Page 38 of A Legacy of Lies

He turned slightly, hoping she would meet his gaze. If she would only look at him, truly look, he might know what she carried. But she kept her eyes lowered, her lashes veiling what the silence refused to tell.

Desire and doubt twisted together, a tether he could not cut. He wanted to protect her, but he feared he already wanted her too much.

The fire snapped once, sending a shimmer through the air between them. For the first time, he feared the truth not because it might condemn her, but because it might change him.

*

“You both carry storms in your eyes,” Eleanor said at last.

Clara dipped her head, grateful not to meet Nathaniel’s gaze. She smoothed her skirts with her good hand, keeping her injured arm close. The lavender fabric whispered under her fingers.

Storms in her eyes, Eleanor could not know how true that was. Clara had spent years mastering calm while tempests raged beneath her skin. She had learned at her father’s table how to sit unmoved, how to flinch without moving a muscle. And now, beneath Nathaniel’s gaze, the old lesson returned in cruel perfection.

Nathaniel turned, the gray light behind him outlining his shoulders. “You were abroad early,” he said. His tone was even, each word edged with restraint.

Clara offered a small smile. “Eleanor wished for air. We thought the rain would hold.”

Eleanor’s pen scratched once across the page, though she had written nothing. “Hartleigh has heard lies before,” she murmured. “It will hear them again. What matters is whether truth is spoken in time.”

The words struck harder than Nathaniel’s question. Clara’s fingers tightened in her skirts, her pulse drumming in the bruise beneath her sleeve. She longed to confess to him everything, end the ache of half-truth, but her father’s warning still clung like smoke. One word, and your duke will cast you out.

Nathaniel’s gaze lingered on her sleeve. He said nothing, but his eyes told her he had noticed. He had always been patient. That was the danger; his silence wasn’t ignorance, it was observation. And she could feel it peeling away her defenses one breath at a time.

Clara felt the burden of his silence as keenly as speech. His eyes did not wander, never careless, but they searched her now, steady and unrelenting. Her skin prickled under his regard, the resulting warmth that spread was as much fear as longing. He was not cruel. He was worse, he saw too clearly.

Edith entered with a tray. The clink of porcelain startled the quiet. “Tea,” she said briskly. “You’ll be warmer for it.” She poured for Eleanor first, then Clara. Her glance brushed Clara’s sleeve but did not linger. Edith knew when not to see.

Clara took the cup in her good hand, steadying it against the tremor that would not leave. The heat steadied her breath. Nathaniel accepted his own cup but did not drink. He carried it to the hearth, standing with his back to them.

“You are chilled,” he said without turning.

“The rain caught us.” She sipped. “It was foolish.”

Eleanor tapped her pen on the journal. “Clara, tell Percival to see that the greenhouse fires are lit. The roses will not forgive us if we neglect them.”

Grateful for the errand, Clara rose. She had taken only two steps when Nathaniel moved to meet her. He did not mean to block her path, but he stood there all the same.

“You are hurt,” he said, his gaze on her sleeve.

Clara pressed the fabric smooth. “It is nothing.”

“Nothing leaves a mark.” His voice softened. “Shall I send for the surgeon?”

“No.” The answer came too quickly. She forced herself to remain calm. “No, thank you. It is a scratch and a bruise. They are better this morning.”

He studied her face a moment longer. His eyes traced the pale line of her throat, the quick pulse beneath it. She could almost feel the question in his silence. What happened to you, and why won’t you let me help? At last, he stepped aside, though she felt his suspicion follow her into the corridor.

Percival waited with a ledger under his arm. Clara gave him Eleanor’s message. He brightened at the task. When he left for the greenhouse, she pressed her shoulder to the cool plaster and drew two quiet breaths before returning.

Eleanor had written nothing more. Her pen hovered above the page. Nathaniel had taken a seat but sat too still, his composure stretched thin. Clara resumed her place, her heart unsteady.

“There was a time,” Eleanor said softly, “when this house believed scandal a kind of weather. It came, it passed, and the rooms remained. But some storms move things inside the walls.”

The storm outside had already broken, leaving only wet stone and dripping eaves. Inside her, the storm had teeth.

Nathaniel leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the fire. “If there is something I must know, say it. If there is nothing, say that as well. I will not chase shadows through my own rooms.”

“Shadows do not need chasing,” Eleanor said. Her pen moved at last, steady strokes across the page. “They come of their own accord when invited.”