by Georgie Lee
‘What do you know that I don’t?’
‘Why don’t you go and find out?’
The resolve that Clara had almost lost came rushing back to her. Anne had been behind bringing Clara here and then having her paired with Hugh. The suspicion that there was another surprise waiting for Clara that was Anne’s doing was too powerful to ignore.
Clara crept up to Lady Frances’s door, but instead of taking the knob and throwing it open, she pressed her palms against the cool wood. Inside, the high notes of Lady Frances’s voice were audible and it was clear she was speaking to someone. So far Anne was right. Lady Frances wasn’t alone, but she could be giving instructions to her maid. Then a man’s voice, certainly not Hugh’s, made her press her ear to the wood to listen.
‘You were perfect last night, darling. You captured him and gave him no way out. Well done,’ Lord Stanhope said, his voice muffled by the wood, but not enough to stop Clara from hearing his words. She bit her thumbnail to keep from making a squeak of surprise before her wide-eyed gaze met Anne’s who had come around to the other side to listen, too.
‘Since I’ve ruined him in Lady Kingston’s eyes, she will be much more amenable to your charms.’ Lady Frances laughed with wincing triumph. ‘You can soothe her broken heart all the way down the aisle and straight into her sizeable annual income.’
‘Once I have her money, you and our child, the future Marquess, will want for nothing,’ Lord Stanhope promised. ‘Thankfully, she’s such a simpleton she’ll fall for any man who is kind to her.’
Clara gripped the doorknob and, having heard all she needed to hear, threw open the door and stormed in. ‘Is that so? I wonder if you have the courage to say such things to my face, you lying cheat.’
They had been lounging in bed, the sheets covering their entwined bodies. At the sight of Clara bearing down on them, Anne following close behind, they jumped apart and, in a frenzy of pulled-up coverlets and the quick donning of garments, tried to cover themselves.
‘How dare you barge in here?’ Lord Stanhope dropped all pretence to the manners and politeness he’d formerly lavished on Clara as he tugged on his breeches.
Lady Frances sat in the bed, her face buried in her hands in shame.
‘How dare you think you can trick me into turning my money over to you or that you could pass off your child as Lord Delamare’s.’
‘We didn’t do anything,’ he protested, stuffing the long end of his shirt into his breeches. ‘Lady Frances wasn’t feeling well and I stepped in here to assist her.’
‘With your clothes off?’
‘There’s no point lying any more for you’ve both been revealed for the snakes you really are.’ Hugh’s voice boomed out from behind them. Clara whirled around to see him stride into the room, Lord Westbook and Adam on his heels. ‘You thought to trap each of us into a marriage beneficial to you both, one to gain enough money to cover your sizeable debts, money I could not provide Lady Frances, the other to raise up your child sired out of wedlock. Afterwards, you intended to carry on as you are behind our backs and at our expense. Did you really think you could fool us?’
‘Yes, they did,’ Clara spat, crossing her arms and pinning Lady Frances with a stern look. ‘They thought we were simpletons who wouldn’t figure out their scheme, but we aren’t and now she doesn’t even have the courage to look me in the face.’
Lady Frances didn’t, turning to one side to avoid Clara’s fury as she hugged the sheets up tight to cover her naked body. Lord Stanhope wasn’t quite so timid, standing squarely in defiance of Clara until Hugh stormed up on him.
He hustled back, but not fast enough to avoid Hugh who rammed his fist into the man’s face. Lady Frances let out a scream as Lord Stanhope went flying backwards, the chair against the wall stopping him hitting the plaster. He slumped to the floor, gripping his jaw. Hugh stood over him, shoulders tight, hands balled at his sides with barely concealed restraint. ‘I demand satisfaction for this insult, not to my honour, but to Lady Kingston’s. A woman of her forthrightness and genuine love and care for others does not deserve to be treated so poorly by the likes of you.’
Clara clapped her hands over her mouth. Hugh was demanding that Lord Stanhope face him at dawn and risking being hit by a musket ball and dying to see the humiliation heaped on her by their plot righted. It wasn’t his honour he cared about, but hers, and he was willing to place himself in jeopardy to see it restored. He was upholding honour and duty for her, at last.
Rustling near the door drew Clara’s attention to the shocked faces of numerous other guests, including Sir Nathaniel, Lady Fulton and Lady Pariston who, having been roused from their rooms by the commotion, watched what was unfolding with as much interest as Lord Westbook.
Lord Stanhope looked back and forth between Hugh and everyone crowded in the doorway.
‘What do you say, sir, will you meet me?’ Hugh demanded. ‘Will you answer for your insult against Lady Kingston?’
Lord Stanhope pushed himself to his feet, cradling his bruised jaw with one hand.
Clara gripped her hands tight together, waiting for him to accept Hugh’s challenge, but he did not possess Hugh’s conviction.
