SHE WORE NO JEWELS TO THE BALL—UNAWARE EVERY NOBLEMAN THERE HAD COME FOR HER

Chapter 7

The small library was a narrow room off the side of the house, two doors down from the dining room. Her uncle did not use it. It was the room where he kept the account books and the ledgers he did not wish his wife to see.

The Duke was standing by the small fire when she came in. He had not sat down. He turned when he heard her step. He did not speak first. He looked at her, and his face was that same still pond, but with a heat under the ice.

“How did you come up?” she asked.

“I asked Mrs. Birch to ask you. I did not wish to come into your room myself. That would have been improper.”

“Yes.”

He took one step toward her. Then he stopped.

“What your aunt said is what she has said for five years,” Clara said quietly. “In other rooms. To other people. Tonight you heard it. That is the only difference.”

He was quiet for a long moment.

“Clara.”

It was the first time he had used her name without a title.

“You said you would tell me the truth when I asked. I am asking you now. Tell me about the estate. Your father’s debts. Was there money? Did this house take you in out of charity, or did this house take you in and take something else as well?”

She looked at the fire.

“There was money,” she said. “Not a great deal. Three hundred pounds a year, set aside for me until I came of age, with the income to be used for my keep until then. My uncle is my guardian. The capital is in his hands. He has had it five years. I have asked twice to see the accounts. He has told me twice that ladies are not troubled with such matters.”

She saw the muscle move in his jaw.

“I am of age,” she said. “I have been of age these eight months. I have not asked again because I do not know where I should go if I did. They have not raised the matter. And I have been — ” She stopped. “I have been a coward, your grace. I have been afraid to ask because I have been afraid of the answer.”

“That is not cowardice.”

“It is.”

“It is survival. They are different things.”

He looked at the fire too.

“Three hundred pounds a year for five years is fifteen hundred pounds. A woman with fifteen hundred pounds is not a poor relation. A woman with fifteen hundred pounds may set up a small house with a maid and a cook and live as she pleases.”

“Yes.”

“They have known this all of this time?”

“Yes.”

He was silent. Then he said, very quietly, “I am going to do something. I am not going to ask your permission, because if I ask it, you may say no out of pride, and I do not wish to give you the chance. I am going to make the matter of your money public in a manner of my choosing, at a time of my choosing. And I am going to make it clear, in front of the same people who have watched you sit in corners for five years, that you are not a poor relation. You are an heiress of modest means and considerable independence, and you do not require this family’s roof. Do you understand me?”

“Your grace — ”

“Do you understand me, Clara?”

She nodded. She did not trust her voice.

“There is one more thing I will not ask your permission for.”

He crossed the room now. He stood close to her — close enough that she could smell the rain on his coat, because he had walked through the garden, and the faint smell of woodsmoke from his hair, and something underneath that she could not name.

“I will not ask you to marry me yet. You do not know me well enough. You should not marry a man you do not know. But I will tell you now, in this room, where only you can hear me, that I intend to ask. When the time comes. When you have had your money put in your own hand, and have lived a month or two as your own woman, and when you have decided for yourself whether you wish a husband at all — and which one. When that time comes, I will ask. And the answer you give me will be yours. Not your aunt’s. Not your uncle’s. Not mine. Yours.”

She could not speak. She nodded again.

He lifted her hand. He held it for one moment between both of his. Then he let it go.

“Go up,” he said. “Lock the door. I will return to the dining room. I will make some excuse. The company will be gone within the hour. I will call tomorrow morning at ten. Bring whatever papers of your father’s you have. I have a man of business who will know what to do with them.”

He went to the door. He stopped. He turned.

“Your father,” he said, “would be very proud of you tonight.”

He left.

She did not lock the door. She climbed the stairs slowly. She sat on her bed. She did not light a candle. She sat in the dark and listened to the sounds of the dinner ending below her — the murmur of voices in the hall, the front door opening and closing, opening and closing, until the house was quiet. She heard her aunt come up the stairs. She heard her aunt’s footsteps pause outside her door. She heard them go on. She heard her aunt’s door close.

Then, and only then, she lay down.

She slept.