“How many paintings of me in the altogether do you need?” she asked with a laugh. In the last three sennights, he’d finished the painting of her in the necklace and completed two more of her in the altogether.
“A hundred ought to be enough,” he teased, nuzzling her as the now-familiar preoccupied expression he often got came over him.
“Callum.” She nudged him, giving him a pointed look. “We agreed no more secrets.”
He nodded. “These paintings I’m creating are each a way I imagined you in my mind when I was in the asylum. These images helped me to survive. Do you truly mind the posing?”
“No,” she said, overwhelmed with love for Callum and anger at Ross. “Besides, when I sit for you, I learn so many interesting things about you.”
“As I do about you,” he said, a mischievous look coming to his face.
“Like what?” she replied, not able to recall anything overly interesting that she had told him. They’d had endless conversations regarding things they liked and did not like, and she had already told him all her favorite foods, her fondest memories, her saddest memories—which mostly revolved around her father always seeming to love her half-sister more—and that beyond her fascination with stars and the moon, she had also developed a love for poetry, specifically a poet new to her, Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
“Like,” he said, disentangling himself, rolling to the other side of the bed, reaching over the edge and returning with a package, which he held out to her, “your love for Elizabeth’s poetry.”
She felt her brows dip into a frown. “Elizabeth? Do you know her?”
He nodded. “Yes. I met her ages ago through her cousin, Kenyon. She gave me a signed poem for you.”
“What?” Constantine snatched the package from him and tore it open. Inside was a poem on heavy scroll with a picture of the night sky painted on it. The stars were done in gold, and the moon was the color of a pearl. “Did you paint this?”
When he nodded, she scrambled to him and kissed him madly until they were both breathless. When they pulled apart, she glanced at the poem and realized there were only three lines in addition to the title, “How Do I Love Thee.”
“Is this finished?” Constantine asked, reading the text silently.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight…
“No.” Callum tucked a loose strand of Constantine’s hair behind her ear. “Elizabeth said it was not complete and to share it with no one but you.”
Constantine pressed the scroll to her chest. “I’ll treasure it always, Callum.”
“As I’ll treasure you always,” he said and kissed her once more. “Which is why I want to keep you safe.”
“I know,” she replied, “but I want your nightmares to stop, and I think the best chance we have of that happening is to prove your cousin’s guilt so he can be served justice. And I think I know how we can get it.”
He gave her a wary look but still asked, “How?”
“Simple.” She took his hand and squeezed it. “I’ll make him think I despise you and that I want to be rid of you.”
“No,” Callum said, the finality of his response resounding.
“We can do it safely,” she cajoled. “We’ll have the constable here and all your friends, and even those men of Beckford’s who guard the house.” Callum’s eyes narrowed. “The new men,” she hastened to correct. “Not the ones who were duped by Frederica. You can all be hiding. I can do this, Callum. You know I can. You said yourself that he told you he would never hurt me. You also said he wants your entire life, including me as his wife. Now that I know this, you cannot expect me not to trysomething! You must allow me to help you, as you would insist on helping me, were the roles reversed. Trust me, Callum. Please. I can make Ross think I love him, and I feel almost certain that I can elicit a confession.”
“No,” he replied. “I’m sorry.”
“Let me try, Callum,” she begged. “For us. For our future.”
He sat in silence for a long while, not really looking at her but almost through her. Finally, he nodded. “Only with an abundance of precautions.”
“Yes, of course,” she agreed, allowing him to take her into his arms as new hope flowed through her.
Three sennights later, after extensive planning and carefully laying morsels of false gossip on the crumbling state of the Kilgore marriage, Callum hovered in the drawing room behind a thick panel of curtains that pooled on the floor, Beckford by his side. Valentine and Carrington were behind a panel on the opposite side of the room, and the constable and Greybourne were hunched outside the window that opened into the garden. The night was dark, the moon dull, and the garden purposely unlit.
This was the third consecutive night that Ross had visited Constantine, believing Callum at the Orcus Society in the arms of another woman.
