Chapter Two The Duke Comes Home #4
“What book?”
“Cowper.”
“Poems?”
“Yes. A small volume.”
“Blue binding?”
“I think so.”
“Who gave it to you?”
Clara’s fingers tightened in her lap.
“Adrian.”
Sebastian felt something old and unpleasant move through him. Jealousy had no business surviving eleven years, death and common sense. Apparently it had failed to receive the instruction.
“When?”
“During our engagement.”
“Do you still have it?”
“I may.”
“Where?”
She met his gaze.
“You ask questions as though commanding a cavalry unit.”
“I have never commanded cavalry.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I am trying to determine whether Adrian sent you a message three months before he died asking about an object he gave you eleven years ago.”
Clara’s amusement disappeared. The significance reached her fully now.
“You think the letter was from him.”
“I think it may have been.”
“Why not sign it?”
“That is another question.”
“And if it was not?”
“Then someone else knew about the book.”
They stared at each other. The room seemed suddenly quieter. Clara rose.
“I have boxes from that period stored in the attic.”
Sebastian stood too.
“You need not search now.”
“I intend to.”
“I can send someone—”
“No.”
Her answer was immediate. He stopped. Clara drew a breath.
“I would prefer that nobody else goes through them.”
Sebastian understood. Wedding things. Letters. The remnants of a life she had been expected to have.
“Of course.”
His voice softened. Clara looked at him, and for a moment something in her expression eased.
“I will look.”
“Send word when you know.”
“I shall.”
Sebastian gathered the documents and returned them to the folder.
He should leave. He had accomplished what he came to do.
Yet standing there, eleven years after the last ordinary conversation between them, departure felt strangely difficult.
Clara seemed to feel the same awkward suspension because she reached for the teapot.
“You have not had tea.”
“I have survived greater hardships.”
“That sounds very ducal.”
“I only became one eighteen months ago.”
“Perhaps the condition progresses rapidly.”
He looked at her. She smiled. Not fully. But enough. For one dangerous second Sebastian remembered her at eighteen, laughing because he had misquoted a line from Shakespeare and then refusing to let him pretend it had been deliberate. He forced himself back into the present.
“I should go.”
“Yes.”
Neither moved. Then Clara said, “Did you like him?” Sebastian knew immediately whom she meant. The question surprised him.
“Adrian?”
“Yes.”
Sebastian looked toward the window. A simple answer would have been easier.
“He was my brother.”
“That was not what I asked.”
No. It was not. Sebastian considered lying. He had done enough of that by omission.
“I loved him.”
Clara waited.
“And frequently did not like him at all.”
Her expression softened.
“That sounds honest.”
“It is.”
“I am sorry, then.”
Sebastian looked at her. This time the condolence felt real. Not because Clara had forgotten what Adrian did, but because she understood grief could coexist with anger.
“Thank you.”
He bowed.
“Miss Whitcombe.”
“Your Grace.”
Again the titles. Again the distance. Sebastian walked toward the door.
“Sebastian.”
He stopped. The sound of his Christian name in her voice struck with ridiculous force. He turned. Clara seemed almost surprised she had said it.
“If I find the book, I shall send word directly.”
For a moment Sebastian could not answer. Then he inclined his head.
“Thank you.”
He left before memory could make a fool of him.
The carriage had traveled halfway back to Grosvenor Square before Sebastian opened the folder again.
He did not read the will. Instead he stared at the blank inside cover and thought about a blue book.
Cowper. Given by Adrian during the engagement.
Kept, perhaps, among Clara’s things for eleven years.
Three months ago someone had asked whether she still possessed it.
Adrian had died six weeks after preparing a will that gave Clara Bellamere and nearly forty thousand pounds.
Then the will changed. One witness vanished.
Sebastian’s instincts, sharpened by years spent negotiating with men who concealed motives behind courtesies, told him the pieces belonged together.
He simply did not yet know how. The carriage turned.
Sebastian looked through the window at the wet London streets.
Adrian had owed Clara an explanation for eleven years.
Perhaps, toward the end, he had finally tried to give her one.
And perhaps he had hidden the means of doing so in the one place no Harcourt, creditor, solicitor or scheming cousin would think to search.
With the woman he had abandoned. Sebastian sat back slowly.
For the first time since returning to England, Adrian’s death no longer felt merely like an ending. It felt like the beginning of something. And Clara Whitcombe, whether she wanted any part of the Harcourt family or not, appeared to be standing at the center of it.