“Clara!” Honora’s hiss broke through Clara’s idyll.
She looked up, confused. “I beg your pardon?”
“Her Grace asked you a question!”
“Ah.” She looked at the dowager. “My apologies, Your Grace.”
The older woman looked from Clara to the Skye, then back. Her smile held a gentle sweetness. “Do not fret over her, my dear. Clementina has had a good long life and knows her way around. Dogs and their noses, don’t you know?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I asked if you had agreed to all this folderol.” She waved one hand in a circle. “All that my son has asked of you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Hm.” The dowager took a sip of tea.
“It is understandable. He wishes to be assured I am capable of being his duchess.”
The cup hit the saucer with a clink. “Then he is an arse.”
Clara stared at her. “Your Grace?”
“No one is capable of being a duchess until one actually has to deal with being one. Prancing about balls and entertaining boring chits and pinks have little in common with running the household of a duchy. And to be honest, nothing can prepare you for it. When it happens, your only choice is to dive in, find those who truly know what’s going on—which is usually your top servants—and find your own way. One real basis for being a reasonably successful duchess, indeed, is not becoming too assured in your own capabilities. That is one path to finding yourself in scandal or humiliation. Or both.”
Clara glanced at her mother, but Honora had apparently lost the ability to speak. Her cup and saucer hovered halfway up her chest, her eyes wider than the pastry in her lap.
The dowager went on. “But once one has been a duchess for some time, as I have, more than forty years now, one can begin to see qualities in other women, and one recognizes who and who would not make a good one. You do know my son is paying suit to two other women?”
Clara dug deep to find her voice. “I thought three.”
“As I said, my son is a fool. One of those ladies has recently become betrothed to someone else. The other two... my teas with them did not go nearly so well as this one.”
Honora finally set her cup down.
“Do you love my son?”
Clara blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Ah, so no, you do not. Not that it is vital in an arrangement like this. Do you love another?”
Clara couldn’t catch her breath, Michael’s face immediately in her mind. “Your Grace—”
“So yes. Is he nobility? A good man?”
Clara’s shoulders sagged in surrender, her voice weak. “Yes.”
“Clara!”
The dowager ignored Honora. “Neither of them deserve you, if you ask me.”
Clara looked up as yet another surprise left her speechless.
“I think you would make a fine duchess. You are strong and you know your own mind. You would be a good match for my son, who can be a pompous bully when he does not get his own way. He is an excellent duke, but something of an arse. Your first years with him will be pure misery, my girl, especially if you already love another. Do you think you are ready for that?”
Something about the dowager’s fiery words sparked something in Clara, something she had been afraid to reveal. She straightened and met the dowager’s eyes. “As you said, Your Grace, one does not know what one is capable of until one is confronted with a situation.”
The older woman cackled. “I do believe my son has met his match.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Do not let him bully you, my dear. If you dislike something he insists on, stand up to him. He will bray, like the arse he is, but if you do not stand your ground now, those first years will be even more miserable.”
