Page 29 of A Deal with the Burdened Viscount (Marriage Deals #3)

Clara gazed out the window of the drawing room, watching the sunlight slant across the garden as the day shifted into an afternoon. The long rays were softened by drifting clouds. In the distance, the horizon darkened, and despite the calm of the drawing room at Rosebrook, she shivered. The storm of the previous evening had lasted late into the night, and it looked as though they could expect another one like it.

“Does it often happen that you have thunderstorms here?” Clara asked. Talking about the weather helped to ease her uncomfortable feelings. She looked down at the gown she wore—a white muslin gown, patterned with tiny flowers in apricot. She had chosen it because, in just an hour, the first guests would begin to arrive for afternoon tea. Her aunt’s house party was set to begin. She smoothed the skirt anxiously.

“We do, especially in summer,” Aunt Harriet replied. “Sometimes they last for hours! The one last night was exceptional, was it not?” she turned to Genevive, who nodded, her pale green eyes sparkling.

“Oh, yes! I sat and watched it through the curtains for hours. It was so exciting! The way the lightning reflects on the lake is remarkable,” Genevive gushed.

Clara smiled. Though she did not understand or share her cousin’s passion for storms, she was comforted by Genevive’s apparent excitement. It helped to calm her own queasy apprehension.

In a few hours, a dozen people will be here. They will likely all gossip and my story will find its way back to London, she thought fretfully.

“I could have wished for better weather,” Aunt Harriet said, looking out at the gathering clouds. Then she chuckled. “Well, it is a fine introduction to this part of the world.”

“Yes! Oh! I cannot wait for the ball tomorrow evening. I am so excited about my new gown! It is pale pink muslin with a silk waistband. I cannot wait to wear it. You must, absolutely must, borrow one of my gowns, Clara!” Genevive said, her eyes bright as she turned to face her cousin.

“I am unsure as to whether I should attend,” Clara said carefully. Her gaze moved from Genevive’s shocked, hurt expression to Aunt Harriet, who was looking at her with a level, caring gaze.

“Clara, dear, of course you must. Everything is in order. There is no reason at all why you should not mingle with my guests. Please join the party.” She spoke firmly.

Clara swallowed hard, her stomach twisting queasily. The more she contemplated it, the harder it got. She could not find words to explain to her aunt how terrified she was of being discovered, and she did not want to dampen Genevive’s enthusiasm. She looked out of the window.

“The storm is coming closer,” she murmured.

“Yes, it is!” Genevive replied, her good humour seeming rather restored. Her eyes widened and she leapt out of her chair, going to the window. “A coach! Mama! Mama! The first guests are here. Oh! It is Lady Astley. I must go down at once to greet her! Come on, Mama.”

Aunt Harriet smiled, standing slowly. “I will come in a moment,” she told Genevive, who was already at the door, her silk indoor slippers silent on the wooden floor. “I just need to find my shawl.”

“I shall wait for you in the entranceway,” Genevive called and hurried out into the hallway. “And I need a shawl too, I will fetch one from my chamber.”

Aunt Harriet smiled, then turned to Clara, who was gazing out of the window, watching the approaching coach draw closer.

“Clara, dear,” Aunt Harriet said gently. “You need not fear. Your parents will not find out.”

“But Aunt...” Clara trailed off, her stomach tying into tight knots. “They cannot avoid doing so. All it would take is a letter from one of your guests—and it is not possible that not one of them will know my parents—and then they will most unequivocally find out. I cannot...” she bit back frightened sobs. She could not go to her home. Not when the only prospect there was the horrid baron.

“I assure you, they will not,” Aunt Harriet said firmly. “They already know where you are.”

“What?” Clara cried, her mind whirling. She took a step back, almost falling over as her worst fears gripped her. “Aunt...how...” she gazed at her aunt in horror. Surely, her aunt had not...

