Chapter 21
“Ihave an idea,” Clara said the following morning at breakfast. “After what Marianne told us, I think it would be prudent for us to go to Dover ourselves.”
He looked up from his plate. “Us go to Dover? But Stanhope has already—”
“He has. But he does not know what Bash looks like. Marianne does. Besides, she has contacts there. She could make enquiries—with us accompanying her of course.” She set down her cup.
“Think of it. Arabella believed that Bash followed her because he wanted the child. He is bound to have passed through Dover at some point. We could have Marianne describe him, and I could produce a sketch. I am quite capable with a pencil. We could show it to people. He may even have contacts in Dover since he was not staying at the inn where Marianne was living which suggests he knew someone there, someone he stayed with.”
“We could speak to the innkeeper,” she continued. “We could speak to people at the docks.”
He considered this. The prospect of going to Dover appealed in more ways than one.
It would allow him to do something concrete rather than sit and wait for Stanhope or Nathaniel to bring word.
It would also mean time alone with Clara which he knew he would enjoy and which fell squarely into the category of the things he should not do if he wanted to keep distance from her.
And yet.
The truth was that the more time passed, the more he recognized that his feelings for Clara were not the painted-canvas variety he had once had for Josephine. He had never spent much time alone with Josephine.
There had always been chaperones, always attendants, always the careful choreography of courtship.
He had spent considerably more time with Clara already but perhaps not enough.
Perhaps a journey to Dover, the two of them in close company for an extended period, would help him see that she was not perfect, that she was not the idealized wife he had dreamed of back when he still held such foolish notions.
Perhaps it would help him see her faults.
He nodded. “Very well. We shall go. Speak to Marianne and find out if she is willing to come. I do not think we ought to bring David just in case Bash is truly there.”
“We will need someone to help with the children. We cannot very well expect Marianne to assist us and manage David and Molly simultaneously. I propose we bring my maid with them. She is familiar with children.”
“A sensible plan,” Julian said. Clara was always full of sensible plans. It was one of the things he liked about her.
By the following morning, they were packed. Clara and Marianne said goodbye to the children, and they set off in two carriages for Dover.
This was the second time he had been alone with Clara in a carriage.
The first time they had been old friends thrown together by unusual circumstances.
This time they were married, and the lines that had always been so clearly drawn between them had become, to say the least, considerably less clear.
“I think we should start at the inn,” Clara said. “We should take rooms and stay overnight. That way, we can question anyone there and see if they remember anything about Arabella.”
“A good idea,” he agreed.
“Pray, did you not use to own an estate in Dover?”
He looked up and nodded. “My father used to, yes, but it is let. Why?”
“You do not suppose Arabella would have gone there?”
“I should think not. It has been let for a very long time.” He paused then added, “Although I do recall that she was very keen to visit it some years ago. It came out of nowhere. She kept asking if we might go, and I could never quite fathom why.”
Clara looked at her shoes. Something in her expression shifted.
“What is it?”
“It was my idea.” She kept her eyes down.
“Arabella enjoyed drawing very much, and I had wanted her to draw me standing on the cliffs of Dover. I thought it would be most romantic and dramatic.” She glanced up briefly.
“I asked her not to tell you because I was embarrassed. I would have been considerably more embarrassed had I known at the time that you were already acquainted with my questionable poetry, for my plan was to have her draw the portrait and then write a poem on the back.”
“Well,” he said, “it is just as well she did not tell me because I would certainly have teased you about it. Without mercy and without fail.”
“You see? Even back then, I knew you.” They looked at one another, and he found it quite impossible to look away.
“Yes,” he said, after a moment. “I suppose you did know me then. You certainly know me now.”
“Do I?” she replied. “Sometimes you are quite the enigma. But I think that is how you like it. How you like to present yourself.”
“I suppose it is. Although not many people see through it. You are one of the few.”
“I am glad,” she said. “I am glad to have seen behind the mask and found who you really are.”
He crossed his legs and considered for a moment whether to ask the next question then decided there was no particular harm in it. “And pray, who am I?”
“You are quite remarkable, truly. You came to my aid, to your cousin’s aid, without a second thought. You arranged the marriage, managed the vicar.” He raised a hand.
“Now, now. It is not a falsification. He simply has a very poor hand.”
“Of course,” she said with a perfectly straight face.
“Very poor handwriting, most untimely for ordinary circumstances and most fortunate for ours.” She folded her hands in her lap.
“In any case, you arranged all of it. You are compassionate and kind. They say you can charm anybody into doing anything.”
He let out a genuine laugh at that. “I wish it were so. There are a great many bills I would like to see passed in the House of Lords, and I cannot find sufficient support for a single one of them, no matter how assiduously I try to charm my fellow peers. They appear entirely immune. Perhaps if it were a House of Ladies rather than a House of Lords, I might fare considerably better.”
“Well,” she said, the corners of her mouth turning up, “you ought to charm their wives then, ought you not? Though I suppose you should have attended to that rather more diligently before you were married. It would be seen as quite improper to attempt it now.”