Chapter One The Bride Who Wasn’t #2
Lucy laughed, then checked herself when a nearby matron glanced over.
Clara’s memories did not require encouraging.
Adrian had proposed after a summer of dinners, rides, assemblies and one particularly moonlit evening at a country house in Surrey.
His father, the old Duke of Ashcombe, had not been enthusiastic about the match, but Clara’s family was respectable, her mother’s lineage excellent, and at eighteen Clara had possessed enough beauty and sweetness to make people forgive the absence of a spectacular fortune.
The wedding had been arranged for June. Three days before it, Adrian disappeared. Not delayed.
Not ill. Gone. His rooms in London had been emptied.
His valet departed with him. No message reached Clara until nearly noon, when a solicitor named Mr. Fane arrived at the Whitcombe house carrying an expression Clara would remember long after she had forgotten the exact shade of her wedding gown.
Lord Adrian Harcourt regretted that the marriage could not take place.
That was all. Clara had asked why. Mr. Fane did not know.
She had asked whether Adrian was safe. Yes.
Was there another woman? He could not say.
Had Clara done something? Mr. Fane had looked genuinely stricken then, which was perhaps the worst part.
He did not know. By dinner, half their street knew the wedding had been canceled.
By the following morning, all of Mayfair appeared to know.
Within a week, people who had never met Clara could explain exactly why Lord Adrian Harcourt had fled the country rather than marry her.
Adrian remained abroad for almost two years.
When he returned, he did so quietly, and when he eventually reappeared in society he offered no public explanation.
He never called upon Clara. He never wrote.
He never contradicted those who implied she had somehow driven him away.
That, more than the abandonment itself, was what she had never forgiven.
A frightened young man might run. A selfish one might regret an engagement.
A coward might fail to explain himself immediately.
But Adrian had allowed Clara to bear the disgrace for eleven years.
Whatever affection she had once felt for him had not survived that.
Clara looked up. Mr. Theodore Bellamy had crossed the room and was bowing. He was twenty-three, pleasant-faced and well dressed, with the alarming confidence of a young man who had recently discovered that his income made him welcome in drawing rooms. Lucy had stopped breathing. Clara rescued her.
“Mr. Bellamy.”
“I wondered whether Miss Lucy might care to see Lady Davenham’s conservatory. Her collection of orchids is said to be remarkable.”
Lucy’s eyes widened. Clara wondered how many times that conservatory had been credited with facilitating the progress of romance.
“Are you an authority on orchids, Mr. Bellamy?”
His confidence wavered.
“No, ma’am.”
“Excellent. Neither is Lucy. You will have a great deal not to discuss.”
Lucy made a strangled sound. Mr. Bellamy smiled. Clara relented.
“You may go as far as the conservatory doors. I shall be able to see you from here, and if either of you develops an urgent botanical interest requiring privacy, I shall become suspicious.”
Lucy rose.
“You make me sound entirely untrustworthy.”
“No. Mr. Bellamy is the one I do not trust.”
The young man surprised Clara by laughing.
“A reasonable precaution, Miss Whitcombe.”
Perhaps, she thought, he might do. They went together, keeping a respectable distance between them.
Clara watched until they reached the conservatory, where several other guests were already admiring plants with an enthusiasm greatly increased by the presence of eligible members of the opposite sex.
“Very elegantly done.”
The voice beside her was low, amused and unmistakably female.
Clara turned. Augusta, Lady Winterbourne stood there in deep violet silk.
She was forty-eight and had been a widow for nine years, though she wore neither the faded colors nor the expressions of dignified resignation preferred by society in women who had outlived their husbands.
Her gown was cut with expensive simplicity, a string of pearls lay against her throat, and her silver-threaded dark hair had been arranged beneath a small velvet toque that would have appeared ridiculous on almost anyone else.
Lady Winterbourne possessed the rare ability to make fashion appear as though it had consulted her before reaching its conclusions.
“Lady Winterbourne.”
“Do not rise. If you do, I shall be obliged to sit in your place, and then everyone will assume I have deliberately sought your company.”
Clara moved slightly.
“Would that be disastrous?”
“Not to me. Possibly to you.”
“That ship sailed some years ago.”
Augusta smiled and sat beside her. Clara had known Lady Winterbourne casually since girlhood.
Their acquaintance had never been intimate, but Augusta had been one of the very few women who continued greeting Clara publicly during the months after the broken engagement.
