But still, she answered him. “There isn’t much to say that you don’t already see.” She paused. “Everyone thought I would take one path. I took another.”
“That easy, hmm?”
She smiled at the dry words. “When you’re a person who wants something different than what society offers you . . . than what society tells you is the only correct path . . . you are grateful when a different one is illuminated. Even more so when it becomes clear that others are on the path. And that they will walk it with you.”
“The Duchess, Miss Frampton, Lady Imogen.”
She inclined her head. “Three of many.”
“How many?”
Maggie, Nik and Nora, Mithra, a dozen other women from all walks who’d found their way to Trevescan House. Ladies with titles and husbands and children. Mistresses, women of pleasure, business owners. Actresses. Magicians. And beyond them, scores of others who lived their truth and fought for their place and blazed new paths. Ones that suited them.
“More every day,” she replied. “It turns out that when you’ve spent a lifetime held under one thumb and then the next, there is power in helping others escape them. Especially when those who have capacity to help . . .” She trailed off, thinking of the evening with Viscountess Coleford.
“Won’t.”
She met his eyes, warming at the way he saw her. At the way he understood. “Most people would say can’t.”
He tilted his head. “It’s not can’t though, is it?”
“No.”
“Which makes it more dangerous,” he said, softly. “You’re in danger.”
“We were in danger before, too. But before we didn’t fight.”
He saw the truth in the words, understood them. And it was then, in that moment, that Sesily realized Caleb Calhoun hadn’t broken her heart two years earlier, when he’d rebuffed her advances and left for America.
Because it was then, as he saw her, as he understood her, that she realized he might break her heart in earnest this time.
Dammit.
“These aren’t small battles, though,” he said, an edge in his tone, something urgent. “They’re bigger foes. More dangerous ones. Totting, The Bully Boys, Coleford . . . these are battles that have reason and reach beyond the personal.”
Caleb Calhoun is not stupid. The Duchess’s words from the night at The Place, before Calhoun and Peck arrived and The Bully Boys came knocking. It won’t take him very long to put it together.
“Do they not seem personal?” she asked. “They feel personal.” She cleared her throat and moved away from his touch, feeling for a moment like Athena, because it took an actual feat of strength to slide past him and walk away from his touch, leading the way up to the rise. “It’s not far now,” she tossed back, pretending as though she wasn’t a riotous tangle of emotion. “I hope the view is worth it.”
He followed in silence, his much longer stride easily catching up to her, but this time he didn’t overtake her. He walked next to her, in silence, and Sesily did her very best not to look at him, even when he said, “I was right, wasn’t I?”
“About what?”
“These fights put your life in danger,” he said, and she could hear the frustration in his words.
“And the others didn’t?”
His brow furrowed as he considered the question, and she saw the answer reveal itself. Of course they had. It had just been a different kind of danger. The kind that lasted for a lifetime.
These battles were the kind that made a lifetime.
They’d reached the top of the rise, where the northern half of the Highley estate spread out before them like an oil painting, the sky swirling in the distance with greys so deep they edged into purples over a land that was lush and green in the summer but had gone to autumn browns, crossed with handsome stone walls and dotted with white sheep.
“I will admit, this is stunning,” she said, pulling her cloak tighter around her to combat the brisk wind whipping over the ledge.
“England shows in the winter better than anywhere else.”
She pointed to the folly tower that stood at a distance, rising forty feet into the air like a perfect castle turret. “That’s where Haven told Sera that he loved her.”
“Which time?”
“The time he ruined everything.”
“Which time he ruined everything?” Haven had been an ass on several occasions before he’d realized that Sera was his entire world.
She laughed. “The time before he fixed everything.” She turned her attention to the little copse of trees just at the bottom of the rear side of the ridge. “Is there a building there?”
“Mmm,” he said. “A groundskeeper’s cottage.”
She looked to him. “How do you know that?”
He grinned. “I take a lot of walks when I am here.”
“For your constitution?”
“Yes . . .” he said. “And your brother-in-law is insufferable.”
She laughed. “He is that.”
“We settled a truce when he and Sera reconciled,” he said. “And I guess he’s an alright sort.”
“The faintest of praise. But he loves my sister madly.”
“And he’s got a hell of an estate.”
She looked back at the land. “That much is true.”
They stood shoulder to shoulder for a moment, taking in the view, and Sesily became consumed with the feel of him there, tall and warm and steady next to her, as though he’d stand there and look at the grey storm clouds in the distance forever.
Unable to resist, she turned to look at him, his profile strong and stark against the grey sky. He hadn’t worn a hat, and his hair, tousled by the November wind, fell in soft curls over his brow. How many times had she watched her sisters touch their husbands with casual pleasure—dusting a sleeve or straightening a cravat or pushing an errant curl back into place? In all the years since she’d come out, Sesily had never lingered on the idea of one day having those pleasures. Of the natural ease of them.
Until now, as she stared up into this beautiful man’s untouchable face.
Sesily loves with her whole heart.
