Clare’s spine stiffened. If she’d merely suspected the debutante was up to no good before, she was certain of it now.
Julia moved toward her with a deliberate grace, the hem of her dressing gown skimming the floor. She stopped just in front of Clare, making no attempt to disguise the slow, calculating way her gaze raked her from head to toe. The disdain on her face was almost impressive in its effort.
Clare lifted her chin, her expression settling into a perfectly neutral mask. She’d long grown used to the judgment of those who considered themselves superior. It was practically a sportamong the well-bred—eyeing her like a bit of spoiled fruit. Honestly, it was getting boring.
“I was just going to bed,” she said evenly, fingers curling around the door handle. “Goodnight.”
“Wait.” The order was clipped, practiced. No doubt Julia was used to getting what she wanted.
Clare shut her eyes for a moment before turning, mustering every last scrap of patience she did not, in fact, possess. “Yes?”
Julia stood there in her tightly cinched dressing gown, draped in moral superiority. Covered from head to toe as if that alone absolved her of whatever mischief had led her here in the first place. The irony was almost delicious.
“You will not win him, you know.”
Oh, for God’s sake.
“Pardon?” Clare deadpanned, though she could already see where this was going. The sheer predictability of it made her stomach twist.
“You heard me,” Julia said, voice dripping with sweet venom. “Lord Trentham. He’s looking for a decent wife. Not a whore like you.”
Oh, how lovely. A good, old-fashioned insult wrapped up in the delicate lace of propriety. Clare felt the heat rise in her chest, but instead of giving Julia the satisfaction of a reaction, she simply exhaled. A pitying smile tugged at her lips.
“Say that again,” Clare said softly.
Julia’s eyes flashed. “I said he’s looking for a decent wife. You can never be that, and you know it.”
Clare tilted her head, taking her time before responding, letting the silence stretch long enough to make Julia shift ever so slightly. Then she smiled.
“Oh, darling,” she said, voice like silk. “How do you know he’s not looking for a bit of fun? Because we both know you couldn’t manage that if you tried.”
Julia gasped, scandalized, but Clare didn’t stay to watch the indignation spread across her face. She turned, opened her door, and shut it firmly behind her, a slow, satisfied smile spreading across her lips.
Ah, it was lovely to picture Julia standing outside her door, wrapped in virtue but seething with rage.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Clare stood beside Meredith and Griffin on the gravel drive, the crisp morning air swirling around them as the last of the guests departed. Across the carriage-lined courtyard, the disappointed debutantes clutched their embroidered reticules and bid their farewells, their smiles polite but unmistakably forced.
It was quite sad. A parade of dashed hopes, really.
Each one had come to Southbury Hall with a single goal—to capture the attention of the elusive Marquess of Trentham. And each one had failed spectacularly.
Clare gave a particularly exuberant wave to Lady Julia, who pointedly ignored her as she climbed up into her carriage with her mother at her side.
“Poor things,” Meredith murmured beside her, lifting a gloved hand in a farewell wave.
Clare hummed noncommittally, though she felt no real sympathy. The ladies who had spent the last several days angling for Ash’s favor had done so with the same gleaming-eyed calculation thetonalways applied to powerful, eligible men. None of them had cared much for Ash the man—only for Ashford Drake, the marquess. Ashford, the prize. They didn’tknow that he was a man who’d rescued a baby fox from a trap and set it free in the middle of a hunt. They didn’t know that he treated his sister like gold and would do absolutely anything for her. They didn’t know that he had three different sorts of smiles. One for when he was being wicked. One for when he was being playful, and one for when he was truly amused. And that of the three of them, she most coveted the third.
They didn’t know Ash like she’d come to know him over the years. More than the older brother of her close friend, but as a man who wore a carefully cultivated mask around the people he didn’t know or trust. A man who didn’t allow thetonto see his true nature in precisely the same manner she had never allowed them to see hers. She understood him. The silly debutantes at the party this week, including Lady Julia? They didn’t even know him.
And none of them had stood a chance.
Not when Ash had been far too busy burning her alive with his gaze.
She’d been honest with him. Nothing morecouldhappen between them, and they both knew it. She wasn’t being coy. She was being truthful. But she couldn’t help the butterflies that winged through her middle when she thought about the look he’d given her last night in the study. He’d told her that her presence at Meredith’s house in London would be an unholy temptation. It had taken all of her strength to turn and leave the room last night. Seeing him again in London might just break her.
As if summoned by thought alone, the great doors of the house opened, and there he was.
