Two pairs of eyes widened, and then Mr. Clemens frowned. “Really?” He glanced at his wife, who was now biting her lip as if trying to stop herself from blurting out an insult. “Edith is a charming young lady,” Mr. Clemens said carefully. “Well educated too, I can assure you of that. Her mother and I are both very progressive and thought it wise to ensure she’ll not bore the man she eventually marries. But considering our previous experience with your family, I regret to inform you that I cannot in good conscience allow you to court her. Even if you are a duke.”
“In that case you need not concern yourselves,” Caleb said, “for Edith is not the daughter to whom I refer.”
Mrs. Clemens appeared to relax while Mr. Clemens’s eyes took on a bewildered look of confusion. “But who else is there? Sarah and Lilly are both married, so I don’t quite—”
“I am speaking of Mary,” Caleb said more sharply than he’d intended. To think the man could not recall having a fourth daughter was so astounding it made his nerves tighten to the point of snapping.
“After five years we’d hoped the business with your brother would be in the past,” Mrs. Clemens told him tightly. “We told Mary at the time that it was unwise to set her cap for a marquess, but of course we hoped, as all parents do, that our daughter would aspire to greater things than we ever could.” She glared at Caleb. “My husband wrote to your father at the time and apologized for Mary’s transgression.”
“You sent her away,” Caleb told her while matching her frigid stare. This was not going as he had hoped.
“To protect our other daughters from being ruined by association,” Mrs. Clemens explained. She swallowed hard and dropped her gaze. The fight appeared to go out of her, leaving a seemingly unhappy woman behind. “We did not have the power to fight a duke’s influence. Sending Mary away felt like the only viable option at the time.”
“Your coming here and inquiring after our daughter,” Mr. Clemens said slowly, directing Caleb’s attention away from Mrs. Clemens, “may have given us the wrong impression. I hope you’ll forgive any assumptions made on our part. All things considered, we really ought to have known better than to suppose that you, the brother of the man our Mary tried to trap, would have any interest in—”
“Please.” Caleb held up a hand, quieting the man. “This has nothing to do with my brother or the unfortunate rumor my father started in order to chase Mary away.”
“I…er…I see,” Mr. Clemens said even though it was clear he saw nothing. His wife appeared equally stumped.
“You do realize your daughter did nothing wrong?” Mary had never said much about her parents’ reactions to what had happened, save for their intention to remove her to Scotland so her sisters would have better chances of making agreeable matches.
“Um…” Mrs. Clemens wrung her hands. “Your father was a duke, Your Grace. A highly respectable gentleman.”
“What reason would we have had to suppose he would be dishonest?” Mr. Clemens asked.
Caleb could think of a dozen, the first one being that Mary was one of the most direct people he’d ever known. She wasn’t a liar.
“So you believed him and the rumor he spread, over your own daughter’s word?” Caleb’s mother asked before he could manage to do so.
“Does it really matter?” Mrs. Clemens asked. She looked at each of them in turn. “We had no power to dispute what was being said. Only your brother could have done that, except he left Town shortly after and didn’t return until the following Season.”
Rising, Caleb crossed to the fireplace and stared down into the flickering flames while struggling to keep his anger at bay. He drew a deep breath and expelled it before turning back to face the people he hoped he’d soon be related to. “Even so, I daresay it would have made all the difference in the world to Mary if her family had believed her.”
Guilt stole into the Clemens’s eyes and Mrs. Clemens even dabbed at hers with a handkerchief Mr. Clemens produced from his jacket pocket. “We don’t even know where she is,” he said.
“She is safe and happy and living among friends,” Caleb assured them.
“So you have seen her?” Mrs. Clemens’s eyes brightened.
“Indeed, I have recently returned from a two-month stay at Clearview, which is where your Mary resides.” A maid entered with a tea tray, and Caleb waited until she’d departed once more before strolling back to his chair and resuming his seat. “During my…sojourn there, I had the pleasure of becoming well acquainted with her. We became friends and I…” He paused for a moment while Mrs. Clemens served tea.
She glanced up at him with visible hesitation. “Sugar or milk?”
“Neither,” he said, thanking her for the cup while his mother added a lump of sugar to her own. “The fact of the matter is, I fell completely in love with her.”
His comment caused Mr. Clemens, who was in the process of picking up his cup, to jerk so violently he spilled most of the contents. His wife thrust a napkin toward him while staring at Caleb with wide-eyed dismay. “So you’ve come to ask for her hand?” she asked.
Caleb glanced at Mr. Clemens. who’d finally managed to mop up most of his tea from the table. “It is a bit more complicated than that.”
Mr. Clemens discarded the soaking wet napkin on the tray and turned to Caleb. “In what sense?”
“In the sense that I did not tell her I was a duke or the brother of the man who once broke her heart.”
“But why?” Mrs. Clemens asked with incredulity.
Caleb took a moment to explain the circumstances under which he’d first met Mary and why it had been so difficult for him to tell her the truth later on. “I fear she may never forgive me, but if there’s even the tiniest chance she might, then I’ll take it.”
“My son is the Duke of Camberly,” the duchess said. “That cannot change, and although he may wish to embrace the same sort of life your daughter has grown so fond of, away from Society and its responsibilities, he will still have estates to manage and tenants to look after. There is also his seat in Parliament to consider, which means he will have to spend part of his time in London, no matter how much he prefers the country.”
