Chapter 2

Clara really did have a visitor the following day. He strode into the drawing room of the house she had rented on the Circus during the afternoon, following hard on the heels of the housekeeper.

“Clara, my dear,” he said, stretching out his hands to take hers as he crossed the room toward her. “I came as soon as I heard from your messenger.” He bent to kiss her cheek.

“Mr. Whitehead,” she said, smiling warmly up at him and returning the pressure of his hands. “I knew you would. I hope it was not a dreadful inconvenience.”

But they could say no more until the Misses Grover, twin sisters of indeterminate years, and Colonel and Mrs. Ruttledge took their leave after paying an afternoon call. Clara introduced the new arrival as Mr. Thomas Whitehead from London, a dear friend of her late papa’s.

Harriet saw the visitors to the front door. She looked back before leaving the room. “I shall be in my room if you need me, Clara,” she said. “I hope Mr. Whitehead will be able to talk some sense into you.”

“Ominous,” Mr. Whitehead said when the door had closed. He moved to a chair beside Clara’s and smiled at her. “What is this all about, my dear? Some trouble?”

“I hated to drag you all the way from London on such short notice,” she said. “You did not bring Mrs. Whitehead?”

He chuckled. “Miriam would need a week to get ready even for an emergency visit,” he said. “Actually, she is preparing to close the house for the rest of the summer. We are removing to Brighton. A week later and your messenger would not have found me at home. What is the problem?”

“Oh dear,” she said, “I am not sure it is a problem. Perhaps it is. I am considering marriage.”

He raised his eyebrows and took one of her thin hands in his. “But this is splendid news.” he said. “Miriam will be sorry indeed that she did not come. Who is the fortunate man?”

“He has not made an offer yet,” she said, “though I believe he is about to. The problem is that he is a fortune hunter. I think he is probably impecunious.”

Mr. Whitehead’s rather bushy eyebrows shot together. “Clara?” he said. “What is this? Are you in love with the fellow?”

“No,” she said. “But I think I am going marry him if he does indeed ask. Harriet is very vexed with me, as I am sure you could tell.”

Mr. Whitehead released her hand and sat back in his chair. “I think you had better tell me everything,” he said. “I assume that is why you summoned me here.”

She smiled. “I summoned you because since Papa’s passing I have thought of you almost as a second father,” she said. “As you have insisted. Actually, I need financial advice more than anything. When I marry, all my property and fortune will be my husband’s?”

“In the normal course of events, yes,” he said. “But it is possible for a marriage settlement to state otherwise.” 

“Ah,” she said. “That is what I needed to know. You must explain it to me if you will. You helped me organize my affairs after Papa’s death. I do not know how I would have managed without you. You gave the practical assistance and Mrs. Whitehead and Harriet gave the emotional support I needed. You have helped me make wise investments. I trust you absolutely, you see.”

“I should think so too, Clara,” he said. “Your Papa was my colleague in India and my closest friend, after all. Now, who is this man? Anyone I know?”

“Mr. Frederick Sullivan,” she said. “Elder son of Lord Bellamy. Do you know him?”

“Sullivan?” He frowned. “There is no point in saying that I hope you are not serious, is there, Clara? You would not have summoned me from London if you were not. What do you know of him?”

“That he is handsome beyond belief,” she said, half smiling, “and charming. Oh, yes, and that he has conceived a violent passion for me.”

“Has he?” Mr. Whitehead got to his feet and stood staring broodingly down at her. “The rogue.”

Her smile became rueful. “Is it so impossible to believe?” she asked. But she held up a staying hand. “You are not expected to answer that question. Of course it is impossible. I have not been deceived for a moment.” 

“And yet,” he said, “you are seriously considering marrying the scoundrel, Clara? This is most unlike you. What am I missing?”

“A great deal,” she said. “Is he a scoundrel, then, Mr. Whitehead? What do you know of him?”

“Bellamy is wealthy enough, by all accounts,” he said, “and generous enough. But Sullivan is wild, Clara. Totally irresponsible. He is a gambler and—yes, it must be said—he is a womanizer too. I believe he is still received in good company, but I have heard it said that men with eligible daughters keep them well beyond his reach. Now I can see the wisdom of their actions.”

“It is as I thought, then,” she said. “You have not told me anything I had not guessed for myself. So I will need a carefully drawn up marriage settlement, you see.” 

“Clara.” He stood looking down at her for several silent moments before seating himself again. “Knowing the truth, you cannot seriously consider continuing with your plans, surely. You have realized for yourself the insincerity of his protestations of affection, and you have admitted that you do not love him. Or was that not the truth? Are your feelings engaged?”

“Not at all,” she said. “I am not blinded to anything that might lead me on into false expectations. I will not be disappointed because I do not expect a great deal. But I have not changed my mind.”

He stared at her, speechless.

“It is the human factor you have missed, you see,” she said. “I am still young enough and I am certainly wealthy enough to attract a husband. I cannot expect to win any man’s affections. There are too many factors against it. No, don’t try contradicting me. You would be kind to me, but I know the truth. Only my money can buy me a husband. It seems sordid and horribly unwise to you that I would allow such a thing to happen to me. But there is the human factor. I need a husband. I need marriage.”

“But not where there is no fondness,” he said, pleading with her, reaching for one of her hands again. “Not where there is no reasonable expectation of its developing, Clara. Don’t do something you will forever regret. And you will regret this, my dear.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “But perhaps not. Or not as much as you fear. I believe that continuing as I am would eventually become insupportable to me.”

“Clara.” He patted her hand with his free one. “Come to live with Miriam and me. You would be a daughter to us and company for Miriam. You said no after your father’s passing. Say yes now. You do not need to live alone. You do not need to be lonely.”

