“The Duke Is Gay and Impotent,” Her Stepsister Mocked When Clara Was Forced to Marry Him—But His Wedding-Night Confession Revealed Why She Had Really Been Chosen

PART 2

The carriage rocked north out of Bath, and Clara let herself steal one last look through the window until the road curved and the town vanished entirely.

Beside her, Anthony sat with a stillness she was starting to recognize as something other than coldness. Control.

“Is Ravencliffe Keep very old?” she asked.

“Three hundred years,” he said, not turning his head.

“Is it as haunted as the stories say?”

That earned her a glance — sharp, quick, amusement flickering somewhere in that grey. “Only by my ancestors. Who were far ruder in life than they are as ghosts.”

“That’s a strange sort of comfort, your grace.”

“Anthony,” he said. “You’re my wife now. You needn’t call me your grace in private.”

The carriage struck a rut before she could answer. She was thrown forward — into his lap, his arm catching her waist instantly. Neither of them moved. His breath was warm against her forehead; she could feel his heart, fast and steady, beneath her palm.

His eyes had gone dark. Hungry. Restrained.

“Forgive me,” he said, rough, setting her gently back onto her own seat. “The roads here are poorly kept.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered.

He said nothing more for the rest of the journey, but his hands stayed clenched at his sides, as if he didn’t trust them to stay still.

Ravencliffe Keep rose out of the evening mist exactly as a rumor would want it to — grey towers, ivy-choked stone, candlelight in only a handful of windows, the rest of the house dark and holding its breath.

They were met at the door by Mrs. Gable, the housekeeper, iron-haired and sharp-eyed, and behind her, a young woman of perhaps seventeen — soft brown hair, watchful eyes, introduced simply as Jane, one of the household maids.

But Jane didn’t look at Clara the way a servant looks at a new mistress. She looked at her the way you look at something that might be dangerous.

“Jane keeps to herself, mostly,” Mrs. Gable said, following Clara’s gaze. “His grace is particular about her comfort. She answers only to myself — and to his grace directly.”

It was an odd thing to say about a maid.

That night, wandering the halls alone while Anthony saw to estate business, Clara passed a corridor near the shuttered west wing and heard voices — low, urgent. She stopped behind a tapestry.

Anthony stood close to Jane, his head bent to hers.

“You must be careful,” she heard him say. “If anyone learns you’re here, everything is at risk.”

“I know,” Jane whispered, trembling. “I’m frightened, Anthony. He wrote to Mrs. Gable again. He says the trust comes due for review before I turn eighteen, and until then his word still stands as guardian, whatever I want.”

“He won’t take you,” Anthony said. “I promise you that.”

Clara’s stomach folded into a cold, hard knot.

A quiet little mouse who will never ask questions.

She backed away before either of them could see her, and carried the words — the trust, guardian — up to an unfamiliar bed, where they kept her awake long after the candles burned down.

The next morning, Mrs. Gable found her in the hall, a heavy ring of keys at her hip. “His grace wishes to see you in the private study, your grace. He said it was a matter that could not wait.”

Clara’s heart pounded the whole way there. Whatever truth was waiting behind that door — the truth about Jane, about the wedding, about the solicitor who had put her name forward for reasons no one had explained — she suspected it would finally answer everything.

She only hoped she was ready for it.