By morning, he could have recited the whole of it. The lines haunted him through what remained of the night, for beneath every sentence he could hear what she had not quite written: that she would rather bear injury herself than allow Clara to suffer one more cruel glance because of the Finch name.
When the door to the drawing room opened, Aurelia entered in a morning gown of muted blue, simple in cut and unadorned except for a narrow ribbon at the waist. She looked pale, composed, and tired, as if she had spent the night building a fortress and had not yet decided whether he was to be admitted through the gate.
He bowed. “Miss Finch.”
“My lord.”
The formality pricked him, though he deserved it no less than any other man.
“I hope I do not call at an inconvenient hour.”
“No,” she replied, then paused. “Or rather, I suppose the hour is convenient enough. The subject may not be.”
It was so like her, honest, even when she would rather be guarded. His heart gave a strange, painful movement.
“I am sorry for that.”
She lowered her eyes briefly. “You need not apologize for answering a letter I chose to send.”
“I would apologize for the necessity of it, then.”
That drew the faintest curve of her mouth, but it vanished almost at once. A small silence followed. He could hear movement above stairs, Clara’s lighter voice somewhere in the distance, and the faint clink of china being set down in another room. They were not alone in any dangerous sense, yet the space between them seemed charged with all they could not say beneath a servant’s roof and a cousin’s protection.
“I thought,” Owen suggested, “that a walk might allow us to speak more easily.”
Aurelia’s fingers tightened very slightly around the back of a chair. He saw the hesitation. For one miserable moment, he thought she would refuse. He had not considered, until that instant, how much he had counted upon her agreement. He had told himself he came to discuss the investigation, Clara’s safety, the proper course of action. Yet beneath those reasons lay the simpler one he had tried to ignore: he wished to see her.
At last, she inclined her head. “Yes. A walk may be best.”
Relief came too quickly. He hoped she did not see it.
Clara joined them downstairs with a brightness that struck Owen as deliberate. She greeted him warmly, as though determined that yesterday’s mortification should not be visible upon her. Her bonnet ribbons were tied unevenly, and there was a little strain about her eyes, but she smiled when he asked whether she would do them the honor of accompanying them.
“I shall chaperone you both with the utmost severity,” she declared. “Mama says I am not severe enough with anyone, but I intend to improve.”
“You will begin with us?” Owen asked.
“Only because you both look in need of management.”
Aurelia looked away, but not before Owen caught the small, unwilling smile that touched her lips.
They set out a few minutes later, choosing the quieter streets near the apartment rather than the busier promenades where every acquaintance might become an obstacle and every pause an invitation to speculation. The morning was mild, with a thin brightness over the rooftops and the pavements still damp from rain in the night. Carriage wheels sounded from the larger road beyond, muffled by distance.
Clara walked ahead, not so far as to be improper, but far enough to examine a milliner’s display and then a basket of early flowers outside a shop. Her steps had something of their natural spring again, though every now and then she glanced back, as if to assure herself they had not vanished.
Owen and Aurelia walked side by side. For the first several minutes, neither spoke of what mattered. Aurelia remarked upon the improvement in the weather. Owen agreed. He asked after Clara’s headache. Aurelia said it had lessened.
Owen could bear it no longer. “Miss Finch, I would not have you think I asked you to walk merely so that we might discuss the weather.”
Her gaze flickered toward him.
“No,” she answered. “I didn’t think so.”
Owen looked at her, and after a little sigh, she began speaking. “I would like you to know that I said very little. I did not wish to encourage Charlotte and her malice. But I think she meant to unsettle me, and I am ashamed to say she succeeded. I don’t think she knows anything, but she is clever enough to guess near the truth and cruel enough to enjoy it.”
Owen’s hands curled once at his sides.
“She had no right.”
