Clare barely heard them.
Her mind was already racing ahead.
Her mother.
Her mother was going tolose her mind.
If Mama had been furious over Marsden, this would send herstraightinto hysterics. She had always threatened to send Clare away, to lock her in a convent where she couldn’t embarrass the family name any further.
And this?
This was enough to have her packed off to the nuns beforebreakfast.
Unless…
Her heart began to hammer.Unless she left first. She could still sneak off to Paris. Slip away tonight while Mama was sleeping. With Meredith and Griffin’s help this time.
Clare lifted her chin. “I need to leave.”
Meredith’s brows snapped together. “What?”
“I need to leave London,” she said, her voice steadier now. “Before Mama discovers what happened.”
Meredith’s eyes widened. “What? Clare, you can’t just?—”
“I can,” she cut in, nodding. “And I will.”
Griffin studied her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. “Is that what youwant, Clare?”
She knew he wasn’t just asking about her decision—he was asking about Ash. If she wanted to stay for him. But her feelingshadn’t changed. Yes, she had saved Ash from Lady Julia, but that didn’t mean she intended to marry him.
She hadn’t wanted to marry him out of pity. She certainly wasn’t about to do so now out ofobligation.
Clare met Griffin’s gaze, her own steady and unwavering. “Yes. It’s what I want.”
Meredith shook her head. “But I don’t understand. Where will you go?”
Clare took a slow breath, forcing down the nerves threatening to strangle her. “Paris.”
She was going to Paris.
And she wasn’t coming back.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. Ash had imagined something different—something grand, something unforgettable. He had planned to ask Clare to marry him on the balcony, under the stars, to drop to one knee and tell her everything in his heart. Mainly, that he was madly in love with her and could not live without her.
Instead, he was here.
At Meredith’s house.
Standing in the middle of the drawing room in the middle of the night, disheveled and exhausted, staring at the only woman who had ever mattered to him.
Clare looked at him like she was already halfway gone. “I’m leaving,” she said, her voice flat. “Tonight.”
Panic gripped him.No.
Without thinking, he sank to one knee, pulling the ring he’d procured from the jeweler earlier in the week from his pocket—the one he had carried to the ball, waiting for the right moment. “Pleasemarry me.”
