Clara continued to use the opera glasses to discreetly search the boxes on the other side of the theater.
“I would suspect,” Mrs. Gunther continued, “that he would like to have more sons to secure his line. One can’t take chances with a dukedom.”
Clara perused each box and peered at the audience below.
“You’re not listening to me,” Mrs. Gunther said, sitting forward and looking over the rail. “I ask you, what down there could possibly be more interesting than the Duke of Guysborough?”
“I’m just looking at the fashions, Mrs. Gunther. There are some lovely gowns this evening.”
Mrs. Gunther continued to peruse the audience below. “Poppycock. You’re looking for that disreputable marquess. Is he here?”
Clara sat back and stared at Mrs. Gunther. “No, I do not believe he is.”
“Good.” She sat back, too, and lowered her voice. “He is not the sort you should mix with, Clara. I realize he is a peer, but his reputation overshadows that fact. There is your own reputation to think of. I must insist that in the future, you give him the cut direct.”
“Cut him? I couldn’t do anything like that.”
“You must, in order to deliver a clear message. You cannot afford to sully yourself. You mustn’t do anything to discourage more respectable men—like the duke—from considering you as a bride. You must convey perfection.”
“I’m hardly perfect, Mrs. Gunther. No one is.”
“But some people are more perfect than others, and despite his elevated rank, the marquess is very low down on that scale. The gossip about him, may I say, is detestable.”
Clara was beginning to feel ill. “Gossip can sometimes be exaggerated.”
“Do not defend him, dear girl. Even if it is exaggerated, appearances are as important, if not more important, than the truth.”
Clara knew she shouldn’t argue with Eva Gunther, a grand New York matriarch, but she couldn’t help herself. Her hands had closed into tight fists. “How can you say that? What if he is, in actuality, a good man, merely misunderstood?”
Not that she believed that herself. She had no idea. Well, she had some idea. Judging by the letters he had sent, he was every bit as notorious as the gossips claimed.
“It wouldn’t matter.”
The lights dimmed and James and Sophia took their seats. The curtain at the back of the box lowered as if by magic.
Clara sat stiffly in her seat, contemplating everything Mrs. Gunther had said. She felt a great pressure squeezing around her heart at that moment—an obligation to ignore what she wanted and do what was expected of her.
Another part of her, in angry response, wanted to see the marquess again for the single purpose of rebellion. Of proving that he was not all bad, and also to prove that she had a mind and will of her own and she would not relinquish her personal happiness for the mere sake of appearances.
Clara chided herself. She had felt this way once before, and there had been terrible consequences.
The opera began. Clara sat agitated for a while, then she tried to calm down and use the time to come to terms with what Mrs. Gunther had said. The woman could not be faulted for acting in a way that she believed was in Clara’s best interest. The woman came from a very old family, after all. She had traditional values that were not easy to renounce.
Clara sighed.
Who was she fooling? She knew she could never act rebelliously for the mere sake of rebelling. She had learned to be smarter than that. Well, most of the time.
She raised her glasses and glanced at the box across the way and saw the Duke of Guysborough sitting alone, watching the opera. His wife had probably occupied the seat beside him when she was alive. How sad that she had died so young and left her husband and children behind. Clara felt a strong wave of sympathy for the man.
Perhaps shewasbeing foolhardy, dreaming about a wild, dishonorable marquess when a decent, genteel man with proven high moral and family values was within her reach, expressing his interest in her. Treating her with the utmost gentlemanly respect.
Clara lowered her opera glasses and sighed heavily, then promised herself she would keep an open mind.
Three days later, the Duke of Guysborough called upon Clara. He walked into the drawing room, sat down on a sofa, and proposed.
Sitting opposite him, in a chintz upholstered chair, Clara stared at him blankly.
“I would be a good husband to you, Miss Wilson,” he said. “I am highly regarded by the queen herself. My estate is comprised of some of the most prestigious lands in England, and my children are obedient. You would almost never see them.”
