“Mama.” Clara’s voice was steady. Julian noticed her hands were not. She had them clasped together at her waist and the knuckles were very slightly white.
Lord Chatham set down his newspaper. He was a tall man with Clara’s eyes and the stillness of someone who knew that sometimes, it was simply best to suffer through the present circumstances rather than challenge them. He looked at Julian directly.
“I think,” Lord Chatham said, “that we had better sit down.”
They sat. Lady Chatham perched on the edge of her chair, Lord Chatham settled back with his hands on his knees, Clara sat beside Julian on the settee and looked at him, and the look clearly said:You said you would do the talking.
Julian cleared his throat.
“I owe you both a very significant apology,” he said, “and I intend to give you one. But I would ask first that you allow me to explain fully, before you respond. What I have to tell you is somewhat involved, and I want very much for you to understand all of it.”
Lady Chatham opened her mouth. Lord Chatham placed one hand briefly on her arm. She closed it again.
Julian took a breath.
He told them that he had long been sensible of a great regard for Clara, had been so, in truth, since before she had ever become engaged to Benjamin. But she had been taken, and then her situation had been what it was, and he had not thought it his place to press any attention upon a woman who was already suffering. When she had gone to Scotland, he had found himself thinking of her with a frequency he could not explain and certainly could not justify.
He had gone to visit her with Arabella. And he had called upon Clara there. What had begun as a visit of barely a fortnight had extended and then extended again because he had found he had no desire to leave.
He paused. He was building the tale as he went along, using feelings he had felt in the past so as to lend the story credibility.
He had asked her to marry him, he said. Privately. At his estate in Southampton with the local vicar and no one else present because he had not wanted to expose her to the spectacle of another large society wedding after everything that had happened with Benjamin. He had wanted something that was only theirs.
He stopped speaking. Silence settled between the four of them.
Then Clara said, “I know it was reckless.”
Her voice was steady. Julian looked at her.
“I know how it must appear,” she said, looking at her mother directly. “And I know that you will be disappointed that I did not tell you. But Mama—” She paused, her rigid posture softening just a fraction under her heavy velvet pelisse. “After Benjamin. After all of that. The humiliation of it. Being set aside for a more advantageous connection as though I were furniture that no longer suited the room.” She pressed her lips together for a moment. “When Julian proposed, I said yes before I had quite finished thinking about it. Because for the first time in a very long time, somebody was choosing me. Not my family’s connections or my portion or my place in a room. Me.”
She looked down briefly.
“And then I was with child. And I know I should have written. I know it. But I had spent my entire life being the daughter who represented this family, who behaved as she ought and appeared as she ought and was placed wherever she would do the best foreverybody around her. I had great feelings for Benjamin. I did. But at the end of it, I was a decoration on his arm. His family knew it, and he allowed them to use me that way. And then a better decoration appeared.” She looked back at her mother. “I wanted something that was just mine. Julian and David were just mine. I was not ready to share them yet.”
The room was completely still.
Julian was not looking at Lady Chatham or at Lord Chatham. He was looking at Clara. Because threaded through every sentence, he could hear genuine feeling. She was not talking about him. She was not talking about David. But she was telling the truth about everything else.
She really had wanted something for herself.
She really had given everything else away and been left with nothing.
He felt, with a force that surprised him, that he wanted very much to make that less true than it currently was.
Lady Chatham made a sound that was not quite a word but apparently intended to be one. She pressed her handkerchief to her mouth and looked at her daughter, the hard lines of her maternal indignation giving way to an expression far more bewildered and fragile.
Lord Chatham said, “It sounds to me as though everyone has ended up with exactly what they ought to have.” He looked at Julian. “My daughter has a husband who chose her. I have a son-in-law who is a great deal more than a baronet’s son.” A brief pause. “And it sounds as though we have a grandson.” He stood and offered Julian his hand. “Welcome to the family.”
Julian shook it, and he was grateful that his voice remained level when he said, “Thank you, Your Grace. I am very glad to be in it.”
Lady Chatham recovered herself with impressive speed. “And what is his name?” she asked, dabbing at her eyes. “The baby. What have you called him?”
“David,” Clara said.
“David.” Lady Chatham considered this. “I would have thought you might have named him James, after your grandfather. You always adored your grandfather.”
Clara opened her mouth, and Julian saw it. It was just a fraction of a second’s hesitation, as though she were lost for words for once.
