Page 34 of A Duke Never Tells
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CLARA BOSLEY
“We should go find Meg,” Josephine said, turning for the front door. “There’s no telling what silly thing she’ll say to the duke. She’s already ruined her Season, again, and it hasn’t even begun yet.”
“Leave her be, Jo.” Clara moved between her sister and the doorway. “She’s a grown woman. If she and James are meant to be together, they will figure it out.”
“Are you trying to offer me advice? For God’s sake, Clara, why didn’t you stop her from attempting this nonsense? You’re her aunt!”
“I’m also her friend, and I found her plan to gain more insight about the man you bargained for her to marry to be extremely logical. And brave. Of course I wanted to assist her in any way I could.”
Gregory muttered something that sounded like “damned bluestocking,” and Clara coiled her fist.
Abruptly Earnhurst—Elliott, now—stepped in front of her. “Might I have a private word with you, Clara?” he asked.
He wasn’t a duke. “Of course,” she said, and tromped toward the library. They couldn’t use the study, because Timothy was in there tying up that horrible man who’d almost… She couldn’t even form the thought.
“Was that pistol you were brandishing one of the ones from the weapon wall?” the not-duke asked, stepping into the library behind her and shutting the door.
“Yes. The flintlock. A bit primitive, but it was within reach, and I knew where the balls and powder were.”
“So you pulled it from the wall, loaded and primed it, and came to the study to… what?”
“To rescue you. I thought that man had shot you. And if he had, I—Who the devil are you, anyway?” The duke had introduced him, but by then the room had begun spinning, and she had no idea whether she’d ended up left, right, up, or face down.
He bowed. “Elliott Riniken, the former and current dukes’ man of business,” he said. “Everything else I told you about me is true. Only the name and position were lies. Which, if I might throw some blame about, I had no idea was going to happen until James marched you into the study and announced me as the Duke of Earnhurst.”
He wasn’t an aristocrat. At all. In fact, in the broadest sense, he was a servant. At the least, he was an employee. A man who worked for a living. “Then you served with the duke in India and Nepal and all those other places.”
Elliott nodded. “I did. I had to move a few details about to account for my age and the age the new duke was supposed to be, but yes.”
“And you’re the one who saved the duke’s life, aren’t you? That’s how you ended up with a ball in your leg.”
“You’ve managed to keep the details straighter than I have, Clara. And you’re an earl’s sister-in-law.”
“What does that have to do with my ability to keep facts straight?” she demanded, scowling.
“Nothing. It has everything to do with the fact that I am quite in love with you.”
“Y… Oh.” Clara looked at him, at his dark brown hair, beginning to curl a little at the ends, probably because for once he’d forgotten to have it trimmed, at the lines beside his eyes he’d gained from squinting in the Indian sun, at the brown eyes that had featured in her dreams over the past nights. “I have causes, you know. Votes for women, better services for those mired in poverty, and very recently I’ve decided to take up veterans’ services, as well.”
“Have you, now? I admire anyone who supports a cause in which they believe. In your case, I share those beliefs.”
She eyed him sideways. “Even votes for women?”
“Why should one’s sex be used to determine whether one has intelligence or worth?”
“You know, for better than a week I’ve been trying to reconcile you with the man from those gossip sheets,” she said, running her fingers across the cover of one of the more valuable books they’d begun to move back to the library. “It troubled me, because you didn’t make sense.”
“Do I make sense now?”
By God, he did make sense now. The man she’d seen since her arrival at Earnhurst—that was who he was. Compassionate, thoughtful, efficient, witty, and brave. And he kissed quite well. “Elliott—may I call you Elliott?”
“Of course. I much prefer that to Earnhurst. Very much.”
“Clara. I find that I am unwilling to part company with you, Elliott. Would you consider marrying me?”
A quick blink followed by a smile, and he stepped closer to her. “Have I mentioned that you are a singular woman, Clara Bosley?”
“You have. I earn a modest income from the publication of pamphlets and from speaking engagements. It’s not a great deal, but—”
“Stop.”
“I am demonstrating that marrying me would not be an additional monetary burden on you. I know you must receive a salary, and if you continue to serve as the man of business here—do you mean to continue as the man of business here?”
“Yes. And yes, I do receive a salary. A generous one. And upon the former duke’s death, he bequeathed me a sum of twenty thousand pounds. So, adding someone to my life would not be an undue burden on my finances. I’m somewhat wealthy, actually.”
They’d been friends, he and the former Earnhurst. Every tale he’d told spoke of his fondness and admiration for the older man, and it had been one of the things she couldn’t reconcile with the current state of Earnhurst. It made sense now. Everything made sense. “I thought you were promised to my niece, you know,” she said, her voice catching a little. “I tried very hard not to admire you or feel affection for you, or kiss you, or wish to be naked with you or to marry you.”
“And I thought you a lady, and me not worthy of you. And then I thought you were promised to James, and I still kissed you. I suppose I’m not as honorable as I once believed myself.”
“If you’re not, then neither am I. Now.” She clapped her hands together, mostly to keep from grabbing him by the lapels and kissing him before they were finished with their conversation. “I proposed to you, Elliott Riniken. What is your answer?”
“My answer, Clara Bosley, is that I love you, and I had no idea what I was going to do if you did end up marrying James. I even tried to convince him that perhaps the two of you weren’t compatible, because I wanted you for myself. So, to sum up, my answer is yes.”
Clara flung her arms around Elliott, pressing her lips to his. He pulled her tightly against his chest, kissing her back until she quite lost her breath. When he shifted, tilting his forehead against hers, she smiled. “I do love you, you know,” she whispered. “And I never thought to fall for anyone.” Indeed, in her mind her spinsterhood had been an important component of her crusade. Now, though, the idea of having a partner, and someone who would argue with her about strategy and had well-considered ideas of his own—now that would be something to see. They would be something to see.
“For a long time, I thought I owed Earnhurst—the man and the property—the rest of my life. One man, working to protect and promote a dead man’s legacy. But now… I’d rather make my own. With you. I adore you, Clara, and I have from the moment you first looked me in the eye.”
The library door flung open. “Oh, thank goodness,” Meg said from the circle of James’s arms, Jo and Gregory directly behind the duke. “I thought you might have talked yourself out of your feelings.”
“I did not,” she stated, shifting to grip Elliott’s hand. “We decided we are an excellent partnership, and we should make it permanent.”
“Clara?” Jo exclaimed, lifting both her carefully curved eyebrows. “You’re—I mean to say, he—”
“Miss Bosley has agreed to marry me,” Elliott broke in, before Clara could announce that she’d proposed marriage and he’d accepted. A bit of tradition wasn’t so horrible, she supposed. And it was gallant. Elliott was gallant. “I am a very happy man,” he went on, “and much luckier than I deserve to be.”
“Nonsense,” James, now the duke, commented with a half smile. “You deserve every happiness. Both of you. And I am so magnanimous that I suggest we make the garden wedding here at Earnhurst a double affair.”
“A double wedding?” Meg exclaimed, tightening her grip around James’s shoulders and grinning, tears in her eyes. “Oh, yes.”
Gregory and Josephine exchanged a look. “A double wedding? In five weeks?”
“Why not?” Clara smiled, her own eyes damp. Happiness, pure happiness. For still being who she was while pretending to be someone else entirely. Some things simply weren’t meant to make sense, after all.