Chapter 5
David, the Marquess of Tyrone, stood by the window of his study, his hands clasped tightly behind his back as he stared out at the garden below.
The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the manicured lawn, the scent of beeswax from the freshly polished furniture mingling with the faint mustiness of old books that lined the walls --- but he saw none of it, smelled none of it.
His thoughts were too consumed by the weight that pressed down upon his chest, a weight that had not lifted since Christmas and showed no signs of doing so.
He had made a terrible mistake.
That was the phrase he used in the privacy of his own mind, though he knew it for an understatement so vast it bordered on dishonesty.
A mistake was a wrong turning on the road, a miscalculation in one's accounts.
What David had done was something else entirely --- something deliberate and cowardly and cruel, and the memory of it sat in his chest like a stone he could neither dissolve nor dislodge.
He had acted to protect himself and, in doing so, had set in motion a series of consequences that now threatened to consume everything he was meant to safeguard.
The worst of it --- the part that woke him in the small hours, that made his hands shake when he was not careful to steady them --- was that he had not acted alone in the damage he caused.
He had used someone he loved to do it. Had taken his brother's good name and wielded it as a shield for his own cowardice, knowing full well that if the truth ever surfaced, it would be Thomas who bore the weight of suspicion.
And Thomas, the fool, the dear, trusting fool, had no idea.
David's jaw tightened. He had sent his brother away --- fabricated business in Devon that required his immediate attention.
Thomas, ever dutiful, had agreed to go without much protest. But his letters had grown increasingly difficult to manage.
Questions David could not answer. Concerns about matters Thomas should never have known enough to raise.
Each letter required a careful response, each response a fresh set of lies built upon the foundation of the original sin, and David was growing so very tired of the architecture of deception.
A knock at the door made him start, his heart leaping into his throat. "Enter."
The butler appeared, his expression as unreadable as ever. "My Lord, Lady Clara has returned from Hyde Park."
David nodded curtly, fighting to keep his voice steady. "Very well."
The butler hesitated, a flicker of something passing behind his eyes. "She appeared... distressed, my Lord."
The words landed with more force than David expected.
Distressed. Of course she was distressed --- how could she be otherwise?
He had taken from her the one thing that had made her truly happy and offered nothing in return but silence and commands.
He could still see the pen slipping in her hand, twice, as she wrote the words he dictated.
He had stood over her like a jailer and given her nothing.
Because he could give her nothing. The truth would destroy them all.
"That will be all," he said, more quietly than he had intended.
When the door closed behind the butler, David let out a long, slow exhale that seemed to drain the very strength from his limbs.
He crossed to his desk and sank heavily into the leather chair, the familiar creak of it offering no comfort.
His head fell into his hands, his fingers pressing hard against his temples.
He had told himself --- was still telling himself --- that the letter had been necessary.
That severing Clara's connection to Lord Rutland was the only way to ensure that his own secret remained buried.
Lord Rutland was too close, his family too intertwined with the very people David needed to keep at a distance.
If Clara had married the Earl, the proximity alone would have been enough.
Sooner or later, someone would have spoken.
Someone would have remembered. And the thread, once pulled, would have unraveled everything.
But the cost. God, the cost.
His sister's heartbreak. His brother's exile.
His mother's quiet bewilderment at the change in her eldest son, the anxious glances she gave him when she thought he was not looking.
David was meant to be the protector of this family --- their father was dead, the title and all its responsibilities fallen to him --- and instead he had become the source of their suffering, even as they remained ignorant of the cause.
A thought came to him then, unbidden and unwelcome.
What if Clara found out? Not the whole truth --- he could scarcely allow himself to imagine that --- but pieces of it.
She was not a stupid woman. Far from it.
She had been watching him these past months with those sharp, assessing eyes, and he had seen the way she catalogued his reactions, noted his evasions, filed away the inconsistencies in his explanations.
Clara was quiet but she was not passive, and David knew --- with the instinct of a man who has much to hide --- that his sister was beginning to look for answers.
And if Lord Rutland, driven by whatever lingering affection he held for her, chose to investigate the reasons for their sudden separation?
The Earl was no fool. He had connections, resources, and the particular determination of a man who had been wronged without explanation.
If he began to ask the right questions of the right people. ..
David's hands curled into fists on the desk, his knuckles going white.
He would have to be more vigilant. He would have to keep Clara away from Lord Rutland at all costs.
If that meant arranging a match for her with another gentleman --- Lord Atherstone had expressed interest, had he not?
--- then so be it. Atherstone was an old school friend, a man David could manage, a man who would keep Clara occupied and content and, above all, away from dangerous questions.
A married woman would have no reason to investigate the past. A married woman would be someone else's responsibility.
The thought sat badly with him, even as he formed it.
Clara deserved better than to be married off as a stratagem.
She deserved the love she had found with Lord Rutland, the happiness that had lit her face those few bright weeks before Christmas.
David had watched her fall in love and had known, even then, that he would have to destroy it.
That knowledge had made him cruel --- crueler than he needed to be, perhaps.
He had not even let her read Rutland's letters in reply.
That had been petty. That had been fear masquerading as authority.
But what was the alternative? To confess?
To stand before his mother and his sister and his brother and lay bare the full scope of what he had done?
To watch their faces change as they understood not merely that he had failed them but how --- the specific, calculated manner in which he had used the people closest to him to shield himself from the consequences of his own actions?
No. He could not. He was not brave enough for that.
Rising from his chair, David moved back to the window.
His reflection stared back at him from the darkening glass, the face of a man he no longer recognized.
When had he become this? When had he allowed fear to transform him into someone who would sacrifice his own siblings' happiness to protect a secret that should never have existed in the first place?
He thought of going to Clara. Of sitting beside her and simply being her brother for a few minutes --- not the Marquess, not the head of the family with his demands and his commands, but David.
The brother who had taught her to ride, who had read to her when she was small, who had once carried her on his shoulders through the apple orchard while she shrieked with delight.
He missed that version of himself with a fierceness that surprised him.
He missed being someone his sister could trust.
But he could not go to her. Not tonight. If he sat beside her, if he saw the evidence of tears on her face, the careful mask she wore to hide her suffering --- suffering he had caused --- he did not trust himself. The confession might come spilling out, and then everything would be lost.
With a final, steadying breath, David set his expression into the mask he wore so well --- the concerned elder brother, the protective head of the family.
He would speak with Clara tomorrow. Remind her of her duty.
Encourage the Atherstone connection. And if necessary, he would remind her of the consequences of defiance.
Whatever it took to keep the truth buried.
Even if it buried him along with it.