Lady Claire Is All That Page 17

“Hmm.” The duchess sipped her tea. “And Lord Fox.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Claire, you are too smart to be deliberately obtuse and to apologize for things that are not your fault.”

  Well. That caught her attention. No one ever spoke to her thusly.

  “Furthermore, you don’t need to raise them alone now. I am here.”

  “They don’t like how you are raising them. I’m not sure I like it. You’re changing us. You’re making us be people we are not, and pushing us toward a life we are not ready for.”

  Their very natures were being restricted—James was not a man to sit around with ledgers and account books all day. Bridget, much as she wanted to be, was not a waifish, simpering creature. And Amelia—she was a wild pony who had gotten out of the pen this morning. Claire was terrified for her, but also knew she was born to roam and explore.

  And the duchess was urging her to think about herself. Urging her into the oncoming path of Lord Fox. Though that seemed over and thus a moot point.

  “I want the same thing for them as you do, Claire. I want them to be safe and secure.” The duchess paused. And sipped her tea. “And I want the same for you.”

  Claire wanted more than that though. She wanted to be challenged intellectually. She wanted to follow her passion and be encouraged to do so. She wanted heart-pounding, stealing kisses, a can’t-live-without-you kind of love. How could safety and security compare to that? She knew her siblings felt the same way.

  But how to explain this to Her Grace? Claire decided now wasn’t the time to try so she only said, “That is very kind of you, Duchess.”

  Now if only one of them knew who could give her all those things . . . Mr. Williams? Fox?

  She thought again about last night. Fox couldn’t be the one for her, could he? Mr. Williams challenged her thinking regarding mathematics, but Fox certainly challenged her and her expectations of her life. He indulged and encouraged her passions, all of them. That is to say nothing of the heart-pounding and stolen kisses.

  She must have looked very troubled indeed, for the duchess reached over and patted her hand.

  “We will find Amelia. And we will ensure that this does not ruin her.”

  “Thank you.”

  That we was everything. For the first time, Claire started to consider and feel that perhaps the future happiness of four people didn’t rest only on her shoulders. She didn’t love the duchess’s insistence that they all be wed, immediately, to boring, respectable people, but she did appreciate that she didn’t need to be the one forcing the issue and finding spouses for the lot of them.

  “I daresay we’ll have Bridget betrothed to Darcy in no time,” the duchess remarked.

  “But she hates him!”

  “For a very smart girl, you are very foolish when it comes to matters of the heart.” The duchess said this kindly, but it still stung.

  Because of last night . . .

  Because it was true.

  “Hate is passion. Love is passion. Sometimes people confuse the two.” And with that, the duchess rang for more tea.

  Later that afternoon

  “I cannot stand waiting around anymore,” Claire said after hours of sitting around in the drawing room with the duchess and Meredith, sipping what seemed like all the tea in England and China and speculating about Amelia’s whereabouts.

  While they were busy with embroidery, Claire had tried to keep her mind occupied and nerves steady with a particularly challenging problem for the paper she was writing with Mr. Williams. Eventually she set down her pencil in defeat; if numbers and logic couldn’t engage her, then very little could.

  She might as well go out for a walk to help calm her thoughts—and look for her sister.

  “I think I should go out,” Claire said, standing. “I shall take a walk around the neighborhood and see what I can learn. Maybe I will find Amelia lurking in someone’s stables.”

  “I’ll join you,” Miss Green said quickly.

  “I’ll just sit here with this pot of tea and my nerves,” the duchess said dryly.

  “You should lie down, Your Grace,” Miss Green said softly.

  “I cannot.”

  Claire noted the paleness of the duchess’s face, the lines of worry increasing on her brow. She was beyond worried. Like a mother.

  They had arrived at her doorstep merely weeks ago—at her instance—and it had been a rocky start, a battle of wills between three American girls used to running free to do as they pleased and one of the towers of London society who wanted them to be perfect English girls who made her proud.

