“Since he is the heir,” Julian said, “we thought it only right that he carry my father’s name. A son inheriting the title ought to carry something of his predecessor with him.” He looked at Lord Chatham as he said it, and Lord Chatham nodded immediately with the expression.
“That is most sensible, I agree.”
Lady Chatham accepted it. “David,” she said again, more warmly. “Yes, I suppose that is right.”
They did not stay much longer after that. Julian explained that, given the rather disorganized fashion in which everything had come to light, he thought it wisest to remove Clara and the baby from London for a short time to allow things to settle before they returned to face society’s attention. He suggested his estate in Southampton. A week, perhaps a little more.
Lord Chatham shook his hand again at the door. Lady Chatham embraced Clara with a fierceness that made Julian look away, feeling he was witnessing something private.
“We will want to meet our grandson soon,” the older woman said as they exited the house.
“Of course, the moment we return,” Julian offered though he felt bad because the baby was not their grandson at all.
They were halfway back to the carriage before Clara spoke.
“Thank you,” she said. “For the name. I had forgotten that my mother always wanted me to name my first son after her father. And truly, I had always planned to do so.”
“You recovered well,” he said.
“I nearly didn’t.” She was quiet for a moment. “I meant what I said. In there. About wanting something for myself.” She said it without looking at him, eyes forward. “I know it was not about us, but I meant it.”
He stopped walking.
She stopped too and looked at him.
“I know you did,” he said. “And for what it is worth, I am sorry that you have not had it. Something that was only yours.” He held her gaze. “When this is over… when Arabella is safe, and the danger has passed, there will be a great deal to explain to a great many people. I know what it will cost you to tell them the truth.”
Her expression did not change, but something around her eyes did.
“It will cost me dearly to see the disappointment on their faces,” she said, “when they find out the marriage was not real and that the baby was not theirs to claim as a grandchild.” She looked down briefly. “I could see it today. How happy they were. My father shook your hand. My mother… She never looked at Benjamin the way that she looked at you.”
Her quiet confession caught him entirely off guard, striking a heavy blow somewhere deep beneath his ribs where he had not braced for impact.
He reached out and took her hand. Not as he had taken over the breakfast table, not with purpose or urgency, but simply without a great deal of thought. His fingers closed around hers.
“When the time comes,” he said, “we will find a way to explain it that gives you back what you deserve. You protected a child and helped save a woman who could not save herself. That is the truth of what you did, and it will not be lost.” He pressed her hand once, gently. “And whatever the rest of it turns out to be—you will still be a duchess. That part will not be undone by anything unless you wish it.”
She looked at him for a long moment. Then she looked down at their joined hands and gently withdrew hers.
“We should go,” she said. “I still have to see Helena.”
He nodded and followed her to the carriage. He did not try to take her hand again, but he thought about the way it had felt in his all the way back through the gray London morning, and he could not make himself stop.
CHAPTER 9
Helena’s drawing room was exactly as Clara remembered it. Warm and slightly cluttered in the way that only genuinely lived-in rooms ever are with books left open on side tables and one of Lavinia’s small shoes inexplicably on the mantelpiece. Gideon’s house had the bones of grandeur and the daily reality of a family, and Clara had always loved it for that.
Helena was on her feet before Clara had fully crossed the threshold.
“Come in quickly,” she said and then, to the maid who had shown Clara in, “Thank you, that will be all.” The moment the latch clicked, she crossed the room and took Clara by both hands. She looked at her for a long moment without speaking—taking inventory, Clara thought, the way Helena always did when she suspected somebody was not entirely all right.
“Sit down,” Helena said. “And tell me everything.”
Clara sat. She took a breath. And then she told her.
She started at the corridor, at the frightened young man with the bundle in his arms, at the Italian accent she had not registered until Julian mentioned it afterward. She told her about the whispers that had started before she had even understood what she was holding, about the faces turning toward her, about Julian’s arm around her shoulders.
“He asked me if I trusted him, and when I said yes, we stepped outside, and he announced me as his wife to everyone there.”
