“Which Daughter Is Yours?” the Duke Asked — Her Father Introduced Three Girls and Left Clara in the Shadows, Never Dreaming the Duke Would Uncover Why She’d Been Hidden for Fourteen Years… and Choose Her as His Duchess

PART 6 

That evening, Clara returned to Bennett House with mud on her hem and Carter Meadow lodged firmly in her thoughts. She went directly to the locked estate room. Her key still failed. But this time, Mr. Hayes was waiting in the corridor.

Without speaking, the old servant placed another key in her palm. “Your mother gave me this twenty years ago. She told me to use it if your father ever made you doubt what belonged to you.”

Clara’s hand closed around the key.

Inside the estate room, she opened a cabinet she had never seen unlocked. One ledger bore her mother’s initials. Another bore Clara’s own name. She opened it. Payments from Carter Meadow had been recorded every quarter for fourteen years. Then she saw where the income had gone.

Her father’s personal account.

Clara read the figures twice. The first time she thought she had misunderstood them. The second time she understood too well. Carter Meadow had produced a modest but steady income every year, and nearly all of it had been transferred into accounts controlled by her father. Tailors, horses, club debts, repairs to Bennett House, Catherine’s first season, Rose’s art master. Even the pearls Lydia had worn at Ravenshire House appeared in a household entry balanced against income from Clara’s land.

She placed both hands flat on the desk. Anger came strangely — not as heat, but as stillness.

Behind her, Mr. Hayes waited by the door. “Did my mother intend him to have this money?”

“No, my lady.”

“Did she intend me to control it?”

The old servant swallowed. “When you came of age.”

Clara closed her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I tried once. His lordship dismissed me for three months. Your mother had made me promise to protect the records. I thought remaining here was the only way.”

Clara looked at his bent shoulders and could not find cruelty in herself. She thought of Catherine’s season, Rose’s lessons, Lydia’s pearls — paid for, quarter by quarter, out of a child’s inheritance that child had never been told existed. She felt no anger toward her sisters. They had not asked to be dressed in her absence. It was harder, somehow, to hate a theft that had gone toward kindness for people she loved than one that had simply vanished into vice.

“Then stay a little longer,” she said.

She copied three pages before returning the ledgers to the cabinet.

The next morning, William received a note containing only one sentence: I know why he needed me invisible.

He arrived before noon with Lady Margaret, preserving every requirement of propriety while making it unmistakably clear that nothing short of war would have delayed him. Clara met him in the drawing room. She placed her copies on the table. William read without interruption. His face grew colder with every page.

“Fourteen years. The transfers began while I was a child. They continued after I turned twenty-one.”

“That may matter legally.”

“It matters to me already.” He looked up. “What do you want to do?”

The question caught her off guard. Not what should be done. Not what he intended to do. What did she want?

Clara sat opposite him. “I want the original settlement. I want independent accounts. And I want to know whether Carter Meadow is actually mine before I accuse my father of stealing from me.”

William nodded once. “Good.”

“You expected tears?”

“No. Fury.”

“Yes, I’m furious.” She looked down at her hands. Only then did Clara realize her fingers were trembling. She curled them into her skirt. William did not reach for her. Instead, he moved the inkstand farther from the edge of the table before her shaking hand could knock it over. The small kindness nearly undid her.

“Why keep me unmarried?” she asked. “My sisters have been presented properly. I was not.”

William leaned back, thinking. “If marriage transferred practical control of your property to a husband — or triggered a new settlement — Bennett could lose access to the income.”

Clara stared at the ledgers. Suddenly, years of plain gowns, declined invitations, forgotten introductions, and quiet discouragement arranged themselves into one ugly pattern. “He didn’t think no one would want me.” Her voice became almost a whisper. “He needed no one to look closely enough to ask.”

William’s eyes held hers. “And now someone has.”

Silence settled between them. The fire clicked softly in the grate.

“There is something else,” Mr. Hayes said quietly from the doorway, where he had been standing unnoticed. Both of them turned. He looked uneasy in a way Clara had not seen in him before. “A letter came for his lordship yesterday, from a Boston shipping office. I did not read it. But I recognized the seal. It was Sir Edmund Carter’s agent.”

Clara went still. “Sir Edmund is my mother’s cousin. The other trustee.”

“His lordship burned the reply in the study grate rather than send it by the usual post,” Mr. Hayes said. “I thought you should know before you rejoice too soon, my lady. A man who hides how frightened he is does not usually stop merely because he has been discovered.”

Clara looked at William. Something quieter than triumph settled over the room.

“You should be careful, Your Grace,” she said. “Apparently looking at me causes administrative difficulties.”

“I have survived worse scandals.”

“This isn’t a scandal yet.”

“Give London time.”

She laughed despite herself. And something in William’s face softened.