Chapter Six The Duchess of Ashcombe #4
Clara still reacted slightly when people called her that. Sebastian noticed.
“What have you found?” she asked.
Fane looked at Sebastian.
“Tell her.”
Fane explained the payments. Clara moved toward the desk.
“M.R.”
“Yes,” Sebastian said.
She leaned over the papers. Their shoulders nearly touched. He became immediately aware of it. Ridiculous. She had stood closer yesterday. Almost kissed him. Now the brush of her sleeve against his felt worse. Clara frowned.
“Matthew.”
Sebastian met her gaze.
“What?”
“Matthew Rooke.”
Fane leaned forward.
“Who is that?”
“I may be wrong.”
“Tell us anyway,” Sebastian said.
Clara thought.
“Adrian mentioned him once.”
“When?”
“Years ago. During our engagement.”
Sebastian disliked the phrase. He ignored it.
“What did he say?”
“That Rooke had worked for your father. An estate clerk, I think.”
Fane’s expression changed.
“I know the name.”
Sebastian turned.
“You do?”
“Vaguely.”
“From where?”
“Older Ashcombe accounts.”
Clara continued.
“Adrian said Rooke disappeared after some disagreement over money.”
“Disappeared?”
“He left employment. Adrian made it sound scandalous, but Adrian made most stories sound scandalous.”
Sebastian almost smiled.
“Did he say where Rooke went?”
“No.”
“Was he connected to Bellamere?”
Clara hesitated.
“I think so.”
Fane began searching through a bundle. Several papers later, he stopped.
“There.”
He pulled out an old estate list. Matthew Rooke. Assistant estate clerk. Bellamere district. Sebastian felt the pieces shift.
“When did he leave?”
Fane checked.
“Eleven years ago.”
Clara looked at him. The same period. Her engagement. The Whitcombe investment. The old duke’s financial troubles. Sebastian took the paper.
“If M.R. is Rooke, Adrian had been paying him.”
“For silence?” Clara asked.
“Perhaps.”
“Or information,” Fane said.
Sebastian looked at him.
“Yes.”
That possibility felt more plausible. Adrian had discovered something late. Perhaps Rooke possessed evidence. Perhaps the payments bought documents, not silence.
“Can we find him?” Clara asked.
Fane considered.
“Probably.”
“How quickly?”
“If he remained in England.”
Sebastian straightened.
“Begin with Sussex.”
“Already thought of it.”
“Bellamere parish records. Tenant lists. Nearby villages.”
Fane gathered the papers.
“I shall send a clerk today.”
“No.”
Fane looked up. Sebastian had already decided.
“We go ourselves.”
Clara turned.
“We?”
“Yes.”
“To Bellamere?”
“Yes.”
She stared at him.
“You have an estate staff.”
“I do.”
“A solicitor.”
“Yes.”
“Several clerks.”
“Yes.”
“And yet you intend to travel personally.”
“I am beginning to suspect nobody in my family knew what happened at Bellamere except the people who concealed it.”
Clara considered.
“Fair.”
Fane nodded.
“There is some advantage in seeing the property.”
Sebastian looked at Clara.
“You will come.”
Her brows rose.
“Is that a ducal order?”
“No.”
“It sounded suspiciously like one.”
He corrected himself.
“Will you come?”
Clara smiled faintly.
“Yes.”
Relief moved through him before he could stop it. He tried to disguise it as practicality.
“You are directly involved.”
“Of course.”
“And Rooke may speak more freely if he knows the Whitcombes are present.”
“Certainly.”
Clara’s expression suggested she did not believe those were his only reasons. Sebastian was beginning to suspect his wife understood him far better than was safe.
“We leave Friday,” he said.
“Friday.”
Fane stood.
“I shall send word if Rooke is located first.”
After he left, Clara remained by the desk. Sebastian waited. She looked at the entries again. Then at him.
“About last night.”
There it was. Sebastian’s body tightened.
“Yes.”
“I do not require an apology.”
“I was not going to offer one.”
“That is almost disappointing.”
He looked at her. Clara folded her hands.
“I merely wanted to say that if you regretted—”
“I did not.”
The answer came so quickly she stopped. Sebastian forced himself to slow.
“I did not regret asking you to dance.”
“That was not the part I meant.”
“I know.”
Silence. Clara’s eyes held his. Sebastian continued.
“I did not regret that either.”
Something in her face softened.
“Then why did you behave as though you did?”
He could give her part of the truth.
“I made promises to you.”
“Yes.”
“I intend to keep them.”
“Our agreement said there would be no expectation.”
“Yes.”
“It did not say there could never be choice.”
Sebastian stared at her. Clara’s cheeks colored slightly, but she did not look away. His control became fragile.
“No,” he said quietly. “It did not.”
They stood there with the acknowledgment between them. Then Clara picked up the papers she had brought.
“Mrs. Linton wants permission to replace two kitchen ranges.”
Sebastian almost laughed.
“Of course she does.”
“The estimates are absurd.”
“Naturally.”
“I intend to negotiate.”
“I pity the supplier.”
Clara smiled. The moment passed. Not erased.
Stored. Sebastian watched her leave. Friday suddenly seemed both too near and impossibly far away.
That evening, long after Clara had gone upstairs, Sebastian entered the west picture gallery.
He had no reason to be there. At least none he intended to examine closely.
The gallery had been closed for most of the winter because a section of plasterwork near the ceiling required repair.
Dust sheets covered several pieces of furniture, and only half the lamps had been lit.
Portraits watched him from the walls. Harcourts. Generations of them.
Men in military coats. Women in silk and pearls.
Children who later became names in estate ledgers.
Sebastian disliked family galleries. They made inheritance look inevitable.
He walked to the far end. A narrow cabinet stood beneath one of his mother’s portraits.
He unlocked it. Inside were several miniatures.
Most belonged to family. One did not. Sebastian took it out.
The oval was small enough to fit in his palm.
Clara at eighteen. The artist had painted her during her first Season for a charity exhibition supporting widows of naval officers.
Several society women had sat for inexpensive miniatures, which were later sold anonymously at auction to raise funds.
Sebastian had bought Clara’s. Anonymous bidder.
Twenty-five guineas. An absurd price. He had been twenty-four and already beyond reason.
The portrait showed her in pale blue, hair arranged simply, expression softer than now but recognizably hers.
He remembered the day he purchased it. Two weeks before he intended to speak to Sir Edmund.
Three weeks before Adrian proposed. Sebastian turned the miniature over.
His younger handwriting remained faint beneath the backing.
C.W. Nothing more. He had almost destroyed it after the engagement.
Then after Adrian left. Then before Vienna. Each time he put it away instead.
Eleven years. He had carried it to three countries before finally locking it in this cabinet because possession felt too much like confession.
Now Clara slept one floor above him. His wife.
The absurdity might have been funny if it did not hurt.
Sebastian ran one thumb carefully along the miniature’s edge.
Poor timing. That was what he had told her.
Eleven years of poor timing. He looked at the painted girl who had no idea what he intended when the portrait was made.
Then thought of the woman at Halston’s ball, face lifted toward his, choosing not to step away.
Everything had changed. Or perhaps nothing important had.
Sebastian replaced the miniature and locked the cabinet.
On Friday he would take Clara to Bellamere.
They would spend hours in the same carriage.
Sleep beneath the same roof. Search together through Adrian’s secrets.
He should have been thinking about Rooke.
The settlement. Lionel. The missing money.
Instead Sebastian stood alone beneath generations of Harcourt faces and admitted something he had spent eleven years refusing to say even to himself.
Marriage had not revived his feelings for Clara. They had never died.