Chapter 11
Before she absconded to the countryside—as Clio chose to term it—Letitia visited to say farewell to her friend and benefactress.
Clio had thrown her arms around her friend’s shoulder, not caring if any of the staff was scandalized by such a show of familiarity. Let them gawk. Belgium was not England, and Clio did not plan to let friendship be held to rigid English standards.
Letitia, for her part, squeezed back just as energetically.
“I forgot about this part when I helped you secure your post,” Clio muttered into her friend’s shoulder, not yet letting go. “I should have made certain that you were governess to children who never, ever left London.”
“We shall return to Town at some point,” Letitia assured her, parroting the explanation she’d been given by her new employers about their habits and homes.
“Some point is not soon enough,” Clio protested. “I shall visit you in the country anon.”
Letty put her hands on Clio’s shoulders and looked at her from that distance. She had a look on her face that Clio had always privately thought of as her Letty knows best look. Irritatingly, it usually preceded some sage information.
“You would have to be living in England in order to come visit me,” she said mildly.
Clio grimaced. She’d confided in Letty over tea the day prior, all that had transpired with the duke … or, nearly all. She’d left out the bit about the kissing.
But she hadn’t been circumspect about her own uncertainty regarding the decision that lay ahead of her.
“I know,” she said quietly. “I … hope I will be able to come visit.”
It wasn’t an answer. It wasn’t a decision. But it was true.
Letitia squeezed Clio’s shoulders affectionately.
“This is not a goodbye,” she said, eyes going damp. “It is an au revoir.”
“Bien s?r,” Clio agreed, falling back into French, the language that the two women had used for most of their acquaintance.
Letitia bussed a kiss against Clio’s cheek, and Clio tried to soak up the familiarity of her friend’s presence, her visage, even the light smell of her honey soap.
And then Letitia boarded the carriage that Xander and Helen had sent to transport her into the country, which clattered down the cobblestones.
Clio waved until the carriage was gone from sight.
She waited a few moments longer in the dreary morning, trying not to feel too bad for herself, then turned back to the house—
And yelped to find Phoebe standing right behind her, hands on her hips.
“Are you trying to kill me?” Clio demanded, putting a hand to her chest. “What are you doing?”
”I’ve been very patient,” Phoebe said in a not-at-all patient tone. “I know you are sad about your friend leaving. But it is time for us to talk.”
Alarm shot through Clio at her sister by marriage’s somber words. “What’s wrong?” she asked, too worried to resist as Phoebe dragged her back inside and then into a private room. Was Phoebe ill? Was Aaron ill? Had some other disaster struck, one so dreadful that Clio could not even conceive of it?
Phoebe locked the door behind them.
“You,” she said accusingly, “have been kissed.”
Clio blinked, confusion, relief, and then irritation flaring through her all on top of each other.
“Phoebe!” she protested. “You cannot begin conversations like that. I thought someone was dead.”
Phoebe ignored this, which was absolutely typical.
“So, you don’t deny it,” she said smugly.
“You must have better things to do than worry about my romantic life—or lack thereof,” she hastened to add, when triumph gleamed in Phoebe’s gaze. “You are a duchess. Aren’t you busy?”
“Not really.” Phoebe shrugged. “Aaron and I only host one ball per year, and it’s not for weeks and weeks yet, and I’ve managed most of the details already. It really isn’t that hard, you know.” She grinned a feral sort of grin. “That gives me plenty of time to think about you.”
Clio darted a glance at the door, considering her chances of getting out of here before Phoebe tackled her. It wasn’t a ladylike way of resolving conflict, but Phoebe had never let something like a little impropriety stop her from doing what she wanted.
“There might be some…inexplicable feelings of attraction between myself and the duke,” Clio said eventually with all the decorum she could muster. “But that does not mean that I intend to marry him.”
Phoebe pressed her lips together. “But we are going to this house party of his.”
Clio rolled her eyes. “Do you really think Aaron would have considered skipping it?”
Phoebe scoffed. “You were the one who told Aaron about the party, so that excuse doesn’t have as much impact as you might think.”
“He would have found out,” Clio objected mulishly.
“I think you like him,” Phoebe said in a singsong voice.
“Aaron? He’s my brother; I like him just fine, when he isn’t being terrible.”
“I think you like the duke,” Phoebe sang on.
