“You do not even trust our friends?”
“It is not that I do not trust our friends. I do. But they are very passionate. They will want to do whatever they can to help, and they will reach out to whomever they are able which, in turn, could cause problems. If one of them reaches out to the wrong person, it could tip off the man who is after Arabella and the child. We need to keep this as small as possible.”
Nathaniel thought about this for a moment, then nodded. “You are right. We shall have to. I will meet with Gideon and speak to him. We each have trusted people in our circles who will be able to help us.” He paused and tipped his head to one side. “There is something else that has caught my eye.”
“Your eye? And pray, what is that?”
His friend chuckled and grinned. “The way that you just spoke about Clara. There is a twinkle in your eye when you speak of her. You genuinely care for her, do you not?”
“Of course, I care for her. She is Arabella’s friend. I have known her since she was a girl.”
“No, that is not what I mean. There is something more there. You care for her in the way a gentleman ought to care about a lady.”
“I do not,” he said. Although in the back of his mind, images of himself crouching down and selecting wildflowers to make a bouquet for her flashed before him. Likewise, his right index finger ached because he had cut it while trying to create the perfect arrangement. But that didn’t mean that he cared for her, did it? That only meant that he wanted to make this all as easy as possible for her. She had, after all, lost far more than he had. She had wanted a real marriage, a real husband, and children.
He would have been perfectly happy never getting married. Not after his last almost disastrous trip down the aisle. But he had taken that from her. Or more accurately, this man had taken it from her.
“Whatever the case may be,” he said, “Clara needs protection, and I do not need you making your clever observations right now.”
“Fine,” Nathaniel replied and raised both hands theatrically. “I shall keep my opinion to myself.”
“I would be eternally grateful.”
Nathaniel leaned back and shrugged. Exactly thirty seconds passed before he cleared his throat. “But I am telling you. There is a twinkle.”
CHAPTER 16
Helena and Evelyn arrived together which Clara suspected was not a coincidence. They swept into the drawing room in a flurry of silk and knowing looks, and before they had even settled into their seats, Evelyn had already fixed her with an expression that suggested she knew rather more than Clara was entirely comfortable with.
“You know,” Clara said, looking at Evelyn, “I had rather hoped that Nathaniel might exercise a little discretion.”
Evelyn smiled serenely. “Oh, he did. He held out for almost two full days before telling me everything.” She reached forward and patted Clara’s hand. “Do not look so alarmed. I am the soul of discretion.”
“That is not entirely reassuring.”
Helena laughed at this, the warm, familiar sound of it settling something in Clara’s chest. At least Helena was here. Helena,who had known her since they were girls and who would not look at her as though she were a curiosity at a fair.
“You must admit,” Evelyn continued, tilting her head to one side, “that there is something rather poetic about all of this. I need only look around this very circle to observe that there is not a single person among us who did not come to their marriage by some entirely extraordinary circumstance.”
This was, Clara had to concede, largely true.
“And yet,” Evelyn pressed on, her eyes bright, “they all ended perfectly happily.”
“Faith, Evelyn,” Helena said at once, sitting forward, “that is not the case here. This is not a matter of two people who found themselves thrown together by fate and discovered a tenderness for one another. This is a marriage that came about expressly to save a child and to protect Arabella. There were no romantic interludes. No undertones of any kind.”
Clara felt a rush of warmth towards her friend. Not a week ago, Helena had told her much of what Evelyn now spoke of. That there was a chance for real romance to spring up from the muddy waters of their arrangement. And Clara had put her in her place. It seemed that Helena had understood that such talk upset her and was determined not to repeat the exercise.
“Precisely,” she said. “That is precisely it. I am grateful to Julian. Deeply so. He is a good man, and he has been kinder to methan I had any right to expect. But it is an arrangement. Nothing more.”
Evelyn said nothing. She simply looked at Clara with that same serene expression, the faintest curl at the corner of her lips.
“Stop that,” Clara said.
“I haven’t said a word.”
“You are thinking very loudly.”
Evelyn’s smile widened. “Perhaps. But I will say only this—that smirk you tried to suppress just now when you said he is a good man tells rather a different story than the one you are telling me.”
