The room was sparsely decorated beyond the furniture, but it was a pleasant room. Sunny and comfortable. “It is a lovely home,” he offered.
She drew in a long breath. “I am still settling in. But I believe it will be. Surely, though, you must see that my comfort has been seen to, Your Grace.”
“But not by Franklin,” he said slowly, facing her. “Was it your brothers?”
She folded her arms. “Why are you so determined to pry into my affairs?”
He wrinkled his brow. “I’m not.”
“You very much are, asking all your impertinent questions.”
“I’m only concerned about your well-being, Valaria.”
She shook her head. “You ought not to call me that.”
“You are correct. I apologize, Your Grace.” He saw her flinch at the honorific. “It seems you like your appropriate address as duchess just as little.”
She pushed from the chair and pivoted on him. “And none of those things are your business, Callum.” She arched a brow as she said his first name. Hearing her say it was overwhelming, even if she meant it as a curse rather than a kindness. “I can be as impertinent as you.”
“If you wish to call me by my given name, it troubles me little, Your Grace. I would like to be your friend, and many of my friends call me Callum.”
“We aren’t friends,” she insisted. “You were Silas’s friend. Now, perhaps you mean your intrusive behavior with the best of intentions. I will grant you that.”
“With great difficulty, it seems,” he said softly.
She ignored him. “I am comfortable in my new home. I am not sorry that Franklin has taken his place and will likely never intrude upon me again. As for my brothers, they will also not bother me.”
He tilted his head. “When I inquired about them, it was to ask if you had their support.”
Once again, a flash of pain washed over her lovely face. God, it was a lovely face. She cleared her throat. “I am fine, Your Grace. I need no support. Not from anyone.”
She lifted her chin, her spine ramrod straight. She looked everything an icy queen. Except that her lower lip trembled ever so slightly. A tiny indication of her vulnerability. Of her emotion.
She motioned to the door. “I do thank you for calling, Your Grace. And for your sentiments and your offer of support.”
She was dismissing him. And he moved toward the door and the foyer with her at his heels. But when they reached the exit, he turned and looked at her carefully. “I would like to call again, Your Grace.”
Her nostrils flared and her fists tightened at her sides, but then she inclined her head. “There is no way I could refuse such a kind offer. But I do hope you’ll make sure your courier actually delivers your request to call next time.”
“I will,” he assured her. “Good day, Your Grace.”
“Good day, Your Grace,” she repeated.
He stepped out into the warmth of the late spring air and drew a deep breath of it before he got into the waiting carriage. He pulled the curtain back as it began to move and saw her standing on the top step, watching him, arms folded and breeze stirring her brown locks around her cheeks.
He settled back against the carriage seat with a sigh. Perhaps he ought to have left it at that. The duchess did not wish his assistance and she had a right to her privacy.
But he knew something was amiss. And until he understood what it was and made certain she did not require his help, he felt compelled to press his assistance a little longer.
God help him.
As soon as Blackvale’s carriage rumbled away on the street, Valaria turned on her heel and went back into the house, her breath short. She hurried upstairs and flung herself into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Stepping over trunks and boxes that had yet to be unpacked, she collapsed onto her bed where she stared up at the ceiling as she huffed out angry breath after angry breath.
Who she was angry at, well, that was debatable. She was angry at Callum, first and foremost. He had intruded upon her space, filling it with his presence and his questions. She was angry at Silas for creating a scenario where she couldn’t just thank the man for his offer and never fear what his apparent persistence would reveal.
But mostly she was angry with herself. For not being able to manage Callum better. For being so impacted by his presence and his attention and his…his bigness that filled up her parlor and made it and her feel small in its presence. She was angry at herself for not being able to better put him off.
She pulled her pillow over her face with a cry of frustration.
“I beg your pardon, Your Grace.”
Valaria jolted to a seated position and the pillow fell away, revealing her maid, Fanny, at the door which led to the adjoining dressing room. With any other servant, she would have been humiliated at being seen in such a state, but over the years Fanny had seen her in far worse. The two had formed a true friendship and so she didn’t try to pretend Fanny hadn’t seen exactly what she’d seen.
“Having a good scream out, are we?” Fanny pressed as she entered the room and picked up the pillow that had fallen to the floor.
“A bit of one, yes,” Valaria admitted.
“Your tea with the other duchesses could not have been so very bad, could it?” Fanny asked with a little smile.
Valaria shook her head. “No, not at all. They were very kind and I was able to avoid any questions that might lead to the kind of follow-up you and I wish to avoid. I would have called it an almost complete success of a day until I got home. We had a visitor, Fanny.”
The maid shifted. “From your tone and pale face, not one you wished to see. Tell me it is not the new duke, come to pry into places he’d best leave alone.”
“Franklin gives not a whit about his late cousin,” Valaria said with a wave of her hand, “and is likely too busy making terrible decor choices in my favorite parlor to think one bit about me or Silas.” She pushed from the bed. “No, this visitor is far more dangerous, because, for some reason, he did care for the late duke. Did you ever encounter the Duke of Blackvale?”
Fanny hesitated.
“One of Silas’s oldest friends,” Valaria supplied. “The tallest, most frustratingly handsome man in London with a mop of hair that looks like someone’s fingers have combed through it…perhaps not his own.”
There was a light of recognition in Fanny’s gaze. “Yes, I think I did pass through a room with you at some point and encounter the man you’re describing. The late duke called him Cal, I think.”
“And he called my husband Si.” She clenched her hands at her sides. “Thick as thieves, they were. And Blackvale had a weakness to Silas that I could never explain. An inability to see his lesser traits.” She rolled her eyes. “So all Callum recalls is the best of him. And he feels some obligation to look after me, he says.”
Fanny swallowed. “I see. Do you think he is the type to ask…to ask certain kinds of questions?”
“Yes,” Valaria burst out, fluttering her hands around her as she paced across the room. “He will do nothing but ask questions and intrude and see through me if I try to hide things.”
“Can you put him off?” Fanny asked.