Nick’s gaze did not waver. “We had each other, Gabriel. She has no one. We know better than anyone what it is like to be in her position; to be deserted by everyone you have ever had—everyone you have ever loved.”
Ralston met Nick’s eyes, somber with the memories of their shared childhood. The twins had survived their mother’s desertion, their father’s descent into despair. Their childhood had not been pleasant, but Nick was right—they had had each other. And that had made the difference. “The one thing I learned from watching our parents is that love is overrated. What matters is responsibility. Honor. Juliana will be better for understanding that at such a young age. She has us, now. And likely she thinks it not much. But it will have to be enough.”
The brothers fell into silence, each lost to his own thoughts. Eventually, Nick said, “It will be difficult to get the ton to accept her.”
Ralston swore roundly, recognizing the truth in his brother’s words.
As the daughter of a woman who had not received a proper divorce, Juliana would not be immediately accepted into society. At best, Juliana was the child of a lady exiled from polite society, and she would struggle to cast off the heavy mantle of her mother’s soiled reputation. At worst, she was the illegitimate daughter of a fallen marchioness and her common-born Italian lover.
Nick spoke again. “Her legitimacy will be questioned.”
Gabriel thought for several moments. “If our mother married her father, it means that the marchioness must have converted to Catholicism upon arriving in Italy. The Catholic Church would never have acknowledged her marriage in the Church of England.”
“Ah, so it is we who are illegitimate.” Nick’s words were punctuated with a wry smile.
“To Italians, at least,” Gabriel said. “Luckily, we are English.”
“Excellent. That works out well for us,” Nick replied, “but what of Juliana? There will be many who will refuse to socialize with her. They shan’t like that she is the daughter of a fallen woman. And a Catholic no less.”
“They wouldn’t have accepted Juliana to begin with. We cannot change the fact that her father is of common birth.”
“Perhaps we should attempt to pass her off as a distant cousin rather than a sibling.”
Ralston’s response brooked no refusal. “Absolutely not. She is our sister. We shall present her as such and face the consequences.”
“It is she who will face the consequences.” Nick met his brother’s eye as the words hung in the air, heavy with importance. “The season will soon be in full swing. If we are to succeed, our activities must be entirely aboveboard. Our reputation is hers.”
Ralston understood. He would have to end his arrangement with Nastasia—the opera singer was renowned for indiscretion. “I shall speak with Nastasia today.”
Nick nodded in acknowledgment before adding, “And Juliana will need an introduction into society. From someone with an impeccable character.”
“Yes, I thought of that myself.”
“We could always call on Aunt Phyllidia.” Nick shuddered even as he referred to their father’s sister who, despite being certain to arrive full of loud opinions and brash instructions, was a dowager duchess and a pillar of the ton.
“No.” Ralston’s response was short and immediate. Phyllidia would not be able to manage such a delicate situation as this—a mysterious, unknown sister arriving on the doorstep of Ralston House at the start of the season. “None of our female relatives will do.”
“Then who?”
Twin gazes locked. Held. Their determination matched, their commitment equal.
But only one was the marquess. And his words left no room for questions. “I shall find someone.”
Two
Then with a burst of tears she ran straight toward him, and flung her arms about the neck of Odysseus, and kissed his head, and spoke:
“Lo, thou dost convince my heart, unbending as it is.”
And in his heart aroused yet more the desire for lamentation; and he wept, holding in his arms his dear and true-hearted wife.
Callie Hartwell paused in her reading, and released a deep, satisfied sigh. The sound rent the silence of the Allendale House library, where she had escaped hours earlier in search of a good book. In Callie’s opinion, a good book required an enduring love story…and Homer delivered.
Oh, Odysseus, she thought soulfully, turning a yellowed page in the leather-bound book and wiping away a stray tear. Twenty years later, back in the arms of your love. A well-deserved reunion if ever I’ve read one.
She paused in her reading, leaning her head back on the high padded chair and breathing deeply, inhaling the rich scent of long-loved and well-oiled books and imagining herself the heroine of this particular story—the loving wife, the object of an heroic quest to return home, the woman who, through love, inspired her wonderfully flawed husband to fight the Cyclops, to resist the Sirens, to conquer all for a single goal—to resume his place by her side.
What would it be like to be such a woman? One whose unparalleled beauty was rewarded with the love of the greatest hero of his time? What would it be like to welcome such a man into one’s heart? Into one’s life? Into one’s bed? A smile played across Callie’s lips as the wicked thought flashed through her mind. Oh, Odysseus indeed.
She chuckled. If only others knew that Lady Calpurnia Hartwell, proper, well-behaved spinster, entertained deep-seated and certainly unladylike thoughts about fictional heroes. She sighed again with self-deprecation. She was well aware of how silly she was, dreaming of the heroes in her books. It was a terrible habit, and one she had harbored for far too long.
It had begun when she had first read Romeo and Juliet at age twelve and followed her through heroes great and small—from Beowulf and Hamlet and Tristan to the dark, brooding heroes of gothic novels. It didn’t matter the quality of the writing—Callie’s fantasies about her fictional heroes were entirely democratic.
She closed her eyes and imagined herself far from this high-ceilinged room, filled to the brim with books and papers collected by a long line of Allendale earls. She imagined herself not the spinster sister of the Earl of Allendale, but instead, as Penelope, so deeply in love with her Odysseus that she had spurned all suitors.
She conjured her hero into the vision, she, seated at a loom, he, standing strong and intense in the doorway to the room. His physical appearance came easily—it was one that had been used again and again in her fantasies for the last decade.
Tall, towering, and broad, with thick dark hair that made women itch to touch it and blue eyes the color of the same sea that Odysseus had sailed for twenty years. A strong jaw, marred only by a dimple that flashed when he smiled—that smile—a smile that held the equal promise of wickedness and pleasure.
Yes…they were all modeled on the only man about whom she’d ever dreamed—Gabriel St. John, the Marquess of Ralston. One would think that after a full decade of pining, she would have given up her fantasy…but it appeared that she had fallen for the rake quite squarely and most regretfully, and she was doomed to spend the rest of her life imagining him the Antony to her Cleopatra.
She laughed outright at the comparison. The fact that she was named for an empress aside, one would have to be severely touched to think Lady Calpurnia Hartwell anything close to Cleopatra. For one thing, Callie had never laid a man low with her beauty—something Cleopatra was reported to have been extraordinarily skilled at doing. Cleopatra did not share Callie’s ordinary brown hair and ordinary brown eyes. Nor could the Queen of Egypt have been described as plump. Nor did Callie imagine that Cleopatra had ever been left on the edge of a ballroom for the entirety of a ball. And, Callie was certain there was absolutely no evidence that the Queen of Egypt had ever worn a lace cap.