your latest liaison calling attention to herself. And what I don’t need is to alienate precisely the people I want to come into my shop. How many times must I explain this to you? How can you be so thick?”
He looked away. “I was picturing you at the ball, and it amused me. Well, I’ll imagine it while I’m there. That should allay the tedium.”
She could picture herself there, too—not the self she was, but the self she might have been, a gentleman’s daughter. But then, if she’d been welcome to that ball, she wouldn’t have Lucie. She would never have learned how to make clothes. She would never have truly found herself.
Not to mention she’d look like the rest of them.
Her life wouldn’t be so hard but it wouldn’t be nearly so much fun. One need only consider how bored he was, the great, spoiled numskull! Lady Brownlow had recently been elected a patroness of Almack’s. She was one of Society’s premier hostesses. Her parties were famous. And he acted as though he was forced to attend a lecture in calculus or one of those other horrible mathematical things.
“You will attend,” she said. “And you will not arrive late. You’ll make it clear that you want only to see Lady Clara, to be with Lady Clara. You’ll act as though no other woman in the place exists for you. You’ll act as though you haven’t known her for ages, but have only now truly discovered her. It will seem as though she has suddenly appeared to you, like a vision, like Venus rising from the sea.”
She wished Sophy were here to offer less clichéd dramatic imagery.
“You’ll sweep her off her feet,” she went on. “If the weather allows, you’ll lure her out onto the terrace or balcony or someplace private, and you’ll make it very romantic, and you’ll make it impossible for her to say anything but yes. It’s a seduction, Clevedon. Do keep that in mind. This isn’t your dear friend or your sister. This is a woman, a beautiful, desirable woman, and you are going to seduce her into becoming your duchess.”
Countess of Brownlow’s ball
Friday night
The Duke of Clevedon resolved to do exactly as Noirot advised. He refused to let himself think about what he was doing because, he told himself, there was nothing to think about. He wanted Clara to marry him. She’d always been meant for him. He’d always loved her.
Like a sister.
He crushed the thought the instant it popped into his mind. He went to Lady Brownlow’s ball. He followed Noirot’s instructions to the letter. He arrived not too early, because that would be gauche, but in good time. And he hunted Clara as he would have hunted a popular demimondaine or a dashing matron.
He exerted himself to amuse her, whispering witty remarks into her shell-shaped ear whenever he could get close enough. She was looking quite handsome this evening, and the sodding idiot beaux couldn’t keep away.
Noirot had dressed Clara in rose crepe, one of those robe sort of things. The front opening of this one revealed a white satin under-dress. Some ribbons crisscrossed the deep white V of the bodice, calling attention to her décolletage, while the bodice itself was shaped in diagonal folds that emphasized her voluptuous figure.
The men were almost visibly drooling and the women were almost visibly green.
He led her out to dance, aware that he was the luckiest man at the ball.
And he loved her.
Like a sister.
He strangled the thought while they danced, and it lay lifeless and forgotten in a dark, cobwebbed corner of his mind for the ensuing hours. It still lay dead in the shadows when, as instructed, he led Clara out to the terrace. Others were there, but they’d found their own relatively private corners. No one could be completely private, of course. It wasn’t that sort of party. The lights from the ballroom cast a faint glow over the terrace. A sickle moon was sinking behind the trees toward the horizon, but the wispy clouds racing overhead didn’t conceal the stars. It was a romantic enough evening.
He made her laugh and he made her blush, and then, when he deemed the moment exactly right, he said, “I have something very important to ask you, my dear.”
She smiled up at him. “Do you, indeed?”
“All my happiness depends on it,” he said. Was that an amused smile? Mocking? But no, she was probably nervous. He was, certainly.
Time to take her in his arms.
He did it. She didn’t push him away.
Good. That was good.
But something was wrong.
No, everything was perfect.
He bent his head to kiss her.
She put her hand up, blocking the route to her mouth.
He lifted his head, and something skittered inside, cool, like relief…
But no, that was impossible.
She was looking up at him, still smiling, but now there was a spark in her eyes. He tried to remember when he’d seen that expression before. Then he recalled her eyes sparking in the same way when she snapped at something her mother said.
He wished Noirot were there to shout instructions—or get control of Clara—because he sensed that the situation had taken an unexpected turn, and not a good one, and he wasn’t at all sure how to turn it back.
Then he realized what he should have done.
Idiot.
He should have asked first.
He drew back and said, “Forgive me. That was stupid. Presumptuous.”
She raised her perfect eyebrows.
His speech, the speech he’d practiced for hours, went straight out of his head. He plunged on. “I meant to ask, first, if you would do me the very great honor of becoming my wife.” He started to reach inside his coat for the ring. “I meant—I hardly knew what I meant…” Where the devil was it? “You look so beautiful—”
“Stop it,” she said. “Stop it. How stupid do you think I am?”
He paused in his searching. “Stupid? Certainly not…We’ve always understood each other, you and I. We’ve shared jokes. How could I write all those letters to a stupid girl?”
“You stopped writing them,” she said. “You stopped writing as soon as you met—But no, that isn’t the point. Look at me.”
He took his hand away from his coat. “I’ve been looking all night,” he said. “You’re the most beautiful girl here. The most beautiful girl in London.”
“I’m different!” she said. “I’m completely different. But you haven’t noticed. I’ve changed. I’ve learned. All the other men notice. But not you. I’m still Clara to you. I’m still your friend. I’m not really a woman to you.”
“Don’t be absurd. All night—”
“All night you’ve been acting! You practiced this, didn’t you? I can tell. There’s no passion!”
Her voice was climbing and he became aware of other terrace occupiers casually drawing nearer. “Clara, maybe we—”
“I deserve passion,” she said. “I deserve to be loved—in every way. I deserve a man who’ll give his whole heart, not the part he isn’t using at the moment, the part he can spare for his friends.”
“That isn’t fair,” he said. “I’ve loved you all my life.”
“Like a sister!”
The dead thing sprang up from its corner and came running to the front of his mind. He knocked it down again. “It’s more than that,” he said. “You know it’s more than that.”
“Is