Page 24 of Mail-Order Lady

“A legal fact obtained quickly.” He didn’t yield an inch. “Those aren’t the same thing.”

Her mother’s gaze swung to Clara, and the look she sent was scalpel-thin.

“Clara.”

“Yes, Mother?”

“Come away from him. Get dressed and pack your things. We are leaving on the afternoon boat.”

“I’ve already told you⁠—”

“You have made a spectacle of yourself.” Her mother’s voice dropped to a familiar register. The one she used when she wanted to wound without raising her voice, without giving anyone else in earshot cause to intervene. “Standing in a hotel hallway in your dressing gown, clinging to a man you’ve known for a matter of months, defending a marriage you contrived in a single afternoon. Have you no shame at all?”

“Mrs. McKinney.” Robert’s voice was steel under silk now. He didn’t raise it. He didn’t need to. “You will not speak to my wife that way. Not anywhere. I will ask you once to leave, and if you refuse, then I will fetch the sheriff and have him remove you. Which would you prefer?”

Her mother’s mouth went white at the corners.

For a long moment, she didn’t move.

Then she drew herself up and fisted her hands at her sides. She gave Robert a look that, in any drawing room in Columbia, would have ended a man’s social standing for the next five seasons.

Robert didn’t appear bothered. Clara had always loved his steadiness, but never more than this moment.

“This is not finished.” Her mother’s voice came out hard. “Do you understand me, Clara? I have come too far and waited too long, and I will not be turned aside by a hasty ceremony in a frontier hotel. I have spoken to a solicitor in this town already. I will speak to others. I have means at my disposal that you have not begun to imagine. Whatever you believe you have secured for yourself, I assure you I will unsecure it.”

She pinned her gaze on Robert.

“And as for you, Mr. Balfour—I will be making inquiries about you. About your family. About your circumstances. A man who marries a girl with a settlement in her name within months of meeting her will find his motives examined in a court of law.”

Robert only nodded.

Her mother held his gaze a moment longer. Then she turned with that same fluid grace that had always made her departures more terrible than her arrivals, and paraded down the hallway toward the stairs.

Her footsteps faded.

A door closed somewhere downstairs.

The hallway went quiet. Clara’s ears rang with the absence.

Robert’s hand tightened over hers.

Was she shaking? Her legs definitely trembled. She couldn’t let herself faint.

Robert shifted his arm from under her hand and wrapped it instead around her back. Pulling her closer, holding her upright, guiding her toward Bea’s room.

That door opened, and Bea moved to her other side.

She shouldn’t let them coddle her so, yet she couldn’t seem to pull herself together. Inside, Bea guided her to sit on the side of the bed, settling next to her with her arm still around Clara’s shoulders. Just like a mother.

Not like Clara’s mother. Like a real mother.

Robert sank into a chair facing her, leaning forward with his arms braced on his knees. The concern in his gaze…

She forced herself to straighten. “I’m sorry.” Her voice came out too thin, so she pushed to strengthen it. “She’ll… She meant what she said. About the inquiries. About you. She’ll do it.”

“I know.” His eyes were steady on hers. The brown of them in the dim light through the window made them almost glisten.

Her mother’s words slipped in. A settlement in her name. She hadn’t even thought of that. She had a small one—not large by Columbia standards, but real—and her mother knew the figure to the dollar. The implication her mother had laid against Robert…