Chapter 13
The Most Romantic Tale
After the traumatic incident in the hat shop, Clara returned home and slept until the following morning.
Her wrists were covered in finger-length bruises.
She had a pounding headache, and her cousin’s slap had given her a deeply-set black eye.
Thankfully, a full night's sleep had helped dispel at least some of her achiness.
The morning sun filled her bedchamber and revealed a visitor reading in the corner. “Alice!” Clara said with a start. “What are you doing here?”
“You are awake!” Alice rushed to her side, replacing the cold, damp, cloth that adorned her head.
“Oh Clara, I never should have taken you in that hat shop! Why, I had no idea Mr. Merritt would appear, and I definitely should not have left you. I panicked, and all I could think to do was to get your baron, and I-”
“Alice, Alice, please.” Clara’s head pounded from her friend’s incessant apology. She took a large, shaky breath. “Please, calmly tell me what happened, and close the window,” she added, “the light hurts my head.”
Alice quickly pulled the drapes closed and tugged the servant string.
“Tea will help,” she whispered as she settled back down at Clara’s side, adjusting her thin glasses.
“When I saw your cousin yesterday,” she started again, calmly this time, “I panicked. I immediately left the shop, leapt upon my horse and galloped all the way to the House of Parliament at Westminster.”
“No!” Clara said in awe. Surely, she had trampled people in the street with how fast her horse would have had to move to reach the building in time.
“Yes!” Alice whispered back, “I pushed my way right through the double doors, ready to plead for help.”
“And did you?” Clara asked in disbelief, no woman had ever done such a thing. Only men were allowed in the white chamber.
Alice shook her head. “One glance at me, and your baron called the whole meeting to a halt. He stood, and boldly declared he and Lord Merritt had an emergency.”
“My baron?” Clara questioned. “Do you mean Luke?”
“Lord Maxwell, yes.” Alice nodded. “I told him I had a horse outside, though of course it was saddled for a woman. But he rushed out and pulled the first man he found off of his horse and took that one!”
“He pulled a man from his horse?”
“And stole it!” Alice responded joyfully. “It was the most romantic thing I have ever seen!”
Clara did not see how robbery was romantic, but she had to hear the rest of the tale. “Then what happened?” she pressed.
“Your brother quickly followed suit, and the two galloped off. Your father found the constable, and then rode with him on his horse back into town.”
“My father rode on a horse with the constable!?” That was an image she wished she had seen.
“I am not sure what happened after that. By the time I was back at the shop, you were gone, and Mr. Merritt had been taken to prison.”
“Prison?” Clara questioned. As sad as it was, in nineteenth-century England, one did not earn prison simply from causing a woman harm.
Alice nodded. “Apparently he had many charges against him, and with an earl opposing him, he is lucky he only has a three-year sentence.”
“Oh my.” Clara shook her head in disbelief.
“So,” Alice pried, placing her elbows on the edge of the bed and resting her face in her palms. “What did Lord Maxwell do when he arrived?”
“I am not sure.” Clara tried desperately to make sense of the event, but her unsuccessful reflection only made her head pound more. “Someone pushed Mr. Merritt onto the floor.” She dived deeper into her memory. “And then John punched him.”
“But what did your baron do?” Alice asked, smiling gleefully as if Clara was about to share the most romantic tale.
“Luke …” she wracked her brain for the answer. “Luke put his arms around my waist …” Alice squealed. “And he told me something.”
“What did he tell you!” Her friend couldn’t contain her excitement.
But as hard as she tried, Clara could not come up with the answer.
John, Luke, and Lord Merritt were in the study with the solicitor when a footman appeared. “Lord Maxwell,” he addressed, “Lady Clara requests your presence in the drawing room.” With her father’s permission, Luke took his leave.
What an awful few days it had been. Luke had done everything in his power to protect Clara, but the one day he absolutely had to be in Parliament was of course the day Mr. Merritt made his move.
The image of the horrible scum of a man striking her, when Luke had been just inches away from stopping it, would replay in his mind over and over for the rest of his life.
That, along with his own failures, had kept him up most of the night.
I could not protect her. I failed her when she needed me the most. I am undeserving of her. It is all my fault. It is all my fault.
“Luke,” Clara greeted him from her lounged position in the drawing room. “I have a question I must ask you.”
He crossed to sit in the chair beside her. Sparing a glance at her beautiful face, he saw dark, purple and black swirled bruises painted across the majority of it. That was all your doing, his brain insisted. She is hurting because of you. His heart felt like it was breaking. “Yes, Clara?”
“What did you say to me, yesterday, at the hat shop?”
His brain was thrown back into that moment.
Watching her pig of a cousin strike her when he was just out of reach.
Then tackling the man to the ground before John punched him straight between the eyes.
While his friend kept him down, Luke had run to Clara, holding her poor, shaky, precious body, and whispering, “I am sorry, Love. I am so sorry.” Over and over until Lord Merritt took her from his arms.
Luke’s voice was melancholy as he said, “I apologized for not protecting you.” He had failed her, and now his world felt heavy, dark, and depressing. She is better off without you, his brain urged.
“Luke,” Clara whispered tenderly, “come here.”
He dragged himself to stand beside her sofa, but he couldn’t open his eyes. He could not bear seeing his shortcomings displayed so openly across her slender cheeks.
“Kneel before me, my knight,” she commanded him. As he knelt, Clara reached for his hand, wrapping it between both of hers. “Luke …” she spoke hesitantly, “I told Everett to meet me at the hat shop.”
His heart broke in a whole new way.
“Obviously,” Clara continued, “I now realize my mistake. But Luke.” She waited until he looked at her. “I am the one who failed you. Not the other way around.”
A big fat tear leaked from his eye and slid down to his chin. Even now, in her moment of pain, Clara was comforting him. As always, she was caring for others. He tenderly lifted the pile of hands and kissed the one on top. “What shall you have me do now, my queen?”
She smiled. “Well, I would knight you, but seeing as you are already a knight …” She scrunched her lips in thought, “I know. I insist you spend the day on that sofa,” she pointed to the seat across from her, “and read to me.”
“And what would you like me to read?”
She shrugged, a strange sight while lounging, “It doesn’t matter. I just want to know my knight is near, should I require his assistance.”
Luke dipped his head. “Of course, your majesty,” he said as he sent the footman to fetch a book.
And slowly, throughout the day as he read to her, Luke’s guilt subsided.
Clara would recover. Mr. Merritt was no longer a threat.
He had done everything in his power to keep her safe.
By the end of the book, he and Clara were laughing and joking as they always did.
As he watched the woman he loved laugh through her pain, he silently took his vow once more.
I vow to protect you, my queen, now and forever.