“What do you have in mind?” Clio asked, already feeling weary.
Phoebe grinned, clearly very pleased with herself.
“Well,” she said, “the two of you have married. You’ve given everyone a little time to settle down and forget about the more scandalous bits—did you know that the Earl of Comfrey’s fourth daughter just ran off with a groom? Frankly, nobody cares about you marrying a duke when that bit of gossip is on offer.” She shook her head, dispelling the distraction. “Anyway, now you just have to show thetonthat your marriage is here to stay.”
Clio didn’t like the sound of this, which meant that Hectordefinitelywouldn’t like the sound of this.
“And how do you propose we do that?” she asked warily.
Phoebe clapped her hands together. “By attending a ball, of course.”
If there was some small satisfaction in knowing that, yes, her husbandwouldhate this plan, Clio struggled to find it.
“I’m not sure that would help,” she told Phoebe.
“Of course it will help,” Phoebe retorted. “Come on. Picture a room full of stodgy old trustees. They’re likely fossils, the lot of them, and no doubt they amuse themselves by sitting around moaning that young people these days are ruining England et cetera.”
Clio had no retort for this, as this did rather describe every elderly gentleman she’d ever known.
“What they want from Hector isn’t an actual, real human child—you know none of them has ever held an actual baby—but rather an assurance that this interloper duke who grew up out of the fold isn’t going to change their world too much.”
This … held a certain logic, and this conclusion must have shown on Clio’s face, because Phoebe pressed her advantage.
“They really just want to know that he’s one of them,” she added. “And going to a Society event, even just a silly little ball, will show that. You can’t mean to tell me that the sour-faced brother has been sitting home all the time.”
This was another good point; Phoebe really was in fine form this morning. Matthew had been spending most of his time at his club, but Clio had seen him flitting out from time to time, dressed in evening clothes and an air of self-importance so cloying that it hung about him like a cloud.
“Perhaps,” Clio allowed.
“Besides,” Phoebe said, wheedling a bit, “it will be fun. I mean, people will be awful, but I’ll be there! Aaron will be there! He’ll get to glower at everyone, which you know he loves, and the sooner you and Hector become less of a mystery, the sooner everyone will move along even more than they already have.”
Again, logical, but Clio’s mind stuck on one point …
“You and Aaron will be there?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “As in, you have already chosen the event?”
If Clio expected Phoebe to look embarrassed at being caught out, she was destined for disappointment.
“Oh, I’m so glad you asked,” she said brightly. “Yes. I’ve already accepted on our behalf. We are expected at the Abernathy ball on Wednesday next.”
When Clio approached her husband with the idea, she tried to channel Phoebe’s confidence. She didn’t expect that she wouldbe quite as successful as her sister by marriage—there was no matching Phoebe for determination—but she hadn’t expected Hector to laugh right in her face.
“Ha. No, you cannot be serious,” he said. He was—once again, Clio thought with a note of sourness—poring over more of that infernal paperwork.
She didn’t think he was being intentionally unkind; Hector, for all his flaws, wasn’tmean. But he hadn’t even looked up from what he was doing, and the dismissiveness stung.
“Hector,” she said. And then, when he still didn’t look up, more pointedly, “Hector.”
Irritation was written across his features as he looked away from his work. Over the weeks, the desk had turned from what was little more than a heap of parchment with some drawers beneath into an orderly workspace. She knew that this orderliness represented a tremendous amount of effort, effort done in the face of two of his family members intentionally trying to foil him.
But he’d hammered away at it tirelessly, in a way that made it rather easy for her to picture him at the forge. He had taken something that should have been impossible and beaten it into submission. It was something to be proud of.
But he didn’t seem proud. He just seemed annoyed and weary. And she tried to be understanding, truly she did, but she was annoyed and weary, too.
And she didn’t bloody deserve his dismissal.
“This will help with your campaign against your brother,” she told him, trying to sound calm and collected. It came out rather frosty, but she decided it still wasn’t a bad effort overall. “They’ll see you, seeus, and?—”
“Andwhat, Clio?” he interrupted, his voice clipped. She’d never before longed to hear him call herprincessquite so desperately. “They’ll gawp and titter over the monstrous duke? You do realize that I cannotdance, don’t you?” He thumped a fist against his injured leg. “Not only did I never receive lessons, but they don’t precisely make space for a walking stick, do they?”
