A Fine Passion (26 page)

She shot him a sidelong glance, then looked ahead and walked on.

He could almost hear the arguments passing through her head. If she tried to refuse, he would insist, but he’d much rather she accepted his support, preferably in the vein in which it was offered—as her husband-to-be—although he was fairly certain she hadn’t yet realized his intent. They walked briskly along, heading into the heart of Mayfair. The farther they walked without her declining his escort, the more likely she was to agree.

“Where does your brother live?”

“Melton House. It’s in Grosvenor Street.”

They’d circled the end of Berkeley Square and turned into Mount Street. Without speaking, Clarice turned up Carlos Place.

“So what rumors have you heard? Where, and from whom?”

She told him. Lightly frowning, she also related her suspicions regarding her stepmother. “Moira was seen as something of a social upstart when she married Papa, yet thinking back, I can’t recall any adverse behavior toward her, not when I used to go about with her.”

“When you used to go about with her, you were there.” He glanced at her profile. “Those who might offer your stepmother a cold shoulder might not have done so in your presence.”

Her frown grew more definite. “You’re right, of course. I wonder what’s been going on, how Moira has been managing in that respect since I’ve been gone.”

“Not well by the sound of it.”

They reached Grosvenor Street, and she pointed to a large mansion across the road, one door back from the square. “That’s it.” She paused, then drew breath. “Come on.”

He took her elbow; together they crossed the street and climbed the steps to the narrow front porch. Releasing her, he reached out and jerked the doorbell. From deep within the house, they heard a loud jangle.

Clarice stood facing the door, her father’s door, although he was now gone and her eldest brother Alton ruled in his stead. Behind her right shoulder, Jack stood, not exactly relaxed yet elegantly at ease, taller than she, stronger, able, and willing to, even likely to, step in should she need his aid.

That knowledge was a very real comfort, and that surprised her. Even unnerved her, just a little. She’d never been one to lean on others, and had learned long ago that it was better not to have witnesses if things went wrong. She’d never liked others seeing her weaknesses, seeing her vulnerabilities. Yet with Jack…somehow, he was different.

Aside from all else, he was very like her. She trusted him to react as she would, to know how to react as she needed and wanted.

It seemed surpassingly strange to be standing on her father’s stoop with a gentleman like Jack beside her.

Ponderous footsteps approached on the other side of the door, then the sound of a heavy latch lifting reached them.

The door swung slowly wide. “Yes?”

Head high, Clarice looked into her father’s butler’s face, and watched his expression change from a hauteur to rival her own to beaming welcome.

“Lady Clarice! My lady—come in!” Edwards contorted his ancient frame into a sweeping bow; he beamed as she stepped over the threshold onto the black-and-white tiles. “It does my old eyes good to see you again, my lady.”

“Thank you, Edwards. This is Lord Warnefleet.” She paused while Edwards bowed to Jack. “Is Alton in?”

“Indeed, my lady, and thrilled he’ll be to see you after all these years. He’s in the library.”

Clarice hid a frown as she turned to the corridor to the left of the grand staircase. Alton in the library at this hour? At any hour? Clearly things weren’t as they used to be.

She hadn’t set foot in this house for seven years, not since she’d left it on her way to family-decreed banishment at Avening. Over the years, she’d fallen into the habit of not approaching her family, not even her brothers; although she probably could have done so once her father and his decree against all mention of her had died, after five years of no contact, she’d grown accustomed to the lack.

Presumably so had they, for they’d never written or traveled down to see her, even after her father’s demise. During her visits to town, she’d therefore made no effort to reestablish contact, and as she’d eschewed the drawing rooms and ballrooms, she hadn’t met them at social events.

She halted before the library door, and was surprised to find within her nothing more exercising than a slightly puzzled curiosity over what, for her and James, lay beyond the dark panels. Alton, perennially good-natured, had always been somewhat frivolous, lighthearted, with an insouciant smile that accurately protrayed his outlook on the world. And he was arguably the most serious of her brothers. Her father’s three sons by his first marriage had been feted and indulged from birth; although blessed with good health and even tempers, the outcome, nevertheless, had been predictable.

