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‘…but I am a man of experience. I know his sort. I know that he would do anything, anything he can, to hurt and humiliate me.’
‘You? What do you mean?’ Why did Clement always assume everyone did things specifically to annoy him? When most of the time he never crossed her mind?
‘To think that we used to be friends,’ he said, with a shake of his head. ‘When we were boys together. Until he found a class of people with whom he clearly felt he belonged. Young gentlemen with titles and money. He never had time for us after that.’
She was sure that couldn’t be right. Oh, she knew Rawcliffe hadn’t wanted much to do with her brothers from about the time he went away to school, but it wasn’t anything to do with their rank or wealth. Why, Mr Kellet had been as poor as the proverbial church mouse and Captain Bretherton was merely a half-pay officer in the navy. But even though she opened her mouth to point out the flaw in Clement’s logic, he just kept right on ranting.
‘And he took to whoring and drinking. Not the sort of person Father wished us to associate with. His betrayal of his childhood playmates was thus twofold. He left us all behind without even a backward glance. That is the sort of man who has duped you into a semblance of a marriage. A man without conscience, without honour, or loyalty.’
‘Well, first of all—’ He did have a conscience, or he would never have made an honest woman of her.
And secondly, he was loyal. So loyal that he’d even given one of those friends he’d made at school a job so that he could continue with his experiments in peace, without feeling as though he was accepting charity. Everyone in Watling Minor knew it, too.
Though Clement had been furious, now she came to think of it, that Rawcliffe had made a school friend his chaplain, when he felt he ought to have been given the post.
Not that Clement gave her a chance to express a single one of her objections. ‘No, Clare,’ he said, holding up his hand to silence her the way their father had so often done when any of them had a view he hadn’t wished to hear. ‘You must listen to my warnings.’
Which was true. Just like their father, Clement was not going to let her get a word in edgeways until he’d said what he had to say.
She trod heavily to the chair by his desk and sat down, since she had no intention of remaining on her feet while he delivered his lecture. Father might have had the right to make her do so, but Clement was only her brother. Not even her oldest brother, come to that.
And what was more, now she was a married lady with a title, shouldn’t he have got to his feet when she entered the room?
‘I have not spoken out against Rawcliffe in the past,’ Clement was saying, as Clare mentally chastised him for his bad manners, ‘because I thought you had the sense to avoid such as he. A philanderer and a libertine,’ he said with a curl to his lip. ‘And a liar. Not only has he persuaded you that you are his lawful wife, rather than his…mistress,’ he hissed the word, narrowing his eyes, ‘but he has no doubt attempted to poison your mind against me.’
Far from doing any such thing, Rawcliffe had been careful never to mention him. But then she knew the two men hated each other. Why, she had no idea. It had started before Rawcliffe had appointed Mr Kellet, rather than Clement, as his chaplain, though that had certainly fanned the flames.
‘No matter what he has told you, though, Clare, the fact that you have come here, to me proves that you have not yet lost complete control of your common sense. You need to hear the truth from my own lips, is that not so?’
She wouldn’t mind learning why the two hated each other so much, actually. So, with a bit of a shrug, she nodded her head.
Clement’s eyes gleamed with triumph.
‘Good girl.’
Since she was neither particularly good, and well past the age when anyone could consider her to be a girl, she ground her teeth.
‘I dare say he has told you I am embroiled in criminal activities. That I have become, in spite of my calling, some kind of kingpin in all sorts of nefarious schemes.’
Rawcliffe had never said any such thing. Why on earth did Clement assume he had?
Oh, dear…
‘You don’t believe it, do you? You surely cannot believe that your own brother, brought up in the sacred sphere of a family given to the service of God, could possibly stoop to the things of which he accuses me?’