  Or to be safe. Welcomed in society. Secure in their futures.

  Somewhere along the line, they had ceased to be merely charges, projects, vessels through which more Durhams would be created, and they had started to become something like family.

  The duchess cared, like a mother. Claire would never stop fiercely loving her little sisters but having one more person to love them, one more person to care, one more person to be responsible for them . . .

  Well, the air quite left her lungs.

  It meant that perhaps there was a little more time for herself, a little corner of her heart that could be claimed by another?

  “Yes, I definitely need some air.”

  With shawls, gloves, and bonnets all arranged, Claire and Meredith stepped out onto the Mayfair streets. Claire blinked at the bright day, after a morning ensconced indoors, preoccupied with worry.

  Meanwhile, the world went about its business as if nothing were amiss—carriages rumbled by, pedestrians walked along at varying paces, everyone in motion. The sky was blue one moment, then cloudy the next, as if rain might be imminent. This only added a sense of urgency to everyone’s movements.

  “Where do you think she’s gone?” Meredith asked.

  “Tourist attractions, most likely,” Claire said. “That’s why James sent the Runners to places like Vauxhall, and Astley’s and the British Museum. It’s my fault—I should have taken her to see the Tower instead of calling hours. I should have insisted the duchess allow her some fun.”

  “Do you think she’ll be all right?” Meredith asked, worried. “She doesn’t know the city well.”

  “True. But she at least thinks well on her feet and knows how to make friends.” Claire said these things because they were true and hoped it would be consoling. But Amelia was also Trouble and a magnet for more of it. “But, oh, Meredith, I am so nervous!”

  “Aye, and anyone can tell just by looking at you. Let’s slow down.” The two ladies linked arms and Meredith set the pace. A slow, leisurely sedate pace as if they were idle ladies of leisure who had nothing to do but pass the minutes of the day and who were not at all threatened by an imminent rainstorm. Meredith smiled. “And now let’s chat amiably as if we were talking about nothing more than pretty dresses or handsome men who bring terrible bouquets of flowers.”

  This brought a little laugh from Claire.

  “Handsome men are nothing but trouble,” Claire said.

  “Truer words were never spoken,” Meredith agreed.

  The two women exchanged a glance, and Claire wondered if Meredith had more to say about that or if she wanted to question Claire. She didn’t feel like raising the subject.

  They had walked through Berkeley Square and then onward to Bond Street because no one would ever question two ladies of their station strolling along Bond Street, looking in the windows of all the finest shops.

  “What are the chances that we’ll find her here?” Meredith asked, a bit skeptical.

  “Almost nil. Amelia doesn’t have the patience for shopping,” Claire replied with a faint smile. “But I don’t exactly feel like wandering into Seven Dials.”

  After a few blocks of strolling along London’s most fashionable shopping street—and hopefully conveying that absolutely nothing was amiss with the Cavendish family—Meredith and Claire made their way to Green Park, at the south of Mayfair.

  Claire
thought they might see Amelia there—perhaps she’d be interested in the horse guards or just the greenery instead of being stuck inside a drawing room all day. Claire was glad to be out-of-doors searching for her sister instead of sitting around inside, tying herself in knots. Now if only they could find her . . .

  Claire was so intent upon finding Amelia that she didn’t pay any mind to a tall, broad-shouldered man striding in her direction. A handsome hunting dog trotted alongside.

  And then there he was—Lord Fox, standing in front of her with a polite smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Meanwhile, her breath didn’t quite make it back into her lungs.

  Of course not; things between them—if there was a thing between them—were uncertain. Like the weather today—cloudy, then sunny for a moment, then cloudy again as if it couldn’t decide what it wished to do.

  “Hello, Lady Claire. Fancy seeing you here,” Fox said, with a tip of his hat and a faint smile. “Miss Green, always lovely to see you as well.”

