Chapter Four A Most Improper Proposal #4
“If you refuse me, I will still investigate the settlement. I will still challenge Lionel if the evidence supports it. I will still do everything legally possible to prevent your family losing property because of something my father may have done.”
“Why?”
“Because it is right.”
“That sounds suspiciously noble.”
“It is mostly irritating.”
Clara almost smiled. Sebastian pressed on.
“But marriage would give us options we do not otherwise have quickly enough.”
“Us.”
He noticed the word too.
“Yes.”
She walked back to the chair and sat.
“Then suppose I did not refuse.”
Sebastian remained still. Clara looked up.
“What would you expect?”
“Very little.”
“That is insulting.”
“I mean practically.”
“Then be practical.”
He took the chair opposite. This, at least, he could manage.
“Separate rooms.”
Her gaze sharpened.
“Yes.”
“No expectation of marital intimacy.”
The words were harder to say than he expected. Clara held his gaze for a moment.
“Agreed.”
He hated how quickly she answered. Absurd. He continued.
“Your finances would remain independent. Any money recovered from the settlement would be placed under your control.”
“Not my father’s?”
“Yours, if the original arrangement supports it.”
“And Bellamere?”
“Yours.”
“Even if we later live separately?”
“Yes.”
Clara looked down.
“I would continue managing Papa’s affairs.”
“Of course.”
“You would not interfere?”
“Not unless asked.”
“That was almost convincing.”
“I shall put it in writing.”
That earned a small smile.
“And Winterbourne House?”
Sebastian blinked.
“What about it?”
“I intend to continue going there.”
“I had not imagined myself forbidding it.”
“You are a duke. Dukes frequently imagine authority where none exists.”
“Then I shall attempt to disappoint the profession.”
Clara’s mouth curved. He felt absurdly rewarded. She thought for a moment.
“What about society?”
“What about it?”
“They will talk.”
“Yes.”
“The abandoned bride marrying the brother of the man who abandoned her.”
“They will exhaust themselves.”
“And then?”
“Find another victim.”
“That is usually the pattern.”
Sebastian leaned forward slightly.
“Clara, I cannot prevent people talking.”
“No.”
“But I can make one promise.”
Her expression changed. He chose the words carefully because this mattered more than Bellamere, the mortgage or every legal clause Fane had uncovered.
“Whatever else happens between us, I will never leave you standing alone while London invents the reason.”
Clara went completely still. Sebastian saw the words reach the place he had intended them to reach. Not the practical woman. The eighteen-year-old girl who had waited for a bridegroom who never came. Her eyes lowered. When she spoke, her voice was quieter.
“That is a very dangerous promise.”
“I know.”
“People break promises.”
“Yes.”
“Your brother did.”
“I am not my brother.”
Clara looked at him.
“No.”
The word sounded different this time. Not refusal. Recognition. Sebastian felt something shift between them. She stood.
“I need time.”
“Take it.”
“How much?”
“As much as you can without losing the legal advantage.”
“That sounds remarkably like pressure.”
“Six days?”
Her brows rose.
“Generous.”
“Seven?”
“Sebastian.”
“Ten.”
She laughed despite herself. He smiled. For the first time since entering the library, the proposal felt less like a legal transaction and more like a conversation between them. Dangerous. He stood.
“Take whatever time you require.”
Clara moved toward the door. At the threshold she stopped.
“If I agreed, there would be no annulment afterward?”
“No.”
She turned.
“No convenient discovery that the marriage was invalid?”
“No.”
“No departure to Europe while your solicitor explains?”
Sebastian’s chest tightened.
“No.”
“What then?”
“If we later choose separate lives, we live separately. Quietly. Respectably. You remain Duchess of Ashcombe and retain everything settled upon you.”
Clara searched his face.
“And you?”
“I remain your husband.”
The words did more to him than they should. Clara seemed affected too. She looked away.
“I shall consider it.”
Then she left. Sebastian remained in Augusta’s library for several minutes after the door closed. He did not trust himself to move. Lady Winterbourne found him eventually. She entered carrying a plate of biscuits.
“Well?”
“She refused.”
Augusta took one.
“You look remarkably calm.”
“She then agreed to consider it.”
“Ah.”
“Do not look pleased.”
