soon as he had returned from war.
His devil-may-care façade hid a deep sense of disgust with himself over the way he was treating Eliza. That feeling of shame only compounded the pain which continually stabbed at his heart. But much as he regretted his actions, he was certain that what he was doing was right. He was saving her from a life of misery with him and one day, hopefully, she would thank him for it.
It had been a deliberate move on his part to delay the celebratory dinner. His parents liked Eliza too much to risk them spending a whole evening with her. If they did, there was a good chance that Eliza would talk to his mother and possibly make mention of the ring he had given to her. Once his mother knew about the gift, she would soon know about the promise.
And then all hell would break loose.
“I shall be at rehearsals. I am not guaranteeing that I will look or smell like fresh flowers, but I will be ready with flute in hand. Trust me.”
He lifted the gin bottle to his lips once more and drank deeply. The sooner he was in his cups the better. When he was blind drunk, he didn’t think of responsibilities, or secret undertakings or foolish declarations of love. In fact, it was the only time he didn’t think of Eliza or the pain he had caused her—continued to cause her.
As the alcohol hit his brain, Callum welcomed the familiar numbing embrace. Gin, opium, and cannabis dulled his senses long enough to give his tortured mind those precious moments of respite. “Come on, chaps. Drink up. It is many hours to dawn, and I plan to make the most of them.”
Reid, Kendal, and Owen all groaned and lifted their bottles to their lips. Callum tilted his head back and downed the rest of his gin. He threw the empty bottle onto the floor, then pulled another one out of his coat pocket.
Oblivion, here I come.
Chapter Four
Eliza paused mid-task and set her pen back into the inkwell. The columns of the ledger blurred into one and she rubbed her tired eyes. Seated at the desk in her private sitting room, she was finding it difficult to concentrate.
Household accounts were an everyday task for her, and she had been handling them without a problem for many years. But since the recent arrival of the Noble Lords in the house, she had found it increasingly difficult to make any sense of the numbers. Her frazzled mind was kind enough to remind her of the reason why.
Callum.
He was in the house. The very same house that she was—and yet for all the brief moments that Eliza had seen Callum since he had moved into Follett House, he may just as well have been a hundred miles away.
Before he went to war, he had promised that one day the two of them would live under the same roof, but this current arrangement was not what Eliza had imagined. For a start, she had expected Callum would at least sleep in his bed, but in the week since his arrival, he was yet to manage that simple feat.
Instead, he was out every night, drinking and lord knew what else, returning to the house in the early hours of the morning in varying states of disgraceful intoxication. Sometimes he was so drunk that he was unable to make it up the stairs and to his bedroom, collapsing in the downstairs foyer and passing out on the patterned tiles. Other times, he would drag himself into the ballroom where the Noble Lords rehearsed and sleep there.
Only when the servants eventually roused him from his drunken slumber would Callum attempt to stagger upstairs and head into breakfast, still dressed in his evening clothes.
What am I to do?
With a sigh, Eliza closed the household book of accounts and put it back into the desk drawer. A headache threatened behind her eyes.
After picking up her teacup, she sipped at the liquid then set it down.
“Ugh, cold tea. There is nothing worse.”
She stared at the cup while her mind wandered back to its favorite subject: the tall fair-haired rogue who had long ago stolen her heart.
If things had gone according to plan, the moment he had returned from war Callum would have sunk to his bended knee and formally asked for her hand in marriage. He would have spoken to Reid and got his blessing. But Eliza was sure of one thing, and that was that life did not always run smoothly. Instead of rushing back into her arms, Callum had been conspicuous in his absence and there had been no further mention of marriage.
A knock at the door roused her from her musings. Reid gave her a friendly wave as he came into the room.
He dropped onto a nearby sofa and laid his head back. “Oh, what a morning,” he sighed.
Eliza rose from her desk and came to sit beside him. She leaned in and placed a tender kiss on his cheek. “Tell me your tale of woes, and I shall tell you mine.”
He chuckled at the long-running jest that they shared. The Follett siblings kept little from one another. It pained her that her ongoing problems with Callum was one of them.
“It has been a mixed bag of fortunes. My singing lesson went well, and I feel I am making progress,” he said.
“All progress is good. I think it is a reflection of your character that you are trying to improve yourself,” she replied.
“Thank you. I appreciate your support. You know how difficult it can be for me, at times, to accept my shortcomings.”
The singing lessons were still a secret from the rest of the Noble Lords, but fortunately not from Eliza. She was pleased that Reid felt comfortable enough to confide his insecurities with her and openly sought her guidance on what she suspected was a particularly touchy subject for him.
Reid’s pride had taken a hit when no one suggested at the outset that he should take on the role of singer for the group. In the end, he had demanded that he be allowed to sing.
“And what does your singing teacher say? I mean, does
he think you are making headway?” she replied.
Reid gave her an odd look. Was he about to say something of importance?
Instead, he pursed his lips. Eliza didn’t miss the sign; she knew Reid’s tell only too well. He was hiding something. What are you not telling me?
“Yes, we are making progress. And I am sure all this work will be reflected in my singing when the Noble Lords start to perform in public,” he finally replied.
His scant answer gave Eliza more to think about. She studied him for a moment. It was most unlike Reid to keep something as mundane as details about his singing lessons from her. What could he possibly be wanting to hide? Reid was being far too secretive about the whole singing lessons business.
Or is it about your singing teacher? Hmm. I wonder who he is. I may have to set my mind to finding out about him.
“And what of the rest of your morning?” she asked, sitting back in the chair, and resting her hands lightly on her stomach. While she was doing her utmost to adopt an air of disinterest, inside her head, the cogs were spinning.
Reid smiled. For a moment she thought he might be about to relax and possibly reveal his secret, but instead he suddenly sat forward and raked his fingers through his dark hair, sighing loudly.
“Trying to get Kendal, Owen, and Callum to rehearse is like herding geese. You think you have got them sorted, then one of them goes off running into the wild. I swear, I don’t know how I am going to survive this summer. I am sure I am going to kill one of them.”
Eliza threaded her fingers. No matter how tempting the notion, she was not going to mention the fact that it had been Reid’s idea for the Noble Lords to come and live at Follett House while they honed their musical skills.
“I am sure we shall manage. Though Kendal is proving a bit of a trial. He can be precious when the mood suits him. I have had several complaints from the servants about demands for his room to be cleaned from top to bottom every day,” she replied. Eliza had already taken Kendal to task over his treatment of the household staff and fully expected that it would not be the last time that they would exchange cross words.
Callum: Regency Rockstars Page 2