  Meredith inclined her head in greeting and Claire murmured a hello. Just seeing him added to the knots in her stomach.

  “What brings you out on a gray day like today?”

  Oh, just in search of my sister, who has gone missing. We hope to find her alive and well and before the ton finds out and scandal ruins us all.

  “Oh, Miss Green and I just fancied a walk,” Claire answered lightly, as if people fancied walks on gray days with rain imminent all the time. Well, this was England after all. Rain was always imminent.

  She spied Stella, his dog, and an opportunity to change the subject. “And I suppose you are walking Stella?”

  “I could have a footman do it, but I rather enjoy a good brisk walk.” It was clear the dog did, too. “Certainly more than correspondence or other lordly matters.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “As you know, I’m not the sort to sit behind a desk.”

  “I know,” she said softly.

  “But you are.”

  Yes, she was. Brainy Claire Cavendish, who stuck up her nose at those who didn’t share or appreciate her interests, such as sitting behind a desk puzzling through increasingly complicated problems that may or may not have a bearing upon the world. She deserved to be thought of as such, given how much she had perpetuated the notion, even if she started to realize she didn’t care for it. That wasn’t all she wanted to be. She was more, wasn’t she?

  Claire gave Meredith a look that said, I need a moment alone with him; please help a friend out and develop a sudden fascination with the shrubbery.

  Meredith obliged, and developed a sudden fascination with the shrubbery.

  “About last night . . .” Claire began. Thunder rumbled in the distance. She rubbed her temples—so much had happened last night, and so much of it was her fault. It logically followed she must try to fix things, or at least make amends with Fox. Because even though she didn’t see a future with him, she did care for him. “I’m confused about my feelings for you. But that is all secondary to the fact that I must remain focused on my family right now. They need me.”

  “Of course. I understand.” His mouth was set in a grim line. Was his male pride affronted? She wondered if perhaps he did care for her, too. Why did that make her heart skip a beat? “But, Claire . . .”

  Before Fox could say anything, another gentleman strolled toward them and interrupted. He seemed vaguely familiar, though she couldn’t quite place him. Then again, she never did pay much attention to introductions.

  “Well, well, well,” the stranger said. “Look who we have here. What a lovely chance encounter.”

  He glanced from Fox to Claire and back again with a grin that made her feel distinctly unsettled. She was glad when Meredith wandered back over to stand by her side.

  “Mowbray,” Fox said flatly, by way of greeting. Then he performed the introduction. “Lady Claire, may I present Lord Mowbray.”

  “I’m a good friend of Fox’s,” he said, despite what Claire thought was evidence to the contrary. Fox certainly didn’t seem pleased to see him. There was another rumble of thunder. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance finally. Of course your reputation precedes you.”

  That caught her attention. “Oh? What do you mean by that?”

  “Oh, you know,” he said with a laugh. “That you might start a math lecture at any moment or embarrass us with your American manners. That you are, shall we say, an original.”

  For a moment, Claire was stunned. She knew people thought these things and whispered them behind her back, but no one outright said them to her face.

  “Unless Fox here has transformed you and no one has noticed,” Mowbray added casually. “But I daresay someone would notice a woman Fox suddenly decides to pay attention to.”

  Transformed?

  Suddenly decides to pay attention to?

  Claire slowly turned and lifted her gaze to Fox to see if his expression would reveal the truth about the conclusion her brain—her very smart lady brainbox—was coming to.

  “Mowbray, if you don’t mind, we were just—” Fox said, trying to get rid of his friend.

  “Fine day to be out walking, is it not?” Mowbray mused, not taking the hint that his presence was unwelcomed. “Especially with such a fine dog. Has he told you all about this dog, Lady Claire?”

  “Mowbray . . .”

  “Yes, he has,” Claire replied. “He raised her from a pup and trained her himself. Now she’s the best hunting dog in England.”

  “Now, if you’ll excuse us—” Fox cut in.

