by Kelly Bowen
Clara glanced at Holloway. The duke’s face gave away none of his thoughts, though he was studying the man intently. Clara frowned, her eyes sliding back to Stilton. She and Rose had, in fact, met Mathias Stilton here in the British Museum on one of their regular excursions not long after their parents’ death. They had fallen into easy conversation and had discovered that the wealthy widower shared their interest in history and art.
He was handsome, Clara supposed, with fashionably cut blond hair just starting to silver at his temples, clear gray eyes, a pleasing, broad face, and a slender physique that looked quite elegant in his peacock-blue coat. Clara had once thought that he might have an interest in her sister beyond casual discussions on form and perspective, but both parties had remained romantically indifferent. That hadn’t, however, prevented Mr. Stilton from collecting both Clara and Rose to view the exhibits at the museum when their brother was unable to escort them here himself.
Though this particular visit had now become an exhibit itself of antagonistic undercurrents. With no explanations forthcoming.
“Your Grace.” Stilton finally uttered something that sounded like a greeting.
“Mr. Stilton,” Holloway replied neutrally.
“You are already acquainted?” Clara forced herself to say into the strained silence.
Stilton made a low, derisive noise while Holloway only inclined his head slightly.
“We’ve met,” the duke said.
Clara waited for Stilton to pick up the thread and elaborate, but he remained uncharacteristically mute, and she wondered at his overt discourtesy.
“Well, then,” Clara managed with forced cheer, “I think I will collect my sister before the museum closes.”
“Excellent,” Stilton murmured. “I’ve already asked for my carriage to be brought around so you don’t have to wait.”
“How thoughtful.” Clara arranged a pleasant smile on her face and turned to Holloway.
The duke’s eyes flickered back to her, and Clara was once again pinned under a sea of intense blue. “I didn’t realize Mr. Stilton had escorted you here today.” He held her gaze for a beat too long before it went back to Stilton as if he were reevaluating the man’s motivations.
A strange sort of thrill twisted uninvited through Clara’s body. It was almost as if the duke were…not jealous, exactly, because absolutely no logic that existed would support that reaction. Territorial, perhaps, was the better word. As if Holloway had some sort of stake in how and with whom she might spend her time.
Not that it was any of his damn business. Not ten years ago and certainly not now.
A faint glimmer of her earlier irritation returned, and Clara grasped it with zeal. Annoyance, when it came to the Duke of Holloway, was much safer than any other feeling the man seemed to elicit from her. “It was a pleasure to see you again, Your Grace,” she said with every ounce of distant decorum she could muster. “Please give my regards to Lady Anne.” She saw his brows draw together fractionally before they relaxed.
“Of course,” he replied. “Enjoy the rest of your day, Miss Hayward.” He inclined his head again. “Good afternoon, Mr. Stilton.” He said it with no inflection, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw Stilton stiffen all over again.
The duke departed as silently as he had come, and Clara forced herself not to let her eyes linger on his broad back as he exited. She glanced at Stilton, seeing that her escort had no such compunctions. He was watching the duke retreat with an unpleasant curl to his lip.
“Mr. Stilton?” Clara prompted. “Is anything amiss?”
Mathias Stilton’s eyes snapped back to hers, and she saw his expression clear. “I beg your pardon, Miss Hayward. I’m sorry if any of that offended you.”
She almost rolled her eyes. “I can assure you, I am not offended. Just…” She cast about for a word that might encourage an explanation. “Concerned,” she settled on.
Stilton waved his hand. “Business between men,” he said with a beatific smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Nothing that you need to worry your pretty little head about. And nothing that will spoil the rest of the afternoon.”
Clara gritted her teeth at the banal condescension that had crept into his voice, though she knew very well that most gentlemen would have said the same thing.
The Duke of Holloway wouldn’t have.
Clara resolutely ignored that voice, knowing she knew no such thing. A single discussion about centaurs and Lapiths after ten years of silence did not a friendship or a familiarity make.
Stilton held out his arm. “Let’s find your sister, shall we?”
“Indeed,” Clara murmured, glancing back at the door through which Holloway had vanished.
And reassuring herself that it would probably be another ten years before she’d have to see the Duke of Holloway again.
Chapter 3
Two days later, August sat at the desk in his study, staring into space, still wondering if he had lost his mind. He’d certainly lost his touch.
He’d seen Clara Hayward the instant he’d stepped into that damn museum, and every thought of the baron, expensive ships, invaluable networks, and sound plans had dissolved like mist in the wind. He had kept his distance at first, trying to collect his thoughts and his wits because it was clear that Miss Hayward was no longer the same girl he had danced with.
Then, dressed in a pale, shimmering ball gown and expensive jewels, she had been exceedingly pretty. Now, clad in a simple day dress the color of claret and devoid of accessories, she was stunning. She still possessed the same lustrous hair, though it had been pulled back into a rather pedestrian knot at the back of her head. Her skin was still flawless, free of any cosmetics, and her dark eyes still brimmed with the intelligence he remembered so well. But where she had once displayed tutored poise, she now radiated a rare confidence that was characteristic of those who had truly embraced their individuality and found pleasure and happiness within it. In a man it was admirable. In a woman he found it indecently seductive.
