“Callie—” he said, standing and following her. She turned at her name and, surprised to see him so near, she held one hand out as though she could stop him from coming closer. As though she could prevent him from becoming too deeply entrenched in her heart. As though it weren’t too late for that.
Hair mussed, cravat untangled, waistcoat unbuttoned, Ralston appeared every inch the portrait of debauchery. In that moment, there was no question that Gabriel St. John, the Marquess of Ralston, was a rake of the highest caliber. He’d likely had this very interlude with countless other women—likely to prove the same point. Callie shook her head, disappointed in herself. She so obviously meant nothing to him. How could she not have seen that?
Because you didn’t want to see it. You’re Selene. Doomed to love a mortal in eternal sleep. She closed her eyes at the thought, willing the tears not to come. At least, not until she was out of the room. Out of his house.
He raised an arrogant brow, his harsh breathing echoing around them. “Do you deny it?”
Hurt flared, and she could no longer hide it. When she spoke, her voice was small. “I don’t deny it. It’s always been you.”
She watched him react to the words, watched him register the truth in them. And then she said, “I just wish it were anyone else.” And with that, she turned and—pride be damned—she fled.
He watched her go, unmoving. When he heard the main door to the house close, signaling her exit, he swore roundly, the vicious sound echoing around the room.
Much later, Ralston sat at his piano, willing the instrument to perform the task it had done throughout his life—to help him to forget. He played with rigor—with a strength that brought unbridled sound from the instrument. The notes came fast and furious, his fingers flying across the keys as he closed his eyes and waited for the music to drive Callie from his mind. It’s always been you.
The music enveloped him, dark and venomous, stinging his senses as he lingered at the keys in the lower register, pouring his emotion into his playing. The sound, aching and lyric, punished him, reminding again and again of Callie’s expression, so wounded, so pained, just before she had escaped the house. Before she had escaped him.
I just wish it were anyone else.
He swore, and the sound was swallowed up by the piano. Her cool response to him—so very deserved—had nevertheless left him consumed with a desire to possess her. To brand her his own.
He’d pushed her to the limits of her awareness of herself, of her body, of her emotions. He’d known what he was doing; he’d sensed that he was going too far. But he couldn’t have stopped if he’d wanted to. He’d been just as entangled in the moment as she had been. The king himself could have entered the study, and Ralston would have been hard-pressed to stop.
The truth of it shocked him, and his fingers paused on the piano keys. He shook his head, as if he could clear it of her memory. What was it about this woman? This plain, unassuming woman whom he had never before noticed? There is nothing about her that is plain or unassuming now.
And he hated himself for describing her as such.
No…Lady Calpurnia Hartwell was coming into her own in a spectacular way—entirely new and thoroughly different from every woman he had known before her. And it was her heady combination of innocent curiosity and feminine will that had lured him into behaving the way he did.
He wanted her. Viscerally. In a way he’d never wanted any woman before her.
Of course, he could not have her.
Nick had been right; Callie wanted love. Ralston had known that from the very beginning—she didn’t hide her belief in the power of the emotion, her unwavering faith in it. He paused in his playing, wondering what it would feel like to believe so strongly in the power of love to do good. To bring happiness.
He shook his head, bowing low over the keys of the piano. He’d never seen that side of love. He’d only seen the pain it wrought, the soul-crushing devastation that came when it was rescinded. A memory flashed, of his father professing his undying love for his wife. A wife who walked out on her duties as wife and mother without ever looking back. Twice.
So much for love everlasting.
He swore roundly. He might not agree with Callie’s assessment of love, but it did not mean that he had the right to treat her so unconscionably. He would not deny the pleasure he’d felt with her in his arms that afternoon, but he did admit his behavior was unacceptable. She deserved infinitely better.
He would apologize. Even if he did not regret his actions in the slightest.
He continued to play, the notes growing slower, more contemplative, reflecting the mood of their master.
Minutes later, a knock sounded, and Ralston stopped playing, turning on the piano bench to face the door. For a fleeting moment, he wondered if it was possible that Callie had returned, that it was she outside the door, waiting for him to allow her entrance.
“Enter.”
The door opened and he registered the woman who stood silhouetted in the bright lights of the hallway beyond. His sister.
He seemed inundated with females deserving of his apology.
“Juliana, come in.” He stood, reaching for a tinderbox and making quick work of lighting a candelabra nearby and waving her in the direction of a chair near the room’s large fireplace. “I had not noticed that it had grown so dark.”
“It is quite late,” Juliana said quietly, taking her seat and waiting while he lit several more candles and seated himself across from her. When she opened her mouth to speak, he stayed her words with a raised hand.
“Please, allow me to apologize.” Her eyes widened as he added, “I should not have lost my temper.”