For a few blurred moments, still half-caught in sleep, she did not know why. Then memory returned all at once, focusing on those astonishing words spoken with such calm certainty that they had seemed absurd until she had heard herself agree to them.
A false courtship.
Even now, alone in the quiet of her bedchamber with pale morning light filtering through the curtains, the idea felt unreal. It was the sort of thing that belonged in novels Clara would devour in secret, full of misunderstandings and dramatic declarations and impossible arrangements that somehow became real before the final page.
Aurelia had never imagined herself in such a situation. She had not imagined herself the object of anyone’s supposed courtship, false or otherwise, and certainly not that of a marquess.
And yet she had agreed.
She pressed her hand lightly to her brow and stared up at the canopy, as if the fabric might offer some useful wisdom. It did not.
What had possessed her?
Practicality, she told herself at once. Necessity. There was also the desire to protect Clara, to shield herself from further gossip, and to preserve the opportunity to investigate the truth of her family’s ruin. Lord Westbridge had laid the case out very clearly, and she had been sensible enough to see the value of it.
That was all.
The fact that her pulse had quickened when he had first proposed it, and again when he had stepped closer to her under Charlotte’s watchful eye, need not be examined at all.
Before Aurelia could scold herself further, her bedchamber door flew open without ceremony and Clara came in like a shaft of sunlight.
“You’re awake!” Clara cried, already smiling as if the day had delivered some personal blessing. “I was certain you would still be asleep, because ladies in love are always languid in the mornings.”
Aurelia pushed herself upright at once. “Then it is fortunate I am not a lady in love.”
Clara, entirely untroubled by this denial, crossed the room and perched on the edge of the bed as if she had come to witness a thrilling confession.
“Oh, you may say that if you like,” she said, with a knowing expression that would have been ridiculous on anyone older than eighteen, “but I know better now.”
Aurelia narrowed her eyes. “I tremble to ask what you think you know.”
“That Lord Westbridge is devoted to you already, naturally.”
Aurelia made a helpless sound. “Clara.”
“He is!” Clara insisted. “No gentleman would have looked so serious while proposing an attachment if he did not mean it deeply.”
Aurelia stared at her. “You did not hear a word that passed between us.”
“No, but I saw enough.” Clara clasped her hands under her chin and looked dreamily toward the window. “And I knew from the very first evening that something would happen. I said so, did I not? You spoke to him as though you had known him for years, and then there he was again and again, always near, always watching for you—”
“I do not think he has ever watched for me in his life.”
Clara gave her a pitying look. “You are hopeless.”
Aurelia opened her mouth to object, but Clara had already moved on, her thoughts racing happily ahead.
“I wonder how long it will be before he begins sending flowers,” she mused. “Or poetry. Though perhaps he does not seem like a poet. He is rather stern for that. Still, he might become poetic if he is sufficiently in love.”
“Clara,” Aurelia said again, trying not to laugh, “you must stop.”
But Clara was in no mood to stop. She leaned closer, with her eyes dancing.
“Will he call today? He must, must he not? If the understanding is to be known. And then everyone will see how well it is allproceeding, and before the season is done, perhaps there will be—”
“There will be no before-the-season-is-done of any kind,” Aurelia said firmly.
Clara only smiled as if this, too, were part of the romance. “You say that now.”
