“Not yet,” the duke said simply. “Now, unhand her, or you may choose not to. It is your choice. Just as it will be my choice what to do with you if you refuse me.”
Clara could sense the fear in Lord Ayles as if it screamed at her. He was quivering. His grip loosened on her arm. A backwards step taken. And then he let her go.
“This will not be forgotten!” Lord Ayles cried. “Do not think it will be.”
“Do not think I will give you a moment of thought the second you are out of my sight,” the duke said. A beat passed between them, and although it was too dark to see, Clara could feel his warning stare tearing through the lord’s final act of bravery. “Go,” he growled. “Now.”
Lord Ayles yelped. Straightened. Took a breath as he adjusted his jacket. But then he fled, head down, making certain to keep his distance as he passed the duke and hurried inside.
The duke did not follow him. Nor did he approach Clara. He stayed in the shadows, watching her.What is he doing? Is he trying to frighten me? Or is he waiting for my thanks?
“I thought you did not save people?” she said.
“Is that what I did?” Through the dark, she could feel his eyes studying her. It made her shiver, and she hugged her body. “Perhaps I wished to be alone and knew that scaring Lord Ayles off was the quickest way to assure this.”
She frowned at the comment. At the rebuke. “That is not… I do not believe that for a second.”
“Perhaps you need to be scared off also?” He took a step toward her. “As I said, I came out here to be alone.”
She took a step back. “I am not afraid of you.”
His laughter was cold. “You should be.”
About to respond, Clara saw Alicia behind the duke in the doorway. She watched the scene unfold with her mouth open and her eyes widened in surprise and worry. More than a few of the guests hovered by the door with curiosity, no doubt having watched where the duke went, only to see Lord Ayles flee a moment later.
Oh no…
That was twice now she had found herself at the center of a scene. Two times too many.
“I… I must go.” She started toward the ballroom.
“For the best, I think,” he said.
She tried to find his eyes in the dark as she passed him. She wanted to see if she could read them, his true purpose, for she did not believe a word he said. But he kept them hidden from her, and she could have sworn that ice prickled over her skin as she passed him by.
“Clara!” Alicia grabbed her by the arm the second she stepped inside. “What are you thinking!”
It is a good question,she thought as she noticed all the stares and the whispers that were starting to build.A question to which I once again have no answer.
The first time she had attended a ball, Clara had been invisible and so easily forgotten that her father had refused to allow her to attend another. This second time, the result was the exact opposite, and she knew without even having to find her father in the crowd that the punishment was surely to be even more severe.
If I know my father…
“I can barely bring myself to look at you!” Her father’s glower was as fiery as Clara had ever seen it. “What were you thinking!”
“I –”
“Do not speak!” he snapped at her. “Listen, if you are capable of such a thing.” He raised both eyebrows, daring her to disobey him. Clara did no such thing, keeping her head bowed and her posture withdrawn. Rarely had she seen her father this angry, but she knew him well enough to know that the best way to weather such a storm was through saying little and doing even less than that.
It was two days after the Ashworth Ball, a period which was as tumultuous a time as Clara had ever lived through. Her actions at the ball had spread across the ton like wildfire so that her name was on the lips of every lord and lady within a fifty-mile radius.
Worse still, these words were not of a kind nature.When are they ever?
It was she and the duke whom everyone whispered about. What had happened between them on the balcony? How did sheknowhim? For she must have approached him as she did. And why was Lord Ayles seen fleeing them as if his tailcoat had caught fire? Oh, the people were happy enough to guess the reason, for that was what they did. And each tale that Clara heard was worse than the previous.
The natural consequence of this was Lord Ayles ending his courtship at once.A fact I might be grateful for, did it not see my father’s wrath rise to heights yet unknown. For two days, he had stormed the manor, cursing and shouting and breaking whatever his hands could find. For two days, he had tried to soften the rumors and dismiss them. For two days, he had sat with what was to be made of this outrage. And now, two days later, it seemed to Clara that a decision had been reached.
“What am I to do with you?” he snarled across the office. He was seated, thank God, for it forced him to keep his distance. “Lord Ayles refuses to see reason or speak to me – he thinks I planned this!”
