best. I may have overexerted myself today in my delicate condition, without realizing it. Paying a call to Jo, facing my brother’s outrage.”
Callie seemed…distant. Unlike herself. He did not like it. Earlier, before Westmorland had arrived, before she had swooned and the doctor had been summoned, everything between them had been so different. Now, he could not shake the feeling that something had been severed.
“I am sorry about the scene with your brother. Had I realized you were enceinte, I would not have countenanced leaving you to an interrogation.” Sin frowned. “What can I do now? Shall I ring for your lady’s maid?”
“Please.” Callie sighed. “Whitmore will know just what to do. She always does.”
The ease with which she would dismiss him rankled. Part of him had been hoping she would ask for him to remain instead. But Sin stood, then stalked to the bell pull.
For the first time in his life, he was jealous of a bloody lady’s maid.
He could not help but to wonder how Whitmore would know what to do when he had not one fucking inkling.
He was going to be a father again.
Bloody hell.
Chapter Twenty-One
Be warned, dear reader. I ruin everything I touch. Sooner or later, I will ruin you, if you let me.
~from Confessions of a Sinful Earl
Sin was sotted.
So sotted, the walls of the Black Souls club were swirling around him. Churning, dancing, taunting him. The ceiling was a whirling blur. His ears rang with the sounds of his fellow club members laughing and talking. Occasionally, the dulcet giggle of a woman, a smooth voice, joined the din.
He blinked and struggled to focus his gaze upon Decker, who was dressed all in black this evening, from his shirt to his neck cloth, waistcoat, and coat. He looked like he had been torn from the bowels of Hades.
Ironic, that. Sin felt as if he had been torn from the bowels of Hades as well.
He struggled to recall why he was here, within four walls he had not inhabited in months. And then it all came rushing back to him in one befuddled mess. His argument with Callie, facing an irate Westmorland, her sudden swoon and the fear it incited, the doctor’s unexpected announcement, Callie pushing him away… Always, always, back to her.
And the babe growing within her womb.
His child.
God, he was elated and terrified and weak in the knees, even though he was sitting down. He was sitting down, was he not? Sin glanced down to confirm, lest he fall on his arse.
“I am going to be a father,” he announced, slamming his glass on the table before him.
Closing one eye, he peered into the empty vessel. He supposed he had drained it. Again.
Blast.
“So you have said, and so I have offered my felicitations,” Decker said. “No less than five times now. Would you care for another whisky? Or perhaps you would prefer another form of distraction?”
Even as soused as he was, Sin bloody well knew what another form of distraction was at the Black Souls. He had not forgotten. A woman, for his pleasure. Warm, soft lips on his cock. Or something more. Bindings. Birches. Once upon a time, he had experienced all the depravities this club had to offer.
Why the devil was he here now?
Ah, yes. He had been looking for Decker in the wake of the realization his wife was going to have his child. He had been in need of support. Commiseration. Hell, anything. But Decker had not been at home. Instead, he had been at the club—one of the many businesses Decker owned.
And so, Sin had come here. Because he had been lost in a vast sea. Because he had not known where else to go. Because discovering his wife was carrying his child had rocked him, shaken him. Dinner had been a bleak affair as she had still been feeling unwell. She had gone to sleep in her own bed for the first time since their marriage had begun.
Alone.
At her request.
And no matter how much he told himself he should not mind, that his objective had been achieved, that he could now carry on his life as he once had, he could not deny the truth: he did not want to.
“Sin?” Decker prodded, breaking up his whirling thoughts. “Another whisky? Some quim?”
“Do I look like I need more whisky?” he asked his friend. “Or anything else, for that matter?”
“You look like shite,” Decker told him, unrepentant. “But you have been a boring, married chap, shagging your wife silly every