“Perhaps I’m not at all foolish. Perhaps I’m very wise, and I’m a woman who isn’t afraid to seek what she wants from life rather than meekly waiting about for someone else to dictate what I ought to do.” Clara stood as well then, not willing to allow her opponent to tower over her. “Your Grace, I don’t think it was wise for you to come here. I understand you were the earl’s…particularfriend. However, you’re not his friend any longer. Whether he chooses to court me or wed me is up to his lordship, and regardless of the reasons for his actions, yourolder sisterconcerns are neither wanted nor necessary. Good day, Your Grace.”
She didn’t await the duchess’s response, merely took her leave of the chamber, head held high, completely aware of the social rules she eschewed as she went. But no matter how many steps she put between herself and the earl’s past, she couldn’t shake the feeling that her plans had gone hopelessly awry.
She’d thought she could easily convince the earl to wed her and send her back to Virginia. Instead, she’d wound up with a courtship, a jealous former lover, and a betrothed who was handsome and wicked and wild and yet somehow also proper and…good Lord. She’d been about to think that he was kind.
Heavens, where had that rogue thought come from? Whatever the source, she’d do best to weed it out posthaste. She couldn’t afford to like Ravenscroft. No indeed. Liking him was far too risky, too dangerously close to upsetting her plans. And she’d come too far for any of her plans to be dashed now. Far too far.
Miss Clara Whitney disliked corsets. She could make her lilting drawl disappear into minced, born-in-the-purple English at the drop of a coin. Her opinions were her own. She wasn’t vapid, vain, or spoiled like so many ladies of the fashionable set. She was intelligent and witty, quick-tongued and passionate. She liked reading but disliked playing the piano and she’d never even bothered to attempt sketching with charcoals or painting watercolors. Her opinion of England could be summed up in one word: dreary. Her opinion of the Upper Ten Thousand could be summed up in a singularly succinct manner: absurd.
Over the course of the fortnight he’d been playing the role of dutiful, proper suitor, Julian had come to know a great deal about his future countess. Some of the facets of her character had been revealed unintentionally, others had been freely shared during the rare moments when they’d been able to speak with candor.
Walking in the park was one such particular boon, as he’d been able to lead her a safe distance from her stepmama. Her gloved hand rested lightly in the crook of his elbow. The scent of her washed over him, warm and glorious. He didn’t even give a damn at the moment that public walks in the park beneath a hundred other watchful stares were the sort of thing he hated. Devil take it all, he was actually enjoying himself. Not a drop of liquor coursed through his veins, and he was properly clothed, and yes, somehow he was having a damn fine time of sporting Clara on his arm. Ah, irony.
“Women ought to be afforded the right to vote,” Clara declared to him now, keeping her voice low as she turned to him, eyes flashing with the brilliance of her devotion to her subject. “Why should it be denied us? Your very sovereign is a woman, and yet every other woman in the land is denied the opportunity to allow her voice to be heard. How can it be that one woman can rule and the rest must relegate themselves to tittering in drawing rooms and accepting their husbands as their betters?”
Well damn it, how did he answer such a question? She was perfectly correct. He was ashamed to admit he’d never once given the matter much of his time or attention. Julian stood there in the park on an overcast, dreary day, on a gravel path he’d trod hundreds of times before. And for the first time, he realized what a conceited, selfish prick he’d been his whole life.
“That is the way of things,” he offered at last, lacking for a better answer. In truth, there was no answer, at least not one that made a whit of sense. “You’re young. You need more time to become suitably jaded and indifferent.”
“I’m twenty, my lord. Not so very young and naïve, I think, to wonder why it must be so.” She turned to him, her convictions bringing vivacity to her lovely face. “It seems to me that the only sex who benefits from keeping women from having a political voice is men. Where is the science that says a woman is not every bit as capable of careful thought as man?”
“I admit I’m not a man of science,” he said wryly. “But I daresay no such science exists.”
How had he ever thought her naïve? Perhaps she was, when it came to matters of the bedchamber, but that would be easily rectified. Her mind was sharp and vital, capable of being clever or cutting. He found her freedom of expression refreshing. This was not a woman who fretted over nothing more significant than choosing a ball gown. The woman before him was intelligent, and she wasn’t afraid who knew it.
