“I’ll Marry the First Woman Who Enters,” the Duke Declared— Then She Burst In Chasing a Bird With…

Chapter 6

Lady Vivienne Ellery arrived at three o’clock in a gown the color of deep water and a hat that had clearly required its own carriage.

Clara watched her descend onto the gravel from an upstairs window and understood, in a single glance, precisely why every woman in the county still whispered the name. Vivienne was beautiful the way a well-made blade is beautiful: nothing wasted, nothing extra, everything in service of an edge.

Adrian greeted her at the foot of the steps. Clara came down a few minutes later, deliberately, and heard Vivienne’s voice carrying up the stairwell — warm, easy, the voice of someone who had spent years being welcome in this house.

“You look well.”

“So do you,” Adrian said.

“You have been hiding. Everyone says so.”

“I have been busy. Everyone says that too.”

Vivienne laughed, and it was a lovely sound, and Clara disliked her personally and immediately for how much she liked it.

Then Vivienne saw her.

“And this must be Miss Hale.”

“This is Miss Hale,” Adrian said. “My wife is not yet your duchess.”

Vivienne smiled. It reached her eyes, which was the worst part. “Not yet.”

Clara watched Adrian’s expression harden by the smallest degree — a frost, a closing of a door somewhere behind his face. She had spent five days learning the weather of him, and she knew what she was seeing: history.

Dinner was excruciating.

Vivienne was charming. Vivienne was informed about the estate, the tenants, the village school, the disputed boundary with the Marchettis, all of it. Vivienne asked Clara about her family and listened politely to the answer, which was short, and then turned the conversation back to common ground Clara did not share.

Afterward, when the men lingered over port and Theo dragged Adrian into a discussion about drainage, Vivienne found Clara in the conservatory.

“You should know something,” she said.

Clara sighed. “Why does everyone who begins with those words assume I want the rest?”

“Because you deserve to know.”

“Then say it.”

Vivienne folded her fan with a snap. “Adrian does not trust easily.”

Clara looked at the glass, at the dark garden beyond it. “I know.”

“He did not trust me.”

“That seems unfortunate.”

“He will not trust you either.”

Clara turned. “I am not asking him to trust me tonight.”

Vivienne frowned — a small, genuine crack in the enamel. “Then what do you want?”

Clara thought about it, honestly, because there was no version of this conversation in which lying helped her.

“I am not sure yet,” she said.

That answer was honest enough that it seemed to disarm the other woman. Vivienne studied her for a moment longer, then inclined her head — not quite a concession — and left.

Adrian came in moments later. He looked at her face and stopped.

“You look troubled.”

“I met your former betrothed.”

“I noticed.”

“She warned me about you.”

“What did she say?”

“That you do not trust women.”

He took a slow breath. “She is correct.”

Clara raised an eyebrow. “That was not the answer I expected.”

“I am trying not to lie to you.”

She looked at him — at the firelight on his jaw, at the man who read poetry in secret and had spent eight years refusing rooms full of women because he was afraid of turning into his father.

“Why don’t you trust women?” she asked.

“Because I have been lied to.”

“Everyone has been lied to.”

“I know.”

“Then perhaps you should stop punishing new people for old sins.”

He was quiet for a long moment. She walked toward the door, and got three steps before he said her name.

“Clara.”

She stopped.

“I am trying,” he said.

She looked back at him, and for a second the room held its breath.

“I know,” she said.

That night neither of them slept. And the next morning, before the house was properly awake, he found her in the library where she had gone to be alone.

Clara closed her book. “You are up early.”

“I want to tell you why the engagement ended.”

She set the book aside. “I am listening.”

“Catherine—” he began, and stopped, and corrected himself. “Vivienne. She loved someone else. She was engaged to me and she loved someone else. I found the letters.”

Clara blinked. “She was unfaithful.”

“She was in love. Those are not the same crime, but I did not think so at the time.”

“Did you know before you found the letters?”

“No. I discovered it. She did not confess it.”

“And you ended it.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

He looked at the window, at the gray morning coming up over the park.

“Because humiliation is not justice,” he said.

Clara studied him. That was not the answer she had expected, and she had grown used to being right about him.

“You protected her.”

“No,” Adrian said. “I protected my own name. There is a difference.”

She smiled. “That sounds much more like you.”

He smiled back. “Probably.”

And something between them — some wall neither had admitted was there — came down a little.

Then the library door banged open.

Theo stood in the doorway, coat half on, tie missing, wearing the expression of a man who had run the last thirty yards.

“The bird is back.”

Adrian closed his eyes.

Clara laughed. “Where?”

“Breakfast room. It has taken a spoon. It is sitting on the table. It is not sorry.”