Hours later, it was Rose who found Clara in her office, staring miserably out the window at Haverhall’s gardens, watching the first leaves fall and litter the ground.
“There you are,” Rose said, coming in and flopping herself down on one of the chairs in a most unladylike manner. Her hands were still stained with paint, and the apron she wore to cover her skirts was similarly streaked. “I was watching for you, but I must have missed you coming back. Did you go to see Holloway?”
“I did.”
“And?” Rose asked, leaning forward. “What did you think of his idea?”
Clara felt her jaw slacken, another spear of betrayal stabbing at her. “Jesus, Rose. You knew?”
Confusion spread over Rose’s delicate features. “Knew what?”
“About his plans for Haverhall.” It was bad enough Holloway had kept it from her, but Rose had too?
“What the hell are you talking about?” her sister demanded. “You’re not making any sense.”
Clara scrubbed at her eyes with her hands. So Rose didn’t know. It should have made her feel better, but all she felt was empty. “The Duke of Holloway bought Haverhall.”
Rose sat back with a thump. She was silent for a moment, and Clara couldn’t quite determine what she was thinking based on her expression. “I see,” she finally said.
“‘I see’? That’s all you have to say?” Clara was aware her voice had risen, but she didn’t care. “He had architects draw up development plans for Haverhall months ago.”
“What do you want me to say?” Rose asked. “I’m still saddened that we—that you—had to sell it. I’m not surprised Holloway, or someone with his sort of vision, bought it. But it helped save our family.”
Clara did not need Rose’s practicality and logic now. “He lied,” Clara spit.
“About what?”
“About why he was in Dover.”
Rose considered her for an unnerving moment. “I don’t think so.”
Clara stared at her. “You’re defending him? You hate him, Rose. The Duke of Doxies and all that? Remember?”
Rose winced slightly. “I might have been a little hasty in judgment.”
Clara gaped at her. “What?”
“I don’t hate him. Especially since my sister is in love with him.”
“I’m not in love with him.” She didn’t want to be in love with him. She could not be in love with him. Not after what he’d done.
“You’re a terrible liar. That is why you’re so upset right now. Not that he bought Haverhall, but because he bought it without telling you.”
“No.” Clara was shaking her head, anger and hurt boiling through her. “You were right about him, Rose, from the beginning. I was such a fool. He told me what I wanted to hear. He pretended to listen, pretended to agree with me, made me think he might…respect me.”
“Stop.” Rose brought her hand down on the desk with a smack.
Clara jumped and, with horror, realized that there were tears running down her cheeks.
“Just stop,” Rose said, a little more gently this time. “You’re wrong. The duke may have bought Haverhall, and yes, maybe he should have told you. But the rest…You’re wrong about him.” She sighed. “I don’t know how he feels about you, though I think I have a good idea. But I know he listened, Clara. Very carefully. And he…respects you very much.”
Clara wiped angrily at her eyes. “What August Faulkner respects is money. For him there will never be enough, and there is no room in his life for…anything that is not cold-blooded ambition. I was simply a means to an end—”
“Clara—”
“No, let me finish. I have no one to blame except myself. So if I’m upset, it is because I had delusions that I could change his priorities. Yet I knew who August Faulkner was. I knew where he came from and what drove him. People don’t change.”
“No, I don’t suppose they do.” Rose was examining the streaks of blue and red staining her fingers.
“You’re not making me feel better,” Clara mumbled. “You’re supposed to be on my side here.”
“Oh, I am.” Rose reached behind her neck and untied her apron, then passed it to Clara. “Dry your eyes. There’s something you need to see.”
* * *
The building sat on the very southern edge of London, where the tentacles of the city hadn’t yet engulfed the countryside completely.
The structure was solid and wide, three stories tall, and had the straight, clean lines that could be found in London only in new construction. It wasn’t fancy by any stretch of the imagination, the walls a nondescript stone, the roof a dark slate, the wide front door painted an equally dark gray. Plain, buff-colored curtains hung in the rows of windows that lined each story at regular intervals, fluttering gently where a pane had been opened to allow in the autumn air. A huge chimney ran up the east side, and a kitchen garden sprawled away from the side door, the backs of women and the occasional youth bent over garden tools and baskets visible in the still-lush greenery. On the southwest side, poles had been driven into the ground and clotheslines strung up between them, an array of sheets and petticoats flapping in the sunshine. A handful of women were pulling dry clothes down and replacing them with wet garments, and Clara could hear their faint chatter.
Behind the main building a second structure sat, even more plain than the first but with large, long windows. It put Clara in mind of a small warehouse, the likeness heightened by the wagon sitting in front of it, loaded with long wrapped bales of what looked like fabric.
“What is this place?” she asked as she and Rose stood on the short, wide drive.
Her sister remained silent.
