While he would never be so undignified as to wink, she detected an approving twinkle in his eye. “Very well, my lady.” He bowed and went out—though decidedly leaving the door open, as if to accord her the option of shouting for help.
Then Claire had nothing left to do but to go and settle herself in the wingback chair opposite her grace’s. Claire folded her hands primly in her lap and, as Jonathan’s mother continued staring into the fire, took a few moments to survey her opponent. But as she studied the dance of light and shadow upon the formidable face—throwing every droop and crease into sharp relief, making the duchess appear ten years older than she had last Christmas—she realized she felt no animosity toward this woman.
Her quarrel had never been with the duchess and her bad behavior, but with Jonathan and his.
Whatever the duchess’s reasons for interfering in her son’s affairs—whether she’d taken some dislike to Claire or simply feared losing her own place in his heart—Claire could not but pity her. To have gone to such lengths and concocted such schemes spoke of a desperation one could only attribute, having seen mother and son together, to the deepest love.
A love misapplied, of course, and disastrously so. But after the events of the past year—and especially the past days—Claire fancied she now knew a bit about love and desperation, and indeed, schemes and mistakes. And if all that had come about for love of a man she’d kept company with for but a few months, what might a mother’s love drive her to?
Claire might have passed all her time with the duchess in such charitable reflections, had she not felt the absolute necessity of saying something. Resolved on keeping to the most banal of civilities, she began with: “I hope you left your mother in good health.”
Only upon her grace’s astonished reaction did Claire realize the inflammatory potential of her remark—given that when they’d last parted, the duchess was allegedly en route to her mother’s deathbed. She wished immediately to recant, but knew not how.
Before responding, her grace lifted the little Pomeranian onto her lap and began to stroke its back. “The marquise is in a tolerable way, considering.” When her gaze returned to Claire, her eyes were wide and round with concern. “I only pray, ma mie, the same can be said of yourself! You appear to have suffered some sort of accident, n’est-ce pas?”
Claire followed the duchess’s pointed look down to the large, wine-colored stain on her gown. “Oh! Yes, an accident. I am honored by your grace’s compassion, but I have suffered no injury. It’s only spilled wine.”
“Bien sûr! Forgive me, I did not realize the English mademoiselles engaged in such, ah, spirited modes of celebration.”
“Oh, no,” Claire protested, blushing deeply. “I’m not ‘spirited’ at all! I’ve barely had a sip! The spill only happened because?—”
“Ma mie,” she interrupted with smothering generosity, “there is no need for embarrassment. Do not imagine me to be censuring you, for I am quite sure you are beyond reproach! The mistake is all mine. Unsociable as I am, I’ve become woefully ignorant of the general conduct of young ladies. I fear,” she concluded, her eyes hard, though her voice lost none of its sickly sweetness, “I am only familiar with the conduct befitting a Duchess of Rathborne.”
Claire could hardly fail to understand the rebuke, but its style of delivery left her equally unable to offer any defense or, indeed, to say anything at all. Instead she merely blushed deeper and quailed beneath the duchess’s withering glare.
After a few seconds of excruciating silence, broken only by the whisper of fingernails upon fur, Claire was ready to expire on the spot—and might have done, if not for the timely entrance of her rescuer.
“Noah!” she greeted him with undisguised relief—but the tall and reassuringly solid figure striding into the room was not her brother’s. “Jonathan?” she gasped. “What are you doing here?”
“I believe I was summoned,” he answered coolly and came to stand beside her.
She found that reassuring, as well as the return of his normal coloring. But with a sinking heart, she also noted he’d brought with him a leather satchel and an impatient air, and his eyes, resting on her but briefly, still flashed with anger.
“Summoned,” he went on, “it would seem, to engage in a discussion of conduct befitting a Duchess of Rathborne. Have I got that right, maman?”
Upon seeing her son for the first time in nearly a year, the duchess was too overwhelmed for concealment. Claire watched her drink him in, everything she felt laid bare upon her face: hurt, indignation, even fury.
But these were mere whitecaps atop an ocean of longing.
Claire could see a palpable desire to leap from her chair and scoop her child into her arms, along with a tremble of fear or of weakness, as if she were already expecting him to leave again. Though her well-bred restraint compelled her to keep her seat and continue stroking Rousseau, whom she clung to like a life preserver, she seemed unable to marshal her powers of speech.
Fortunately, Jonathan didn’t wait for an answer. “Perhaps you haven’t considered,” he went on, “that as the Duke of Rathborne, I should have the final say on this matter. And in my present humor I find it more appropriate to discuss conduct unbefitting a duchess of my house.” Claire noticed his jaw tighten. “For instance, barging into an acquaintance’s castle, ordering him about your errands, and being rude to his sister; is this the sort of behavior I ought to expect and condone?”
His mother was stung into a reply. “What other choice did I have?” she cried. “You refused to see me!”
“I beg your pardon,” he said coldly, “but you had the choice to leave me alone and respect my wishes—which I made quite clear.”
“You made nothing clear! Voyons, you vanished without a word—no idea where you went, when you were coming home, why you left?—”
“Why? You dare ask why, after what you did?” He laughed without a shred of humor. “If ruining my wedding—three times!—wasn’t enough, perhaps we might add in the repeated lies, the dragging me to another country under false pretenses, and oh, let’s not forget locking me in a closet?—”
“It was a dressing room!” she protested. “And I did not lock you in, merely took advantage of a f-fortunate…accident…”
She trailed off, evidently realizing (based on her son’s thunderous expression) this line of argument would get her nowhere.
“Mon coeur,” she began again, “I know I went too far at times. But you must understand I did the best I could with what means were available. I desired only to help you, to save you from an ill-considered marriage.”
“What could possibly be ill-considered about Claire? An earl’s daughter from an irreproachable line!”
