Chapter 16
Several days later, Aurelia and Clara attended a luncheon given by Lady Penworth, one of those polished social gatherings at which everything was intended to appear easy, graceful, and entirely harmless.
Aurelia knew better.
By the time their carriage drew up outside the house, she had already steeled herself for the ordinary exertions of such an afternoon, which included polite conversation and careful smiles, along with the endless weighing of every glance and answer.
She had grown used to that much. London society had always demanded performance, even from those it had not yet decided to punish.
Still, she was unprepared for the silence that met them when they entered the drawing room.
It was not complete silence, for no room full of ladies could ever achieve such a thing.
But it was close enough that Aurelia felt it at once.
It was the quick turning of heads and the pause in movement that said quite plainly they had been the subject of discussion before the footman had even announced them.
Her spine straightened on instinct. Beside her, Clara faltered for a fraction of a second before recovering with admirable courage, though Aurelia felt the hesitation in her as keenly as if it had been her own.
Then the room stirred again. Conversation resumed, though not with its former ease. Cups were lifted. Fans moved. Smiles were arranged.
Aurelia’s eyes traveled once across the room and found Charlotte seated near the window in a pale gown, composed and elegant, and wearing an expression of such amused innocence that Aurelia disliked her at once more than ever.
Charlotte met her gaze and smiled. Strangely enough, there was no mockery in that smile. It was simply the air of a woman who knew something and enjoyed knowing that others knew she knew it.
Aurelia looked away first.
So, it is to begin.
They moved further into the room, making their courtesies.
Some ladies received them as they always had, if not warmly, then at least with decent civility.
Others were cooler. One or two, women who had formerly spoken to Clara with easy interest, now seemed uncertain whether to continue doing so in Aurelia’s company.
Their politeness remained intact, but it had acquired edges.
While Aurelia was delayed a moment by Lady Penworth, who had begun some final speech of civility that contained more politeness than warmth, she noticed that Charlotte found Clara near the door.
“My dear Miss Blackmore,” Aurelia managed to hear, “you must not remember that London is forever whispering one week and forgetting the next.” Her gaze moved, briefly and deliberately, toward Captain Harrow across the room. “Only take care. Gentlemen are often most attentive where they mean least.”
Clara’s smile faltered. “I am sure Captain Harrow is not—”
“Oh, I am sure he is everything agreeable,” Charlotte replied, touching her arm lightly. “That is precisely why one must be careful.”
Then she smiled as if she had offered kindness, and left Clara standing there with the first shadow of doubt upon her face.
Aurelia could have borne all of that that easily enough for herself.
She had long since grown accustomed to being measured against an old scandal that had never properly belonged to her and yet clung to her all the same. But Clara … that was harder.
Again and again through the meal afterward, Aurelia glanced toward her cousin. Clara smiled when spoken to, answered sweetly, and even laughed once or twice. Yet the brightness in her had dimmed, especially now after the short conversation with Charlotte.
With every such glance, guilt pressed more heavily upon Aurelia.
What had her aunt been thinking, bringing her here? Bringing her to London at all?
She had told herself she came for Clara’s sake and for Aunt Louisa’s sake, because someone had to guide the girl through her season, and Aurelia, having already learned the harsher lessons of society, might at least shield her from some of its worst cruelties.
But what if she had done the opposite?
What if Clara would have flourished under any other companion? Any other name? What if Aurelia had not come to protect her but to taint her by proximity?
The thought lodged like a shard of broken glass.
By the time the second course had been removed and the ladies settled into smaller conversational groups, Aurelia was no longer hearing half of what was said to her. She answered by instinct, smiled when required, and kept one part of herself fixed stubbornly on Clara.
At last, when they found themselves momentarily apart from the others near a side table laden with sweetmeats and glasses of ratafia, Aurelia leaned slightly toward her cousin and whispered under her breath. “I am sorry.”
Clara turned at once. “For what?”
“For this.” Aurelia forced herself to hold her gaze. “For bringing you where my presence can do you harm.”
Clara blinked, then frowned with unexpected firmness.
“Do not be absurd.”
Aurelia tried to smile, but it would not properly come. “I am not being absurd. I can see what this is doing to you.”
Clara shook her head. “You can see gossips being vulgar. That is not the same thing.”
“It is still my fault.”
“No.” Clara’s voice, though quiet, had become entirely resolute. “It is not your fault if other people have bad hearts and empty heads.”
Aurelia stared at her. Clara lifted her chin in a way that reminded Aurelia so strongly of her mother in younger days that it almost hurt to see it.
“I would not want to be here with anyone but you,” Clara said with a smile. “Not if all the women in London turned their backs at once. Let them tar me with the same brush if they like. It only proves the brush is a foolish one.”
Despite the ache in her chest, Aurelia laughed softly.
“You ought not to be the one comforting me.”
“Then do not force me into it so often.”
There was such spirit in the answer that Aurelia felt some small part of the day become bearable again. She reached briefly for Clara’s hand and squeezed it once.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
Clara smiled. “You may thank me by ceasing to apologize every time someone else behaves badly.”
Aurelia promised nothing, but she loved her cousin very much in that moment.
The luncheon wore on a little longer, though to Aurelia it began to feel endless.
She knew they could not leave too early without making their discomfort obvious, and so she endured.
At last, however, the proper hour came. Ladies began to rise, servants fetched shawls and reticules, and the room dissolved into that pleasant confusion which always accompanied departures.
Aurelia was gathering Clara’s gloves when Charlotte appeared before them.
“Miss Finch,” she said, all sweetness. “Miss Blackmore. You cannot be leaving already.”