‘If I apologise, will that satisfy you?’ Lord Stanhope limply asked, his shoulders slumping in defeat.
‘Ask Lady Kingston,’ Hugh commanded, the tightness in his body easing at his victory.
Lord Stanhope turned to her, more chastened than Clara had ever seen any child who’d been reprimanded. ‘I’m sorry, Lady Kingston, for the insult to your honour. I humbly apologise and ask for your forgiveness.’
‘Is it enough, Lady Kingston?’ Hugh asked.
Clara paused, making Lord Stanhope shift on his feet in nervous anticipation. She should refuse his apology and force him to meet Hugh with pistols, but she knew the outcome of a duel wasn’t certain and that it could be Hugh and not Lord Stanhope who might be killed. To imagine him lost to her for good was more than she could bear and she nodded. ‘Yes, your apology is enough.’
‘Then we are both satisfied,’ Hugh announced. ‘We’ll leave you alone for you deserve one another.’
Hugh ushered Anne and Clara and the others out into the hallway that was now illuminated with the many candles carried by many guests tempted out of their room by the noise. The latecomers demanded to know what had happened and Lord Westbook was more than willing to tell them a tale that made their eyes widen in surprise.
‘What is going on?’ Lady Tillman demanded, coming down the hall from her bedroom, her hair in a long plait over her shoulder, Lord Tillman beside her in his dressing gown.
‘We are righting a number of wrongs, including every one done to Lady Kingston by Lord Stanhope, Lady Frances and me.’ Hugh took Clara’s hand and she gasped, the shock of everything including his touch making her tremble. She tried to pull back, but Hugh’s grip remained tight, especially when he brought it up to his chest. It gave everyone something else besides Lord Westbook to focus on. ‘Before all these people, I want you to know, Clara, that I love you and I don’t want anything to ever come between us again. I was a fool to almost allow evil people to try to separate us once more, but I swear to you that it will never happen again.’
A collective gasp of surprise whipped through everyone gathered, but Clara didn’t care. Let them whisper and talk, let them call her names and look down on her. It all no longer mattered. Hugh was risking the humiliation of her rejecting him in front of everyone to declare his feelings and he’d been the one to force the apology out of Lord Stanhope. At last, he was fighting for them to be together.
He dropped to his knee in front of Clara, his hands still tight on hers. ‘I know I don’t deserve you, but I will do everything in my power to be worthy of your love and your life. Clara, I make this vow to be yours always if you will have me.’
He did love her and he wanted her, not for her wealth or an
ything else, but because of who she was and the joy they found together. In his eyes lingered the uncertainty caused by her silence. He was waiting, afraid she would reject him in front of all these people, but she couldn’t. She loved him as much as he loved her. She laid her other hand on the side of his face, the faint stubble there rough against her skin.
‘I was wrong about you, so many times, and I didn’t believe in you when I should have. I fell for people’s lies instead of trusting in what I’d seen for myself. I also placed my need to not be humiliated above the desires of my heart. I love you, too, Hugh and I will have you, assuming there is no one else out there that I don’t know of who has some claim to you.’
‘I promise you, there is no one.’ Hugh breathed in relief.
‘Well, perhaps one,’ Lady Pariston announced, making everyone, including Hugh and Clara, gasp in surprise before she flashed them a wicked smile. ‘But you can have him, Lady Kingston, since I know you prefer marquesses.’
‘Indeed, I do.’ She tugged Hugh to his feet.
He rose, his hand still tight around hers as he stood over her, admiring her as if she was the answer to every one of his prayers. ‘Will you be my Marchioness?’
It was the question she’d longed to hear six years ago, finally being asked and in front of everyone who’d ever doubted how much they truly meant to one another. ‘Yes, I will be your Marchioness.’
He clasped her in his arms and took her lips with his, the kiss, the future and everything they’d been denied at last theirs. Nothing could come between them after this and everything he’d promised her yesterday with his touch and the dance would come true. He loved her and she loved him and they would be happy together, meeting every challenge that faced them, confident in themselves and their care for one another. There would be children and many more magical Christmas seasons like this one. It was everything she’d come to Stonedown to find and it was here in Hugh’s embrace.
Hugh slowly broke from her kiss, but held her tight, and Clara basked in the strength of his arms around her, her forehead resting against his. ‘You must ask Adam for my hand, too, I want everything to be proper and right.’
‘I already asked him this evening.’
Clara jerked back, but kept her hands on his shoulders and his arms around her waist, more things than their future becoming clear. ‘Did you have something to do with Anne knowing that Lord Stanhope and Lady Frances were together?’
Clara spied Anne and Adam over his shoulder. They regarded her and Hugh with a smug certainness that Clara knew she would never live down.
‘Yes. I asked her to help me by taking you to Lady Frances’s room. I knew you had to see it for yourself and that everyone must know I was right in order to clear any doubt.’
