“Ah, Clara,” Princess Elisaveta said with a big smile. “It is wonderful you could make it.”

The woman curtsied deeply. “Thank you for inviting me, Your Majesty. It is a great honour,” she replied.

Lucy, unsure how exactly one ought to behave in these circumstances, curtsied slightly back.

“Oh, and this is Lucy, another friend of mine,” Her Highness added.

Lucy was about to ask for Clara's second name and title, and it seemed as though Clara wanted to say something, probably to ask the same thing. But Princess Elisaveta was suddenly called away by a masculine voice with a foreign accent, most likely her brother, and vanished, leaving the two girls looking at one another.

Lucy knew she had seen this woman somewhere before, but she was not quite sure where. It must have been some time ago. She smiled politely. “You seem familiar, though your name seems to elude me.”

“I am Clara Neal,” she replied. “I was raised around these parts, but went to London two years ago. Does that help at all?”

Lucy shook her head. “I only returned from many years of boarding school two years ago, I must have just missed seeing you. I wonder where I have seen you before...”

“I am not sure,” she replied. “You seem vaguely familiar too, though. Lucy Fitzgerald, is it not?”

Lucy nodded. “It is. I suppose we must know one another...”

They began talking of how they had grown up, and how much the area had changed since they were little. And the more Clara said, the more convinced Lucy became that she had grown up alongside her. It was just difficult to connect this adult with any of the children she had known when she was younger.

Then, it hit her. “You went to school with Antoinette and I, before I went to boarding school. You were a gifted child, and I was quite typical, so we attended different classes during the day, but we used to go to piano lessons and Sunday school together.”

Clara nodded and grinned. “Yes! I remember now. You and Antoinette Byrd would always be getting in trouble together. So rebellious. Her cousin was in my classes, but we never got along. I always wondered what it would be like to be one of the naughty children.”

Lucy was somewhat surprised. She remembered Clara now, but not as the svelte, elegant blonde in front of her. She remembered a shabbily dressed, awkward girl with pigtails and so many freckles and spots she looked like she had never washed her cheeks. It made sense that Lucy had not recognized her. And yet... the name still rang a bell. Besides school. Something... more recent,

“What have you done since we last met?” Lucy asked, hoping to shine a light on this mystery.

Clara shrugged. “As I said, I have been in London. My education paid off well and I had many fine suitors. My parents are rather proud. But I have mostly continued to study and court. How about yourself?”

“I was in boarding school for most of that time,” Lucy replied with a slight laugh. “But in the two years since I came home a lot has happened. I have had a few suitors myself. My friends are getting married. A friend's brother has returned from India.”

“India?” Clara asked, perking up a little. “It seems everyone is going there lately...”

Lucy nodded. “Yes, but so long as they come home in one piece I am glad. What kept you from coming home these last two years? I believe this is the first time I have seen you in town since I returned.”

“I have been a little busy, I was engaged for four years, don't you know? But...” Clara hesitated and sighed. “It did not work as planned.”

“Oh, I am sorry to hear that,” Lucy replied. “I suppose things do not always work out as intended.”

Clara nodded. “It is behind me now, of course. That does not make it much easier, but it is important to remember that it is all in the past.”

“I have also lost someone who I thought loved me,” Lucy replied.

“I do still think he loved me,” Clara said, “and I loved him dearly. But we just could not be together. I spent every day in fear that he would die and leave me a young spinster, or a widow. I could not marry a man who was not prepared to give up his dangerous life for me. It would not have been fair on myself, or my future children.”

Lucy nodded. “I suppose it is a little different to what I went through, in that case. But I do still sympathize with what you have endured.”

It genuinely hurt her to know that her childhood friend had been going through such a hard time. Nobody deserved to go through so much heartache, so much misery, to make such difficult decisions. And yet it seemed as though everyone did. Lucy's resentment of marriage only grew. If people were upfront and honest about their intentions and needs, then this would not happen. It was marriage's fault that so many people suffered.

“I suppose it must be difficult to get back into the usual routine of courtship when one has been hurt so badly,” she said.

“Oh, not at all,” Clara replied. “That is the easy part. Courting comes naturally. Like eating, or breathing, or sleeping. He is on my mind to this day, but I am already engaged again, this time to a man who serves my interests better.”

“But... how can you marry someone else when you loved your last fiancé so earnestly?” Lucy asked, baffled.

Clara shook her head. “I love my current fiancé earnestly too. And he is better suited to me. I do still mourn the loss of my last relationship, but I must go on. I cannot wallow in that. It is only through new love that I can heal.”

“But... what if it were to happen again?” Lucy asked.

Clara shook her head again. “It should not. These are the things you talk about when you begin courting anew. What about yourself? Are you courting now?”

“Yes, but I suppose I am not doing so in earnest,” Lucy replied. This was confusing to her. “I had such a hard time recovering from my betrayal...”

Clara nodded. “It must be different when someone betrays you. I feel I can trust my fiancé to be honest with me, as both of them were. On the other hand, I suppose that if you cannot trust someone to be honest, then no relationship can form. You might have a longer path ahead of you than I did.”

