Chapter 27
“Today, I am full of energy,” Phoebe said by way of introduction as she breezed into Clio’s drawing room a few days later. “By the by, did you know that there is a very angry man roaming your halls? He looked at me and just sniffed.”
“Oh, that’s Matthew,” Clio said, rising to brush a kiss against each of Phoebe’s cheeks.
It seemed as though they were dispensing with the pleasantries, which, after several days of cool politeness with Hector, was a welcome change.
“He still thinks he’s going to inherit, and so he sees us all as dreadful interlopers in his rightful home. ”
She rolled her eyes pointedly to punctuate what she thought of that notion.
Phoebe, who had immediately begun using her avowed energy to plump every cushion in the immediate vicinity, stopped what she was doing and shot Clio an incredulous look.
“But I thought the terms of the will were that Hector needed to marry a suitable woman to inherit,” she said.
“They were,” Clio agreed.
“And you are eminently suitable, by anyone’s standards,” Phoebe observed. “How far can you track back your family tree? Five centuries?”
“More or less to the Conquest,” Clio corrected. “If you read far back enough in history, it basically reads, ‘And they decided to call the land England, and there was a fellow called Lightholder over on the left.’”
“So …” Phoebe let the word draw out. “Is this Matthew fellow just stupid?”
Clio prayed, in her heart of hearts, that this would be the moment that either Matthew or his snobbish wife was walking past and eavesdropping, something she’d caught them doing more than once.
Since she didn’t hear the thump of someone dropping dead from shock and offense, she assumed her prayers were unanswered.
Typical.
“He’s trying to make a case that marriage isn’t enough,” Clio explained. “That the late duke’s codicil really means continuation of the line, which means an heir.”
“That,” Phoebe said flatly, “is a stupid argument—so, honestly, I must return to my original assessment. However, I assume that the trustees are all men—”
“Oh, why ever would you think so?” Clio asked dryly. Phoebe tipped her head in acknowledgment but kept speaking.
“—so, one cannot trust them to understand the mechanics of childbearing, I suppose. Timelines, in particular, seem crucial here.” She looked down at her own middle with a fond smile. “It took ages for Aaron and I to conceive, and I assure you, it was not from lack of trying.”
Horrified, Clio put her hands over her ears. She didn’t think of herself as uncommonly prudish—if she ever had been, Phoebe, Ariadne, and even Helen would have put an end to that—but she didn’t need to hear details.
“You are married to my brother, so I have chosen to believe that your babe appeared out of thin air, thank you very much,” she informed Clio. “As any other belief would mortify me into the ground.”
Phoebe gave her a smile like the cat who had got the cream, and Clio shuddered.
“Fortunately,” Phoebe said, finally deciding that the cushions were arranged to her satisfaction and flopping back onto the settee with a contented sigh, “if they are men, they are also highly susceptible to trickery. Which means that you don’t have to actually produce a child—which is good, as that would be impossible—in the next few weeks.
You just have to convince them that one is forthcoming. ”
Three minutes ago, Clio had been sitting quietly, working on an embroidery project that she’d been casually chipping away at since the previous winter, and sipping tea.
Now—somehow—Phoebe already had a plan to solve a problem that she hadn’t known existed ninety seconds previously.
Someone ought to put her in charge of more things, Clio thought. The world’s problems would evaporate in a flash.
“What do you have in mind?” Clio asked, already feeling weary.
Phoebe grinned, clearly very pleased with herself.
“Well,” she said, “the two of you have married. You’ve given everyone a little time to settle down and forget about the more scandalous bits—did you know that the Earl of Comfrey’s fourth daughter just ran off with a groom?
Frankly, nobody cares about you marrying a duke when that bit of gossip is on offer.
” She shook her head, dispelling the distraction.
“Anyway, now you just have to show the ton that your marriage is here to stay.”
Clio didn’t like the sound of this, which meant that Hector definitely wouldn’t like the sound of this.
“And how do you propose we do that?” she asked warily.
Phoebe clapped her hands together. “By attending a ball, of course.”
If there was some small satisfaction in knowing that, yes, her husband would hate this plan, Clio struggled to find it.
“I’m not sure that would help,” she told Phoebe.
