Chapter Eleven The Man Who Finally Asked
Winterbourne House did not ask questions.
That was its greatest kindness. Clara arrived after ten o’clock in the evening with one small traveling case, a cloak damp from the rain and emotions she had not yet managed to arrange into anything respectable.
Hargreaves opened the door as though duchesses appeared at Winterbourne House after dark every night of the week, and Lady Winterbourne came down the staircase in a dark silk wrapper without asking whether Clara had quarreled with her husband, whether she intended to leave him or whether Sebastian Harcourt had finally done something spectacularly foolish.
She simply looked at Clara once and said, “Your room is ready.” Clara stared.
“You have a room ready?”
“I always have rooms ready.”
“For whom?”
“Women with husbands.”
Despite everything, Clara laughed. Augusta kissed her cheek.
“Better. Go upstairs.”
No one followed. No one demanded explanations.
A fire burned in the blue bedchamber Clara had used before her wedding.
Someone had turned down the covers, placed hot water beside the washstand and left a tray containing tea, bread, cold chicken and a slice of lemon cake near the hearth.
Clara sat on the edge of the bed and looked at it.
She was hungry. The fact felt absurdly ordinary.
Her marriage might be changing. Her heart might be breaking or healing or doing something far more complicated.
Yet she was hungry. Clara ate the chicken.
Then the cake. Then she slept badly but deeply enough to dream of nothing.
Morning arrived bright. That was irritating.
Clara had expected weather more sympathetic to emotional crisis, perhaps rain against the windows or at least a respectable quantity of cloud.
Instead Mayfair lay beneath clear spring sunlight, and the first thing she heard upon waking was a cart rattling cheerfully along the street.
She remained in bed for several minutes.
Then remembered where she was. Not Ashcombe House.
Winterbourne. The distinction mattered. At Ashcombe House she was Duchess of Ashcombe before she was almost anything else.
Servants rose when she entered. Letters arrived addressed to Her Grace.
Household decisions waited for her. Sebastian’s newspaper appeared beside her plate.
Here she was Clara. Lady Winterbourne’s guest. The woman who once suggested the name Last Chance Club and had been punished by seeing it adopted.
She dressed simply and went downstairs. The breakfast room was almost empty.
Augusta sat at one end of the table reading correspondence. She looked up.
“Coffee?”
“Yes.”
“Toast?”
“Yes.”
“Advice?”
“No.”
Augusta nodded.
“Excellent.”
Clara sat. A servant poured coffee. Augusta returned to her letters. For nearly ten minutes they ate without speaking. Clara found the silence restorative. Eventually Augusta folded one letter.
“You may stay as long as you like.”
“Thank you.”
“No explanation required.”
“I know.”
“If you want Sebastian barred from the house, tell Hargreaves.”
Clara’s stomach tightened.
“No.”
Augusta studied her.
“You do not want him barred.”
“No.”
“Good.”
She resumed breakfast. Clara stared at her cup.
“Is that all?”
“For now.”
“You are being very restrained.”
“I dislike it.”
“Then why?”
Augusta buttered toast.
“Because there are moments when a woman requires advice and moments when she requires enough quiet to hear herself think.”
Clara looked at her.
“Which is this?”
“If I knew that, I would be advising you.”
Clara smiled faintly. Augusta was right.
She needed silence. Not because she lacked facts.
She had too many. Sebastian had loved her at twenty-four.
He had intended to court her. He had bought her miniature.
He had commissioned the portrait. He had returned after Adrian disappeared.
He had allowed his father’s threat to drive him away.
He had spent years believing distance protected her.
Then, after finally marrying her, he had attempted to give her freedom before asking whether freedom was what she wanted.
Every one of those facts contained love.
Every one also contained a decision made without her.
Clara did not know yet which mattered more. Perhaps that was the wrong question. By eleven o’clock the house had begun filling. Not with callers. With women. Beatrice arrived first carrying an enormous basket. Clara stared.
“What is that?”
“Food.”
“There is food here.”
“Lady Winterbourne said you had marital distress.”
Augusta, passing through the hall, stopped.
