Page 15 of Goodbye, Earl (Ladies’ Revenge Club #4)

C laire woke up feeling oddly calm when morning arrived.

Perhaps it was the benefit of simply surrendering to the dreams. Perhaps it had been digging into that box and remembering the outcomes of her former fury. Perhaps, even, she had finally reached the limit on how long a woman’s body could sustain anxious horror.

For whatever the reason, she woke up in a shroud of dawn light and serenity. The thing about serenity, Claire realized, was that it often shared a seat with clarity. Beautiful, sharp, dangerous clarity.

Her clarity said one thing: You have all the power here.

Goodness, it was true, wasn’t it? Claire was still the head of this estate. Claire was still the one who held all the cards. Claire was the one waking up in the master suite.

Not Freddy.

Yes, he had the lips and the hands and the face and the … no.

That wasn’t the road to go down just now. She had to hold on to clarity, at least for long enough to decide her next move.

Even beyond scheming, she intended to enjoy the release from her panic. She practically danced down to breakfast, a smile on her face and a lightness in her heart that immediately alarmed those closest to her.

“Oh, no,” said Millie, frowning. “What’s happened?”

“Oh, nothing just yet,” Claire replied with a smile that she hoped was perfectly dazzling. “I’ve simply run the course of my panic over the state of things.”

“The state of things,” Ember repeated with a laugh. “Is that what we’re calling him now?”

“We’re not calling him anything,” Claire told them sweetly. “The world does not revolve around Freddy.”

“Hm,” said Dot, who was very focused on her breakfast.

Claire watched her, her gaze narrowing a little when the other woman did not look up or otherwise comment.

“It does occur to me—” Claire began, noting a faint strain of shrillness in her voice.

“There it is,” muttered Ember.

“Shush,” Claire said with a sniff. “It does occur to me that my spouse might be remiss in some of his information, and that ignorance could be coloring his behavior. When I have the time and the inclination, I may educate him, but it is not currently my priority.”

Millie was still frowning. “Educate him?”

“How are the crepes today?” Claire said, rather than answering. “We’ve a new body in the kitchen from France, and I’m finding all the bready bits at our meals much improved.”

“You do enjoy a bit of starch, don’t you, love?” Ember replied with a sharp little grin. “The crepes are exemplary.”

“Try with the plum preserves,” Claire suggested, taking some for herself. “They are grown here on the grounds.”

Millie sighed again and tutted, “Oh, dear.”

She was ignored.

“Last night, I was digging around in some old things and found a fairy tale I wrote when Oliver was still toddling,” Claire continued, cutting her crepe into neat triangular sections.

“I wrote quite a lot of them. Perhaps I ought to try to publish them the way you have, Millie? Is it very difficult?”

“For fiction? I haven’t the faintest idea,” Millie replied, her dark lashes bouncing against each other. “I write pamphlets.”

“And case briefs,” Ember added, rubbing Millie’s shoulder. “Salacious, wonderful case briefs.”

“What sorts of fairy tales?” Dot asked, finally breaking conference with her breakfast. “Like the Stone King?”

“Yes, actually. Kings and queens, moral lessons, deeply English,” Claire replied with a little spark of thrill lighting in her chest. “I’d never press if it doesn’t interest you, but I’d love for someone other than me to read them.”

“I’ll read them,” Millie said immediately, and then furrowed her brow when Claire made a face. “What?”

“You are too critical,” Claire said, shaking her head. “And you don’t like fiction.”

“Oh, don’t you?” Ember said sadly, as though Claire had just revealed Millie was very ill. “What’s life without a bit of fiction, Millie?”

She made a little huffing noise, her nose turning pink. “I just am rarely taken by it,” she said defensively. “It feels unproductive.”

“So what?” said Ember.

“It isn’t unproductive,” Claire returned, this familiar old refrain stoking the fire inside her that had been so suffocated by Freddy. “It is what makes us human. Do you think Papa could fight a case if he couldn’t tell a good fiction?”

“Papa isn’t a charlatan, Claire,” Millie replied with what sounded like the prelude to outrage, punctured before it could erupt by Dot’s tinkling laughter. “What are you laughing at?”

“The narrative,” Dot replied, her eyes sparkling. “Claire’s right. Every case has one. Even your father’s.”

“Not fictional ones!”

“Maybe not literal fiction,” Dot answered, shaking her head, “but certainly framed with the same structure. My own father taught me that lesson very early. If you can’t tell a good story, no one will listen to the point you have to make, no matter how true it is.”

“Well, this is fascinating,” Ember said, tapping her fork against her plate. “I’ll have to ask Joe.”

“Ah, Joe,” Dot echoed with a softness on her face. “He might be the only honest barrister in London, Ember, but it is why he often does casework, not courtroom arguments.”

“Are you saying my man doesn’t understand emotion?” Ember asked, raising her brows. “Are you suggesting he doesn’t know how to manipulate it to get his way? Because I can certainly tell you …”

“Oh, yes, do tell us,” Claire breathed, leaning forward in exactly the right amount of obnoxious interest to make Ember pause and then throw her head back with laughter.

“One day I might, you little vulture,” she warned. “And you won’t know what to do with it.”

“She’ll turn it into a fairy story,” Millie muttered. “Doubtless.”

“Joe prefers imps to fairies,” Ember said with an airy wave of the empty fork she still held. “But I suppose they’re all cousins at the end of the day.”

“I’m sure I could find something to do with it,” Claire returned with a mischievous little smirk. “I’m still rather fascinated by Mr. Cresson.”

“Well,” said Ember with a snort, “keep your fascination at a respectful distance, lest you want to bleed.”

