“Tolerably, sir. I have had an experience I won’t forget in a hurry.” Family outing indeed! His were probably similar to this. A life of intrigue and plays for power did not appeal to her in the least. The Stuarts thrived on it. “I trust we will not meet again.”
“Not until I occupy the throne.” He nodded at Dominic. “However, I feel our paths will cross several more times. Or once might be enough. Who knows?”
Standing beside him, Claudia narrowed her eyes. What were they discussing before she and her brothers and cousin came in?
Her suspicions roused again, only for her to quell them. He was not the man to deceive. How he’d worked in army espionage for so long she would never know. Maybe one day she’d get to ask him.
“We need to go,” Max said shortly. He’d hardly glanced at Charles Stuart, as if he didn’t want to acknowledge the man existed.
“You,” the duke said, “Will be hearing from me.”
He was looking at Dominic, who raised a brow in a sardonic gesture. He didn’t reply, but offered his arm to her, just as if they were in a fashionable drawing room.
She took it.
Val drew his watch from his pocket and flicked the lid open. “I need to go. I’m meeting Charlotte at Lady Franklin’s.” He rarely referred to his betrothed, and indeed she appeared to take up only a small part of his life.
Claudia glanced at Darius who shook his head slightly, warning her not to make a comment.
Val offered a stiff bow and strode from the room after tossing his pistol carelessly to his brother.
Darius snatched it out of the air one-handed and thrust it in his pocket. “At least I balance out now,” he said. Although the weapons weighed his coat down more than the tailor probably planned, he didn’t look as one-sided as the others.
Claudia hadn’t considered fashion when she’d snatched up her father’s dueling pistols and loaded them. Or when she’d rushed out of the house, only intent on getting to Dominic before he got hurt.
She was probably due a severe scolding from her father, but she’d bear it. It had been worth it.
They’d left the carriage on the Piazza and it was waiting for them when they approached it, but Max bent over her hand and wished her good evening. “I shall pay a visit to my father-in-law who lives close by. We have a particularly interesting business deal approaching.”
“Do you never stop, Max? Has your wife not prevailed upon you to spend more time with her?” Claudia said.
“She is as we speak at her father’s house going over the contract with him.” He regarded Dominic closely, flicking his gaze over him from head to foot and back again. “I have to speak to you, but I would rather speak to my wife first. We will call on you. We have particular information you might be glad to know. She certainly will be.”
Dominic tilted his head to one side, but Max refused to say any more, and turned a warning glance on to Claudia. “Keep my confidence, if you please.”
“You didn’t have to say anything,” she replied, somewhat affronted.
Darius bowed and walked away, too, leaving the carriage to just the two of them.
Suspiciously, she narrowed her eyes at her brother’s retreating back. “Should I take you to your lodgings?” she asked Dominic.
“Yes please,” he said meekly.
In the carriage he sat next to her, which she viewed as a good sign. But he kept to one side of the vehicle, and she didn’t have the courage to move closer. That fear of rejection again. “I suppose you will say we didn’t have to rescue you?” she said coolly.
“No,” he replied, surprising her. “I went armed, but they took the weapons from me. I had begun to wonder. They could have killed me, and that would have solved their problem.”
“They know your secret, then?”
He glanced at her and nodded. “One of them. They know whose son I am. I don’t know if they are aware of the rest, but I suspect not. Otherwise they would have killed me for sure.”
Daring rejection, she took his hand. His warmth filled her with a quiet gladness she’d missed more than she realized. He let his hand remain in hers, and after a moment, curled his fingers around hers in the protective gesture that seemed so natural to him. She suspected that was the reason why he had joined the army, ton that the army had taught that to him. “There are other children.”
“You know that for certain?”
She hesitated, recalling Max’s warning. His wife was one of the children, but she had a different mother. She knew of one other, a full sister to Dominic. That was not her secret to tell, either. “Yes, I do. Please don’t ask me who they are. I’ll contact the ones I know of and ask them if they wish to meet you.”
