Chapter Five The Second Wedding
The first time Clara Whitcombe had expected to become a bride, three florists had argued over orange blossom, her mother had ordered lace from Brussels, her father had invited more people than their dining room could hold, and London had been informed of the occasion so thoroughly that by the final week Clara sometimes felt less like a woman preparing to marry than the principal attraction in a public exhibition.
The second time, Augusta, Lady Winterbourne informed her that if she attempted to be married in a plain morning gown before breakfast, she would personally lock the chapel door.
Clara stood in the middle of Winterbourne House’s blue bedchamber wearing only her shift and petticoats, while Augusta regarded her from an armchair with the expression of a general whose troops had proved unnecessarily resistant.
“I am not asking for a plain morning gown.”
“You suggested brown.”
“It is a perfectly respectable color.”
“For visiting elderly aunts.”
“Mine is dead.”
“Exactly. She no longer requires visiting, and therefore the brown gown has no purpose.”
Clara folded her arms. Augusta ignored the gesture and turned to Eleanor Finch, who was attempting not to smile while arranging hairpins on the dressing table.
“Tell her.”
Eleanor considered.
“I think the cream silk is very beautiful.”
“Coward,” Clara said.
“I am a governess. Diplomacy is how one survives.”
“You are not currently a governess.”
“Old habits remain useful.”
Across the room, Arabella Trent had taken possession of a chaise and was eating grapes from a breakfast tray intended for Clara.
“I support the cream silk,” she announced.
“Nobody asked you.”
“I am aware. It has never prevented me contributing.”
Beatrice Hart appeared from behind the open wardrobe door carrying one of Clara’s gloves.
“Also cream.”
“It was left here by Lady Winterbourne’s dressmaker.”
Augusta looked serene.
“Was it?”
Clara stared at her.
“When did you arrange all this?”
“Tuesday.”
“I agreed to marry Sebastian on Monday.”
“Yes.”
“You ordered a wedding gown before I had informed my father.”
“I had confidence in your decision-making.”
“You had no right.”
“Probably not.”
Clara tried to remain annoyed. It became difficult.
The gown hanging near the window was beautiful without being elaborate.
Cream silk, not bridal white, with a narrow embroidered border at the hem and sleeves, a modest square neckline and a short train that would not require a pair of pages to manage.
It was elegant enough for a duchess and restrained enough that Clara did not feel she was reenacting the ceremony that had failed eleven years earlier.
That mattered more than she wished to admit.
She looked toward the window. Morning light, pale and uncertain, filtered through the curtains.
Beyond them London was waking beneath a soft gray sky, carriage wheels sounding occasionally in the street below.
Winterbourne House itself seemed unusually still, though Clara knew it was anything but.
Augusta had spent the past three days converting what Clara intended as a quiet legal ceremony into something she stubbornly refused to call a wedding celebration.
There would be flowers, though no orange blossom.
There would be breakfast afterward. There would be champagne, because Augusta considered legality insufficient reason to deprive anyone of French wine.
There would also be guests. Only a few. Sir Edmund and Aunt Marianne.
Lucy. Peter Fane. Lady Winterbourne. And, despite Clara’s initial protest, the women from Thursday supper.
Cecily. Beatrice. Eleanor. Arabella. Sophia.
Eliza. The Last Chance Club, which Lady Winterbourne still insisted did not exist.
Clara found herself grateful they would be there.
That realization had surprised her. Eleven years earlier, the thought of anyone witnessing her wedding had filled her with excitement.
By the morning Adrian failed to arrive, witnesses became something else entirely.
Every person invited to celebrate her happiness had instead become an audience to humiliation.
For years afterward Clara believed crowds themselves were dangerous.
Perhaps that was why she had insisted upon secrecy now.
Not because she disliked ceremony. Because part of her still remembered what happened when too many people gathered to watch a promise being made.
“You are thinking too hard.”
Cecily, Lady Vale stood in the doorway. Clara had not heard her enter. Cecily wore a pale green gown and carried a small box tied with ribbon.
“You all keep saying that as though thought were a vice.”
“Today it may be.”
Cecily crossed the room. Her beauty was quieter in morning light, though perhaps more striking for it.
She had none of the brittle glamour people associated with her at evening parties.
Instead she looked young. Too young, Clara thought suddenly, to have been married to a man older than her father and then publicly suspected of hastening his death. Cecily handed her the box.
“This is not a wedding present.”
“What is it?”