August had followed her discreetly through the museum, not an easy feat considering that the building was almost empty as it approached closing time. She had been accompanied then only by her sister, a petite, fairer version of herself, who showed very little enthusiasm for conversation. Rose Hayward had, however, looked immensely pleased when she was left alone with her sketchbook and a room full of silent sculpture. August knew he should have been disappointed that the baron was nowhere in sight, but instead he had been similarly pleased. Because it had left Clara free to wander into a room stuffed full of Elgin Marbles, gifting him with a sliver of stolen time to spend with her. Precious moments in which he thought he’d charm her.
Instead he’d blundered into a conversation that he’d not adequately prepared himself for. Miss Hayward had been gracious and pleasant and had not given any indication that she found anything odd about his unexpected and unsolicited reappearance. Until, that was, he found himself apologizing to her. Badly. Or badly enough that Miss Hayward had looked at him with concern.
And then asked if he was dying.
His pride had certainly been suffering a slow death, and the fact that his palms had gone damp, his mouth was dry, and his heart pounded did not help. Miss Hayward, in a clear attempt to put him at ease, had accepted his apology with a smooth, lighthearted decorum that was no doubt the cornerstone of the Haverhall School for Young Ladies.
He should have stopped there, retreated even, but instead he had plowed on and succeeded in making everything worse. The chivalrous kiss and the not-so-chivalrous look he had bestowed upon Miss Hayward were things he had taken great pains to perfect over the years. They were things that promised indecent wickedness without his actually having to do anything more. Once he had mastered the combination, he found he was rewarded with fluttering fans, fluttering lashes, and fluttering giggles. The innocent threatened to swoon. The experienced threatened far more carnal consequences.
Miss Hayward had simply gazed at him,
her face set in an expression of mild puzzlement, in a way he might expect her to look while reading a treatise on the Isoptera of England. And then that expression had faded into what looked almost like one of…awkward disappointment, as though she were now faced with a doddering dowager who had fallen asleep in her tea.
August groaned and rested his forehead in his hands. Again he had felt as if he were that youth of his past. Goaded into something he knew wasn’t going to end well but unable to resist. What had he thought would happen? The pretty girl who had once matched him step for step, who had stared down his boorish companions and made him grin like a fool, wasn’t a girl anymore. That girl was gone, replaced with a beautiful, intelligent woman in possession of a flawless grace and poise. Her sterling reputation had been earned, not fabricated, and he should have known better.
And before August could assure Miss Hayward that he was no longer that gauche youth, seeking to recapture the advantage that he had so spectacularly lost on a dance floor long ago, Mathias Stilton had appeared. August felt his lip curl. The man was a peacock. An egotistical, foolish peacock who had managed to run the profitable lace factory his father had established into the ground within a year and a half of inheriting it.
August had swiftly and unapologetically bought it and the vast tract of land upon which it sat, and it had been one of his first large acquisitions. The purchase price should have been enough to send Stilton away and keep him in moderate comfort, but for almost a year afterward, August had been forced to endure and reject Stilton’s constant requests and demands for either a loan or partnership to give back to him what he insisted was his birthright. Another reason August now used benign company names for his investments.
Though what Clara Hayward was doing with a man like that was perplexing. Stilton wasn’t intelligent or intrepid. He certainly wasn’t the sort of man August had envisioned her with, and a startling animosity had risen fast and fierce. Stilton simply wasn’t…good enough for her.
And you are?
The voice in his head came with the reminder that he’d already had his chance and squandered it. Frustration, disappointment, and something far more unsettling rose in his gut. As if he’d once held something valuable in his hand and discarded it, recognizing its worth far too late. Perhaps that was what chafed, because he prided himself on recognizing worth where others did not. It was what he had built his fortune on.
August straightened, pushing himself out of his chair and to his feet. Brooding was pointless. Regret was pointless. He needed to keep his eye on the prize here, and that prize was not Clara Hayward, no matter how beautiful and intelligent and gracious she might be. If he wanted a chance to acquire Strathmore Shipping, he needed a new plan.
Starting, it would seem, in Dover.
“Your Grace?” Duncan stuck his head around the door.
“Perfect timing,” August grumbled. “I’d appreciate your assistance.”
Duncan sidled in. “Your Grace—”
“We’re going to need to make some sort of arrangements to—”
“Your Grace.” It was said with greater volume.
“Is there a problem, Mr. Down?” For the first time, August took a good look at his man of business and noted the deep crease in his forehead and the worried expression behind his spectacles. He also realized that Down wasn’t alone, and that he was, in fact, accompanied by a young maid. Anne’s lady’s maid, specifically.
And the woman looked as if she was going to cast up her accounts.
“Mr. Down?” August left that hanging ominously. He didn’t have time to deal with domestic problems at the moment.
“It’s Lady Anne, Your Grace,” the woman wobbled.
Apprehension streaked through him. “What about my sister? Is she ill? Has something happened?” All manner of catastrophes flitted through his mind, each worse than the one before.