Clara narrowed her eyes as a group of children, the oldest not more than six or seven, ran through the maze of drying sheets toward a knotted rope tied to a low branch of a massive oak just beyond. “An inn?” she ventured.
“Sort of.”
“A boardinghouse?”
“Sort of.”
“How many guesses do I get before you save me from myself?”
Rose studied the toe of her boot, not even cracking a smile.
Clara turned her attention back to the scene before her, noticing for the first time that there seemed to be only women and children present. “There are no men here.”
“No.”
She blew out an exasperated breath. “No hints? A convent, then. Holloway’s concubines and their offspring?”
Rose looked over at her, a strange expression on her face. “No. You don’t really think—”
“Well, of course not, Rose. But I’m out of ideas.”
“This place is…” Rose looked as if she was searching for the right words.
“This place is what?”
“Is Anne’s birthday present.”
Clara blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“This place—it’s called Brookside, and the Duke of Holloway plans to give it to Anne for her nineteenth birthday in a fortnight. The buildings, the land, and the responsibility of managing it.”
“And what is it, exactly?” Clara asked quietly, a strange sensation starting to rise through her chest.
“It’s a home. For families whose fathers or husbands are in debtors’ prison. It’s a safe place for women and children to live until their…circumstances change.”
The world suddenly seemed to have become muffled, as if it had faded around her sister and her words. Clara’s throat thickened, and the backs of her eyes burned.
“The duke built it five years ago,” Rose said quietly and deliberately. “The children have chores, and they are expected to work in the garden and the chicken coops and the goat sheds, but they learn reading and arithmetic here too. The women who live here are responsible for the upkeep. Those who do not work in the house work out back.”
“Out back?” Clara managed.
Rose gestured to the large building at the rear. “They weave. Holloway imports raw product from India, and it’s processed and woven here into book muslins, checked, striped, and sprigged muslins. He can, of course, sell those faster than he can have them made, and at a very competitive price and for a very tidy profit. He’s also invested in and purchased some new loom technology that he believes will change the way cloth is produced, and the women and girls here are quick learners. He told me that foresight will only benefit his bottom line in ten years’ time.” Rose said it wryly, and Clara could almost hear the words coming from August himself. They would be defensive, as though he had to justify his actions.
“Oh.” Clara was searching for words that would express what she was feeling right now. Admiration was too weak. Approval too inadequate.
“It’s not a charity,” Rose continued. “No one lives here for free. They work, and they work hard, and if anyone refuses to do their fair share, they are asked to leave. Everyone has a purpose here. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
Love. Love was what she felt. What she’d always feel. Love for a perfectly imperfect man who had never apologized for who he was, ruthless ambition and all. Love for a man who had done something truly special. Who had taken it upon himself to make a tiny corner of the world a better place. She had told him once that she wanted to change the world just a little bit at a time. August Faulkner had already done that.
“How do you know all of this?” Clara asked numbly.
“He brought me out here yesterday. Asked if I would consider teaching art lessons here once a week. For the children, and maybe for any of the women who wanted to try.” Rose was watching her. “He asked if I thought you might agree to teach here as well. Perhaps a few evenings a week. Arithmetic, reading, writing. He said you already know a student here.”
“What?”
“A boy named Jonas? And his mother? They moved here from Dover at his urging. He said the boy didn’t make a very good hotelier.”
Clara pressed a hand to her lips, realizing that it was shaking. “He never told me about this place.”
Rose cocked her head. “Would it have made a difference in how you felt about him?”
Clara shook her head, the truth inescapable. “No. I loved him already for who he was.”
Rose smiled slightly. “I know.”
“This just makes me want to cry.”
“I’m all out of aprons, so pace yourself.”
Clara laughed and hiccupped at the same time.
“This will make Anne so happy,” Rose said, as both women watched the children on the rope swing shriek with laughter.
“Yes.”
“What about you?” Rose asked.
“What about me?”
“I want to see you happy, Clara. You deserve it.”
Clara looked down at her hands. “I love him. I’ve probably loved him since the first day I ever saw him. Which sounds absurd, I know. But I don’t know where to go from here.”
Rose leaned against Clara, linking an arm through hers. “I doubt he does either. You’re both in uncharted territory, and I’m afraid I’m the last person who can offer you any guidance.”
“You seem to be doing well so far,” Clara sniffed.
“Perhaps.”
“He’s never promised me anything.”
Rose gave her a long look. “And what have you promised him?”
Clara looked sightlessly out at the sheets swaying on the line. “Nothing.” And there it was. Neither one of them had dared to take a leap of faith. Neither one had dared risk everything. Instead they had both retreated to what they knew. Loyalty to their families. Determination to handle whatever needed to be done. Alone.
“Good God, but you two deserve each other,” Rose scoffed quietly. She sobered. “Just don’t…turn away from him. Don’t retreat. Your duke is not like the others.”
“No. He’s not.” But she’d already turned away. She’d already retreated.
She wondered if it was already too late.