“Yes, but that way you also admitted that you saw Arabella,” Gideon chimed in.
Julian nodded. “Yes, I am well aware of that, but it was a risk I was willing to take. He was going to assume that she had come to see me anyhow. This way, at least, hopefully he will believe me when I say that I do not know where she is, and he will move on and attempt to find her.”
“We shall have to have Stanhope follow him,” Nathaniel said.
“Yes, I agree,” Julian said. “I will write him a note as soon as I can.”
“You didn’t finish telling us what happened,” he prompted. “What did he say when you asked him if he saw Arabella?”
“Well, he denied it of course,” Julian said. “Claimed not to have been in Dover in a very long time on account of Southampton being a superior port. I cannot deny that Southampton is the superior port. However, he is lying, and there is a reason for it. Clearly.”
“What are we going to do now?” Marianne asked. Julian noted that she had slipped into the group quite naturally, as though she belonged there. And at least for this venture, she did. “Aside from having Stanhope follow him.”
“I do not think that there is much else that we can do,” Nathaniel said. “We know who the man is now. We have his full name. Mrs. Holt here is certain that he is the man she saw. Julian saw him dancing with Arabella at his ball, so we can confirm that is true as well. And Clara has confirmed that he is just the type of gentleman Arabella would like.”
“Yes,” Julian said. “We shall have to wait and see. The best we can do is send our man after him. Have him trace his steps and hope that he will lead us to Arabella.”
“Yes, but we must also hope that he does not find Arabella before we find him.” Clara closed her eyes and shook her head.
He shook his head. “No. We won’t let that happen. I will send word to Stanhope tonight.”
With that, the group dispersed once more, leaving only Julian and Clara. He turned to her. “Clara, whatever else has happened between us, we are united in this. We want to find Arabella, and we will now.”
“I believe you,” she said, “but once we have resolved that issue—once she has been found, and she and David are safe—we must talk about our future.”
He squeezed her hand and looked her in the eyes. “And we will. I promise we will.”
And with that, the two of them followed their friends down the hall and into the ballroom. As they stepped into the crowd, Julian looked at Clara, and they both placed the masks of a happily married couple back upon their faces and joined the revelry in their honor.
CHAPTER 30
The last carriage had barely rounded the corner before Clara slipped away.
She did not say goodnight to anyone. She simply moved through the thinning crowd in the hall, past Richmond, who was already directing the footmen in the clearing of glasses, past the orchestra packing away their instruments in the music room, up the stairs, and through the first door that opened onto a balcony, out into the dark.
The rattle of carriage wheels on the sand road drifted up as guests departed, a burst of laughter from a group of men walking to theirs mingled in. But the house itself had finally gone quiet, and she stood in that quiet and breathed it in and let herself stop performing for the first time in five hours.
Her face ached from smiling.
She heard the door behind her and did not turn around. She knew his step by now. She had known it for weeks.
Julian came and stood beside her at the railing. For a moment, neither of them spoke. They looked out over the dark street together, the gas lamps throwing long orange shapes across the wet cobblestones below.
“We succeeded,” she said at last.
“We did.”
“By morning, all of London will be speaking of the Duke and his bride. Whatever they were saying before, this will replace it.”
“I spoke to Mrs. Westchester,” he said with a smile. “She gave me her word she would have the story to three separate people before her carriage reached home.”
“Then it is done.” Clara set her hands on the railing. “Everything we set out to do tonight is done. And we know who the man is who threatened Arabella. That is a new problem.”
“It is a problem and a solution at once, I daresay.”
“Yes. Your man, Stanhope…”
“Will follow him and find out all he can. We will find out where he stays. Arabella is closer than ever.”