“I wrote to them,” Aunt Harriet said levelly. “No...no, I have not betrayed you,” her aunt added, holding up a hand. “I wrote to them and expressed my horror in what they had been planning to do to you. I said it in such a way, of course, that they will not dare to argue. No, dear. I knew it would be best. They know where you are, and they will not dare to come and find you. I am here, and I shall not let them.”

“Aunt...” Clara gazed at her in confusion. “But...”

“Hush, dear,” her aunt said gently, taking her hand in her own. “I love your father—he is my brother, after all. But this obsession with a title has clouded his judgment. I will not let him sacrifice your happiness for his own ambition. I want you to be happy. As happy as I have been. I loved your Uncle Lucas with all my heart. He might not have been the most successful, or the most glittering of noblemen, but he loved me, and I loved him—and that is all that matters. I want you to have what I had. I love you, Clara.”

Clara gaped at her aunt. Unbidden, tears sprang to her eyes and she reached for her, wrapping her tall, slender body in her arms and holding her to her chest in a crushing hug. She leaned against her aunt, her head resting on her shoulder, and sobbed.

“I love you, Aunt Harriet,” she said softly. She straightened up and looked into her aunt’s eyes.

Aunt Harriet smiled. Her hazel-brown eyes were gentle. “Now I think I shall have to go down and greet the guests. If you wish, you may wait here.”

“Thank you, Aunt,” Clara stammered. “I would like to.”

When her aunt had departed the drawing room, she went to the window and stared out. The eerie light of the storm glowed on the distant hills; the late afternoon sun contrasted with thick black clouds.

Clara gazed out and tried to calm herself. The shock of her aunt’s revelation, combined with the emotional upheaval and her fear of seeing people all made her rigid with tension. She breathed deeply, fighting the urge to run away.

It is only teatime, she told herself firmly. Just an hour. Then you can run to your chamber and hide until dinnertime.

She drew in another deep breath. She could hear voices in the hallway. She fought the rising fear. They are just friends of Aunt Harriet’s , she reminded herself. Aunt Harriet had promised that she would be safe, and she believed her. She turned to greet the guests.

After an hour of tea—and meeting a dozen new people, all of whom turned out to be, at least superficially, pleasant company—Clara felt lightheaded and sick. She stood up, relief washing through her, as her aunt suggested that the guests might like to go and dress for dinner.

“Dinner will begin at eight o’clock,” Aunt Harriet said to Clara. Clara breathed out in relief. That gave her two hours to recover from the harrowing afternoon tea.

“I will rest now,” Clara told her. “Thank you, Aunt.” She inclined her head politely and withdrew. In the hallway, she hurried to her chamber. She sank onto the bed, the soft, satiny coverlet in pale pinkish-lilac feeling cool and pleasant under her hands. She shut her eyes for a moment, but she could not rest. She felt tense and unsettled, as though the storm itself had begun inside her. She stood up and walked to the window. Her gaze fell on her violin, which rested on the writing table at the back of the chamber.

“Just an hour,” she promised herself. She had two hours before dinner, which would give her ample time to find somewhere quiet to play and then return to her room to dress. She lifted the case and headed to the door. As she reached for it, Hannah walked in. She had Clara’s other dress—her blue day dress—in her arms.

“Miss! Haven’t you the need to dress for dinner?” Her brown eyes were worried, frowning at Clara. “Are you unwell?” she asked, her surprise giving way to concern at once.

“I feel uneasy,” Clara said, her voice tight and clipped with the effort to rein in her emotions. Hannah nodded.

“Well, then, miss. But I do think you will need more time to dress. You need to choose a gown.” She gestured up the hallway towards Genevive’s chamber. Her mouth was set in a line, her worry evident on her face.

“I will return in an hour, I promise,” Clara said gently, not wanting to upset Hannah, who was a friend far more than she had ever been a servant in her family’s household.

“Good, miss,” Hannah said warmly.

