Clara turned to see her parents approaching. Her stomach was a jumble of nerves. What did they want?
Her mother said, “Hello, Clara. We thought it was time to move on. Would you like that?”
Clara stared at her, confused. Her mother was not known to forgive. Still, she wanted to see Henry. She nodded. “Mr. Kincaide and I would love that.”
Her mother turned her frosty gaze towards Sam, her lips pinching in annoyance, but she turned back to Clara and said, “Good. We are having a dinner; we would like both of you to attend.”
Perhaps things could change, Clara thought. She beamed at her mother. “We would love that.”
~
Sam and Clara made their way back to where his family was lounging by the water. Clara practically glowed. She couldn’t keep the smile from her face.
“You seem happy.”
She smiled even wider. “Can you believe they want to move past all of this, and they invited us to attend a dinner?”
The happiness exuding from his wife vindicated all of his decisions regarding the Claremores. He wasn’t the type to threaten people and truth be told could easily charm most people into doing what he wanted. As his brother Jack said it was his gift.
He felt a twinge of guilt about keeping his actions from Clara, but more than anything he wanted her to see her brother and find her footing back in the society she grew up in. For himself, Sam couldn’t care less, but his wife didn’t know anything else.
“I’m glad things worked out.”
She smiled at him. “They will grow tolike you.”
He snorted. “I don’t aspire to be liked by people like your parents, but I want you to be happy. I will do my best to be a proper gentleman.”
She stared at him quizzically and said quietly, “You already are the perfect gentleman. I don’t think you realize that, Sam. Everything you do is far more than I could have ever wanted or dreamed about for a husband. You saved me from Dolan and for no other reason than it was the right thing to do. I would pick your kindness and thoughtfulness over any quality a lord has to offer.”
Sam’s heart pounded wildly at her words. He wasn’t sure he had ever wanted something as desperately as he wanted his wife. Fear clawed at him. He still couldn’t let go of the worry that someday she would regret not marrying a lord.
“Sam, I mean that,” Clara insisted.
He pushed the fear back, telling himself that no matter what, he would make sure Clara’s life was perfect. The things he had achieved in his life, no one who knew him on the streets or the orphanage would have ever fathomed. Compared to those hardships, making sure his wife was accepted by thetonshould be easy. Still, he worried, but he didn’t want Clara to know that.
“I know you do,” he said.
She looked at him concerned. Sam put on his normal charming smile hoping to distract her, but Clara was having none of it.
“Do you think I think less of you?”
Sam flushed and said, “Of course not.”
“Sam—”
“Clara, come join us for a walk,” Mercy said, arriving with Annie and Sophia, stopping their conversation.
Sam silently thanked the higher powers that Mercy appeared. He winked at Clara and said, “You worry too much. Go.”
She frowned, and Mercy said again, “Come on. Let's go for a walk, Clara.”
Clara sighed but joined them. Sam watched her, along with his sister-in-law and sisters, make their way down a pathway. As she walked, ladies cast envious glances her way. She was exquisite. Sam knew in any other situation she would be a leader of the ton. Marriage to him had prevented that. He would fix it. He had to.
Chapter 22
Clara stood with Addie watching all the lords and ladies mingle in the decadent ballroom decorated in rich purple and blue fabrics. Addie’s close friend Eleanor along with her husband the Earl of Sandsmore were hosting their last event of the season. Eleanor had mentioned she and her husband may not attend the season next year. Her husband was a great deal older than her and unwell. Thetonloved to gossip about her, whispering she was a social climber but that didn’t preclude any of them from missing her event. Clara glanced at her walking with her husband. Gossipers could say what they like, but to Clara, she seemed fiercely devoted to her husband.
Clara and Sam had started to get an increase in invitations for various balls. Thetonseemed to be welcoming them back, or Clara thought wryly, it could be that the number of balls were increasing as ladies competed to pull off the event of the season. In the next few weeks all of that would start to wind down as people left London for their country estates.