  “I bet he’d hate to lose her,” Mowbray said, looking at Fox.

  “No one is losing her,” Fox replied.

  The men stared at each other, some fierce and silent battle of wills taking place. The tension between them was palpable. Something was going on, something she didn’t understand, but something about her. She hated not understanding things.

  “What is this about?” Claire demanded.

  “He hasn’t told you?” Mowbray laughed. “Fox, don’t tell me you’ve been leading her on this whole time.”

  Leading her on?

  “Mowbray . . .” The warning in his voice was unmistakable. It was punctuated by another low rumble of thunder.

  “Tell me what? What is going on?”

  “It was the stupidest thing, Lady Claire,” Mowbray said. “Fox here wagered he could make you the darling of the ton in just a fortnight’s time.”

  Mowbray laughed heartily.

  Fox closed his eyes, as if pained. As if he just wished she and Mowbray and this conversation would go away. As if it were all true.

  And with that, everything clicked into place. She recognized the feeling of everything adding up, an equation working out, a number being divisible evenly—but without any of the satisfaction or sense of accomplishment.

  How could she have been so stupid?

  Claire took a step back, needing to either sit down or flee entirely. A strange, unpleasant heat was creeping along her skin. It was the burn of humiliation.

  She, who prided herself on being so smart, had been completely oblivious to a vast scheme involving herself. Her body. Her heart. That lummox Lord Fox—of all people!—had played her for a fool.

  She knew they didn’t make sense together. She knew it, and carried on anyway, blinded by lust and driven by a hope, deep down, that perhaps she wasn’t the odd future spinster the gossips made her out to be. She wanted to be angry at Fox—and she was—but there was no denying that she had ignored the facts and her instincts.

  Because of him, she had betrayed herself.

  But a wager—that he, Mr. Popular, could transform her, Future Spinster and Social Outcast, into a darling of the ton was certainly reason enough for him to pursue her.

  Claire turned to face him, furious.

  “Is this true? Am I a bet?”

  But she didn’t need to ask. Guilt was etched into his features. If she were more charitable, she would say she detected sorrow and regret
as well, but she wasn’t feeling charitable at the moment.

  She felt like a fool. She was a woman who prided herself on logic and intellect and yet allowed herself to get swept away by a charming, muscled man. Like all the other silly females she’d always felt so superior to.

  She watched as Fox swallowed hard and finally said, “Yes.”

  Yes, she was a wager.

  Yes, everything between them had been a lie.

  “And you were so confident that you could change me that you wagered your beloved dog?”

  A beloved dog who stood loyally at her master’s side, oblivious that her fate hung in the balance. The poor dog’s future happiness was at stake because of Fox’s idiotic choices. Or Claire’s wearing of spectacles and propensity to speak of subjects other than the weather.

  “Yes.” His voice was rough, like he was trying hard to keep the emotions out of his voice.

  Like it pained him.

  As it should.

  What had he been thinking to make such a bet? He probably hadn’t been thinking. He probably let his male pride make the decision, rather than reason.

  Because reason would have told him he couldn’t possibly succeed. Morals might have told him he shouldn’t even try.

  “That sounds terrible when you say it,” Mowbray remarked, shaking his head sorrowfully. “But it seemed like innocent fun at the time . . .”

  “Sod off, Mowbray.” Fox turned on his so-called friend. Even Mowbray wasn’t oblivious to the fury emanating from his rather large and strong friend.

  “I didn’t mean . . .” he said, hands up and backing away. For once, Mowbray took the hint and removed himself. Not a moment too soon. But the damage had already been done.

  “Claire, it was a stupid mistake and I am sorry. More sorry than you can know.”

  “Because you have lost your dog.”

  “No, it’s not just that—”

  “Because you have lost.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean to say—”

  “What do you mean to say? What can you possibly say?”

  “I made a mistake in making the wager. But we share a connection, Claire. Can we not forget and start over?”