The maid now looked as if she was on the verge of tears. “She’s not…not…not here, Your Grace.”
“I beg your pardon?” It came out far harsher than he’d intended, but he couldn’t stand vacillation.
Duncan cleared his throat. “It seems, Your Grace, that Lady Anne has left.”
“Left?” August’s patience was hanging by a thread. “When did she leave?” he demanded. “Perhaps she’s gone visiting or shopping or to—”
“Yesterday, Your Grace.”
August blinked in incomprehension. “Yesterday?”
“She told me that she didn’t need me yesterday or last night,” the maid explained tremulously. “Told me to take the time to visit my ma. So I did.” She was wringing her hands. “But then, this morning when I came back and went up to her rooms, I realized that she hadn’t slept in her bed.”
“Perhaps the chambermaids made it before you got there.” It sounded more like an order than a question. As if he could will it so.
She shook her head. “I asked, and they didn’t. Tidy the room, that is. And some of her things are missing. Clothes and—”
“Goddammit.”
The maid flinched, and Duncan frowned. August forced himself to take a breath. He recalled his last tense encounter with his sister and clenched his hands. Though he was having a very difficult time believing that Anne would run away because she was angry with him. Anne did not run away from conflict. “Did she leave a note? A message? Anything?”
“She did.” It was Duncan who spoke. He held out a folded paper.
“What does it say?” August snapped.
“I thought you might wish to read it—”
“What. Does. It. Say?” August growled.
Duncan cleared his throat again. “She has left to attend and take part in the Haverhall School for Young Ladies’ summer term. You are not to worry, nor are you to follow her or, ah, interfere in any way. She will return in six weeks.”
August stared at Duncan. Duncan stared back. Very slowly, August turned to the maid. “Go. And speak of this to no one, if you value your job.”
His man of business frowned again at his rudeness, but August was past the point of caring. The young maid almost fell over herself in her haste to leave, and the door banged shut behind her.
August swung back to the man standing in front of his desk. “Did you know anything about this?”
Duncan bristled. “Of course not.”
“Get the carriage,” August snarled. “We’re going to Haverhall.”
Please give my regards to Lady Anne. That was what Clara Hayward had said yesterday, and August had thought her statement just a continuation of her seamless politesse. Instead, it seemed, Clara Hayward and his sister had been in collusion from the very beginning. August wasn’t sure whom his anger was best aimed at. Anne, for her duplicity? Miss Hayward, for her silence? Himself, for his utter and complete obliviousness to the entire affair?
“Lady Anne is not at Haverhall, Your Grace.”
It took a moment for Duncan’s words to sink past the dark cloud that had wrapped itself around him.
May I be so bold as to ask where you are spending the summer?
“She’s in Dover.”
“Yes.” Duncan sounded surprised. “How did you know?”
“Doesn’t matter.” August became aware that his teeth were grinding, and he tried to relax his jaw before they shattered. “Where in Dover?”
Duncan set the note on the desk. “Avondale. Just north of the town.”
“The Earl of Rivers’s estate?”
“The very same. It would seem that Haverhall has let it for years. For their summer students. Of which your sister is now one.”
August braced his hands on the edge of his desk, the wood biting into his fingers. “Can you explain, Mr. Down, just what the hell my sister needs a finishing school for? A finishing school that extorts a criminal tuition from its students and then drags them seventy miles from London, at that? When I have made sure she has had the best instruction, the best governesses, the best, period? Anne speaks three languages fluently. She can dance, pa
int, play the pianoforte, make intelligent conversation with impeccable manners. She’s smart and capable and accomplished.” And August wanted to give her the world, even if she didn’t seem to believe it. He pushed himself away from his desk. “What more does she damn well need?”
Duncan merely looked at him. “I can see the appeal.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Miss Hayward’s appeal. An individual who seems to have chosen her own path. Defied society to chase her own ambitions.” Duncan raised a brow. “Sounds a little like a man I know, now that I think about it.”
“I didn’t choose a path; I was forced upon it,” August growled. “And I didn’t defy anything except death to become a duke. Further, I have no intentions of letting my sister defy society. Ever. Society can be horrifically cruel, and I’m sure Miss Hayward will be the first to attest to that.”
Duncan sighed. “With all due respect, Your Grace, Lady Anne comes from a very different place than the young ladies of the ton. Her past—her experiences—have shaped her view, and given her an outlook on life that will not be found among her contemporaries. Her ambitions and desires will not be what others may want—”
“Anne is not old enough to know what she wants.”
Duncan frowned. “If I may be so bold, I should point out that she is the same age you were when—”
“You may not be so bold, Mr. Down. This discussion is at an end.” Duncan might have good intentions, but the welfare of Anne was not his business. Nor would it ever be.
“Right.” Duncan looked as if he wanted to argue.
August glared at him, and he seemed to reconsider. Wise man.
“May we get back to the matter at hand?” August asked testily.
Duncan gave him a long look. “In that case, Your Grace, if you want answers, I expect that your questions are best put to Lady Anne.”
Or Clara Hayward.
