She Fell Asleep in the War Duke’s Bed—While 59 Women Waited Below

Chapter 4

The door clicked shut behind Mrs. Harcourt’s retreating figure, but her presence lingered in the room like smoke. Clara could still feel the woman’s satisfied gaze, could already imagine the whispers spreading through the ballroom below.

“I have to go,” she said, rising from the bed.

“No.” The duke’s voice was quiet, but it stopped her cold.

“You cannot keep me here.”

“I can, and I will. If you walk into that ballroom looking as you do now, you will be destroyed before you reach the bottom of the stairs.”

Clara looked down at herself. Her gown was crushed. Her hair had half-fallen from its pins. One sleeve had slipped from her shoulder. And a puppy had left a damp mark beside her ribbon.

“Oh, heaven,” she whispered, covering her face.

The duke poured a glass of brandy. He did not drink it.

“Is that for you,” Clara asked, lowering her hands, “or for the body you intend to hide?”

“Yours,” he said.

Despite everything, Clara almost laughed. Then the fear returned.

“My mother will die.”

“She will not.”

“My sisters will be ruined.”

“Not if this is handled properly.”

Clara looked at him sharply. “Handled. Of course. I am to be handled now.”

“You are to be protected.”

“By being trapped in a room with you.”

“By not walking into a ballroom full of people sharpening their teeth.”

That silenced her. Below them, voices rose. Rumor was already spreading. Nell yawned and settled over her puppies. Clara swallowed.

“I did not know this was your room.”

“I gathered that.”

“I followed the dog.”

“So I heard.”

She looked at him sharply, but his face remained stern. The dry note in his voice steadied her, though she could not have explained why.

Then footsteps approached. Slow. Measured. A knock struck the door.

“Julian.” His mother’s voice.

Clara closed her eyes.

The duke looked at the door, then at her ruined gown, then at the dog asleep on his bed. He placed one hand on the latch but did not open it.

“Mother. Return to your guests.”

A pause. “What madness is spreading downstairs?”

“Return to your guests.”

“Julian, if there is a young woman in that room —”

“Then there is a matter I will handle.”

“You will open this door.”

“No.”

The word was quiet. Final. Clara forgot to breathe.

The Duchess’s voice hardened. “You are the Duke of Ravenscroft, not a reckless boy.”

“I am aware.”

“Then behave as one.”

“I am. I will come downstairs shortly. Until then, say nothing and allow no one upstairs.”

Silence. Then the Duchess said, “You have ten minutes.”

Her footsteps retreated. The duke released the latch. Clara looked at him as though he had locked the entire world outside.

“Now,” he said. “Tell me your name.”

“Clara Ashworth.”

His expression changed by the smallest degree. “Ashworth.”

Clara heard the recognition immediately. Ashworth meant cloth. Trade. Invoices. “Useful people” who could warm a regiment but could not sit at a duke’s table. It did not mean the sort of family his mother expected beside a duke.

“Shall I save you the trouble of saying the rest?” Clara asked, lifting her chin.

The duke watched her steadily. “I had not intended to say it.”

“But you thought it.”

“I think many things I do not say.”

Clara gave him a strained look. “That must be exhausting.”

“It is often necessary.”

Before she could answer, the voices below grew louder — not music, but voices. The ball had changed while they stood upstairs. Rumor had entered the room, and rumor never needed an invitation.

“Mrs. Harcourt is telling them,” the duke said. “Probably.”

Clara turned back to him. “That was not comforting.”

“I do not lie for comfort.”

“So you prefer terror with accuracy.”

His gaze moved to her damaged gown. “At present, accuracy may save you.”

That silenced her. Clara gathered her crushed skirt. “I must find my mother.”

The duke studied her loosened hair, fallen sleeve, the damp mark at her waist. “Not looking like that.”

Clara looked down again. “Oh, heaven.”

She appeared exactly as guilty as Mrs. Harcourt wanted her to appear. The duke crossed to the washstand, picked up a folded linen cloth, and held it out.

“For the ribbon.”

Clara accepted it slowly. “You are very calm.”

“I am not.”

“You look calm.”

“I have had practice.”

He turned his back while she repaired her gown. The gesture was immediate and correct. There was no performance in it. Clara noticed.

She cleaned the ribbon, pulled her sleeve back into place, and pushed several escaping pins into her hair. Elegance was no longer possible. Less obviously ruined would have to do.

Still facing away, the duke asked, “Do you often follow animals into disaster?”

Clara glanced at Nell. The dog remained settled among her puppies and thumped her tail once.

“No,” Clara said. “Not often.”

The duke looked over his shoulder.

“Not often,” Clara amended. “I notice creatures that are out of place, that is all.”

“Dogs in ballrooms.”

“Cats in rain barrels. Sparrows in chimneys. Chickens in linen presses.”

The duke turned to face her fully. “Please forget Barnaby.”

“You announced your death over him.”

“I was not at my best.”

His mouth almost moved. “That has become clear.”

Clara turned, ready to be offended, but there was no cruelty in his face. Only that severe attention of his, as though every strange thing she said became a fact he could not help remembering.

Clara looked away first. “At home, when I need to disappear, I tell my mother I am going to look for ribbons.”

“Where do you actually go?”

“A lane. A field. The churchyard wall.”

“That is a habit.”

“A survival method.”

The duke’s voice softened slightly. “Where would you go if you could go anywhere?”

The question caught her off guard. She had never told anyone the answer. But something in the way he asked — as though he genuinely wanted to know, as though he was not simply making conversation — made the words escape before good sense could stop them.

“Bempton Cliffs.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Yorkshire?”

“I read about the place when I was twelve. White cliffs, wild wind, seabirds crowding the sky. A place vast enough that no mother, duchess, or marriage plan could arrange it into obedience.”

“And what would you do there?”

Clara looked down at the ribbon in her hands. “I would watch the albatrosses.”

The word hung between them. She expected him to smile indulgently, to dismiss her as a silly girl with romantic notions. He did neither.

“Albatrosses do not nest in Yorkshire,” he said.

“I know.” She looked up. “That is the point. They belong to the wide ocean. They choose their mates slowly — over years, not seasons. They spend months apart, and still they return to each other. Not because they must. Because they want to.”

The room became very quiet. Clara looked toward the dark window.

“When I was younger, I used to imagine one losing its way and flying all the way to Bempton. I wanted to see it.”

“To witness it?”

“To have proof.” Her voice dropped. “Proof that something could cross the whole world and still return freely to the one thing it had chosen.”

Julian watched her for a long moment. “You believe love should choose as the birds do.”

It was not a question.

Clara’s hands became still. “I believe it should be possible. I have simply never seen it.”

The noise below swelled. The moment between them vanished. Julian glanced at the door.

“You will return to the ballroom,” he said. “By the main staircase.”

Clara’s eyes widened. “The main staircase?”

“You will not creep through side passages like a thief. You did nothing wrong. Do not give them the pleasure of watching you behave as though you did.”

He opened the door. “I will go first. You will wait one minute, then follow.”

“And if everyone thinks the worst?”

“Then let them think it in front of me.”

He stepped into the corridor. For one breath, Clara remained alone in the Duke of Ravenscroft’s chamber. Behind her, Nell slept among her puppies, as though ruin were merely another comfortable arrangement.

Then the house below fell silent.

The Duchess’s voice rose through it, cold and clear. “Where is Miss Ashworth?”

Clara looked toward the open door. The duke had stopped in the corridor. He turned his head just enough to meet her eyes.

“Miss Ashworth,” he said, his voice low and strange. “I am about to make the largest mistake of my life.”

Before she could ask what he meant, he began walking toward the stairs.