“Oh? I should be interested in seeing how you accomplish that, as you cannot reveal my escape without calling attention to your own,” she teased.

“Too true.” Benedick’s white teeth flashed. “Well, then, you can stay.”

“Thank you.” She toasted him with her glass of sherry. “You are too kind.”

Benedick swirled a glass of scotch lazily as Callie drank deeply and relaxed in the chair with her eyes closed, enjoying their companionable silence. After several minutes, he spoke. “And so, what sent you fleeing the familial rite?”

Callie did not open her eyes. “Aunt Beatrice.”

“What did the old bird do now?”

“Benedick!”

“Are you about to tell me that you don’t think of her in a remarkably similar way?”

“Thinking of her in such a manner is one thing. Saying it aloud is quite another.”

Benedick laughed. “You are too well behaved for your own good. So what did our dear, revered, valued aunt do to send you fleeing to a darkened room?”

She sighed, refilling her glass. “She did nothing that no other member of the two families represented in that room failed to do. She simply did it more rudely.”

“Ah. Marriage.”

“She actually said—” She paused, taking a deep breath. “No. I will not give her the pleasure of repeating it.”

“I can imagine.”

“No, Benny. You cannot.” She sipped her sherry. “I vow, had I known that this was how spinsterhood would be, I would have married the first man who proposed to me.”

“The first man who proposed to you was an idiot vicar.”

“You shouldn’t speak ill of the clergy.”

Benedick snorted and took a long pull of scotch.

“Fine. I would have married the second man who proposed. Geoffrey was quite attractive.”

“If you hadn’t turned him down, Callie, Father would have. He was an inveterate gambler and a notorious drunk. He died in a gambling hell, for goodness sake.”

“Ah, but then I would be a widow. No one insults widows.”

“Yes, well, I’m not sure that’s true, but if you insist…” Benedick paused. “Do you really wish you were married to one of them?”

Callie drank again, letting the sweet wine linger on her tongue as she considered the question. “No, not to anyone who has ever asked me,” she said. “I wouldn’t like to be chattel to some horrible man who married me only for money or land or to be aligned with the Allendale earldom…but I wouldn’t refuse a love match.”

Benedick chuckled. “Yes, well, a love match is an entirely different thing altogether. They don’t come along every day.”

“No,” she agreed, and the two lapsed into silence. After several long moments of contemplation, Callie said, “No…what I would really like is to be a man.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I would! For example, if I told you that you had to spend the next three months suffering unfeeling remarks related to Mari’s wedding, what would you say?”

“I should say, ‘Hang that,’ and avoid the whole thing.”

Callie used her sherry glass to point in his direction. “Exactly! Because you are a man!”

“A man who has succeeded in avoiding a great number of events that would have led to criticism of my unmarried state.”

“Benedick,” Callie said frankly, raising her head, “the only reason you were able to avoid those events is because you’re a man. I, unfortunately, cannot play by the same rules.”

“Whyever not?”

“Because I am a woman. I cannot simply avoid the balls and dinners and teas and dress fittings. Oh, God. Dress fittings. I’m going to have to suffer through all these horrid piteous stares again…while Mariana is in her wedding gown…in a modiste’s shop. Oh, God.” She covered her eyes against the image.

“I still fail to see the reason why you cannot just avoid the horrid events. Fine, you have to be at the ball announcing their engagement. You must attend the wedding. But beg off everything else.”

“I cannot do that!”

“Again, I ask, whyever not?”

“Decent women no more beg off events like that than they take lovers. I have a reputation to worry about!”

Now it was his turn to snort. “What utter nonsense. Calpurnia. You are twenty-eight years old.”

“It’s not very gentlemanly of you to speak of my age. And you know I hate it when you call me Calpurnia.”

“You’ll suffer through. You are twenty-eight years old, unmarried, and have, quite possibly, the most pristine reputation of any member of the ton, no matter their gender or their age. For God’s sake, when was the last time you went anywhere without your lace cap?”

She glared at him. “My reputation is all I have. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Benedick.” She reached down to pour another glass of sherry.

“Indeed, you’re right. It’s all you have now. But you could have more. Why not reach out and take it?”

“Are you encouraging me to tarnish our good name?” Callie asked incredulously, freezing, decanter in one hand, glass in the other. Benedick raised one eyebrow at the tableau. Callie set the bottle down. “You do realize that if I do so, you, as the earl, will likely suffer the repercussions?”

“I’m not suggesting you take a lover, Callie. Nor am I hoping that you’ll cause a scene. I’m simply arguing that you hold yourself to a rather high standard for…well…someone who need not worry so much about a slight mark on her reputation. I assure you, skipping odious wedding-related events will not impact the state of the earldom.”