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“I wanted to inform you that the household will be having a small party tomorrow evening,” said the Duke. “Nothing extravagant, I don’t think. Just a dinner party for family and a few close friends, you understand. As you are a part of our family, I wished to extend an invitation to you.”
“I…would love to, Your Grace,” Clara answered, putting a hand to her chest to steady her heartbeat. “Thank you.”
Christopher nodded once more, flashing her a distracted smile. Just as it looked as though he might be overrun with emotion once more, he gave a brief, “Tomorrow evening, then,” and fast-walked out of the room.
A dinner party! she thought with a rush of excitement. For all the parties I had to clean up after in the Fitzroys’ house, now I can finally attend one as a guest!
Clara smiled, pleasantly surprised at how much she was beginning to feel at home in this strange house, this life so utterly unlike anything she had dreamed. Perhaps things will be all right, after all, she said to herself as she began to hum a cheery tune and turned back to her letter.
* * *
I can’t breathe, thought Clara through her glittering smile. Perhaps if I am very, very lucky I shall lose consciousness and be spared the rest of this ordeal.
The salon was large enough that there was a great deal of space between her and the other dozen or so attendees of the St. George dinner party. Yet Clara could feel every eye on her, regarding her with gazes that seemed to strip her fine new garments from her and leave her naked in the middle of the floor. Without even speaking a word to her, young women who looked like they might be about her age fixed her with nasty looks and a laughing glance in the direction of her half-sisters. Mr Morton had introduced her to a nice-seeming young man named Jonathan, but he had stepped out of the room in search of some particular bottle of wine or something.
Even Christopher and Edward were each preoccupied talking to some old codger, leaving her completely without allies in the middle of what had become enemy territory.
“Oh, Clara?” came a voice from behind her.
Oh no. The voice was so full of laughter and absent any kindness that she knew it could only be Judith. Unable to think of any alternative, she turned with as toothy a smile as she could muster, coming face-to-face with her short, blonde older sister who waggled an empty glass in the air.
“There you are. Could you be a good girl and fetch me another glass of this lovely wine?” Judith asked, glancing back to Helena and another couple of women with more laughter in her eyes.
Clara was instantly aware of three possible avenues of response that stretched out before her. She could comply with this rather simple request; she could tell Judith what she could do with her damned lovely wine; or she could try to repeat her earlier manoeuver and play at Judith’s own game, embarrassing her with a cutting quip or sarcastic jab.
Instead, desperate, she chose none of them.
“Ha ha!” Clara laughed awkwardly, raising her hands in the air in a noncommittal gesture.
She winced, immediately sure this was an equally incorrect response. This instinct was confirmed by the mocking laughter she had already come to expect from Judith, who turned away without another word to discuss this surely hilarious development with an equally nasty-looking woman.
What am I even doing here? Clara asked, her face still frozen in a rictus grin, heart pounding hard enough to burst straight through her chest. I am a maid, an orphan, a girl of the streets. I know nothing of this world. Why would I expect them to accept a lowborn girl like me just because by some accident of birth my father happens to have been a Duke?
From somewhere deep within her, though, there came a welling up of all the resolve Clara forgot she had. She was all of those things, sure enough—and that was the source of her strength. In fact, she thought, she possessed a strength that none of these snobbish women would ever know. She had fought for her own survival every single day, had sweated and toiled and made her way in the world, and that did not mean she had anything to be ashamed of. In fact, it meant she had more cause to be proud.
I do belong here, she found the voice within herself saying. She set her chin with determination. And there is nothing these petty women can say that will strip me of that fact. What am I even afraid of—being laughed at by people I do not care about in the slightest?
“No, not really?” came a lilting voice from the corner where Helena was holding court.
“Absolutely!” Helena cackled. “I’ve even heard she barely knows how to write her own name, the poor thing. Can you imagine, such a beast living in the Duke’s estate?”
“Scandalous!”
“What an entirely ridiculous affair!”
“Really, though, no more than you should expect,” Helena continued with a sidelong glance in Clara’s direction. By now Clara could not even pretend not to be eavesdropping, her mind filling with white-hot rage. “A maid, the bastard daughter of another maid, will have natural limitations to her character and intellect. No matter how noble her father, there’s only so much that can be asked of her. Really, it’s cruel to bring her to a place such as this, so far above her own comprehension and impulses.”
“Quite cruel, indeed!”
“Like bringing a red Indian to a school! Utterly misguided.”
“Oh, I should say so!”
“Did you hear she threatened violence towards Helena just for failing to welcome her into the family as enthusiastically as the girl thought she deserved?” Judith asked with a snigger.
“Dreadful!” the women chorused as one.
The corner erupted in laughter once more, and Clara detected the eye of each woman surrounding her half-sister swivel to her in concert. The encouraging voice that had spoken up within her was now silent as the grave.