Lucy shuffled her feet a little and averted her gaze. “I suppose that makes sense. I had not considered that. Does it hurt much, when you are the one rejecting the other?”

“Have you never rejected a suitor?” Clara asked.

Lucy shook her head and made eye contact again. “Never one I liked. I have always rejected men from lack of interest, not for practical reasons.”

“It does hurt, I will not lie,” Clara said, “but it is also... liberating. To know that one can move away from something that is not ideal, that the world does not end just because something was not meant to be. It made me see that there are more options, and that I can be happy if I choose what is right for me.”

“So, you felt better when you found your new fiancé?” Lucy asked, still a little confused. “Or did you start feeling better first, and then meet him?”

“Oh, it was still painful when we first began courting,” Clara confessed. “Everything we did was like a repeat of the last time, and it made me sad for what I had lost, and scared of losing it again. But life must go on. I still think the world of him. I believe if you ever love someone you will never completely cease to love them. But I cannot commit myself to someone who sees me as secondary.”

Lucy paused. That was most likely what was at the root of most courtship problems and failed marriages, now she began to think about it. When two people put one another and their marriage first, even in the face of hurdles they would endure and their love, like a phoenix, would reignite.

But when the most important thing on one party's mind was something else, then the marriage suffered. When the man believed his work was his life, when the woman became lost in childrearing, when money, travel, and petty disputes took centre stage, even a happy marriage could disintegrate. Yet when a couple worked hard at it, love blossomed in even the most troubled of circumstances.

“Who was this man, that you still love him so much?” Lucy asked.

“Lord Andrew Jones,” Clara said. “He is lovely, he really is... but his travels always came first.” She sighed heavily and looked out the window.

“Lord Andrew Jones from Holly Hall?” Lucy asked.

Clara turned abruptly and nodded. “Yes.”

“Baron Andrew Jones?” Lucy asked again.

Clara nodded again and laughed a little. “Yes, that is he. I still love and admire him greatly. I am sure if you know him personally you would understand why.”

Lucy could only stare. It all made sense now. She was the Clara who Lord Jones had been speaking of. And yet... she was nothing like Andrew's Clara. Andrew's Clara was a cold and calculating woman who had begun courting her next suitor without ever telling Andrew. Andrew's Clara was a woman who would leap into bed with the first man she saw as soon as Andrew was on the boat. Andrew's Clara was a figment of Andrew's imagination.

Just as Lucy's idea of Duke Perry had become clouded by her own passionate love, disappointment, and hatred of him, Andrew's idea of Clara was slowly distorting due to his own passions.

Sitting down for dinner, Lucy was suddenly glad that Lord Jones had not come. It would have been awkward to say the least. Andrew might not be as cold and cynical on the inside as he appeared on the outside, but he was nevertheless a very angry man. Clara and Andrew's joint presence at the party would make for a lot of drama and trouble. It was quite likely that his absence was due to Her Highness's intentional omission of an invitation for him. Princess Elisaveta knew what she was doing.

Lucy found herself again realizing how foolish she had been. She had assumed that Lord Jones's argument was the truth, that he had presented the situation objectively and reasonably. And how could he have? He was not even in England when Clara made her decision to end their engagement. He was not in England when she began courting again. He had not been there to know what had taken place. Lucy felt bad for taking his words at face value.

But now she had the opportunity to find out the other side of the story and to make a wiser judgement. Knowing what she did of both Andrew and Clara, and knowing what they believed the situation had been. Much like when she and Duke Perry had talked and she had seen it was not his intention to be cruel, now she could balance both sides of the argument and see the humans behind it.

And yet this made her worry. She had been wrong so many times now. She had been forced to grow up so many times over in her head. It was starting to seem as though nothing she believed was right. The more she found out about the people around her, and about the world, the more wrong she was. She was wrong about princesses, about men, about Duke Perry, about Clara Neal, about celibacy... So, who was to say she was not wrong about many other things also?

Was it possible that she would reconsider her views on marriage? Considering the pattern, she had been following, it was very likely.

Words uttered by Antoinette and by her own mother echoed in her mind. They had said she was wrong. They had said she would change her mind. They had said she would eventually marry. And they could still be right. How humiliating it would be, to have to swallow her words and admit she wanted to marry after all. How embarrassing when her mother began planning her wedding in a frenzy, and her friends gave her those knowing glances. She would be reminded of her vow to remain single for years to come. And then, when her marriage began falling apart as so many did, she would have to be reminded that she had not wanted to get married in the first place, that she had so foolishly gone back on her word...

No, she needed to double down on her commitment. She knew that marriage could not possibly work out. It was not a problem to reconsider minor things, such as matters of character. But marriage was a life sentence, and not one she was ready to live.

She could yet avoid the seductive appeal of a life with Lord Jones, of romance, of conventional relationships. She could yet defend herself against the possibility of being tricked into changing her mind.

She just needed to be more on her guard than ever before.