She had once crossed an entire ballroom to do it.
Clara had never forgotten. Augusta glanced toward the conservatory.
“Your cousin?”
“Yes.”
“Pretty.”
“She knows.”
“Dangerous.”
“Exactly.”
“And the young man?”
“Mr. Bellamy.”
“Ah. Money in wool, sensible mother, father with gout, no known actresses.”
Clara looked at her.
“You have investigated him?”
“My dear, I investigate everyone. It prevents surprises.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is invigorating.”
A servant offered Augusta tea. She accepted, added no sugar, and surveyed the room while the next performer adjusted a harp near the pianoforte.
“Lady Davenham’s narcissi are dying.”
Clara looked at the flowers.
“They appear very healthy.”
“They have been arranged too tightly. They shall be dead by Thursday.”
“Poor things.”
“They should have resisted being useful.”
Clara’s glance sharpened. Augusta took a sip of tea.
“I see you remain excellent at pretending not to understand people.”
“And you remain excellent at making ordinary remarks sound like interrogations.”
“I have had practice.”
The harpist began. For several minutes they listened, or appeared to.
Lady Winterbourne did not fidget. Clara had always admired this.
Most powerful people displayed their importance by compelling others to wait for them.
Augusta displayed hers by never seeming hurried.
At last she said, “Come to supper on Thursday.” Clara turned her head.
“To Winterbourne House?”
“Unless you know another household in which I am likely to preside over supper.”
“I had not realized you were entertaining.”
“I am not.”
“That seems inconvenient for your guests.”
“They manage.”
Clara suspected she was being led somewhere and decided not to assist.
“Who will be there?”
“Women.”
“That narrows London considerably.”
“Not as much as you might hope.”
Augusta’s gaze moved toward the two girls who had whispered about Clara earlier. Both were now engaged in conversation with a dowager who appeared capable of extracting a pedigree at twenty paces.
“I have begun inviting a few people on Thursday evenings,” Augusta continued. “Women for whom ordinary drawing rooms have become tiresome.”
“Widows?”
“Some.”
“Charity cases?”
“No.”
Clara relaxed. That had been her first suspicion. Lady Winterbourne supported numerous charitable ventures, and Clara had sufficient experience of committees to know that being unmarried and competent made a woman almost irresistible to those requiring unpaid secretarial labor. Augusta noticed.
“You thought I wanted you to manage subscriptions.”
“The possibility occurred to me.”
“I would sooner eat my own account books.”
“That is reassuring.”
“You are not poor enough to be one of my charities, Clara, despite your father’s best efforts.”
Clara’s hand tightened fractionally around her cup. Augusta had always known too much.
“Then what precisely happens at these Thursday suppers?”
“We eat. We drink wine. We occasionally say things that would cause Lady Davenham to faint into her narcissi.”
Clara glanced toward their hostess.
“I am becoming interested.”
“I thought you might.”
“And what qualification is required?”
Augusta’s expression changed. Only slightly. But the amusement softened into something more deliberate.
“London must have finished with you.”
Clara stared. Augusta continued sipping her tea.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me.”
“I had not realized London had established a completion process.”
“My dear, society finished with you years ago. The encouraging part is that you appear not to have noticed.”
Clara let out a surprised laugh before she could stop it. Several people turned. Augusta looked delighted.
“That may be the rudest invitation I have ever received.”
“You should come to more of my dinners.”
“What do you mean by finished?”
“Exactly what you think I mean. Women who have been judged and filed away. Widows who married badly. Girls who were jilted. Women who failed to marry at all. Women who married and discovered that success can be considerably worse than failure.”
Clara looked toward the young debutantes arranged in rows.
“And you gather them at Winterbourne House?”
“I feed them.”
“Why?”
Augusta shrugged one elegant shoulder.
“Because I am rich, widowed and increasingly bored.”
“That cannot be the whole reason.”
“No, but it is a socially acceptable one.”
Something about the answer touched Clara more than she wished it to. She covered it with humor.
“And what do these completed women do?”
“At present, mostly argue.”
“About what?”
“Everything. It has been refreshing.”
“Is there a name?”
“Heaven forbid.”
“There should be.”
“There should not.”
“The Society of Unsuccessful Females?”
Augusta looked horrified.
“Never.”
“The Assembly of Discarded Women?”
“Worse.”
“The Last Chance Club?”
Augusta nearly choked on her tea. Clara smiled.
“That one has merit.”