He nodded, his thumb stroking her palm in an absent gesture. “I wouldn’t ask any more. Are they safe, these others?”
“They are now.” They were female. Less of a threat, even though theoretically they could overset the Young Pretender’s claim. If his father supported them. Considering the woeful condition of his acknowledged sons, he might consider doing so. Then— Her chest tightened. Dominic would be in real danger. They’d want him to stake his claim.
Another realization came to her, but she needed to think about it before articulating. It. She was learning. What if the present King accepted the claim? If Dominic became King? Horror filled her and she had to gasp for breath.
Immediately he turned to her. “Are you well?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine.”
“No you are not, but I won’t question you now. Go home and sleep. I’ll call on you tomorrow.”
If he was alive. If something else hadn’t happened. How on earth could she sleep?
Livia was waiting up for her. She sat up in the big bed Claudia shared with her, a book balanced on her knees. She closed it when Claudia entered the room but didn’t remove her spectacles.
Claudia went to the dressing table, removing pins from her hair as she went. “You should wear them all the time, Livia. You look enchanting in them.”
Livia made a face. “Tell the society matrons. Tell Mama. In any case, I only need them for reading and close up work. I can manage perfectly well in company.”
“How about gazing into your lover’s face with adoration?”
Livia snorted. “As if that will ever happen. If a miracle does occur and somebody falls madly in love with me, then he’ll have to live with it. The soft gazes will have to be at a distance.”
Claudia laughed and sat at the dressing-table. She didn’t need her maid tonight. She had dressed for an evening at home, had almost been looking forward to a quiet time with her sister, before Max had arrived in search of her brothers. “It’s just as well Mama and Papa were out. Are they still out?”
“Yes, or there’d have been the devil to pay.” Livia paused, giving Claudia the chance to brush out her hair. “I was worried. I’d have gone with you if I thought I would be useful.”
Claudia turned around on the big backless stool they used, making no effort to hide her astonishment. “You’ve never wanted to go with me before.”
“Tonight wasn’t one of your mad adventures. It was a rescue, and it had a serious purpose. Papa might still send you to the country though, once he gets to hear.”
“He might not hear.” She turned back to the mirror and unlaced her bodice. She had no jewelry to take off; she’d removed that before she left the house. She shrugged. “In any case, the season will be over soon enough. I’ll only be leaving a few weeks early.”
“He won’t ask your young man.”
“My young man?” Claudia repeated in a singsong voice. “Who might that be, pray?”
“Lord St. Just is hot for you, and you know it.”
Claudia stood to shed her gown. She tugged it off and laid it over a chair for the maid to deal with. Then her ruffles. She tugged at the loose stitching until she pulled it undone and laid the delicate lace on top of the gown. “I know nothing of the kind. Our betrothal was of a practical nature.”
&n
bsp; “Claudia, you’re talking to me. At least do me the courtesy of looking at me when you speak.”
“You sound like a governess.” She spun around and faced Livia. Her sister sat in a pool of light cast by the candle set in the sconce on the bed head and one she’d set on the nightstand on her side of the bed. “Liv, there are things I can’t tell you, but you can guess.”
Livia grimaced. “The Dankworth business.”
She nodded. “The Dankworth business. It’s all to do with that. He’s involved, and—oh dammit, you know!”
Livia nodded this time, and leaned forward, resting her chin on her knees. “Is it you or him?”
“What are you talking about?” She wrestled with the cord on her pocket. Somehow it had become tangled.
“Which one of you is saying no?”
Sighing, Claudia gave up and started on her hoops. “He is. I am. Papa is. All at different times.”
Livia chuckled. “A proper tangle then, not one of your dares.”
“How do you do it, Liv?” The hoops gave way and she left them on the floor. Her under-petticoat followed in short order but she still had her pocket and her stays to manage. She crossed the room to her sister. “Can you help with these?”
