Chapter 5
“Who are you and what have you done to my brother?” Clio asked with a laugh as her brother, Aaron Warson, the Duke of Redcliff, embraced her wholeheartedly. “I’m looking for my brother Aaron. He’s surly, taciturn, tries to carry the weight of the whole world on his shoulders …”
“Oh, hush,” Aaron said, playfully shoving her away. “Or else I’m going to send you back to Belgium.”
He was teasing, but Clio’s heart leaped slightly. Gosh, if only it could be as easy as annoying her brother into submission …
How funny to think that she now longed for the home she’d made with her great-aunt.
The first time she’d gone to Belgium, she had wept bitter tears for a week over being sent away.
Then, she had been practically banished by her brother, as he’d been suffering from the idiotic notion that she would be traumatized by his surly attitude or something of the sort.
Clio, aided by Aaron’s wife, Phoebe, had disabused him of this bit of foolishness.
Her return, though, had been bittersweet. Clio had discovered that, after several years in the less-rigid social spheres of the Continent, London felt rather restricting.
She’d returned to Belgium, much to her great-aunt’s delight.
Letitia had found the position she’d taken after serving as Clio’s governess not to her liking—the children were numerous and bratty, and the pay was poor—, so she had graciously returned to serve as Clio’s companion, cementing their friendship.
“Come here, you,” Phoebe, Aaron’s wife, said, brushing her husband aside so she could sweep Clio into her arms. This was absolutely in character for Phoebe, who was everything warm and effervescent to Aaron’s normally stern exterior.
These past few years, doting on his wife had admittedly softened Aaron somewhat … not that Clio had been here to see it.
For the first time, she felt a faint pang over her years abroad. It had been the right decision for her, but still. There were things she had missed.
“Right, right, let’s not linger in the door, not after you’ve had such a long journey,” Phoebe said, cheerful over the opportunity to fuss.
Phoebe had practically raised her own younger sister, and she loved to practice her mother hen routine whenever Clio was around.
“Tell us, how was the trip? What’s the latest from Belgium? Your last letter was weeks ago.”
Clio gave Phoebe a bright smile, hoping that her relief wasn’t evident in the expression.
All right, good. Her family hadn’t yet heard about the incident with Gwanton.
Or, ah, the incidents with Gwanton.
Maybe that meant that Clio had time to get out of London—or better yet, England in its entirety—before Aaron learned and went absolutely insane over the news.
“Oh, the Continent is wonderful, as always,” she said brightly, seizing upon the opportunity to lay the seeds of her little plan.
She chattered merrily about the different acquaintances she’d made while abroad, many of whom she’d mentioned in letters over the years, before dropping her next little hint.
“You know,” she said, as though she was only just thinking of it, as the three of them sat around, eating teacakes and sandwiches.
Clio would admit that she had missed the food of her home country, which always provided one of her few good memories of childhood.
“Many of the people with whom I have long socialized in Belgium were thinking of taking a long trip to the south of France in a few weeks. I was invited to join them …”
She let this trail off suggestively in a way that she hoped was subtle.
It wasn’t, judging from the way Aaron and Phoebe exchanged one of those looks that married people always seemed to be sharing with one another—happily married people, anyway.
“You just arrived, though,” Aaron said. “And you said you were going to stay for the whole of the Season.”
Clio waved a hand airily. “Oh, I was just thinking about how fun it could be to see a new place,” she said. “I have done the London Season before, but I haven’t seen that part of France. Apparently, the water there is so blue that it’s like looking at a jewel.”
“But what about finding a husband?” Aaron asked, sounding completely baffled.
“They do have men in France,” Clio pointed out.
“Certainly, but they’re French.”
Phoebe was looking carefully between her husband and his sister, but when she caught Clio’s eye a moment later, Clio realized, with horrifying certainty, that Phoebe did know what was going on.
She really shouldn’t have doubted it. Before she’d married Aaron, Phoebe had spent her time skulking about London’s less reputable neighborhoods, and Clio knew she still had some contacts from those days.
Also, the staff all adored Phoebe. The carriage driver would have told her everything immediately.
