home of his mistress. Which made her slightly less annoyed with him. Which, she decided the moment they entered the most opulent drawing room she’d ever seen, was probably a mistake. Because it was only her anger which was shoring her up. Without it, she felt rather insecure and out of her depth. And had to fight the temptation to grab his hand and cling to it. Or the sleeve of his coat.
‘Oh, Zeus, thank heavens,’ said a young woman getting to her feet and coming over to them, rather than staying in her chair by the fire. She had nondescript hair and a rather square face. Not a bit like the kind of woman she could see Lord Rawcliffe taking for a mistress. At all.
‘I am so glad to see you. Is this Jenny?’
Jenny? She looked up at Lord Rawcliffe’s impassive profile. Why on earth would this woman think he was going to bring someone called Jenny into her front parlour?
‘Ah, no, I am afraid not. Allow me to intro—’
‘Then it was a wild goose chase? Just as you predicted?’ Lady Harriet wrung her hands. ‘Oh, this is dreadful. Dreadful. You see—’
‘This is neither the time nor the place,’ began Lord Rawcliffe, only to be interrupted almost at once.
‘It most certainly is the time,’ said Lady Harriet indignantly. ‘Past time, you see, Archie—’
‘We will not discuss that matter now, if you please,’ he said sternly, jerking his head slightly in Clare’s direction.
‘You mean...you don’t wish this person to know?’
‘Astute of you,’ he said sarcastically.
‘Oh, well, then, perhaps we can leave her here and go into the kitchen to—’
‘We are not leaving her here alone while we go off to discuss anything,’ he bit out. ‘And will you stop referring to her as this person. Clare is my fiancée!’
‘Your fiancée?’ Lady Harriet stared at her with all the shock Clare had felt last time he’d announced their betrothal. ‘Good heavens. But she looks...’
‘Be careful, very careful, what you say next,’ he growled.
‘I was only going to say she looks quite sensible. Whatever came over her to agree to marry you?’
‘She has been recently bereaved. She was distraught. She had nowhere else to go—’
‘Excuse me,’ said Clare, goaded beyond patience by being talked about as though she wasn’t there. ‘But I had a very good place to go. And I was not distraught until you decided to taunt me with my misfortunes.’
‘I thought we had already agreed that was an oversight.’
‘Yes, we had. Which is why I cannot permit you to go about telling people it was anything other than it was. I think we’ve had quite enough economies with the truth for one day.’
Lady Harriet turned to gape at her. ‘If what he said wasn’t true, then how come you are going to marry him?’
‘She hit me,’ said Lord Rawcliffe, ‘if you must know. In front of several witnesses who would have torn her reputation to shreds had I not made them believe it was a...lovers’ tiff. She would not have been able to gain respectable employment, if word got out, which it was bound to do. Which left us with no alternative.’
‘You hit him,’ said Lady Harriet, ignoring all the rest.
‘Well, yes, but—’ Clare meant to explain that he could have blocked her, easily, if he’d been in the mood to do so. She didn’t want this lady, in whose home she was going to have to stay until she could come up with a better plan, to think she was violent.
But Lady Harriet was smiling. ‘I know, you don’t have to explain how it was. I have very often wanted to hit him myself.’
‘I am so glad,’ Lord Rawcliffe interjected sarcastically, ‘that you are hitting it off...’
‘Nice pun,’ said Lady Harriet.
‘Since,’ he continued as though she’d said nothing, ‘I am going to have to leave her in your care while I go and procure a marriage licence.’
‘Oh! Yes, of course. Only, well, you won’t mind, will you,’ said Lady Harriet turning to Clare, ‘that this household is a little, um, disorganised at present? You see, I am getting married in a day or so myself and you wouldn’t believe the amount of work and upheaval it creates.’
Clare turned to Lord Rawcliffe. ‘It clearly isn’t going to be convenient for me to stay here. Can’t you take me to a hotel, or something?’
‘My wife does not stay in hotels,’ he said implacably.
‘I am not your wife. Yet.’
He waved his hand as though dismissing her remark as irrelevant. ‘I can see no difficulty about your staying here. You are a most capable woman. I am sure that you will be able to help Lady Harriet with whatever tasks she,’ he said with a distinct sneer, ‘is finding so onerous.’
Oh. Had he just intimated that he thought she was better, in some respects, than Lady Harriet? He’d called her capable. Had suggested that Lady Harriet wasn’t coping as well as she ought.
And Lady Harriet was wearing the exact expression on her face that Clare was sure she’d worn on many occasions, when crossing swords with his lordship.
‘I am not finding arranging my own wedding onerous in the slightest,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I was just explaining that I might not have time to...to entertain in the manner to which she might be accustomed.’
‘Please,’ said Clare, stepping forward and laying a hand on Lady Harriet’s arm. ‘Do not let him annoy you. I am perfectly happy to give you any help I may, since you are being so kind as to have me stay with you at what anyone with a modicum of sensitivity—’ she shot Lord Rawcliffe a look loaded with reproach ‘—would know is a very difficult time to entertain strangers.’
‘Besides, Clare isn’t used to being entertained in any manner whatever,’ he said coldly. ‘She is far more used to being a drudge. Put her to work and she will immediately feel at home.’
She whirled on him. ‘What a beastly thing to say!’
He shrugged. ‘The truth? I thought you had been exhorting me to tell the truth. And not to be economical with it.’
‘Yes, but that is quite different from wielding it like a weapon!’
‘I think I’d better ring for some tea,’ said Lady Harriet, darting across the room to a bell pull and yanking on it with a slight air of desperation.
‘You have somebody to bring it now, do you? When last I came here,’ he said to Clare, as though they had not just been on the verge of yet another quarrel, ‘I had to come in by the back door because she had neither butler nor footmen to answer the front.’
‘Clearly, I have rectified my lack of staff,’ said Lady Harriet, ‘since Stobbins let you in and announced you. Oh,’ she said, clasping her hands together in agitation. ‘What kind of hostess am I? Please, Miss... I forget your name, but it is Clare something, isn’t it?’
‘Cottam,’ supplied Lord Rawcliffe.
‘Please, won’t you sit down? You must be exhausted if you’ve travelled up to town today.’
‘And it was such a long way,’ said Lord Rawcliffe sarcastically.
‘I am sure it felt like it, if she was shut up in a coach with you the entire time,’ shot back Lady Harriet.
‘Fortunately,’ said Lord Rawcliffe, turning to subject her to one of his lazy-lidded, stomach-melting smiles, ‘Clare is not you. Clare and I have known each other practically all our lives, you see. And we...understand each other.’
He took her hand. Kissed it.
And