“Aaron is a—”
“The Duke of Metford!” Phoebe chucked a pillow at her. “I think you are denying that there is something real between you. I went through the same thing with your brother, you know.”
Clio rolled her eyes again.
“You just want to see everyone in love,” she accused, and Phoebe shrugged, unbothered. “But what I want most is to see the world. I want to go to other continents. I want to sail on the Nile. I want to see if the birds in South America are truly as glorious and colorful as they say.”
These things all sounded wonderful. Clio knew that. But she also wasn’t entirely surprised when, instead of launching into plans for a strange escape scheme, Phoebe frowned with uncharacteristic solemnity at her.
“If that is what you really want,” she said, “then I will support you. But Clio … are you certain that’s what you desire? Or is it the only thing you dare ask for? I just … I worry that you are hiding from your true wants.”
Clio opened her mouth to protest … and found that the words died on her tongue.
Clio had been to too many house parties to count.
She’d been to house parties galore in Belgium, a few in France, and one extremely long one in Germany during which she had received no fewer than three proposals of marriage and had gone home uncertain if any of those had been made in earnest or if they were all in jest.
(She had declined. Just to be safe.)
English expatriates abroad loved house parties, loved to create little English havens where they all remarked that, no, scones never were quite the same as a home, even if they were made with the same recipe, and where they eventually admitted that French pastries were superior all the same.
To this point, Clio had been too far, far more house parties than her brother, Aaron. Especially since he had spent his best socializing years either at sea or brooding in their country seat, then had promptly gotten married and spent the remainder of his time making cow eyes at his beloved wife.
It therefore galled that Aaron kept insisting on giving her advice.
“The ton can be cruel, Clio,” he pontificated as the carriage rattled—bloody finally—up to the grand Metford estate. “Tongues loosen at house parties, and people become less rigid in their manners. It’s very likely that people will make comments to you.”
“Oh no, not comments.” Clio feigned horror.
Aaron frowned. “I am just trying to prepare you.”
“You have been trying to prepare me for the past five hours! You’ve literally bored your wife to sleep!”
Clio jerked a thumb at Phoebe, who, she was pretty sure, was faking her slumber to avoid being dragged into the siblings’ argument.
“She’s not asleep,” Aaron said offhandedly, not sparing even a glance at his wife, whose eyes popped open in affront. “And I wouldn't need to repeat myself if you would only listen to me.”
Clio gave up. She simply gave up.
“Fine,” she said. “Bestow upon me your sage wisdom, oh great and mighty duke.”
If Aaron heard the sarcasm in her tone—and really, how could he miss it—he ignored it.
“The ton,” he said sagely, “will not forget the gossip about you, even if it has been less present in the Society papers these past few days.”
This was true—and a blissful relief. A baron’s daughter had gotten drunk at a garden party and gone wading into the fountain to look more closely at the lily pads, which had distracted everyone from Clio.
“But,” Aaron went on, “we will be in a smaller company here. Which means that all the talk about that group will be amplified.”
I know. Clio bit back the words. “Wisely observed,” she gritted out instead.
Phoebe snorted quietly.
“This unpleasantness will continue until you are wed,” Aaron warned. Or I leave the country, Clio thought. “I will shield you where I can—” The annoying part about this was that he was being sweet, albeit in a remarkably high-handed way. “—but it’s perfectly appropriate to be nervous.”
Ah, scratch that. The annoying part about this was that Aaron was right.
Clio was nervous.
It was less about the ton, though, and more about the Duke of Metford.
“Thank you, Aaron,” she said absently when she realized that the silence had gone on for too long. Aaron and Phoebe exchanged one of those knowing looks that married people had the irksome habit of sharing, and then Phoebe reached forward and briefly squeezed Clio’s hand.
There wasn’t time for any more, either in terms of advice or reassurance, however, as their carriage then reached the front of the queue and a footman opened the door to let them down.
The whispers started even as Clio and Phoebe stood waiting for Aaron to have his important man-to-man talk to the coachman about how proud they were of the horses, how well they’d earned their oats tonight, what a fine pair they made—all the things that men liked to say to avoid admitting that they held any actual affection for the beasts. God forbid.
The members of the ton spoke over one another in a chorus of rudeness.
“—Can you even believe it? Not an hour back from the Continent and she finds herself—”