“I said no such thing.”
“You said Clara was staying.”
“Which contains no reference to marriage.”
Beatrice looked at Clara.
“Does it involve marriage?”
Clara sighed.
“Yes.”
Beatrice turned to Augusta.
“Ha.”
“That is not proof you were told.”
“It is proof I have instincts.”
“Your instincts led you into an engagement with Rupert Lancing.”
Beatrice’s expression changed. Only briefly.
Clara noticed. Before anything uncomfortable developed, Cecily arrived.
Then Eleanor. Then Sophia. By luncheon, Arabella had appeared without invitation, which she claimed was the purest form of friendship, and even quiet Eliza Grey joined them in the smaller drawing room.
Nobody interrogated Clara. That surprised her.
They clearly knew something had happened.
Beatrice looked at her several times with visible curiosity.
Arabella looked as though curiosity might kill her.
Still, no one asked. Instead Cecily discussed an estate manager who believed widows incapable of understanding rents.
Eleanor described an interview for a governess position in which the mother had asked whether she possessed “firm moral authority,” then permitted her sons to throw raisins at the footman throughout tea.
Arabella announced she had found a publisher willing to consider her lending-library scheme provided Lady Winterbourne guaranteed she would not operate gaming tables in the back room.
“I refused.”
“Why?” Clara asked.
“Because I dislike being mistrusted before I have even committed the offense.”
That produced laughter. Clara relaxed. This was why Winterbourne House mattered.
Not because it fixed things. Because nobody here required anyone to become smaller in order to belong.
At Ashcombe House, she had begun creating that feeling for others.
Here she could receive it herself. After luncheon, Cecily caught Clara alone near the window.
“I will ask one question.”
Clara braced.
“Have you left him?”
“No.”
Cecily nodded.
“Good.”
Clara blinked.
“You like Sebastian?”
“I barely know him.”
“Then why good?”
“Because you did not look like a woman escaping when you arrived. You looked like a woman trying to decide whether to return.”
Clara stared. Cecily’s expression softened.
“There is a difference.”
“Yes.”
“Do you love him?”
Clara looked toward the garden. There it was.
The question she had avoided. She had thought perhaps love would announce itself properly.
A dramatic revelation. A rush of certainty.
Something unmistakable. Instead it had arrived as a hundred ordinary recognitions.
She knew Sebastian took coffee without sugar.
Knew he disliked crowded drawing rooms and loved music he pretended not to care about.
Knew he read every estate report completely, even those written by people who used six words where one would do.
She knew he was patient with elderly tenants, impatient with dishonest accounts and incapable of walking past a problem he could reasonably solve.
She knew the exact sound of his laugh when it surprised him.
Knew the way his expression softened when he saw her enjoying something.
Knew he remembered details she had forgotten about herself.
The street noise. Yellow roses. A broken slipper.
She knew he always arrived early now. That last thing undid her. Clara swallowed.
“Yes.”
Cecily did not smile triumphantly. She simply nodded.
“Then perhaps the question is not whether you return.”
“No.”
“It is what you return to.”
Clara looked at her.
“That is much less helpful.”
“I know.”
Cecily touched her hand and left. The afternoon gave Clara what she needed most. Time.
Not emptiness. Perspective. She walked through Winterbourne House alone, moving from the drawing room to the library, then into the small rear garden where spring had begun softening the edges of brick and stone.
She sat beneath a budding plane tree. For the first time since Adrian died, Clara allowed herself to think not about the past but about the future.
The practical future. Bellamere was hers.
Or effectively would be once the papers were complete. The money would be restored.
Her father’s home could be secured. Whitcombe Park could remain in the family.
She had a title. Even if she and Sebastian lived separately, she would retain status, income and independence.
She was not trapped. The realization mattered enormously.
At eighteen, Clara’s future depended on marriage.
At twenty-nine, before Sebastian proposed, her father’s ruin had narrowed her choices again.
Now those pressures were gone. She could leave him and be safe.
She could remain married in name and establish her own household.
She could live at Bellamere. She could manage the restored funds. She could build something of her own.