‘But how did you find out?’
‘Lord Westbook told me.’ He pulled her close again, his body firm against hers. ‘I went to a great deal of trouble to arrange this.’
‘I’m glad you did. Everyone will be talking about it and us tomorrow.’
‘Do you mind?’
‘Not at all.’ She rose up on her toes and pressed her lips to his, not caring what anyone said or thought. She was with Hugh and that was all that mattered.
Epilogue
Stonedown—Christmas morning, 1807
Hugh watched Clara descend the stairs, the silk of her pale peach gown swirling around her legs as she walked with sure steps towards him. The Christmas morning sunlight from the windows at the top played in the lighter strands of her hair, making a halo around her like so many of the saints in the illuminated manuscript. Behind her, a gaggle of children ran by, racing through the halls and singing Christmas carols at the tops of their little voices to proclaim the arrival of the joyful morning.
Hugh barely heard them as he concentrated on Clara. She paused here and there to offer or accept a Happy Christmas from the footmen coming and going up the stairs, the festive green sprigs in their buttonholes adding to the merriment of the day. It’d been a year since Hugh had first seen her at the top of the stairs in her green dress, an unwilling partner for dinner. There was no hesitancy in her steps or stone-faced greeting this joyous morning, but a quickness to be near him and a smile as bright as the Christmas day. In her arms she carried their infant son, who gurgled and cooed as he sucked on his small fingers, his head just visible from out of the top of the blanket.
‘Merry Christmas, Hugh.’
‘Merry Christmas, my love.’ He swept her lips with his and then rubbed his face against his son’s chubby cheek. ‘And Merry Christmas to you, little Hugh.’
The boy offered him a wide, toothless smile before making a large yawn, his eyes growing heavy with sleep.
Upstairs, in the hallway outside the bedroom, the other children ran past again, singing Christmas carols at the tops of their lungs and banging on the doors of those still sleeping with cries of ‘Happy Christmas’ and startling little Hugh. ‘Some day soon that will be you, my son.’
‘I can’t wait for the day.’ Clara kissed the sleepy baby on the cheek, then handed him to his nurse. She carried him back upstairs to his bed while Clara took Hugh’s arm and the two of them made for the dining room and the sumptuous Christmas morning breakfast waiting there.
‘After church, I thought we could take a sleigh ride before the Christmas banquet,’ Hugh suggested, the snow outside the front window white and glistening in the morning sun.
‘That would be wonderful.’
‘Do you like your present?’ Hugh asked.
She touched the diamond pendant around her neck and smiled at him. ‘I do and it wasn’t necessary.’
‘It was and some day the diamonds will be larger, just as you deserve.’
‘You deserve it more than I do. If you and Sir Nathaniel hadn’t fought the lawsuit so well and won, we might have found ourselves homeless.’
‘My parents’ dream has at last come true. The estate is safe and this year’s harvest will make it once again worthy to support the Delamares.’ The cold and sparse days of his childhood were long behind him, as was the lonely aimlessness of four years ago. He had a wife and child he loved, an estate to manage and purposefulness that made every day full and welcome.
They strolled into the dining room where Lady Pariston sat eating her eggs, Lord Wortley beside her once more, looking more mature than he had last year. Lady Fulton and Lord Westbook occupied their usual places and huddled together in conversation. Hugh offered Lord Westbook a respectful nod, glad to get one in return while Lady Fulton looked on Clara with a grudging respect that made Clara stand a little taller beside Hugh.
‘There you are, Lady Delamare,’ Lady Pariston called out at the sight of them. ‘The Multiple Marchioness, as I’ve heard everyone call you.’
‘Is that what they say?’ Clara laughed as she sat down beside the old Dowager. Far from seeming embarrassed by the sobriquet, she tilted her head to one side to consider it. ‘Well, it definitely has a certain ring to it.’
‘So does Lady Wortley, but Lord Wortley still hasn’t reached his majority,’ Lady Pariston teased, making the young man turn as red as his waistcoat. ‘But leave it to you to collect all the Marquesses and leave none for the rest of us, but I must compliment you for choosing the best of the lot.’
‘Yes, I have.’ She raised her hand to Hugh and he took it, bending over her supple skin to lay a soft kiss on the back of it. He was her Marquess and she his Marchioness and this was their happiest Christmas ever.
* * *
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The Governess’s Convenient Marriage
by Amanda McCabe
Prologue
Scotland—1882
Lady Alexandra Mannerly hurried down the back stairs of her father’s hunting lodge, trying to tiptoe so no one would see she had escaped her governess. Even in Scotland, where life was much more free than London or at her father’s ducal seat in Kent, she was supposed to have lessons in the mornings. But she did not want lessons. She was nearly thirteen now. Surely she deserved to be free? At least for a little while?