Edwards had preceded them down the corridor. She allowed him to set the door wide and announce them; Edwards would have been hurt if she’d waved him away. The instant he intoned, “Lady Clarice, my lord, and Lord Warnefleet,” she swept into the room.

And saw Alton sitting behind the huge desk, more haggard than she’d ever seen him, lifting his head from his hands where he’d been clutching it—apparently in something close to despair—his expression turning dazed as he focused on her. His gaze deflected to Jack, but almost instantly returned to her.

Clarice blinked, and seven years vanished. “Good God, Alton! Surely you’re not foxed at this hour?”

She hadn’t thought it possible, but his too-pale face grew paler.

“No! Of course not! Haven’t touched a drop, not since yesterday. I swear…” His words faded; for one instant, he stared at her, then he surged to his feet and rounded the desk. “Clary! Dear Heaven, it’s so
good
to see you!”

Hauled into a crushing embrace, squeezed tight as if she were some lifeline, Clarice felt thoroughly disoriented. She returned the hug, albeit rather more weakly, and patted Alton’s shoulder. “I’m…ah, back for the moment.”

Alton released her and stepped back, but caught her hands and, smiling delightedly, studied her. His dark eyes, not quite as dark as her own, all but burned with unabashed happiness and, equally clearly, with massive relief.

Before she could speak, Alton, still grinning fit to split his face, turned to Edwards. “A celebration, Edwards! Bring something—not champagne”—his gaze swung to Clarice—“it’s too early, isn’t it? How about some ratafia or orgeat, or is it sherry the ladies like now? I never know that sort of thing.”

He was like a child, eager and wanting to welcome, to impress.

“Perhaps tea and cakes, my lord?” Edwards suggested.

Like a hopeful puppy, Alton looked inquiringly at Clarice.

“Thank you, Edwards. Tea and cakes will do admirably.” She had a sudden premonition she was going to need the sustenance. What was going on here?

“Oh, and Edwards?” Alton met the aged butler’s eye. “No need to tell her ladyship that Lady Clarice is here.”

“No, indeed, my lord.” Some silent communication passed between master and servant, then Edwards bowed majesterially to Clarice. “My lady, permit me to convey the welcome of all the staff, and to say how very pleased we are to see you once more beneath this roof.”

Clarice inclined her head regally. “Thank you, Edwards. Please remember me to those I knew from before.”

They waited while Edwards retreated; as he closed the door, Clarice introduced Jack.

“Lord Warnefleet was kind enough to accompany me to town. He’s a close friend of James’s.”

Transparently happy to greet anyone who’d shown his sister a kindness, Alton grasped Jack’s hand readily, but almost instantly his attention diverted to Clarice. “We’ll have your old room prepared, just like old times. No one’s been in there since you left. Roger heard Hilda and Mildred planning to steal things from it, so he locked the door, and we hid the key, so I expect there’ll be a bit of dust, but Mrs. Hendry will be thrilled to have you home again, so—”

“Alton.” Clarice waited until he met her eyes. “I’m staying at Benedict’s, as I always do.”

He blinked, then looked faintly hurt. “Always do?” He studied her face. “Do you often come up to town, then?”

His tone made her inwardly frown. “I come up at least twice a year. I may live in the country, but I still need gowns. But I wrote and told you. You never replied, and none of you ever came to see me—”

“I’ve never received any letter from you, not since you left.” The hollow note in Alton’s voice left no doubt he was speaking the truth. “I never knew that you came to town, and Roger and Nigel didn’t, either.”

Clarice let her frown materialize, let a hint of disgust into her voice. “Papa, I suppose. I had wondered…but I wrote again after he died.” Alton shook his head. “You didn’t get that either?”

“We had no idea you were ever in town. We thought you’d buried yourself in the country, made a new life and forgotten us. You were so disgusted with us all when you left.”

She patted his arm, then moved past him to a chair. “Not you three. I knew what Papa was like, remember. I never blamed you.”

Sinking into the armchair, she sat back and looked up at Alton, who had turned to face her; Jack watched her eyes trace her brother’s face. “But you never came to Avening to see me, either.”

Alton waved. “When you didn’t reply to our letters…” He broke off, then looked at Clarice, who shook her head. “You never got them?”