Sophie’s words from earlier. Unwelcome. She looked away, disliking the uncomfortable tightening in her chest, made worse by the fact that, at that exact moment, in her periphery, she saw him turn to look at her. As though he’d heard the words.
Don’t say anything. She willed herself quiet. Let him speak next.
She waited, aware that he was staring at her, no doubt having found a bit of kohl or something that she’d missed. Rouge in her ear.
Don’t touch your ear.
Dammit. She was Sesily Talbot. She’d spent the last decade being looked at. And by remarkable people! She’d had poetry composed for her! Some of it had been bearable! She’d been an artist’s muse! The fact that he’d been an absolute ass was irrelevant.
In 1834, she’d been the reason London dressmakers couldn’t keep peacock feathers on the shelf! She routinely had men and women salivating over her! She could have her pick of admirers! Had had her pick of them!
She could certainly handle being looked at. So why did Caleb’s gaze feel so hot?
“I’m not like them.” Where had that come from?
Wherever it was, he did not hesitate to reply. “I know.”
“I don’t have Sera’s tavern or Sophie’s bookshop or Seline’s knack for horses or Seleste’s ear for languages.”
“You have something else.”
“Yes,” she said, softly, oddly grateful that he’d noticed. More so when he continued.
“Your loyalty—lord knows I would do crime to have someone give a fraction as much to me.”
I could give it to you.
She pushed the reply aside. “You give the same kind of loyalty. You might not wish for others to see it. But I do. I see it.”
He stopped at the words, and she did, too. The air shifted, thickening between them, and Sesily watched him, taking in the tightening
of his jaw and the flattening of his lips, as though she’d said something wrong.
His beautiful eyes flashed with something like anger. “What makes you say that?”
“I’ve seen you stand for my sister. I’ve seen you help her get everything she wished, without an ounce of selfishness.”
He shook his head. “Most days, I am all selfishness.”
“No, you’re not. You forget that all the times you’ve noticed my battles, I’ve noticed yours. You’ve protected Sera’s business from the Houses of Parliament, her reputation from the aristocracy, and her identity from Haven when she needed it.”
He didn’t move.
“You own a dozen pubs in America, and if you wanted to, you could have built an empire here. But you’ve never shown a bit of interest in anything other than helping Sera make The Singing Sparrow legendary.” She paused, because he’d looked away, like he couldn’t hear the words. Like he didn’t like them. He really wasn’t going to like the rest. “Because you are a good man.”
He looked up at the sky for a long moment, the muscles in his jaw and neck working as he considered his next words. “I hear you stopped coming to the Sparrow.”
“No, I didn’t.”
It was a lie and they both knew it. “When we first opened it, two years ago, we couldn’t keep you away.”
“You mean you couldn’t keep me away,” she said, defensively.
“What does that mean?”
“Only that Sera was not the one who was telling me to go home all the time, Caleb. You were.” She paused, then added, “You say I view everything as a battle? You started a fair lot of them with me.”
It was his turn to say it. “That’s not true.”
“Of course it is. You pushed me away so much you left the country.”
“That’s not why I left.”
She didn’t believe him. “Then why?”
Silence fell, long and heavy, and Sesily added, “All we do is fight battles. I am tired of them. I’d be done with them if I could.”
“Then let’s be done with them,” he said.
“The battles are how I get a piece of you.”
His head snapped around, his gaze rapt on her.
Where had that come from? And why did it feel so good to say it? It was out now, and she couldn’t take it back, so she went on. “I’m tired of wanting you, Caleb. I’m tired of thinking maybe you want me. Of thinking that our kisses are as heady for you as they are for me. Of thinking that my touch singes you the way yours does me. Of imagining that the pleasure we find together is something out of the ordinary.”
She looked away from him, because she was hot with embarrassment and frustration and she didn’t want to face it or him. But the words kept coming, and she couldn’t stop them. “You’re right. I don’t go to the Sparrow anymore. Because I am tired of it. I am tired of the memory of you there. I’m tired of the way my heart races every time I think of you. Here is the truth. I stopped going to the Sparrow because I stopped begging for scraps from people who could not see me.”
She didn’t want to stand there any longer, waiting for whatever it was she always waited for with him. Knowing that it wouldn’t come.
She began to descend the rise, toward the trees at the base of the hill, telling herself she didn’t care if he followed her.
Wanting him to follow her.
He did.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he called out, following her down the hill. “You think I cannot see you?”
She didn’t look back. Refused to.
He kept talking, his words carrying to her on the wind. “You think I don’t see you? You think you don’t shine like the fucking sun every time you’re in a room?”
She did turn then. “I think you see me because you feel you must. Because I am the reckless, outrageous sister of your dearest friend. Because to stand with Seraphina, you must stand with me. Your loyalty to her has extended to me, her wild sister. You think I didn’t notice how you leapt to help in the Trevescan gardens? When The Bully Boys knocked over The Place? How you pulled me from the fight to keep me safe? How you followed me into Coleford’s—which was absolutely out of line, by the way—to protect me?”