“Noted,” Claire said, letting herself grin for the first time in what felt like years. “Oh, I haven’t said it, have I? How very happy I am to have you all here. Thank you for coming. All of you.”

Millie sighed one more time. And said, “Oh, dear.”

“I am only saying that you agreed to be my accomplice,” Freddy said from the chaise in his mother’s room. “You did agree.”

“ Accomplice is such an ugly word, dear.” Patricia Hightower frowned from her place in the mirror. “The connotations.”

“The connotations are entirely correct,” he reminded her with a laugh. “Wear the sapphire.”

“Oh, but is it bad luck?” Her frown deepened as she turned to hold the two necklaces side by side. “Your father gave me the sapphire.”

“He also gave you me,” Freddy said with a wave of his fingers. “And I’m going to be there. Am I bad luck?”

“Do you want me to answer that, Frederick?” she replied, a glint of something like antagonistic glee in her eye.

He glared at her, but she’d already turned back around. “You’re right, I suppose. The sapphire suits the gown better.”

“Of course I’m right,” he said with a sigh. “Besides, it’s something old. Something blue. Something to abet me, as promised by you.”

She spun back around, her eyes nothing but tiny, glittering slits, which made him grin.

“You don’t like my poetry?”

“I didn’t hear any poetry,” she replied before he could even bite off the final consonant. “Besides, I have been abetti—assisting you. I have!”

“When?” demanded Freddy, pushing himself up to sit. “How?”

“Do you want an itemized accounting?” Patricia snapped, holding up her hand and ticking off her fingers. “I got us to the Rollright Stones. I had her stand nearby to watch when you met Oliver at breakfast. I—”

“You did what! ” Freddy gaped at his mother, both impressed and a little affronted. “She wasn’t there!”

“She was, dear. In the trees,” Patricia told him, widening her eyes for emphasis and moving on to her third finger, “and she will be there, next to you, in the church later. I saw to it. You, Claire, and Oliver sat together, as a family ought to be. My family. Right in the front pew.”

“Oh, excellent,” Freddy nodded with sarcastic enthusiasm, “I shall endeavor to seduce from the front row of a church service, Mother. That is deeply romantic.”

“It’s a wedding , Frederick. A wedding! ” Patricia shook her head, tossing her jewels onto the top of the chest of drawers to her right. “If you cannot make use of the romance of a wedding to your own ends, then I cannot help you anyhow.”

Freddy made a face. He wanted, for a brief, ill-advised moment, to tell his mother about all the surprising places he’d managed to seduce a girl before.

He did not do that.

The fact that he stopped himself was, perhaps, further proof that he really had changed.

“Please don’t call me Frederick,” he said instead.

“Have you made any progress at all?” she returned, crossing her arms. “Freddy?”

“I have, in fact,” he told her, dropping his elbows onto his knees as she floated forward to refill their cups of tea. “I kissed her.”

Patricia’s fingers faltered on the handle of the teapot, pale blue eyes flicking up to meet her son’s. “You are teasing me.”

“On the cheek,” he clarified with a chuckle, because he had been teasing her. “She looked like I’d run her through with a bayonet. It was glorious.”

“Ah, yes,” said Patricia with a single, dry blink, “exactly the reaction one hopes for in matters of love.”

“In matters of love? That’s a volatile chemistry,” Freddy said, still amused, still smiling. “In matters of Claire, there are clearer signs of effect.”

“Are there? She always seems so very composed to me,” Patricia said thoughtfully, taking her teacup and standing aggressively by the chaise until Freddy got the message and scooted over for her to sit. “Perhaps I do not disquiet her in quite the same way.”

“I imagine you did, upon first meeting,” Freddy said with a tilt of his head. “Unless you welcomed your son’s usurper with open arms and no questions whatsoever.”

Patricia colored, averting her eyes. “I might have.”

“Mother!”

She pressed her lips together, the color spreading to her ears. “Freddy, you were in prison! There were gossip sheets! It was all very tawdry and so incredibly visible. I didn’t have any questions because it all seemed very clear to me! And because … well, Tommy …”

“Tommy interrogated her?” Freddy asked, somehow both delighted and horrified. “In front of you?”

“I … yes,” Patricia answered thinly. “Millie was there. She assisted in the answering. It was all terribly awkward, darling, and the damage was already done. Claire had arrived with legally binding custodianship of the Nook. We could adapt or we could find somewhere else to live. You must understand …”

“I understand completely,” Freddy said, surprised that he truly did. “I won’t pretend I didn’t imagine you giving her icy disdain in maternal outrage for my displacement, however. Really, Mother. Haven’t you an ounce of defense for your own cub?”

“I did,” she answered with a high-pitched outrage, “back when he was still a cub!”

“I see, I see,” Freddy pressed, enjoying her discomfort. “And here was Claire with a brand-new cub to dote over. Typical!”

She watched him for a moment, her color softening back to normal, her mouth in a thin line. “Have you finished?”

Freddy gasped, dropping an affronted spray of fingers to his throat. “Not yet! Is Claire a better earl than me? Go on, tell me the truth.”

Patricia gave a loud sigh. “Of course she is, Freddy. Abra would be a better earl than you.”

They stared at one another for a single, silent breath.

“Abra doesn’t have thumbs,” he said with a scratch to the center of his chin. “She’d never sign a damn thing properly.”

“Ah, well, you have me there,” Patricia said with a titter and a shake of her head, bringing her hot tea to her lips. “You are a better earl than the dog.”

“Thank you.” He sniffed, reaching for his own teacup. “I very damn well am.”