Clara shot her a small, swift smile and went to the door, then walked briskly down the hallway towards the entranceway. She could hear cultured voices chatting as guests drifted out of the drawing room and towards the guest quarters and she hurried past, going down the stairs silently in her satin indoor shoes. She reached the front door, where she hastily thrust her feet into Hannah’s sturdy walking boots—the only other shoes she had brought with her—and hurried outside. The lawns were dark, the sunset glowing redly on the distant hills. The storm had already started, lightning moving from cloud to cloud in the distance. As Clara hurried across the grass, a low mutter of thunder sounded in the distance.

“I just need somewhere quiet,” Clara murmured to herself. She did not want to go close to the house, where the guests might hear her. She needed to find a place that offered some shelter, lest it started to rain, and so she hurried on down a bricked path towards some trees.

The gardens at Rosebrook Manor were particularly beautiful—manicured lawns gave way to a water garden with a pond fringed with irises, and roses grew abundantly around the house. The lake was, of course, the most beautiful feature, the red of the sunset reflected perfectly on its surface, ruffled by a slight breeze.

Clara hurried on. In her memory, there was a small pergola somewhere near the lake—she had visited Rosebrook Manor with her parents once, and she remembered the structure, covered with vines and sheltered by the trees. It would be the perfect place to play her violin. It was quite far from the house and sheltered from the rain, should it fall.

“I just do not know where it is,” Clara murmured under her breath. She quested on down a path, rounding the curved side of the lake. She was sure that the pergola must be on the path somewhere—it had been close to the water, the vines reflecting beautifully on the surface of the lake.

She walked on down the path. Then, frowning, she stopped. The path had been surfaced with brick, then with stone, and then, abruptly, it disappeared. That part she did not remember. She swallowed hard, looking around. She was still next to the lake, but she was facing a thick tangle of trees and there was no path ahead.

Clara’s heart started to thump. It was still light—the eerie, orange-and-pink light of the sunset filtering through the dense storm clouds. But soon, it would be dark. She took a deep breath, struggling to steady herself. The stories of the bear-man in the woods suddenly overwhelmed her. She felt a sudden, unnerving certainty that she was no longer within the grounds of Rosewood Manor. Somehow, she had strayed beyond them and found herself deep in the woods on the other side.

She looked around, fighting her fear.

“All I have to do is turn and follow the path back,” she reminded herself. She made herself turn, her knees locking with fear. As she took a step down the path, she stopped, tensing up. In the trees just behind her, there was a strange sound.

All Clara’s hair stood on end. Her mind fed her images of bears, or bandits, or nameless monsters from children’s tales. Her heart raced, preparing her for a run, but she could not move. Her entire body was rigid with terror, and she stood, motionless, her every sense straining. The noise came again.

Clara frowned. At first, she had thought it was the snuffling of a big animal—mayhap a bear—and her heart had thudded in terror. But, as she listened again, more carefully, she recognised that the sound was not the breath of a hunting creature. It was the sound of sobs. It was a human, crying.

Fear warred with compassion in Clara’s chest. Perhaps it was a lost child, she thought wildly. She could not simply run back to the manor—though part of her longed to turn and run. She could not abandon a lost and innocent child to the mercies of the forest simply because she was fearful. She turned around and walked to the thicket and peered through.

Her eyes widened in shock and fear as she found herself staring at a man. He was tall—she guessed around six feet and eight inches, taller than any man she had ever seen—and his build was massive and blocky, his shoulders stretching the dark jacket he wore. Her first, terrified thought, was that this was the bear-man of whom the staff spoke in whispers. She turned to run, but then she paused, studying him closer.

His hair was black, cut ruthlessly short, and the thin white line of a scar ran down from his ear to his jaw. One firm hand pressed against a tree trunk where he leaned, each muscle taut with what seemed like fear or pain. It was his eyes, though, that held her unmoving on the spot. They were wide, dark-lashed and green and they stared straight into hers. She could not run away, because he had already seen her.