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

Chapter 8

The month that followed was unlike anything Clara had experienced.

Julian came to call every other day. He brought flowers — not the hothouse arrangements that other men sent, but wildflowers gathered from the hedgerows, tied with simple string. He brought books about birds, which he left on the parlor table without comment. He brought his spaniel Nell, who remembered Clara immediately and spent the visits with her head in Clara’s lap.

They walked in the garden, always with Rosalind or Harriet trailing behind as chaperones. They talked about everything and nothing. Julian told her about his father, who had died when Julian was twenty-three, leaving him a dukedom he had not been ready to inherit. He told her about the war, about the things he had seen and the things he could not forget. He told her about his cousins, Sebastian and Marcus, who had been his closest friends since childhood.

Clara told him about her mother’s silence, which had gradually thawed into something like acceptance. She told him about her fear of disappearing, of becoming a woman who smiled and nodded and slowly ceased to exist. She told him about the book she had been writing — a collection of observations about the natural world, pages and pages of notes about birds and insects and the way the light changed over the fields at dusk.

“May I read it?” Julian asked one afternoon.

“Absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“Because it is mine. Because it is not finished. Because I am afraid you will think it is foolish.”

“I have never thought anything you said was foolish.”

“That is because you have only known me for a month.”

“Then give me more time, and I will prove it.”

The weeks passed. Clara found herself watching for Julian’s arrival. She found herself saving observations to share with him — a fox she had seen at dawn, a particular cloud formation, the way the elderflowers had bloomed overnight. She found herself thinking about him when he was not there.

She found herself hoping.

One evening, as they stood at the edge of the garden watching the sun set, Julian turned to her with an expression she had not seen before.

“My mother has asked to see you.”

Clara’s stomach tightened. “Has she?”

“Alone. She said she wishes to speak with you privately.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow, if you are willing.”

Clara looked out at the fading light. The Duchess had not appeared once during the month of courtship. She had sent no messages, made no objections. The silence had been unsettling, but Clara had been grateful for it.

Now the silence was ending.

“What do you think she wants?” Clara asked.

“I do not know. But I will not force you to go.”

“I know you will not.”

Julian took her hand. His fingers were warm, steady. “Whatever she says, whatever she offers or threatens — I want you to know that my decision has been made. It does not change.”

Clara looked at him. “Even if she convinces me that I am wrong for you?”

“Even then. Because the only person who can convince me that you are wrong for me is you.”

His words wrapped around her like a shield. Clara held his hand and watched the sun sink below the horizon, and she thought about the albatrosses again.

She had spent her whole life waiting for proof that love could be chosen freely. She had looked for it in books, in the sky, in the stories of birds who crossed oceans and returned. She had never expected to find it standing in a garden, holding the hand of a duke who had proposed to her in front of a room full of strangers.

But here it was.

And tomorrow, she would face his mother.