He could almost hear the arguments passing through her head. If she tried to refuse, he would insist, but he’d much rather she
accepted his support, preferably in the vein in which it was offered—as her husband-to-be—although he was fairly certain she hadn’t yet realized his intent. They walked briskly along, heading into the heart of Mayfair. The farther they walked without her declining his escort, the more likely she was to agree.
“Where does your brother live?”
“Melton House. It’s in Grosvenor Street.”
They’d circled the end of Berkeley Square and turned into Mount Street. Without speaking, Clarice turned up Carlos Place.
“So what rumors have you heard? Where, and from whom?”
She told him. Lightly frowning, she also related her suspicions regarding her stepmother. “Moira was seen as something of a social upstart when she married Papa, yet thinking back, I can’t recall any adverse behavior toward her, not when I used to go about with her.”
“When you used to go about with her, you were there.” He glanced at her profile. “Those who might offer your stepmother a cold shoulder might not have done so in your presence.”
Her frown grew more definite. “You’re right, of course. I wonder what’s been going on, how Moira has been managing in that respect since I’ve been gone.”
“Not well by the sound of it.”
They reached Grosvenor Street, and she pointed to a large mansion across the road, one door back from the square. “That’s it.” She paused, then drew breath. “Come on.”
He took her elbow; together they crossed the street and climbed the steps to the narrow front porch. Releasing her, he reached out and jerked the doorbell. From deep within the house, they heard a loud jangle.
Clarice stood facing the door, her father’s door, although he was now gone and her eldest brother Alton ruled in his stead. Behind her right shoulder, Jack stood, not exactly relaxed yet elegantly at ease, taller than she, stronger, able, and willing to, even likely to, step in should she need his aid.
That knowledge was a very real comfort, and that surprised her. Even unnerved her, just a little. She’d never been one to lean on others, and had learned long ago that it was better not to have witnesses if things went wrong. She’d never liked others seeing her weaknesses, seeing her vulnerabilities. Yet with Jack…somehow, he was different.
Aside from all else, he was very like her. She trusted him to react as she would, to know how to react as she needed and wanted.
It seemed surpassingly strange to be standing on her father’s stoop with a gentleman like Jack beside her.
Ponderous footsteps approached on the other side of the door, then the sound of a heavy latch lifting reached them.
The door swung slowly wide. “Yes?”
Head high, Clarice looked into her father’s butler’s face, and watched his expression change from a hauteur to rival her own to beaming welcome.
“Lady Clarice! My lady—come in!” Edwards contorted his ancient frame into a sweeping bow; he beamed as she stepped over the threshold onto the black-and-white tiles. “It does my old eyes good to see you again, my lady.”
“Thank you, Edwards. This is Lord Warnefleet.” She paused while Edwards bowed to Jack. “Is Alton in?”
“Indeed, my lady, and thrilled he’ll be to see you after all these years. He’s in the library.”
Clarice hid a frown as she turned to the corridor to the left of the grand staircase. Alton in the library at this hour? At any hour? Clearly things weren’t as they used to be.
She hadn’t set foot in this house for seven years, not since she’d left it on her way to family-decreed banishment at Avening. Over the years, she’d fallen into the habit of not approaching her family, not even her brothers; although she probably could have done so once her father and his decree against all mention of her had died, after five years of no contact, she’d grown accustomed to the lack.
Presumably so had they, for they’d never written or traveled down to see her, even after her father’s demise. During her visits to town, she’d therefore made no effort to reestablish contact, and as she’d eschewed the drawing rooms and ballrooms, she hadn’t met them at social events.
She halted before the library door, and was surprised to find within her nothing more exercising than a slightly puzzled curiosity over what, for her and James, lay beyond the dark panels. Alton, perennially good-natured, had always been somewhat frivolous, lighthearted, with an insouciant smile that accurately protrayed his outlook on the world. And he was arguably the most serious of her brothers. Her father’s three sons by his first marriage had been feted and indulged from birth; although blessed with good health and even tempers, the outcome, nevertheless, had been predictable.
Edwards had preceded them down the corridor. She allowed him to set the door wide and announce them; Edwards would have been hurt if she’d waved him away. The instant he intoned, “Lady Clarice, my lord, and Lord Warnefleet,” she swept into the room.
And saw Alton sitting behind the huge desk, more haggard than she’d ever seen him, lifting his head from his hands where he’d been clutching it—apparently in something close to despair—his expression turning dazed as he focused on her. His gaze deflected to Jack, but almost instantly returned to her.
Clarice blinked, and seven years vanished. “Good God, Alton! Surely you’re not foxed at this hour?”
She hadn’t thought it possible, but his too-pale face grew paler.