“I did no such thing.”
“You did,” Helena said and then looked immediately guilty. “I’m sorry. I am supposed to be on your side.”
Clara opened her mouth and closed it again. She looked at her hands in her lap.Were they right? Was there something there, some seed of feeling she hadn’t examined properly?
She thought of the wildflowers on the carriage seat. She thought of him noticing, all those years ago, that she despised peas.
No. She was being ridiculous. She was simply in close proximity to a charming man under unusual circumstances. It meant nothing whatsoever. She shook her head.
“What is being done to find Arabella?” Helena asked, mercifully changing course.
Clara exhaled. “Julian and Nathaniel have engaged people they trust. Men who can make enquiries quietly, without drawing attention. For the time being, we simply carry on. We are a married couple. David is our child. That is the story, and we shall hold to it.”
“And the ball?” Evelyn asked. “Nathaniel mentioned a ball.”
“Yes. A fortnight from now. We will make a proper introduction of ourselves to society, address the whispers, and move forward.”
Evelyn set down her teacup with a neat, decisive click. “No.”
Clara blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Nathaniel told me about this plan, and I told him then what I shall tell you now. It will not work.” She held up one hand to forestall any protest.
“A fortnight is a very long time, Clara. The scandal sheets will not simply sit in polite silence while they wait for your ball. They will fill the silence themselves. They will invent things farworse than the truth, and by the time the ball arrives, you will be fighting fires on a dozen different fronts.” She paused. “You need to give them something. Before the ball. Something that controls the story rather than reacting to it.”
“Such as what?” Clara asked, exasperated.
“Outings,” Evelyn said simply. “You need to be seen. Out in public, together, and preferably with the child. Let people see that you are a perfectly ordinary, perfectly happy family going about your perfectly ordinary life. Give the scandal sheets something dull to write about. There is nothing that kills a rumor faster than a thoroughly unremarkable afternoon spent promenading in the park.”
* * *
After Helena and Evelyn left, Clara sat for a moment in the empty drawing room, turning the idea over in her mind. Then she got up and went downstairs.
Julian was in his study, a sheaf of papers before him. He looked up when she entered, and she didn’t wait for him to speak.
“I have been thinking,” she said, dropping into the chair across from his desk in the way she had noticed she’d begun to do—without ceremony, without waiting to be invited, as though she had always done it. “We cannot wait for the ball.”
He put down his pen. “Funnily enough, that is precisely what I have just been thinking.”
She told him what Evelyn had said, and he listened without interrupting which she appreciated. When she had finished, he nodded slowly.
“She is right. We need to be seen.” He leaned back in his chair. “I had a thought. Vauxhall Gardens, perhaps. Or—” he paused, and a glint of amusement came into his expression, “—the Royal Menagerie.”
She considered this. “The menagerie?”
“Vauxhall would be a good location if the two of us went together. Alas, it is not exactly friendly territory for a small child at Vauxhall. But the menagerie is open air, it is very much the kind of place a family might go on a pleasant afternoon, and I have already taken the liberty of asking Mrs. Holt to help secure a pram for David.” He paused. “I thought perhaps we could go today if you are willing.”
She looked at him. “You had already arranged this before I came down.”
“I had an instinct.”
“By Jove,” she said, “you are insufferably prepared.”
He smiled. “Shall we say three o’clock?”
* * *
The pram was, as it turned out, a magnificent and slightly absurd contraption—a great hulking thing with wheels that seemed disproportionately large for its body, bouncing gently over the cobblestones as Julian pushed it with an expression of concentrated effort. David, however, appeared to be entirely in favor of it.
