Clara unfolded the sheet and scanned until her eyes landed on the headline:
A Pretend Passion?The Curious Case of Lord Oakford’s Intended.
Her stomach sank.She read in silence:
Society has been positively enchanted by the whirlwind betrothal of Lord Oakford and Lady Clara Mapleton.Yet whispers abound: Is the match all it seems?No date has been set, and sources suggest Lord Oakford’s notorious past may not be entirely behind him.One cannot help but wonder—are hearts truly engaged, or is this an arrangement of convenience?
Clara closed the paper slowly, fingers tightening over the crinkled edge.
“How dare they?”Lady Shipley fumed.“That odious paper has maligned half the aristocracy, but this is a new low.To insinuate?—”
“That my engagement is a ploy,” Clara said, voice low, the words catching in her throat.Her hands tightened around the paper, knuckles white, as though trying to hold herself together by sheer force of will.“That I am a fiction.”
Her mother halted, mouth open.She recovered quickly, brushing invisible lint from her sleeve as she took the seat opposite.“This is precisely why we must move quickly.Set a date.Publish the banns.Perhaps secure a special license.”
Clara’s jaw tensed.“You sound as though I’ve done something wrong.”
“You have done nothing,” her mother said, though her tone was clipped.“But neither have you done anything to silence the wolves.”
Clara rose, her chin lifting with forced calm, though a spark of something fierce flickered behind her eyes.“Let them whisper.It is all they know how to do.”It was defiance, yes, but laced with the sharp sting of fear.“I shall ready myself for morning calls.”
As she retreated from the breakfast room, her spine straight, her expression serene, Clara’s thoughts churned like storm waves.It was not only the article that stung.It was how uncomfortably accurate it felt.
The morning call at Lady Brackendale’s residence was more interrogation than social visit.Clara had steeled herself during the ride over, rehearsing polite responses and summoning every ounce of composure.But now, facing the keen-eyed matrons and their too-sweet smiles, unease prickled beneath her skin.Each question felt like a needle threading doubt through her carefully constructed facade.
Lady Brackendale began as she poured tea, while Clara braced herself, her breath hitching ever so slightly as her fingers curled in her lap beneath the table, hidden from view.“You have been positively glowing of late, Lady Clara.A woman in love, I daresay.”
Clara’s fingers tightened subtly around the delicate handle of her teacup.A smile touched her lips, but it did not quite reach her eyes.
The other matrons nodded, their smiles too practiced.
“Thank you,” Clara said smoothly.“I am quite content.”
“Oh, and when is the happy day?”chimed in Lady Ellerby.“We are all simply dying to attend.”
Clara’s cup stilled just shy of her lips.“We haven’t yet set the date.”
A hum of interest rippled around the room.
“Oh?”Lady Brackendale’s tone was honey-sweet and lined with venom.“How unusual.Most engagements are announced with a date at once.”
“Of course,” Lady Ellerby added.“Sometimes delays mean nothing.And other times…”
Lady Brackendale sighed.“Well.I do hope there will be no… complications.”
Clara waved her fan with a nonchalance she did not feel.“The only complication is how to outshine Lady Audrey’s wedding,” she said with a practiced ease, though a sliver of dread coiled low in her stomach.Her gaze flicked briefly toward the hearth, avoiding the sharp eyes trained on her, willing herself to sound lighthearted when her composure teetered on the edge of fracture.“I assure you, Lord Oakford and I are quite happy.”
The conversation drifted onward, but the fire in Clara’s chest burned hotter with every minute.That article had drawn blood, and the sharks were already circling.
Later that afternoon, Clara joined Eden and Alice in the drawing room, seeking solace in the guise of idle companionship.Eden looked up from the embroidery she was pretending to work on, while Alice glanced up from the novel in her lap, raising a brow.“To the engagement?”Eden asked.
“To the pretense.To the lies.I thought I could manage it, but—” Clara dropped onto the settee beside them.“It is all becoming too real.Or too false.I do not even know anymore.”
Alice exchanged a look with Eden before setting her book aside.“You have fallen for him.”
Clara’s shoulders tensed, and a flush crept up her neck.For a heartbeat, she could not speak.Her gaze drifted to the window, where the light slanted low across the garden, casting the flowers in golden hues that mirrored the quiet ache blossoming in her chest.The beauty of it caught her off guard, stirring something tender and vulnerable inside her, a reminder that even in the face of turmoil, moments of grace could still reach her.
“I think I am in love with a man I promised myself I’d never forgive,” she whispered, covering her face with both hands.“And I scarcely know what to do with that.”