“Of course it doesn’t exist.” She shook her head with so much fervor that she almost knocked her elaborate hat off its dainty perch atop her golden curls. “We are all merely people. Regardless of where we were born, who our parents are, whether we are male or female, we’re all equals because we are all the same. It is only the ancient trappings of society that force us to believe anything different.”
How refreshing to hear her overturn the world in which he’d lived his entire life. It was all nonsense, from the trimmings of polite society to the laws that led the land. It was outmoded, antiquated, foolish and shortsighted. The world needed more Claras to upend it, by God.
“I agree with you.” He covered her hand with his for just a moment.
“You do?” She turned to him, clearly having been expecting an argument from him.
She’d not garner one.
“Is it so surprising that I can be swayed by logic? I’ll own that I’ve never given the injustice of it a second thought until now. But alas, ours is a world of vile hypocrites, darling. We must all behave properly in public, obey the tenets of polite society to the absolute letter, and yet behind closed doors, we’re all just a hodgepodge of sinners and reprobates. One need only look around to see hypocrisy in action. There is Lady Darlington, speaking politely with Lord Ryland as though they are strangers, when her last daughter was sired by Ryland. She hasn’t shared a bed with her husband in half a dozen years or more.”
“Six years?” Clara’s winged brow rose. “How can you know for certain?”
He knew because he’d been one of Lady Ryland’s first lovers after her husband had installed a famous opera singer in a house in St. John’s Wood. He met Clara’s inquiring stare, choosing not to lie to her. “How do you think I know, little dove?”
She appeared to take his admission in stride, her only betrayal of emotion a small swallow evident at the hollow of her throat. “I see. The Duchess of Argylle is not alone in the legions of your many admirers.”
Lottie’s name uttered in Clara’s mellifluous voice somehow didn’t seem right. The two women couldn’t be more different from each other. “The duchess is not an admirer, of that I can assure you.”
She’d made her opinion of him as clear as possible. He’d been nothing more to her than a source of entertainment and pleasure. She didn’t wish to be encumbered by the demands of one man. He could still recall their parting, how she’d attempted to press some notes into his hand. Payment for services rendered. But how could he fault her? He had fashioned himself a whore, and it was a role he’d learned well. He was the one who had erred in thinking their arrangement was different, that it had meant something more. He hadn’t accepted a pound from Lottie that day, and he never would. He’d bloody well starve in a beggar’s prison first.
“I wouldn’t be so certain, my lord.” Clara studied him, and he couldn’t shake the impression she saw more than he would have preferred. “She paid me a call, and she was most adamant that I run far, far away from your evil designs upon my person.”
He’d known Lottie had a vicious streak, but he hadn’t realized she’d stoop so low as to meddle in his personal affairs now. Damn her. She didn’t have a right to make him susceptible to her games any longer. “Dare I hope you made good on your poorly disguised threat to use her in a demonstration of your marksmanship?” he quipped with a lightness he didn’t feel. He hoped to keep their conversation away from the darkness that Lottie inevitably stirred within him.
“If she seeks me out again, I cannot promise that I won’t,” Clara returned. “I don’t like her. Others may be dazzled by her beauty, but I can see plainly through it to the ugliness she hides within.”
“She won’t seek you out again.” Suddenly, the pleasure he’d felt at being out of doors with Clara on his arm fled. Grim determination settled over him, icy and familiar. His past sins were never far from his heels, nor were their consequences. “I’ll make certain of it.”
“I can protect myself against her kind, my lord. I’m merely warning you so that you’re well-armed when I’ve returned to Virginia.” She smiled sweetly at him, but there was a wistful glint in her gaze that belied her apparent cheer. “I wouldn’t wish you to fall prey to a woman like her again.”
When I’ve returned to Virginia.Her innocent belief that such an event would occur needled his conscience. By God, he was startled to find it resurrected these days. But there it was, the nagging stab of guilt at misleading her. She would be furious with him, of that he had no doubt. He remained, however, his father’s son, which meant he was a selfish bastard.