“Of course it will help,” Phoebe retorted. “Come on. Picture a room full of stodgy old trustees. They’re likely fossils, the lot of them, and no doubt they amuse themselves by sitting around moaning that young people these days are ruining England et cetera.”
Clio had no retort for this, as this did rather describe every elderly gentleman she’d ever known.
“What they want from Hector isn’t an actual, real human child—you know none of them has ever held an actual baby—but rather an assurance that this interloper duke who grew up out of the fold isn’t going to change their world too much.”
This … held a certain logic, and this conclusion must have shown on Clio’s face, because Phoebe pressed her advantage.
“They really just want to know that he’s one of them,” she added. “And going to a Society event, even just a silly little ball, will show that. You can’t mean to tell me that the sour-faced brother has been sitting home all the time.”
This was another good point; Phoebe really was in fine form this morning. Matthew had been spending most of his time at his club, but Clio had seen him flitting out from time to time, dressed in evening clothes and an air of self-importance so cloying that it hung about him like a cloud.
“Perhaps,” Clio allowed.
“Besides,” Phoebe said, wheedling a bit, “it will be fun. I mean, people will be awful, but I’ll be there!
Aaron will be there! He’ll get to glower at everyone, which you know he loves, and the sooner you and Hector become less of a mystery, the sooner everyone will move along even more than they already have. ”
Again, logical, but Clio’s mind stuck on one point …
“You and Aaron will be there?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “As in, you have already chosen the event?”
If Clio expected Phoebe to look embarrassed at being caught out, she was destined for disappointment.
“Oh, I’m so glad you asked,” she said brightly. “Yes. I’ve already accepted on our behalf. We are expected at the Abernathy ball on Wednesday next.”
When Clio approached her husband with the idea, she tried to channel Phoebe’s confidence. She didn’t expect that she would be quite as successful as her sister by marriage—there was no matching Phoebe for determination—but she hadn’t expected Hector to laugh right in her face.
“Ha. No, you cannot be serious,” he said. He was—once again, Clio thought with a note of sourness—poring over more of that infernal paperwork.
She didn’t think he was being intentionally unkind; Hector, for all his flaws, wasn’t mean. But he hadn’t even looked up from what he was doing, and the dismissiveness stung.
“Hector,” she said. And then, when he still didn’t look up, more pointedly, “Hector.”
Irritation was written across his features as he looked away from his work.
Over the weeks, the desk had turned from what was little more than a heap of parchment with some drawers beneath into an orderly workspace.
She knew that this orderliness represented a tremendous amount of effort, effort done in the face of two of his family members intentionally trying to foil him.
But he’d hammered away at it tirelessly, in a way that made it rather easy for her to picture him at the forge. He had taken something that should have been impossible and beaten it into submission. It was something to be proud of.
But he didn’t seem proud. He just seemed annoyed and weary. And she tried to be understanding, truly she did, but she was annoyed and weary, too.
And she didn’t bloody deserve his dismissal.
“This will help with your campaign against your brother,” she told him, trying to sound calm and collected. It came out rather frosty, but she decided it still wasn’t a bad effort overall. “They’ll see you, see us, and—”
“And what, Clio?” he interrupted, his voice clipped.
She’d never before longed to hear him call her princess quite so desperately.
“They’ll gawp and titter over the monstrous duke?
You do realize that I cannot dance, don’t you?
” He thumped a fist against his injured leg.
“Not only did I never receive lessons, but they don’t precisely make space for a walking stick, do they? ”
Clio felt her cheeks redden. “You don’t need to dance,” she protested. “Society balls are about more than just the dancing—”
He interrupted again. “Nor do I need to brush elbows with a bunch of gossiping matrons, Clio! You might not have noticed, as you have been flitting about untroubled, but I have been working endlessly to prepare for a meeting with the trustees so we don’t need to live with my brother constantly underfoot. ”
This was so patently unfair that she took a step backward.
“Do not act as though I have abandoned you to it,” she returned. “Whenever I have tried to speak with you, you’ve practically banished me.”
“It’s my concern,” he sniped back. He was on his feet now, his hands clutching the edge of the desk tightly enough that his knuckles were going white. “You—"
Clio felt a surge of satisfaction that, finally, it was her turn to interrupt. “You don’t trust me,” she said sharply. “You don’t want a partner; you just want a pretty little bauble to hang on your arm—but only when it is convenient for you.”