Valaria sank into a chair by the fire with a long sigh. “I suppose I’d be a fool to pretend that he didn’t have something to do with it.”
“Are you going to call on him today?”
“How did you know that?”
Bernadette smiled. “Your hair looks stunning and it has very fancy pins in it. You can only wear your black gowns, but you can make your hair pretty. I assume you and Fanny went through half a dozen iterations to get to this very style.”
Valaria lifted a hand to her hair. “Fanny was not pleased.”
Bernadette wrinkled her brow. “No?”
Valaria shook her head. She couldn’t explain that part to Bernadette either. So she focused on the part she could. “I…I think I must end things with Callum today,” she whispered.
Bernadette straightened. “Oh, Valaria. That is sad news. I watched you with him last night and you two seem well matched.”
Valaria shut her eyes. “Yes.”
“Couldn’t you work it out? Obviously it’s complicated with you not quite three months into your mourning, but discretion is possible and widows have more freedom. Perhaps we could talk it through and—”
“There are things you don’t know,” Valaria interrupted, and lifted her gaze to Bernadette’s. “You and Flora don’t know. He doesn’t know. Things I can’t tell you, both for my sake and for yours.”
Bernadette held her gaze. “I’m sure that’s true.” She reached out to catch Valaria’s hand. “And you owe none of us your secrets. But perhaps if he knew, then he could help. He cares for you.”
Valaria caught her breath. She feared that was true and that was something she could and would lose. “He wouldn’t care if he knew what I withheld,” she whispered. “So it is better for everyone, him and me, to end it now before it only gets ugly. Before everything in my life shatters because of it.”
Her breath hitched on a sob as she pushed to her feet. “Thank you for returning the bonnet. I do appreciate it. I’m to meet him in half an hour, though, and my carriage will be ready in a few moments.”
Bernadette tilted her head. “Valaria, you mustn’t go like this. He’ll understand if you are late. Stay and talk to me. I’ll call for Flora. We can discuss it and—”
“No,” Valaria whispered. “I must go now. I must go before I’m too weak to do what I must do.” She made for the door. “See me out?”
After a long pause, Bernadette sighed heavily. “Yes. Of course.”
Her friend linked arms with her and together they made their way down the hall and down the stairs into the foyer. As Valaria’s carriage was brought around, Bernadette surprised her by tugging her into a tight hug.
“We are more than our pasts,” she whispered. “You deserve a future filled with happiness and pleasure and laughter. Please don’t forget that.”
Valaria squeezed her eyes shut and felt a tear slide free. She wiped it on the back of her hand as she tugged away. “You might think differently if you knew the truth. Thank you, though. I appreciate your friendship so deeply.”
She didn’t wait for Bernadette to reply, to try to convince her yet again to stay, or to consider a life she could never have. She just got into her carriage and off it went, carrying her to a moment she dreaded.
Carrying her to the end of the affair with a man she felt more for than she could allow herself to admit.
“The Duchess of Gooding is here, Your Grace,” Morris said.
Callum had been standing at the picture window in his study, looking out at the garden below, and now he turned, heart throbbing. “I’ll see her here,” he said.
“Yes, sir.” Morris didn’t move, but worried his hands before him.
Callum tilted his head. “What is it?”
“I-I believe the lady has been crying, Your Grace,” the butler said slowly. “Her maid was loathe to leave her, as well.”
Callum clenched his jaw at that idea, though it had to give him hope. She was just as conflicted about this as he was, and perhaps he could convince her not to do something rash.
“Thank you, Morris. Bring her here and then no disturbances.”
Morris bowed away and Callum smoothed the line of his jacket with both hands as he stared at the door and awaited he moment Valaria would walk through. When she did, he caught his breath. He didn’t even hear Morris say her name, hardly noticed as the butler reached into the room and pulled the door shut behind himself.
“Good afternoon,” Callum managed to squeak out.
She nodded. “Callum.”
They stood like that, eyes locked on each other for a long moment, and then he shook his head and moved toward her. “May I get you a drink? I’ve sherry here. Or I could ask for tea to be brought.”
“No, thank you, I’m fine,” she said.
He hesitated and searched her face. She had been crying, Morris was right about that. Her eyes were red and a little puffy.
Slowly, he extended a hand and traced the line of her chin. “What can I do?”
She made a small, sharp intake of breath as she stared up at him. Her bottom lip quivered, but then she turned away and paced to his window where she looked out at his garden for a moment, just as he had been doing when she arrived. It seemed they brooded the same way and he almost laughed at the irony of that.
“It is not your job to do anything, Callum,” she said at last.
He wanted so much to deny that, but he could see how close to the edge she was. He didn’t want to push her over. To force her to make a move that they might both regret.
It was obvious that crying made her feel vulnerable around him. And the answer for that was to give her some vulnerability, himself. Something he had never been comfortable with.
But comfort didn’t matter in the face of losing someone he loved.
Slowly he moved to the seats by the fire and took one, gripping the armrests. “Did Silas ever tell you how we became friends?”
She remained staring out the window and did not look at him. “N-No. Silas didn’t speak to me about much. Certainly rarely about you.”
Callum refuse to ponder the reasons for that and instead continued, “He saved my life.”
At that she did pivot, her mouth dropped open and her eyes wide. “What?”
He nodded slowly and forced himself to think of that day. It was not something he liked doing. “We were thirteen. You may not think it to look at me now, but I was a scrawny child. Skinny as a rail and small for my age.”
She shook her head. “It is hard to picture you as anything but what you are now.”
“Oh, well, I have portraits in the gallery in my home in Blackvale if you need proof, Your Grace,” he said, and briefly pictured her in his ancestral home. In his life in the country, in his bed there.
She shifted as if she, too, was thinking of those things. “I will trust your word,” she said softly. “But how does Silas come into the tale?”
“I was often bullied by the other boys at school, or ignored. I preferred the ignoring.” He sighed. “And Silas was, I admit, one of those bullies.”
Her cheek twitched and she dropped her gaze. Once again, he questioned what her experience with his late friend had been.