“A wedding present.”
Clara smiled despite herself. Inside lay a pair of pearl earrings.
“Cecily.”
“They belonged to my mother.”
Clara’s expression changed.
“I cannot accept these.”
“You can borrow them.”
“That is different.”
“Exactly.”
Clara lifted one carefully.
“They are lovely.”
“My mother wore them when she married.”
Something passed across Cecily’s face. Not pain exactly. Memory. Clara touched her hand.
“Thank you.”
Cecily squeezed her fingers once.
“You should have something that belonged to a happy marriage.”
The words were so quiet only Clara heard them.
She looked at her. Cecily smiled and turned away before anything more could be said.
Around them the room resumed its gentle disorder.
Beatrice began arguing with Augusta about whether Clara’s hair should be dressed with pearls.
Eleanor rescued a box of pins Arabella nearly knocked to the floor.
Sophia Lennox arrived carrying coffee and observed that if Clara had been allowed to marry quietly at nine o’clock, everyone could have been home by eleven.
“I knew I liked you,” Clara said.
Sophia handed her the cup.
“I dislike mornings.”
“It is half past ten.”
“Exactly.”
Augusta clapped her hands.
“Enough. Clara, sit.”
Clara obeyed because resistance had clearly become futile.
For the next half hour, she allowed herself to be arranged.
The gown settled around her body with a softness that felt unexpectedly luxurious after years of practical clothing.
Eleanor fastened the back. Beatrice adjusted the sleeves.
Cecily placed the pearl drops in her ears.
Augusta stood behind Clara and considered her reflection in the mirror.
“No veil.”
Clara met her gaze through the glass.
“No.”
“Good.”
No one argued. That too mattered. At eighteen she had worn a veil.
Long. Fine. Unnecessary. It had arrived from Paris in a tissue-wrapped box, and her mother had wept when Clara first tried it on.
After the wedding failed, Clara could not bring herself to look at it again.
She had no idea what became of it. Perhaps her mother gave it away.
Perhaps it still lay forgotten in some trunk at Whitcombe Park.
Clara did not want to know. Augusta rested both hands briefly on her shoulders.
“You look like yourself.”
Clara looked again. That was exactly right. Not a bride made decorative for display. Not a girl waiting to become someone else. Herself. Older. Calmer. More certain. Duchess of Ashcombe by noon. The title still felt absurd.
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
Arabella appeared behind Augusta.
“Only richer.”
Clara laughed.
“Thank you.”
“I consider accuracy a kindness.”
Augusta turned.
“Go downstairs.”
Arabella looked offended.
“I have done nothing.”
“Precisely. Go and do it elsewhere.”
One by one, the women left. Eventually only Clara and Augusta remained. The room became quiet. Clara stood. Augusta made no move toward the door.
“You have ten minutes.”
“For what?”
“To change your mind.”
Clara looked at her.
“I thought you approved.”
“I do.”
“Then why say that?”
“Because approval is not the same as imprisonment.”
Something in Clara’s chest tightened. Augusta crossed to the window.
“If you do not want to do this, say so now and I shall send Sebastian home.”
“You make that sound very simple.”
“It is. He has a carriage.”
Clara smiled faintly.
“Papa could lose Whitcombe.”
“Yes.”
“The legal case could take years.”
“Yes.”
“And marriage fixes that.”
“Marriage improves the position. It does not fix everything.”
Clara looked down at the cream silk over her hands.
She had spent three nights thinking about precisely this.
The practical argument remained powerful.
Marriage to Sebastian protected her father.
It strengthened her claim. It bought time.
But those were not the only reasons she had agreed.
That troubled her more. She trusted Sebastian.
Not entirely. Not yet. But enough. He had not pressured her after the proposal.
He had not arrived the next morning demanding a decision.
He had not sent flowers. He had not written emotional letters.
He had simply continued investigating. When Clara went to Ashcombe House three days later to accept, Sebastian’s face had remained controlled, but something in his eyes changed.
She had noticed. She had been thinking about it ever since.
“I want to do it,” she said.
Augusta studied her.
“Because of the money?”
“Partly.”
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Clara looked up.
“I like him.”
Augusta’s expression became unreadable.
“Sebastian?”
“Is that so astonishing?”
“Not at all.”
“He is not what I remembered.”
“What did you remember?”
“Someone severe.”
Augusta smiled.
“He was twenty-four and in love.”
Clara blinked.
“With whom?”