“Turn around. How do I do what? Keep out of trouble? Books, dear sister. I read, and when I’m not reading, I think. If I found something I preferred doing, I’d do it, but climbing trees and racing horses doesn’t appeal to me. I can ride. I can climb. Not as well as you.” With a few sharp tugs, the stays were free. Claudia breathed deeply, as she always did when she shed her stays at the end of the day. Livia tugged at the pocket. “You’ve knotted this.” A pause, and then a snip.
She’d used her embroidery scissors to cut the tape. “The maid can sew a new one on in the morning. When the usual way doesn’t work, go around and try something else. The Gordian knot.”
Claudia recalled the name but not the story. If she asked her sister, Livia would forget herself recounting the tale. She was tired. She wanted to sleep.
A quick visit to the necessary in the powder room and then at the washstand and she was ready for bed. Night rail bedamned. Tonight she’d sleep in her shift.
Livia snuffed the candles and the bed rocked when she settled herself. “Claudia?”
“Yes?”
“If you really want him, go after him. You know how to create a scandal, Claudia, nobody better. It follows that you know how not to create one.”
In the darkness, Claudia chuckled. “Oh, I love you, dear sister. Good night.”
“Sleep well. You’ll need it.”
Chapter 14
Every time Claudia set foot into an establishment where he was, she knew it. Be it ballroom, theater, park or even a street, she knew it. He did too. He must. Taking her sister’s oblique advice, Claudia became the pattern-card of propriety. After a severe dressing-down by her father, instead of defying him or answering back, she folded her hands and begged his forgiveness. Her actions shocked him so much, he asked her if she was her sister.
“No indeed, Papa. I suppose you might say I am growing up. Indeed I would not have gone had my brothers not sworn to take the greatest care of me.”
That would put the blame in the twins’ court. They could cope with it, and they had more credit with their father at the moment.
To her shock, her father’s attitude softened. “Do you care for him, puss?”
She swallowed. “I believe I do, Papa.”
“Then you shall have him.”
“No.” She made a pass with her hand in a gesture of pacification. “I mean, let me, sir. I promise you I will not do anything rash. He is an honorable man and a stubborn one. I have to—”
“Bring him to heel.” Her father leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking. He should really get it changed before it broke, they all told him. But he refused to allow her mother here to arrange things elegantly, as she had the rest of the house. His study was sacrosanct. “Very well. As long as you promise to get into no more scrapes. Do not try to force his hand or compromise him. Do you understand?”
“I despise such underhand ways,” she said, and she meant it. Trapping a man into marriage was not her idea of starting off well. She wanted him, but some of his honor must be rubbing off on her. No trapping him in a side room, no seducing him and then accidentally letting a maid see. That had happened, but it wasn’t deliberately and they’d escaped that fate.
Now he was keeping away from her for some nonsensical sense of honor. She would not have that. If he didn’t like her, that was something else, but she would not accept his sense of honor as an excuse.
She came up with another scheme. The one Ruth spoke about in the Bible. After all, what was a better example than one of the women of the Bible? Except Jezebel, perhaps.
She set her spies, and with a family as large and close as hers, that proved easy. Then set her plans accordingly.
When she insisted on attending the same milliner on Bond Street three days running, her mother demurred, until Claudia spied Lord St. Just leaving from the fencing academy across the road.
“Ah-ha. You love the yellow?” the assistant asked, bringing Claudia’s attention back to the present.
The yellow bonnet was the last one Claudia would have chosen. It made her look ill. Instead of arguing, she moved on to another in emerald green that she might actually get some wear from.
Her mother accepted her change with equilibrium, but asked her daughter, “Do you have to waft it about so vigorously? It’s such a bright color, Claudia. Is it entirely suitable?”
Perfect for her purposes.