Aurelia looked up. Charlotte’s expression was charming. Her tone was warm. No one observing from a distance would have seen anything but civility. And yet Aurelia felt at once the same instinctive wariness she had felt in the park.
“We have had a very pleasant afternoon,” Aurelia said, which was not true but was at least proper. “But yes, we are just going.”
“How fortunate, then, that I have caught you before you escaped.” Charlotte clasped her hands lightly. “I have been meaning to speak with you.”
Aurelia doubted that anything fortunate was about to follow. Charlotte turned first to Clara, asking some easy question about the weather and whether she was enjoying the season, then let the conversation drift with deliberate softness toward Aurelia.
“It must be strange for you,” she mused, “to be in England again after so long away.”
“A little,” Aurelia shrugged.
“And after France, too.” Charlotte tilted her head. “Do you still have family there, besides your mother?”
“Only my mother remains there.”
“How is she?”
The question was asked with such smooth sympathy that for one moment Aurelia almost answered naturally. Then, she stopped herself. There was no reason Charlotte Langley should care in the least about Lady Finch’s health.
“She is … tolerably well,” Aurelia searched for the right word.
“I am so glad.” Charlotte’s smile did not alter. “And your father’s … belongings? Were any of his effects ever recovered after … well …”
She gave the tiniest pause, enough to imply delicacy without naming the thing itself. Aurelia felt stillness spread through her.
“My father’s belongings?” she repeated.
“Yes. I had heard, years ago, that some things were lost. It seemed such a pity. Personal papers, was it not? Or have I remembered quite wrongly?”
The casualness of the question made it more alarming, not less. Why should Charlotte know that? Why should she care whether Lord Edward Finch’s belongings had been recovered? Why should that be among the first things she chose to ask?
Aurelia forced herself not to show the unease that sharpened suddenly through her.
“I cannot say what you may have heard,” she spoke evenly. “My father has been dead some years.”
“Of course.” Charlotte’s eyes rested on her face for one moment too long. “How sad for you.”
Clara, bless her, shifted nearer at once, as if she too felt something wrong beneath the surface and wished to stand closer in quiet support. Charlotte noticed. Aurelia saw that she noticed.
But her smile remained gentle. “I only wondered whether time had mended some of what was lost. One always hopes so, does one not?”
Aurelia gave her nothing but politeness. “I believe that the past should be left where it is … in the past.”
“How wise,” Charlotte smiled.
After another few civilities, Charlotte at last stepped aside and allowed them to pass, leaving behind the faintest trace of perfume and a much stronger impression of intent.
Only when they were safely inside the carriage did Clara exhale. “I do not like her one bit.”
Aurelia stared at the window as the house began to recede behind them.
“No,” she agreed quietly. “Nor do I.”
Clara hesitated. “She asked odd questions.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think she knows something?”
Aurelia considered before answering. “I think she knows enough to be dangerous.”
The carriage rolled on. Neither spoke much after that.
By the time they reached home, the weariness of the afternoon had sunk into Aurelia’s bones.
Yet beneath it was something more restless than mere fatigue.
Charlotte’s questions turned in her mind again and again, particularly the one about her father’s recovered belongings.
It was too pointed to be chance.
***
That evening, once Clara had retired and the house was quiet at last, Aurelia sat at her writing table with paper before her and wrote to Owen.
The task felt easier than it ought to have done.
That, more than once, had begun to surprise her. In person they were careful with one another, always circling what could and could not be safely said, always aware of rooms and proprieties and the false shape of the courtship surrounding them.
In letters, all that altered. The page seemed to permit a kind of honesty she did not yet know how to manage aloud.
My Lord,
Today, Clara and I attended a luncheon with several ladies, and upon our entrance there was so marked a hush in the room that I could not mistake its meaning.
It was plain they had been speaking of us, more particularly, I think, of me.
Some remained civil, but others were noticeably altered in their manner, and I could not help fearing that old stories are beginning to revive.
Miss Langley was present, and I suspect she may have had some hand in it, though of course I cannot prove as much. She wore throughout the most innocent expression in the world, which in her case is enough to make me distrust her all the more.
What distressed me most was not any slight offered to myself, but the effect upon Clara. I cannot help wondering whether I was wrong to bring her to London at all. I begin to feel that the stain upon my name reaches every person who stands too near me.
Miss Langley spoke to us as we were leaving.
She was all politeness, yet her questions were of a very curious kind.
She asked after my return from France, after my mother, and most particularly, whether any of my father’s belongings or papers had ever been recovered.
I thought the enquiry odd enough to unsettle me.
Why she should care about such matters, I cannot tell, unless she knows or suspects more than she ought.
For that reason, I think we must be very careful of the Langleys, and especially of Miss Langley. She seems to be feeling her way toward something.
I do not know why it is easier to say these things in a letter than aloud, but I find that it is.
Perhaps because in writing I need not pretend so much.
I confess that the thought of all this beginning again frightens me less for myself than for my mother.
What was done to our family injured her more deeply than anyone else, and I do not think she has ever truly recovered from it.
The idea that old whispers might rise again, and that she might be made to suffer afresh for the same wrong, is very hard to bear.
Pray forgive so serious a letter. I wished only that you should know exactly what transpired, and why I think caution necessary.
Yours sincerely,
Aurelia Finch
When she finished, she placed the letter where it might be sent early, and then, she went to the window and stood looking out into the dark.
Somewhere in another part of London, Owen would receive her letter by the following day. He would read what she had dared to say. He would know now something more of her fear and of the danger she felt circling nearer.
The thought should have unsettled her. Instead, it made her feel a little less alone.
That, she suspected, was a complication of its own.