Callum took a sip. “Whatever brings anyone out to these kinds of places. Boredom?”
Theo’s brow wrinkled ever so slightly. “I ask because this is the first time you have come out since…”
His friend trailed off, and Callum finished his drink in one swig. “Since Silas’s death?”
He flinched as he said those words. It was still so shocking, what had happened. At midnight that night he had been laughing with his friend, by eight the next morning, he had received word that Silas was dead. A drunken accident with his horse, they had said, which seemed so unreal. How could everything have ended so horribly and quickly?
Theo inclined his head slightly. “Yes. I’m not saying I’m sorry to see you. It’s been eight weeks. It seems a long enough time to mourn a friend, after all.”
Callum stared into his empty glass as if he could will it to fill again. “Hmmm,” he mused. “Sometimes it seems forever and sometimes like it was yesterday.”
Theo patted his shoulder gently. “I am sure that’s true. But somehow the world goes on. After all, I heard that the new duke took over the estate in London today.”
“Silas’s cousin?” Callum said, jerking his head up. “God’s teeth, I remember Franklin as a boy, always following Si and me everywhere, tattling on us at will. He has yearned for this title his entire life. I suppose he’s happy now.”
“I couldn’t say,” Theo said. “I wasn’t as close to the family as you were.”
Callum ignored the slight strain to Theo’s voice. He’d always hated it that his two closest friends had not gotten on. They were both dear to him. But he thought many times that perhaps they kept from being less than cordial only because of him.
He sighed and then wrinkled his brow as a thought occurred to him. “And what of the duchess? Does that mean that Valaria has been relegated to some other estate? So soon into her mourning?”
The very idea of it hit him in the chest. Valaria, the wife of his best friend, having to reorganize her life in the midst of what had to be terrible pain. He couldn’t help but think of her blue-gray eyes, ones that seemed to pierce through a man. They had always held that lilt of sadness, that briefest glimpse into a soul with so many layers.
Not that he’d allowed himself to make that much of a study of her. She was his friend’s wife, after all. He cared about her because he cared about Silas. That hadn’t changed. Perhaps it had to become even stronger, in fact, since Silas was no longer there to protect her.
“I heard they moved her to the Row,” Theo said, and dragged Callum from his musings.
He couldn’t have heard that right. It was impossible. “The Row?” he repeated. “Kent’s Row?”
Theo shrugged. “It’s what I heard.”
“But Kent’s Row is for the older ladies,” Callum said.
“It’s become a little corner of dowagers,” Theo corrected him. “And she is that now. Though I agree that most of the women on the Row are far above her years. In fact, there’s only a handful of younger ladies there. I cannot imagine how boring it is for them.”
Callum stared into the fire, his brows knitting. Once again, he couldn’t help but think about Valaria. It wasn’t that they’d talked that often, though when they did he had enjoyed it. How could one not? Valaria was beautiful, but also bright. Occasionally she gave this tiny smile and…
No, he cut the thought off. At any rate, she normally passed through rooms where Silas gathered with his friends, never intruding upon their masculine pursuits. At balls and parties, she busied herself with friends and only danced with Silas. She was never impolite, but she made no effort to come out of her shell with gentlemen.
And yet Callum still felt an intensely protective instinct as he thought of her, relegated to her grief alone, out amongst ladies who mostly couldn’t understand the ins and outs of young widowhood.
“I ought to call on her,” he mused out loud.
Theo leaned back, resting his empty glass on the mantelpiece. “Ought you to?”
“To pay my respects,” Callum said, and hated how he heard justification in his tone. Like he was doing something wrong and trying to make it right. “To make sure she’s settling in comfortably. After all, there are few people in the world who could understand her thoughts and feelings right now.”
“And you think you are one of them.”
He willed away the sting behind his eyes. “Silas was like a brother to me,” he said softly. “I know some part of her pain at least.” He cleared his throat. “I ought to pay my respects, if nothing else. I owe that to Silas, do I not? He was one of my closest friends.”
There was a slight flutter to Theo’s expression. One he always got when this topic was raised, either before or since Silas’s death. “Yes. He was that, though you were markedly different men.”
“I suppose we were,” Callum agreed. “But when one has been friends practically since birth, that is bound to happen from time to time. At any rate, I will call on her tomorrow, I think.”
Theo tilted his head and suddenly his expression was a little playful. Rakish, even, as his friend was known to be. “Are you certain this decision is only to do with loyalty to Silas?”
“What does that mean?” Callum said, perhaps more strongly than he meant to.
“Nothing,” Theo said with a laugh. “But the dowager is a very attractive woman. And one I know you have taken notice of for some time, even if you try to pretend otherwise.”
Callum pursed his lips. So his interest had been marked. Wonderful. “For Christ’s sake, Lightmorrow, you’re being disgusting. The woman’s husband died eight weeks ago. I would be a complete scoundrel to have an ulterior motive in checking on her. Even if her husband weren’t a friend.”
Theo held up his hands but didn’t even bother to look chagrined. “Of course, of course. Forgive me. Though I do think the world is sometimes better for a scoundrel.”
“That’s because you are one,” Callum muttered.
Theo didn’t argue, and his laughter echoed as he slapped Callum’s shoulder again. “I won’t torment you about this for now. Why don’t we play a round of billiards, instead?”
Callum huffed out a breath, but he nodded and followed Theo from the room. His rake of a companion might give him shite about it, but Callum knew his motives were true when it came to Valaria. Attraction, if that’s what there was, didn’t have to mean bad behavior.
And it wouldn’t. He could control himself.
CHAPTER 2
Although Valaria had fretted about her tea with Bernadette and Flora after she’d settled in the day before, it turned out there was no reason. She sat in Flora’s parlor the following afternoon and felt…well, it was almost relaxed. Not entirely, but something close to it.
And she could admit, at least to herself, that it wasn’t a feeling she’d had in a very long time. It helped that the two women were such good friends and that they could be talkative. In the span of an hour, Valaria had come to realize that though Bernadette was the oldest of their little threesome, she was also the most innocent. She blushed easily and would steer the topic away from points of discomfort if she saw them.