Clara served as the anonymous publisher and benefactor ofParnassus. She had conceived the journal two years ago and begun building toward it at once. The first two issues had been fledgling efforts, but they garnered enough subscriptions to encourage her. Now, with her legacy, she could afford to attempt a regular schedule of publication.
Modeled on men’s journals,Parnassuscontained political news as well as reviews of theater performances and travel memoirs. She liked to fill it with information and facts but allowed a few sharp thinkers like Althea to write essays. Feminine interests were hardly ignored. Clara loved fashion herself, andParnassusincluded a column devoted to it.
The journal’s most distinctive feature was the mixture of writers. A viscountess and a baroness sometimes contributed, although the former used a pen name. However, Mrs. Clark was the widow of a merchant who now ran a millinery shop. Mrs. Clark had a gift for poetry that rang clear and honest and made no attempt to copy any other poet on earth.
Ladies of the ton, women of the City, mothers, sisters, and, yes, even bluestockings had subscribed. The secrecy of the project might have contributed to its success, she knew. The who and the where ofParnassusremained a tantalizing mystery.
Right now the where consisted of this house Clara had bought with her legacy, three months after her father’s death. Memories of him had filled her when she signed the deeds, along with profound gratitude that he had arranged for her to have her own property and substantial income and not be beholden to Theo in any way. Theirs had been a rare bond. In truth, he had treated her like a son. He had taught her to ride and shoot and even said once that he regretted she could not inherit his estate and title. Theo would never forgive her for how she received the best of their father’s love, she supposed.
She had mourned him deeply. Totally. The grief had undone her as nothing else ever had. She drowned in it to where she did not recognize herself. Finally, one day, she began to fight her way to the surface.
Parnassushad been her lifeline. Purchasing this house was her first clear step forward in her life. The journal’s needs forced her to visit London periodically too. Until now those visits had been brief but now, at six months after his passing, she finally had resumed lengthier ones.
“The fashion article has not yet come in from Lady Grace,” Althea mentioned.
Lady Grace Bidwell was the most recent addition to the contributors. The sister of an earl, she had never married. Clara felt a natural affinity for her, and Lady Grace had a clear eye when it came to fashion.
“I will write her a reminder, but not wait forever.” Clara spoke with decisive firmness of the sort she had not long ago used on the Duke of Stratton, to little avail. That encounter kept invading her mind, and it soured her humor whenever it did. The more she thought about that proposal, the more outraged she became.
Althea turned her pretty blue eyes on Clara. A head shorter than Clara, and delicately boned, Althea had a presence that sometimes made Clara feel monstrous in comparison. Not that she was very tall herself, or stout. It was just that Althea was so exquisitely small. The widow of Captain Galbreath, an army officer, Althea lived with her brother, Sir Jonathan Polwarth, a baronet, and his wife. Althea had the life of a dependent relative now, the sort Clara’s father had saved her from with that legacy.
“You are out of temper today,” Althea said. “Is your brother annoying you again? Insisting you come back down to the country?”
“It is not that. Not entirely.” Clara was not given to confidences, but she did want to share some of the recent, strange occurrences in her life. Not the proposal. No one would ever learn about that. “Both Theo and my grandmother have gotten the idea in their heads to end a long feud our family has had with that of the Duke of Stratton.”
“I would think that is a good thing. Such long wars have little benefit.”
“Grandmother never does things simply because they are good things, Althea. She has a mind like a poacher’s trap, and her strategies would have put Napoleon to shame. She is determined, however, and Theo is as well. They even received him. My father always swore that Stratton would never darken his doorstep, but there he was.”
Althea began stacking the articles, sliding clean sheets between each one as she did. “On your doorstep here in town, at Gifford House? I have heard he came up recently.”
“Did you now?” It seemed a good way to avoid admitting he had indeed darkened her family’s doorway here in town.
“There has been some talk about him. You would not have heard it because you were sequestered at Hickory Grange for so long after your father passed, and were not here when he returned from France.”
Althea carried the big stack of papers over to another table and proceeded to wrap the whole thing in linen. Clara strolled in her wake.
“What sort of talk?”
Althea tied string around the thick package, finishing with a rustic bow. “Vague talk. The kind where you hear bits of things when you come upon people, but they stop talking once you are seen. Serious talk, from the looks of the dour faces. Whispered, secret talk. Mostly among those of our parents’ generation.”
“Surely those bits must have given you some idea of why he has garnered that kind of attention.”
Althea shrugged. “I believe I heard my brother refer to him as dangerous. Something about duels in France.”
“I heard about the duels. Theo told me. I think he fears if he does not sue for peace, Stratton will challenge him. What nonsense.”
“I also interfered with some talk about him in a drawing room after a small dinner party. The hostess could not contain herself despite ending mid-sentence. She mouthed a final word of whatever she had been saying to her confidante.”
“What word was that?”
“I am quite sure it was the wordrevenge. Now, if we are going to speak with the pressmen today, we should be on our way before it gets too late.”
They donned their pelisses and bonnets. Clara envied Althea her celadon green and lemon yellow ensemble. She did not resent wearing mourning clothes. She would wear them forever if that would honor her father. She did miss ensembles with more color and style, however, and sometimes plotted incredible excesses at the shops once she could dress fashionably again.
With the manuscripts firmly tucked in her arms, Clara joined Althea while they walked to a hackney stand around the corner from the square. Her nose all but itched from the tantalizing information Althea had just fed her. Stratton might be high-handed, annoying, and arrogant, but he had just become interesting too, especially to the publisher of a journal.
Revenge? About what? It seemed a few in London knew, but it was not gossip for general consumption.
