“You would mention the dowager,” Langford said. “What a way to ruin a nice day. You had better watch yourself with that one, Stratton. If she gets wind of your intentions, she may turn you from a stallion into a gelding.”
“I do not think Lady Clara confides in her grandmother. She is too jealous of her independence to invite advice or interference. However, your warning is well taken. As for my intentions, the arrival of her family in London is a complication. I can hardly make progress in their drawing room with the dowager watching.”
“You need to find ways to get her alone, you mean.” Langford’s eyes brightened. “Allow me to share the five best ways to do that, as gleaned from my experience.”
Langford proceeded to wax eloquent about strategies. Adam was not too proud to pay attention. Even Brentworth listened.
Every man had a special talent, and only a fool would deny the one with which Langford had been gifted.
Chapter Seven
Clara methodically ate her meal and ignored the silence that had fallen in the dining room. She refused to acknowledge the center of that void of sound. Like the eye of a storm, her grandmother’s quiet heralded the chaos to come.
“Youwill not.” The deep, sharp command sliced through the peace. “You will remain here, where you belong. Where any unmarried woman belongs. With your family.”
Clara paused eating, out of respect.
“Yes,” Theo said. “I forbid it. It will bring scandal on this family.”
“I am not a girl, Theo. Not a child. There are women who live on their own. It is comical for a grown woman to remain in her family home if she has the means to establish her own household.” She spoke directly to her brother and aimed her gaze there too. “Nor can you forbid me. I am not dependent on you, nor am I your ward.”
Thunder seemed to rumble across the table. Out of the corner of her eye Clara saw her grandmother straighten so severely she grew an inch.
“Why would it bring scandal?” Emilia asked. “I do not understand.”
“As well you shouldn’t,” Grandmamma said. “Please leave us now, Emilia. I have much to say to your sister that is not appropriate to your hearing.”
Emilia looked forlornly at her half-finished dinner. With a pout, she slid off her chair and left the dining room.
“You could have allowed her to eat first,” Clara said.
“You could have announced your intentions elsewhere, but you did not. You did so here, now, and I will not permit your reckless notion to survive one more minute.”
“I love you, Grandmamma, and respect you. However, I have made up my mind.”
“Have you indeed! Am I and your brother and sister to be subjected to the whispers that will disparage our family because of such a move?”
“Whispers,” Theo echoed, frowning. “We will be lucky if it is left at that.”
“I cannot imagine why anyone would whisper.” Clara lied. She knew all too well that people always whispered if given the chance. “What is the worst they could say? That we are estranged? Our behavior will prove the lie of that. That I am unruly? I daresay that has been said so often as to be boring.”
Her grandmother glared at her so indignantly that those pale blue eyes almost turned the color of steel. “They will say your father was a fool to leave you a fortune, for one thing.”
“A fool,” Theo snapped, his deep frown revealing agreement on this point.
“Be quiet, Theo,” Grandmamma ordered. “They will say that if you live thus, no man will ever marry you because living alone puts your virtue in question. Do not feign shock with me, young woman. You know as well as I that when an unmarried woman leaves her family home, the question always is why she would need to? What does she want to do in her own home that she cannot do in her family’s?”
“Perhaps she merely wants to live her life as she chooses, and not according to someone else’s plans,” Clara said. “That is my only reason. I am sure you know that. What others may ask or say does not signify. Now, I will move in two days. You can try to browbeat me into changing my mind, but I will not do so.”
“I said Iforbid it.” Theo slammed his hand on the table the way Papa used to.
“Oh, Theo, please stop the histrionics,” Clara said. “You have enough to concern you with your new duties. You do not need to look for trouble with me.”
Her grandmother looked ready to explode. Within her fury there shook a good deal of confusion and shock. “Willful, reckless girl. If you do this, no one will receive you. No one will invite you to balls and parties. You will be alone in this abode to which you claim to escape. You will be an outcast, an—”
“Are you threatening me, Grandmamma? Listing the punishments you will yourself visit on me for disobeying your commands?” Clara barely kept her own temper in control. “Thiswas why he left me that property, so I would not be under your thumb forever. Did you never realize that?” She stood. “As I explained, two days hence, I will leave. You are both invited to visit me if you so choose, or not, if you prefer to treat this as a hanging offense.”
She maintained her composure until she was well out of the room. Her emotions swelled while she ran up the stairs, however. Finally in her apartment, she threw herself on her bed and gazed up at the blue draperies while doubts about her decision wracked her.
