Chapter 11 #2
Silas smiled, then turned to Clara. “He is beastly, is he not? How do you bear being employed by such a brute?”
“The money, sir,” Clara replied without missing a beat.
William’s brows shot up, and both he and Silas laughed aloud, caught off guard by her answer.
“Forgive me,” she hurried to say. “It was wrong of me to—"
“No, no,” Silas said. “It was the perfect answer, Clara. My brother needs nothing more than a large dose of humility.”
Clara’s cheeks stained red.
William grinned, hoping it would reassure her he had not taken offense at her joke. Assuming it was, indeed, a joke. “As long as my need for humility never surpasses your current need for a bath, I will be content.”
They bid Silas farewell, and William assisted Clara through the window. Silas shut it as silently as possible behind them.
Now nothing but a dark figure through the warped pane, he waved at them merrily as they walked away, but soon the curtains shut, and William and Clara were alone on the dark, dirt path to the main house.
The path had been more than enough for the three of them to walk abreast on the way to the hunting lodge, but now that it was just William and Clara, there was a wide berth between them. Clara’s feet skirted the very edge of the path.
“An eventful evening for you,” he said, hands clasped behind his back.
“Yes, Your Grace. But not more so than for you.”
William smiled ruefully. “It has certainly been unexpected. You must have a hundred questions.”
“It is not my place to ask them.”
He glanced at her, wishing there was more light so he could see her profile clearly. “We promised one another the truth, did we not?”
She met his gaze, enough surprise in it that he was certain she had not expected him to offer her the truth.
“As the person on whose care Silas will most rely,” he said, “you deserve to know the reason you have been asked to guard his secrets and mine.” He took in a breath before beginning.
“Silas and I have frequently found ourselves at loggerheads. He is too…free, I suppose, and I too rigid, as he mentioned. I have always felt it my duty to protect the family name and legacy, while he has been impatient with my demands.”
He frowned. “In his pursuit to make his way in the world, he and my brother Anthony connected with two other men: Lord Drayton and Thomas Langdon. Together, they ventured into the world of merchant shipping. After some time, it became clear to Silas that something was amiss with the finances. He was fiercely upset over it. Langdon was the one handling the accounts for the company, so Silas’s suspicions naturally fell upon him.
But after talking with Langdon, it became clear Drayton was undercutting them.
I was unaware of that particular development,” he said grimly.
“When Silas and Langdon went to confront Drayton, Drayton shot Langdon, killing him. He blamed Silas, who Drayton also claimed was the one falsifying accounts. Given Drayton’s influence, Silas was obliged to flee to France to avoid the gallows. ”
“Good heavens,” Clara whispered. “How terrible.”
“And yet that is not the most terrible part.” His frown deepened.
“I believed Drayton. I knew how upset Silas had been, and he has always been impulsive. I believed my own brother capable of murder. I knew how angry he was about the accounts and, fool that I was, I looked up to Drayton because of his position. But Silas was guilty of nothing. I, on the other hand, am guilty of the worst sort of betrayal.”
Silence followed his admission, the only sound their soft footsteps and the chirping of crickets in the nearby undergrowth. The quiet pierced him, but he suppressed the desire to look at Clara, to attempt to divine her thoughts.
“What must you think of me?” he said.
“No differently than I did before, Your Grace.”
He chuckled ruefully. “Heaven only knows what that was.”
There was a short pause. “What weight can my opinion possibly carry with you?”
She was right, of course. Her opinion should matter not at all. But he found that it did, and the fact that she had not countered him by offering any evidence that her opinion of him had been good? It sat ill with him, like a shirt of itchy wool.
They reached the servant door, and he turned to face her, trying to banish the unhappy thoughts.
Silas was here. He was safe. That was what mattered.
“Thank you for your help, Clara.”
“It is my pleasure, Your Grace.”
He gave a soft chuckle. “That may be taking it a bit too far, don’t you think?”
She smiled back but said nothing, lowering her eyes as she was wont to do.
“You may rest as long as needed in the morning,” he said. “I will ensure Mrs. Finch knows as much and will have her acquainted with your new duties. At the rate Silas was eating, though, he will already have made it through the sustenance you brought.”
Clara smiled and met his gaze. “I will ensure he does not go without. And that he has a bath.”