Aaron was … well, a man of his stature and military career, and could never be said to pout. But he was looking rather dejected at Clio’s lack of enthusiasm. Apparently, in another life, Aaron had been a dreadful matchmaker.
“You’re the only one in the family who isn’t married,” he said gently, as though this was news to Clio. “And, of course, we will never force you to do something you don’t want, and you will always have us, always. But …”
Clio tried not to sigh. It wasn’t kind, not when he was being so earnest.
“Won’t you feel as though you are missing out?” he inquired delicately. “On … love? And children?”
She struggled to paste on a cheerful smile, one that obscured the pang that she felt when he said such a thing.
“There are plenty of people in the extended family who aren’t married,” she reminded him. “Like Ezra. And Daphne. And the triplets.”
Aaron gave her a skeptical look. “Daphne is out this Season,” he argued. “And the triplets are, what, ten years old?”
Clio bobbled her head in acceptance of this point. It hadn’t exactly been her strongest argument.
“And,” Aaron said, pressing his advantage. Not for nothing had he been an accomplished military commander. “Do you really want to compare yourself to Ezra?”
Their cousin Ezra was like a black cat, one who was mysterious even to his own family. Clio was admittedly a bit impressed by his ability to constantly keep everyone guessing, but she did not necessarily want to share his chaotic way of living.
But she also didn’t want to marry just anyone, just because Society or her brother thought that it was time, or because they worried that she would later regret it if she didn’t.
After all, she’d known far more people who regretted marrying hastily than those who regretted remaining unwed, especially in the case of women.
Which meant that it didn’t actually matter that much if Clio felt a twinge of interest when Aaron asked her to think of herself as married with children, with the kind of happy life that so many of her kinsfolk enjoyed.
It wasn’t the kind of thing you could force.
“Well, there isn’t any real rush, is there?” she asked airily. “Nothing that will be utterly ruined—” Oh, she regretted that choice of words immediately. “—by a few weeks spent enjoying the sunshine in France.”
“Yes, but …” Aaron looked to his wife for support, but Phoebe wore a carefully placid look. “You just got back.”
“I don’t know,” Phoebe said mildly. “The trip does sound nice.”
Aaron grew instantly suspicious. Instantly. Clio didn’t know what Aaron had been up to this past year while she’d been abroad, but it had made him irksomely canny when it came to understanding his wife’s subtle signals.
“What is going on here?” he demanded. His gentle confusion had grown harsher, though he did not seem to understand any better. Now, however, he was annoyed about it. “What are the two of you up to? How are the two of you up to anything? Clio just arrived!”
The sound of a polite, quiet throat-clearing came from the door, drawing attention to the butler, who was standing there in that distinctly English-butler sort of way.
Clio hadn’t seen that in a while. Staff on the Continent were rather more expressive …
but then again, your average rock was more expressive than most English butlers.
“I apologize for interrupting, Your Graces, Lady Clio,” he said impassively.
“But Your Grace—” This part was only directed at Aaron.
“—I wanted to assure you that the damaged carriage has been hauled back to the mews and is being attended to. The grooms are not confident that it can be salvaged, however.”
“The … damaged carriage,” Aaron echoed. He looked at Clio, who wore a mask of impassivity that even the butler might have envied, and then at Phoebe, who was staring at the ceiling like she’d never seen it before.
Huh. So perhaps Aaron’s skills at detecting lies hadn’t improved in the past year; perhaps Phoebe had just become very bad at hiding her thoughts.
Marriage was so strange. It should have made Clio fear the entire institution, but …
Aaron pressed his lips together tightly enough that they went white around the edges from the pressure. He gave the butler a nod of dual acknowledgment and dismissal, then turned on the two women in the room.
“I think,” he said carefully, but with that bar of military steel in his spine that had long cowed England’s enemies, “that it is time that you tell me everything.
Hector looked up at the London house.
His London house, officially speaking, though he didn’t feel any kind of connection to it. He hadn’t been here for … decades.
But then again, he hadn’t been to any of the places that were technically his home in decades. And the one place where he had spent his time was likely lost to him forever.
But there was no use in waiting around, moping about what could not be. He marched up to the front door, absolutely furious that he had to knock like he was a mere guest.
He would take his revenge for these petty humiliations in due time.
For now, there was business to be done.