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A FEW DAYS HAD PAST SINCE THE OPERA AND CALLIOPE WAS YET TO RECEIVE HER NECKLACE BACK FROM THE DUKE WHO HAD ABSCONDED WITH IT. She was getting close to the point where she thought she would have to seek him out for the return of her property. Her mother had already noticed it was absence from around her neck and she didn't want to add more fuel her mother's marriage focused thoughts, so she claimed to have miss placed it.
It was a lie that was not easily believed by anyone in the Bridgerton household because the necklace had been the final gift that Calliope had received from her father prior to his passing so she wore it every day since. It had taken everything in her not to go to Devonshire house the next morning, but she didn't want to give Henry the satisfaction.
Calliope walked down into the drawing room her hand continuously instinctively reached for the usual pendent that usually rested there against her skin but the defeat of only reaching at air. She smiled as she spotted her youngest sibling bickering over their game and Eloise in the corner writing secretively.
"Where's Mama and Daph this morning?" Calliope asked as she looked around at the room for the missing members of her family.
"At the modiste, I think mama want to prove everything is back to normal now that the unfortunate Nigel Berbrooke chapter is now officially closed for the dear diamond." Eloise muttered as she closed her book to look up her eldest sister. "Congratulations on that by the way."
"Why thank you El, it was one of my more brilliant ideas." Calliope stated as she flicked her hair dramatically. She pulled out her own book knowing that Eloise would want to start reading her own book again and the two fell into a rhythmic silence.
"Do you think that you will ever marry?" Eloise asked rather out of the blue.
"I don't know El, but I know I won't let myself be forced into anything?" Calliope answered after a moment to think, because she truly didn't know her own answer. "I will only marry if I truly want it and I know that I will have a better life as a result of my decision or else I will live the life of the fun aunt to my many many nieces and nephews."
Eloise looked down at the book in her hands as she fiddled with the thin paper of her book. "What will happen if I don't marry?"
"You won't have a husband?" Calliope answered simply taking a sip from her tea.
"I'm being serious Cal." Eloise said earnestly, knowing that her eldest sister wouldn't sugar coat the truth from her like her other older sister and their mother.
