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“Good. I am glad,” Clara admitted, hoping to show the Comte that she was mature and sensible and could handle such conversations without becoming entirely beside herself as she once might have when she was a child and did not get her own way. Of course, they did not know that in a roundabout way she was getting exactly what she wanted.
“Does this mean that I am to return to France?”
She held her breath the moment the question left her lips. There was nothing she wanted more than to return home. She hated England. Half the time she had been there, it had been raining, and the people were rude and disrespectful, dirty and stinking, and she longed for the fresh open air of France to once more grace her nose.
“No!” her mother snapped, causing Clara to jump. The lady whipped around to glare at Clara with obvious anger flaring in her gaze. “Where is your fire, Clara? Where are your temper and desire for revenge? This foolish girl has taken all that was meant to be yours.”
Gritting her teeth, Clara met her mother’s gaze and shook her head as she told her, “She has taken all that you wanted for me, but she has not taken what was mine. I am still Lady Clara St Clair, and I belong in France. I never wished to become an English duchess.”
Her mother looked absolutely horrified, her mouth twisting with disgust and her eyes opening so wide that Clara feared they might pop right out of her head.
“Clara St Clair, I am …” the lady began, but with a simple raise of his hand, the current Comte silenced her.
“Lady Clara is right,” he announced with a grim set to his jaw. “She is loyal to France just as we have always expected her to be. Our country is the very reason why we entered into this plan in the first place.”
Though Clara wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, she nodded in agreement. She didn’t really care what her uncle and her mother’s plans were; all she cared about was that she was no longer a pawn in them. She would do whatever it took to ensure that it remained that way.
“Be that as it may, Penelope has slighted this family, and I will not see her get away with it!” Lady Cecily snapped, slamming her fist down on the arm of her chair with such force that Clara was shocked. She had never seen her mother react so violently. It was clear to see that Penelope truly had got beneath her skin. “She will not be a duchess forever! I shall not have it! I still think we should go right to the duke’s estate and expose her!”
“We may yet do that,” the Comte assured her, offering a warning look that told the lady not to say another word. Clara was relieved when her mother closed and pursed her lips, clearly accepting the message. None of them was prepared for one of her mother’s tantrums.
“For now, we must play along. At least this way, Clara will be safe from harm when we finally see Lord Chatham committed for treason.”
Clara’s stomach clenched then. She had heard the word treason floating about in conversation along with the duke’s name for quite some time, but now it seemed more serious than ever. Her heart hammered at the thought of what the Comte was suggesting, but she kept her lips firmly closed, biting the inside of her cheek to stop questioning him.
She and her mother bowed their heads respectfully in acknowledgement as the Comte told them, “Remember, ladies, all that we are doing is for France.”
“For France,” Cecily repeated. Her voice was begrudging.
“For France,” Clara said, feeling her uncle’s expectant gaze upon her. She kept her head bowed, unsure of what else to say. If she had been a little more courageous, she might have again tried to insist that perhaps it would be better for her to return to France. She was far less likely to risk their plan if she were not in England. Yet she knew from the way the conversation had already gone that her words would fall upon deaf ears.
“In the meantime,” the Comte said, his voice dripping with amusement, “we are going to have a little fun with our duke and our maid.”
Chapter 21
Although things were awkward at mealtimes and during the moments when the duke insisted she be at his side for marked events such as visiting the commoners who lived and worked upon his land, Penelope found herself settling in remarkably well to live as a duchess in the countryside.
Save for dinner when the duke insisted that man and wife should share a meal together, she was practically left alone, able to go about the business of mistress of the household, most of the time left to her own devices, reading and pretending to write letters to her so-called family.
Though she had thought several times of trying to run away again, whenever it came down to it, she could not bring herself to do so. Perhaps it was fear of the unknown, or maybe it was something more; maybe it was the way that she felt the duke looking at her. She couldn’t be sure.
On the outside, she played the perfect wife, allowing everyone to only ever see her smile, being polite to her husband, and acting as any good noblewoman would. But inside, she had been a total mess for weeks.
She had been the first one to hurry to the letterbox every morning, waking before the sun rose to beat the servants to it just so that she could check for any correspondence from the Comte. Though she had never properly examined the Comte’s penmanship, she was certain she could recognise if a letter came into her hands that held his handwriting. Yet there had been nothing.
At least, not until one miserable morning when the drizzle began well before dawn, and she had to wrap herself in a shawl to hurry down to the letterbox at the end of the lane where one of the footmen collected the mail every morning before putting it in Mr Cartwright’s steady hand.
Still in her chemise, prepared to hurry back to bed and act as if she had just woken once she had checked the letters, she pulled open the box and yanked out an entire wad of envelopes.
Flicking through them with nothing but the predawn light to see by, she couldn’t be entirely sure of what she saw. Though she saw several letters addressed to the duke, none of them appeared to be from the Comte.
There was no French postmark upon the envelope, no sign that word might have been sent that she was not who she claimed to be, no sign that Lady Clara and her mother were on their way for the wedding they had no idea had already occurred.
That was true, at least until she found the very last envelope. To her surprise, it was not addressed to the duke. Instead, it was addressed to her, or should she say the her that everybody thought her to be, The Duchess of Chatham.
For just a moment, excitement bubbled up inside her. Although she had yet to really meet any other nobility, her husband having chosen to keep her from the public eye as if he wished them to solidify their marriage before doing so, she couldn’t help feeling a little thrill at the thought that somebody actually wished to correspond with her.
Then, just as quickly as it had come, it was gone and replaced with dread. Likely by now, all of England was aware that the duke was married, though Penelope could only hope that the news had been kept as quiet as their wedding had been.
