“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 7 

Three days later, he asked Clara to examine a genuine Ravenshire problem — a village mill damaged by spring flooding. Rebuilding it entirely would cost too much. Abandoning it would force tenants to travel twelve miles for milling. William brought the figures to Bennett House and did something no man in Clara’s family had ever done: he waited for her answer.

“Repair the wheel and reinforce the eastern wall,” she said. “Leave the western structure until harvest.”

“My steward wants the entire mill rebuilt.”

“Your steward doesn’t have to explain to six families why their rents increased to pay for it.”

William examined her calculation. “And if the old wall fails?”

“Then I will have been wrong.”

She met his eyes. “Is that permitted at Ravenshire?”

“I was hoping you might tell me.”

Something warm moved through her. He had not brought the problem to flatter her. He genuinely wanted her judgment — including the possibility that it might fail.

“You trust me,” she said.

William’s expression changed. “Yes.”

The word was quiet. Clara lowered her gaze to the page. “That feels more dangerous than admiration.”

“It is.”

The fire gave a soft crack. William leaned back, his hands loosely clasped. “My father admired my mother tremendously. He never trusted her with anything important.”

Clara looked up. “Were they unhappy?”

“Perfectly respectable.” His mouth curved without humor. “Which is sometimes worse.”

“And you?”

“I decided long ago that if I married, I would rather have disagreement than decoration. It is part of why the land reform bill I have been building in committee has taken me three years instead of one — I would rather lose a season of votes than pass something my own tenants would curse me for privately.”

Clara’s pulse became suddenly difficult to ignore. “That sounds exhausting.”

“I have met you. I know.”

She laughed. And this time he joined her. When the laughter faded, neither looked away. The shared silence changed shape. William’s hand rested on the table only inches from hers.

“Clara.” He said her name again. She heard the question before he asked it.

“Don’t.”

He stopped.

Her fingers curled against the paper. “Not because I don’t want you to.”

William became utterly still.

Clara forced herself to continue. “I need to know who I am when my father’s hand is no longer around my life. If you ask me for something now, I don’t know whether I would be choosing you — or simply choosing the first door he cannot close.”

William’s eyes held hers for a long moment. Then he nodded. “That may be the most reasonable rejection I have ever received.”

“It wasn’t a rejection.”

“That is considerably worse for my peace of mind.”

Her smile trembled. He stood to leave, but at the doorway he paused. “For what it is worth — I don’t want gratitude from you.”

Clara’s throat tightened. “What do you want?”

His hand rested on the doorframe. “Eventually — a choice.”

Footsteps approached rapidly in the hall. Lord Bennett entered without being announced. His gaze dropped immediately to the Ravenshire accounts still spread across the table, then to William, then back to Clara. “So this is what you have been doing.”

Clara stood. “Learning.”

Her father’s face had gone pale with anger. “You have been making yourself dangerous.”

William rose beside her. Bennett ignored him. “You want Carter Meadow? Take it.”

Clara went still.

Her father gave a bitter smile. “But before you congratulate yourself, ask why your mother placed one final condition on the property — and what happens to every tenant there if you marry without fulfilling it.”

“What condition?”

Her father looked at William before answering. And that single glance told her the condition had been chosen as a weapon.

“Your mother feared Carter Meadow would be absorbed into another great estate through marriage. The settlement requires its income to remain dedicated to the land and its tenants — unless the trustees approve otherwise.”

“Trustees?”

“Myself and Sir Edmund Carter — your mother’s cousin.”

William’s voice was cool. “That does not explain your threat.”

Bennett turned to him. “If Clara marries before the arrangement is reviewed, certain reserve funds remain under trustee administration. Repairs, pensions, emergency grain purchases — all of it.”

Clara heard the manipulation beneath the legal language. “Then I will have the settlement examined independently.”

“Do so.” Her father walked to the door. “Just remember that righteous decisions are easier when other people pay for them.”

After he left, Clara remained standing. William did not immediately reassure her. She was grateful for that.

“He’s frightened,” William said.

“Of losing money.”

“Of losing control.”

Two days later, a solicitor recommended by Lady Margaret confirmed what Bennett had omitted. Carter Meadow was Clara’s property. Her father had broad administrative powers only because Clara had never formally challenged them after reaching adulthood. The marriage provision could delay access to certain reserve funds, but it could not dispossess her or evict the tenants merely because she married.

“He made inconvenience sound like catastrophe,” Clara said, when William joined her afterward in Lady Margaret’s library.

“Fear is more useful when it has poor accounting.”

Clara smiled faintly, then sobered. “William — I want to retain my own solicitor. Not one recommended through Lady Margaret’s acquaintance, not one who owes you anything. If this becomes what I think it may become, I need people to know the case against my father was built by me, not lent to me.”

“Good,” William said simply. “I would have insisted on it myself, if you hadn’t.”

“And you must not use your name to shield me. Not publicly. Whatever happens.”

His jaw tightened faintly, but he did not argue. “Agreed. Though I reserve the right to dislike agreeing.”

That same afternoon, Catherine appeared unannounced at Lady Margaret’s door, her gloves twisted in her hands, and asked Clara — for the first time in either of their lives — whether their father had ever lied to her, too.