Viscount St. Just stopped in his tracks and stared directly at her. A muscle in his jaw tightened, flattening the shape of his mouth. She’d ensured that he saw her yesterday with the pink straw and the day before, with the apricot hat. He must know the colors did not become her. Three days running was not a coincidence.
He crossed the road and entered the establishment. “You can’t wear that,” he said bluntly. “It would not do you justice. Did you buy the apricot and the pink?”
Claudia simpered. “I had not thought you noticed. No, they were not quite right, so I came back to find something that I preferred.”
He picked a plain bergère from a nearby stand. “Would this not do?”
The man serving them gave him a look of pure disdain. “Far too plain for her ladyship. She deserves only the best.”
“It’s charming,” Dominic said. “Lady Claudia looks good in anything. She just looks better in some things more than others.”
Claudia caught her mother’s amused glance when she looked into the mirror. Ignoring the sardonic smile, she took the hat from him and tried it on. It was plain enough to decorate as she wished. In fact, it was perfect. She tilted it over one eye and then straightened it in the approved manner, but she considered the tilt. She could set a fashion. She set it sideways again. The angle revealed her lacy cap and the gleam of her red-gold hair. “Take the green ribbon from the other and put it on this, on the right side.”
“Why not white ribbon?” someone asked from the doorway. Unknown to her someone had followed Dominic into the shop.
The Duchess of Northwich.
Tall, impossibly elegant, and gracious, the duchess usually kept clear of her husband’s intrigues, but never opposed him in public. Very few people could even assess the relationship between them, and Claudia wouldn’t even try.
“White does not become me.”
“White becomes everyone. Powder your hair.” The duchess smiled. “Of course I can understand why you are so proud of those fiery locks. They’re so distinctive.”
She turned and left.
Stricken, Claudia put the hat down. The message had come across clearly. A bunch of white ribbon—the White Cockade was the notorious symbol of the Jacobites. They used it to recognize each other, and to wear that particular arrangement in public was to acknowledge the connections. The duchess never wore it, but sometimes sh
e came close. Everyone wore white ribbon. Just not in that particular way.
Her distinctive hair? Someone had seen her going into that house that she didn’t know about.
By her side, Dominic clenched his jaw. “Ignore her,” he said. “She knows nothing.”
“You can’t be sure.” Recalling where she was, Claudia forced a smile to the assistant. “I’ll take the bergère, with the green ribbon, if you please.”
Putting up her chin, she smiled at Dominic. “Do you go to the theater tonight?”
“No, I planned to go to—”
“Lord Marks’s small gathering for a few select gentlemen. Val mentioned it at breakfast this morning.”
His lips twitched. “The Strenshall breakfast is a meal to be feared, or so I hear.”
“You should come sometime.” She touched her finger to her lips. “Oh, wait, it’s family only.”
“We will have to see what we can do,” her mother told him, gifting him with a smile as they went to the door.
The minx was following him. Dogging his every move would be too much of an exaggeration, but it came close. Every time he appeared in society, there she was. Talking to her friends, dancing with her admirers, greeting him with a sunny smile and a few sweet words. She’d appeared in the park wearing the “simple” hat, transformed into a riot of green ribbon, with a white rose nestled among the green. She wore it tilted to one side instead of straight on her head, and the next day half of fashionable London appeared with tilted bergère straw hats. While Claudia wasn’t a fashion-setter, she’d looked so charming in the hat that society had taken notice and acted accordingly.
What they had noticed was her liveliness. Several people remarked on it, and in his hearing. Her proximity to him had started people talking. As one week went by and another started, with no unusual events occurring to mar his safety, Dominic wondered if the Young Pretender had gone home.
Perhaps the man didn’t know, after all, but had been sounding him out and found him wanting. Dominic was still in turmoil. He needed someone to talk to, but the one person he could discuss things with was out of reach. Except she seemed determined not to be. She contrived to remain close to him whatever he said and however much he tried to separate himself from her.
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