The last had him coming down the hill faster, toward her. “I didn’t protect you at Coleford’s. I took advantage of you at Coleford’s.”
She hated the words, and the way they stripped the event of anything like passion—making it seem as though she’d had no choice but to be swept along for his pleasure, like she hadn’t found her own, twice. Swallowing around the weight in her chest, she said, “Well, while my pride could do without the reminder, I think there’s an argument to be made that your regret for the events of the evening comes from the same place as all the rest.”
He came up short. Still. “What did you say?”
“It’s clear you were acting out of your unbending loyalty for my sister.” Only after the words had left her did she realize that his eyes had gone stormy themselves—wild enough to rival the clouds that suddenly seemed less ominous by comparison.
She took a step back, down the hill.
He advanced, and when he finally spoke, the words were low and dark, and somehow loud as gunshot. “You think I regret it?”
“I—You disappeared.”
He advanced again. She stepped back again. “And you think it was because I wish it had not happened.”
The words were a curling, searing heat inside her, driving away the cold wind that swirled around them. “Was it not?”
“No, Sesily,” he said, closing the distance between them. This time she did not retreat. This time she relished his advance. “Christ. No. Don’t you see? That’s the problem . . .”
He reached for her, his big hand cupping her cheek, his fingers sliding into her hair, scattering hairpins, threatening the quick work she’d done to put it to rights earlier. She didn’t care. Let them fall. Let them rust in the soil to be found two hundred years from now.
She didn’t care, not as long as he finished what he was saying.
And then he pulled her close and bent his head, pressing his forehead to hers and said, “I don’t regret it, Sesily. I want it again. I want more. I want it all. And if I take it, it won’t be cordial.”
She clasped his wrist, warm and strong in her grip, and lifted her mouth to his, stealing his kiss, quick and soft and barely-there, like the words she whispered. “Hang cordial.”
He groaned, rewarding her kiss with one of his own, wild like his eyes. Wild like her pulse.
Wild like the late-autumn sky, that opened with a crash of thunder and a torrent of rain.
Chapter Fifteen
This woman kissed like a goddess.
The rain could have been snow or hail or a plague of frogs, and Caleb wouldn’t have cared. He would have stood halfway up that rise and kissed her until they were up to their knees in ice or amphibians, because he’d never had such a straight shot of pleasure like the one Sesily Talbot delivered with her devastating kisses.
And it didn’t matter that the freezing rain coming down in sheets was soaking them to the bone. Not when she was soft and lush and sinful in his arms.
Not when her arms were wrapped around his neck, her fingers tangled in his hair, holding him to her as they kissed.
Not when she sighed that small, perfect sigh, drew her tongue over his bottom lip, and sucked it, slow and languid, as though they weren’t in torrential rain.
She kissed him like the rain was all part of the plan.
Eventually, though, she released him, pulling back just enough to open her gorgeous eyes, her long lashes spiked with the rain, her hair weighed down with it. The look of her, tousled and bedraggled and fucking perfect, brought a tightness to his chest, made worse when she smiled and said, “That kiss was so perfect, I could swear I heard thunder.”
He laughed. He knew he shouldn’t. Shouldn’t let himself be amused by her. Shouldn’t let himself be any more drawn to her than he already was.
Shouldn’t risk being any closer to her.
But she was everything Caleb had always refused himself. She was bright where his world was dark, beautiful where it was ugly, welcome where he’d never found it. And that made her more tempting than anything he’d ever experienced.
She was the treat in the shop window, the coin in the rich man’s purse.
She was better.
So he let himself laugh.
He knew he didn’t deserve her, but it was raining and it was cold, and while he did not care about his own comfort, he found he cared a great deal about Sesily’s, and it had nothing to do with loyalty to her sister.
It had to do with keeping her warm and dry and safe. With pretending she was his for a heartbeat. With pretending a heartbeat would be enough.
It had to do with the fact that he would never regret it. Not even if he should.
After stealing another kiss from her pretty pink lips, Caleb peeled off his coat and held it up over both of their heads, loving the way she instinctively tucked herself beneath it, inside the crook of his arm, flashing him a bright white smile. “Cozy.”
Pleasure thrummed through him at the word, along with a keen desire to make her feel that way for longer than it would take to walk the brief distance to the closest shelter.
When they got to the trees, they were slightly more protected from the rain, and he pulled the coat back on, leaving it unbuttoned and taking her hand, guiding her over fallen branches and the soggy leaf cover on the ground—surely soaking her shoes. He didn’t like that idea.
He increased his speed, eager to get her inside.
When the door to the groundskeeper’s cottage came into view, tucked away behind a grouping of high shrubbery that looked as though it had been left to its own growth for several years, Sesily came up short, tightening her grip in his. “Should we be concerned about . . . a groundskeeper?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” he said, knocking sharply before peering in the window. It was difficult to see much, but considering the stillness of the place, the way ivy had run riot over its roof and along its windows, Caleb doubted it was inhabited.
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