“You may.”
“His Grace.” She kept her eyes on Molly. “I have watched the two of you together from the very first day. There is something between you. I do not mean to be presumptuous.”
Clara opened her mouth and found nothing came out.
“You are comfortable with him,” Marianne said. “More yourself than at other times. And when he looks at you…” she stopped. “I have seen enough to know the difference between a man going through the motions and a man who means it.”
“It is an arrangement to keep the child safe. You know this better than anyone,” Clara said.
“I know what it is. I also know what I have seen.”
Clara set down her cup. She looked at the unlit fireplace. “I am comfortable with him,” she said at last. “And I am content when I am near him. More so than I have been in some time.” She stopped. “But that is not the same as knowing he feels the same. He is a gracious man. He is kind. That is simply who he is. It does not mean that he is moon eyed over me or I over him.”
There was a pause as Marianne shifted her daughter from one side to the other.
“I watch him when he does not know he is being watched,” Marianne said. “He watches you the same way.”
“He is attentive to everyone.”
“I daresay it is not quite the same as the way he pays attention to you. I think you know that.”
Clara looked at her hands. “I am afraid,” she said. The words surprised her. She had not planned to say them. Not to this woman whom she did not know. Marianne Holt was not her friend or confidant. If anything, she should be making this confession to Helena. Yet, the words had come out easier now in front of his stranger than in front of anyone else.
“Of what, My Lady?”
“Of being wrong again and of building something in my head and finding the floor not there.” She pressed her palms flat on her knees. “I was wrong before. I trusted someone before, and I was wrong. I know Julian is not Benjamin. I know that. But the fear does not make distinctions.”
Marianne was quiet. Molly had grown drowsy, her cheek against her mother’s collarbone.
“I was wrong too,” Marianne said. “About Molly’s father. And I would be wrong again before I let it turn me to stone.” She looked at Clara steadily and then, with a smile, she rose. “The garden awaits. Perhaps it would do you good to take a turn about the garden as well. His Grace has taken David outside.”
* * *
Clara found them in the gazebo. She had not gone looking. She needed the air after sitting too long with her own thoughts.
Julian was on the low bench with David in the crook of his arm. The baby had both hands clamped around one of Julian’s fingers and had apparently decided that he was not letting go.
He heard her step on the path and looked up.
She had been watching him for a moment before he turned and her heart thudded.
She sat beside him. David registered her arrival, gurgled, and tightened his grip on Julian’s finger.
“He will not let go,” Julian said.
“I can see that.”
“I have been attempting to negotiate with him for some time.”
“How are the negotiations progressing?”
“He is entirely unmoved.” Julian looked down at him. “He is going to be formidable. He has a grip and a complete indifference to persuasion.”
“He gets that from Arabella,” Clara said.
“He does.”
David looked between them with the expression of someone following a conversation and finding both parties satisfactory. His grip did not loosen.
