“How kind of you both.” If two dukes spoke with Emilia at a party, no one would talk much about whether a girl in mourning should have come. “We will be sure to let you know. Won’t we, Grandmamma?”
“Indeed.”
Untold levels quaked beneath the surface gratitude of that one-word response. Clara heard disapproval of her boldness, and pending threats. Emilia, however, only beamed with delight that she would not be left out of absolutely everything.
Her sister looked beautiful today, but then she always did. The sun filtering in the windows made her blond hair all but spark with lights and also flattered her dewy complexion. Langford kept looking her way. Not that Langford would do for Emilia, any more than the other duke here might. Langford was known for a wildness that more than matched that of his rakish hair. Charming as sin, he would surely break the heart of any woman he married.
Clara tried not to see Stratton, but he sat just to the right of his friend and managed to invade her vision anyway. He barely looked at Emilia at all, something Grandmamma was sure to notice. Clara hoped that Grandmamma did not realize whom he looked at instead.
It was not as if he stared at her. Just often that dark gaze settled on her, to the point of making her self-conscious. She understood what Emilia meant about finding him frightening, only that word did not really fit the response he evoked. Rather, she found his attention forcing memories on her, of his standing too close, and almost kissing her, and saying things too intimate.
“The day is fair,” her grandmother announced. “Clara, why don’t you take your sister and the gentlemen to the garden, to enjoy the breeze and sun? Your brother and I will join you soon.”
So it was that she led the way out the French windows to the terrace.
* * *
Adam arranged it that by the time they stepped onto the terrace, he stood beside Lady Clara and Langford accompanied Lady Emilia.
Langford could charm any woman of any age without trying. It was simply his nature. Some kings were born to rule, and Langford had been born to seduce.
He restrained himself to the extent he could because Lady Emilia was a young girl, but those blue eyes still pierced and that smile still cajoled. Lady Emilia became a flustered mess of giggles and blushes by the time they reached the gardens.
Lady Clara missed none of it. “Shrewd of you to bring him,” she said to Adam. “Otherwise my grandmother might have interpreted your call as courting, and indicative of your agreement to her idea about a marriage.”
“She would have been correct, of course, but only in error as to the lady. We will not explain that yet, however. It will be our secret for a while.”
“I wish you would stop speaking like that, when you know it will be a secret forever because I will never accept. There is no reason for me to.”
“There is good reason. Many reasons. It will be our secret while I show you what they are.”
Up ahead, Langford must have told some joke because Emilia’s laughter pealed through the air.
“I hope he does not get any ideas about her,” Clara said, narrowing her eyes. “He will never do.”
“He has never shown interest in young girls, so I would not worry.”
“Are the two of you good friends?”
“We have been close friends since we were schoolboys.” He laughed, quietly. “I forget how little you know about me sometimes.”
“Your family did not exist in my family’s view, so I never noticed you or with whom you were friends.”
“Never noticed me? How wounding. Never? Not once?” He gave her a direct, teasing look.
She felt her face flush, because of course she had noticed him before he left for France, during her first seasons. Who could not? His handsome face and smoldering aura made him stand out. Once, at a ball, she sensed an odd calm in the ballroom, a spot of stillness. It had been him, acting like the center of a vortex around which the chaos of the assembly swirled.
He had seen her watching him, she suddenly remembered now. He had noticed her noticing. He had guessed, she suspected, that she did not look upon him entirely as an enemy in that unexpected moment.
He now dipped his head closer to hers. “I do not think we did not exist for your family. I think we were much discussed. Not with you or by you, but your father and his mother. Am I correct?”
His voice, breath, and closer proximity made her nervous. She checked to see that her sister had not gotten so far ahead as to offer no sanctuary. “At times.”
“Around Waterloo?” His voice softened. “Or in the months after?”
Her mind swept back to that time, years ago, as if sent there by a spell he cast. Conversations crowded her memory all at once, like so many voices chattering in layered unison. She heard her father, so clearly that it pained her, but his words were obscured by other voices talking over and around him. Then she glimpsed him, sharply, slamming his hand down on a writing table in the library.
“No,” she lied. “Not around then. Not that I remember, at least.” She did not know why she refused to tell him. Perhaps because of the way he watched her expression. As if it mattered to him how she responded. Mattered too much.
