She found him waiting near the sundial, dressed in a navy coat that made the gold in his hair gleam.He looked like a portrait left in the sun—familiar, alluring, and slightly faded around the edges, as though even beauty could tire of being examined too closely.
“Clara,” he said, his smile warm, if wary.
Over taken by nerves, she blurted, “I received a note this morning.Anonymous.Threatening another scandal.”
His expression hardened.“From whom?”
“I suspect Lady Fenwick.Possibly one of her friends.But it scarcely matters.The implication is clear.If I continue this…charade…there will be consequences.”
Crispin’s voice was low.“Let them come.”
“You would risk it?”
“I have lived with whispers all my life.What do I care if they invent a few more?”
Clara looked away.“I am not like you.I do not have your protection, your privilege.”
“I know.”He stepped closer.“Which is why I would never let them hurt you.”
She held up a hand.“Do not say things you can not promise.”
He stopped.“I am not.”
Clara’s voice wavered.“This began as a game.A ploy to save my reputation and because it amused you.But I no longer know what is pretend and what is real.And that frightens me… almost as much as the letter.”
The words echoed with more weight than she expected, dragging forth the sharp, humiliating sting of that first Season.It had not been the remark alone that wounded her, but the betrayal of someone she had thought might be different.Crispin had looked at her once like she was someone worth seeing, and then, in a single careless breath, turned her into a joke.
Now, years later, standing in his garden with the scent of lavender thick in the air, that old hurt tangled with new fear.She was no longer the wide-eyed girl desperate for approval, but she was still vulnerable to the man who had once shattered her.Letting herself believe in him again meant handing him the power to do far worse.And yet, despite everything, she wanted to believe.
“I understand.”
“Do you?”Her voice rose slightly.“Because if I trust you, if I let myself believe in what you are showing me, what then?Will you vanish?Will I be left ruined while you slip back into society’s good graces unscathed?”
Crispin didn’t answer immediately.A flicker of something—guilt, regret—passed through his eyes.
That pause told her everything.
She stepped back, every inch of her bristling with self-protection.“That’s what I thought,” she said, the finality in her voice like a gate closing.
“Clara—”
“I can not,” she whispered.“Not unless I know I matter.Not unless I am certain I will not be made a fool of.”
“You are not a fool.”
“But I was.”
She turned from him, each step measured as if pacing out the distance between heartbreak and resolve.
One step, then another.And still, he did not follow.She walked toward the gate, spine straight and shoulders squared, though her fingers trembled slightly around the folded note hidden in her reticule.
His voice followed her.“I never meant to hurt you.”
“I believe you,” she said without looking back.“But it scarcely means you will save me now.”
Her heart pounded, unsteady, determined, as a breeze stirred the treetops and scattered a few stray petals along the garden path behind her.She felt the moment shift like the hush that follows a curtain’s fall—quiet, fragile, and full of possibility.
Chapter11