“I assume you left them on the salver in the hall for Papa to frank?”

Alton swore beneath his breath, swung back around the desk, and flung himself heavily into his chair. “I didn’t think the old goat would go so far. He refused to allow anyone to mention your name, but he never said anything about us writing to you.”

“He didn’t bother saying, he just acted.”

Leaning on his elbows, Alton frowned across the room. Calmly seating himself in the other armchair facing the desk, Jack saw what he hadn’t until that moment, a fleeting touch of Clarice’s steel in her brother’s brooding eyes. After a moment, Alton looked at Clarice. “I wrote again after he died.”

Brother and sister shared a long look, then Clarice raised her brows. “I see.”

Jack presumed that meant someone else—his money was on their stepmother—had ensured that the conduit between brothers and sister remained broken. The question that instantly arose was: why?

The same question filled Clarice’s dark eyes. He was getting much better at reading their expression, at sensing her feelings, her thoughts. From the moment she’d walked into the library, she’d been…groping, knocked off-balance by a welcome that had been very different from what she’d anticipated. He was beginning to understand she’d expected coolness at the very least, even from her brothers, beginning to understand why, beginning to appreciate the depth of the wound she’d carried for so long.

But, like him, she was starting to sense just how far from the expected matters really were.

“Alton”—she trapped her brother’s dark gaze with her own—“I came here to ask for your help for James, on a matter that concerns the whole family. But before we discuss that, I think you’d better tell me exactly what’s going on here.”

Alton held her gaze for a moment, then heaved a huge sigh, scrubbed both hands over his face, then drew his fingers back through his hair, as he’d been doing when they’d entered. Then he lowered his hands, slumped back in the chair, and looked at Clarice. “That’s why I was so glad to see you. What’s happening here is very simple. Moira’s in charge. She pulls the strings, and we—all of us—dance to her tune.”

Clarice frowned. Before she could ask her next question, a tap on the door heralded Edwards with a tray, followed by the housekeeper carrying the teapot. They had to wait while Clarice greeted Mrs. Hendry, smiled, accepted the housekeeper’s welcome, and gently but firmly dashed all hopes that she would be staying at Melton House. When the door eventually closed behind butler and housekeeper, Alton had recalled Jack’s presence.

Alton cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should leave this discussion until after Lord Warnefleet has left us.”

Jack caught the glance Clarice sent him—a warning—before she smoothly said, “Lord Warnefleet won’t be leaving, not without me at any rate.” Ignoring Alton’s frown, she calmly went on, simultaneously pouring tea into their cups, “I told you he’s a close friend of James’s. He’s also a close friend of mine. Jack knows all about the family. His assistance will be critical in helping James, which will equate to helping all the Altwoods. If he doesn’t hear what you’re about to tell me directly, then I’ll need to relate it to him anyway. So stop quibbling, and explain this to me.” She handed Alton his cup; Jack reached across and lifted his own.

Sitting back with hers, Clarice fixed Alton with her most inquisitorial gaze. “
You’re
Melton—
you
now run the marquisate, this house, and all the others, too. What has Moira to say to anything?”

Alton glanced at Jack, then looked at Clarice. “Figuratively speaking, she has us by the short and curlies.”

The look Clarice flashed him rebuked him for his crudeness and simultaneously urged him to go on.

“I’m thirty-four, Roger’s thirty-three, and Nigel’s thirty-one.” Alton held up a staying hand when Clarice opened her mouth to remind him she knew that. “Even before Papa died, we’d each of us found the lady we wanted to marry. All perfectly aboveboard and all that. But…Moira knew, of course. She told us there was no rush, that there was plenty of time, given who we were, to declare our choice, and that we should take the time to make sure we’d chosen correctly…” A slight flush rose to Alton’s pale cheeks. “Looking back, I can see she played to our own uncertainties, but…one thing and another, we all held off mentioning the matter to Papa, and then he died before anything had been said or any formal announcement made.”

“But then you were the head of the family. You don’t need anyone else’s approval.”

Alton’s lips curled in cynical disgust. “That, unfortunately, is the rub. After Papa died, Moira took over. It’s
her
approval I now need, and she’s not about to give it, not easily. Not, I suspect, anytime soon.”