“I always look pleased.”
“You do not.”
“Did you tell her?”
“No.”
Augusta paused.
“Anything?”
“I told her the legal terms.”
“That was not what I meant.”
“I know.”
She sighed.
“Men.”
“You invited me here.”
“I am beginning to regret it.”
Sebastian walked toward the window.
“What was I supposed to say? That I have wanted her since before Adrian proposed? That the only reason this arrangement feels remotely possible is because it gives me something I stopped allowing myself to want years ago?”
Augusta’s expression softened.
“Yes.”
He turned.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because then she cannot know whether she is agreeing freely or responding to obligation.”
“People are capable of hearing affection without becoming prisoners to it.”
“Clara spent eleven years believing Adrian left because something in her was insufficient.”
Augusta said nothing.
“I will not take advantage of the first circumstance that makes her vulnerable.”
“And if she marries you believing you are indifferent?”
Sebastian looked away.
“That is safer.”
“For whom?”
He did not answer. Augusta set down the plate.
“You remain as foolish as you were at twenty-four.”
“I am a duke now.”
“That has only increased the resources available to your foolishness.”
He almost laughed. She left him there. Clara did not answer the following day.
Nor the day after. Sebastian told himself he expected that.
He spent Saturday reviewing estate accounts, Sunday at Ashcombe Park dealing with tenants and Monday morning in conference with Fane.
None of it prevented him noticing the absence of a message.
By Monday afternoon he had accepted that Clara would refuse.
He was disappointed. That was all. He had survived larger disappointments.
He had spent eleven years surviving this one already.
At four o’clock Fane was explaining an obscure point concerning the trust review when the butler entered.
“Miss Whitcombe is here, Your Grace.”
Sebastian stood too quickly. Fane noticed. The butler did not.
“Show her in.”
Fane began gathering his papers.
“Stay.”
The solicitor looked surprised.
“Why?”
“Because if she has questions, she should hear answers from someone competent.”
“I am touched by the compliment.”
“Do not be.”
Clara entered. She wore a dark blue walking dress and carried no reticule, no papers and no visible sign of whether she had come to accept or decline. Sebastian bowed.
“Miss Whitcombe.”
“Your Grace.”
Her gaze moved to Fane.
“Mr. Fane.”
He bowed.
“Miss Whitcombe.”
For one strange second Sebastian remembered that this was the same man who had carried Adrian’s cancellation eleven years before. Clara appeared to remember too. Her expression remained composed.
“I hope I am not interrupting.”
“No.”
“You are,” Fane said.
Sebastian looked at him. The solicitor smiled faintly.
“But I am accustomed to it.”
Clara crossed to the desk.
“I have considered your proposal.”
Sebastian’s pulse became very loud. Fane suddenly found the papers in his hand fascinating. Clara looked directly at Sebastian.
“Separate finances.”
“Yes.”
“Bellamere and any restored funds settled upon me.”
“Yes.”
“My father’s affairs remain mine to manage unless I request assistance.”
“Yes.”
“No expectation regarding the marriage beyond what we have agreed.”
Sebastian forced himself to answer evenly.
“Yes.”
“And you will not disappear.”
The last question was quieter. He held her gaze.
“No.”
Clara took a breath. Then she straightened.
“Very well, Your Grace. I shall marry you.”
Sebastian did not move. He had imagined those words once.
Not recently. He had been too disciplined for that.
But long ago, when he was twenty-four and foolish enough to believe wanting something strongly might have some influence upon whether life granted it, he had imagined Clara saying them in gardens, drawing rooms and churches.
He had imagined warmth in her face, perhaps shyness, perhaps happiness.
He had imagined taking her hand afterward and knowing she had chosen him because she loved him.
He had never imagined she would say them across a desk covered in disputed property papers while Peter Fane pretended not to listen.
And yet, as Sebastian looked at Clara standing before him with determination in her eyes and no idea what she had just done to his carefully ordered life, he discovered that the reality was considerably more dangerous than any dream.
Clara Whitcombe had agreed to become his wife.
Now all he had to do was remember that she had done so for Bellamere, for her father and for forty thousand pounds that might already belong to her.
Not for him. That distinction, Sebastian suspected, was about to become the most difficult legal condition of all.
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