“I am neither,” she said. “At least, not in the way you mean. Harriet is a dear friend and I have others. Although I like to go out whenever possible, I do not need to do so in order to have company, you know. This afternoon’s visits were by no means unusual. But if the offer is made tomorrow—he is to make a formal call during the afternoon—I shall accept.”

“But why Sullivan, Clara?” he asked. “We can find you a better husband than he. Someone who would be attracted by your fortune, perhaps, but prepared to treat you kindly. Sullivan is a wastrel.”

“A handsome wastrel,” she said. “Perhaps I am willing to buy beauty, Mr. Whitehead. There is so little of it in my life.”

He released her hand once more. “I wish Miriam were here,” he said. “I have never had any skill at giving personal advice, Clara, only financial advice. But you do not sound like yourself at all. You have always been so sensible.”

She smiled. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “It is your expertise I need. You must advise me, if you will, on how I am to prevent my beautiful wastrel from making a beggar of me.”

And so the conversation turned finally to the marriage settlement that would be offered to Mr. Frederick Sullivan if indeed he did make the expected proposal the next day. Clara had always trusted the financial astuteness of her father’s dear friend—more lately her own—and she trusted him on this occasion. But on one point she was stubborn.

Her dowry must be large enough to pay Mr. Sullivan’s debts. That, after all, was doubtless why he was going to marry her. They did not know, of course, how large those debts were. Clara adamantly refused either to allow Mr. Sullivan to be asked or to allow inquiries to be made.

“I will not marry a man whom I have just humiliated,” she said, “or one on whom I have just spied.”

“But we have no other way of knowing, Clara,” he said.

“Are his debts likely to be higher than ten thousand pounds?” she asked.

He grimaced. “One would certainly hope not,” he said. “It is unlikely that even with such a man they are as high, Clara.”

“Then my dowry is to be twenty thousand pounds,” she said. She refused to be budged from her decision despite Mr. Whitehead’s repeated assertion that she was being foolishly overgenerous.

Mr. Whitehead was willing to act as Clara’s man of business and discuss the marriage settlement with Mr. Sullivan. He could hardly pretend to be her guardian, he explained, since Clara had been of age for several years. But he could pretend that he was trustee of her father’s estate and fortune and that she was not entirely free to dispose of them as she wished. A generous dowry was to be given at her marriage. The rest of her fortune was to be kept in her name.

Clara pondered the lie. She did not want to enter a marriage of deceit, though of course there would be plenty of that on his side. And yet neither did she want to enter a marriage in which her husband would feel the humiliation of knowing that she was responsible for the fact that he was not to be entrusted with her total care, as other husbands were. She did not want him to know the truth. It must be the lie, then.

Her heir, on Mr. Whitehead’s advice, was to remain a distant cousin, at least for the time being.

Mr. Whitehead rose to take his leave eventually. He leaned over Clara to kiss her cheek once more. “I will meet with the scoundrel once the offer has been made and accepted,” he said. “Consider very carefully, my dear, and listen to the advice of Miss Pope, who is a sensible young lady. Don’t do something you will regret for the rest of your life.”

“I don’t intend to,” she said, smiling up at him. “Thank you for coming so far at a moment’s notice. I will never be able to tell you how grateful I am and how much better prepared I feel to face tomorrow.”

He shook his head ruefully and left the room after promising to return later to take dinner with the ladies.

Clara sat watching the closed door after he had gone. It was all going to be very anticlimactic if Mr. Sullivan failed to put in an appearance tomorrow after all, or if his call turned into merely a social visit. She had not seen him today. Although she had bathed early in the Queen’s Bath, as usual, she had not gone to the Pump Room afterward. She had had her servant carry her out to her carriage and had come straight home.

It was hard now to believe that he really would come. It was hard to believe that she would ever see him again. And would it be a great escape for her if she did not? Harriet would say so, and so would Mr. Whitehead. And her good sense. But she would be disappointed, she knew. Bitterly disappointed. For she had made up her mind, and with the decision had come the full knowledge of just how empty and lonely her life had been for years, especially since the death of her father. It had all come flooding out of her, just as if a dam had been released.

She wanted him. Mr. Frederick Sullivan, that was. She wanted all that health and strength and beauty to belong to her. Almost as if she could make them her own, she thought wryly. Almost as if she could transform herself by marrying him. Common sense told her how foolish she was being, but her heart yearned. And the heart was very difficult to silence when one was twenty-six years old and crippled and unlovely. When one’s life was dull. Totally without excitement.

She hoped he would come. She did not quite believe that he would, but she hoped.

Frederick dressed with nervous care, discarding neckcloth after neckcloth when it would not fall into folds to suit his taste and finally having to call on his valet to do it for him. He was not a dandy and never had been. He despised dandies. Only dandies fussed over their neckcloths on the conviction that a simple knot just would not do.

He wished that he felt a little more alert and peered at himself more closely in the looking glass. Were his eyes bloodshot or did they just feel as if they were? He had sat up late at cards the evening before, though late nights were frowned upon in Bath, and had won again—a mere paltry sum again. And then he had escorted Lady Waggoner home, sensing both that she would allow him to and that she would allow him more than that. It was easy to sense such things when one was experienced at the same sort of game as that played by the lady.

There had seemed no further point in not being reckless and no harm in trying for a last-minute reprieve from an almost certain fate. He had accepted the tacit invitation and spent an energetic and virtually sleepless night in the lady’s bed. Indeed, it would have been a thoroughly satisfactory night if he had not been obliged to make a marriage proposal to another lady the following day. The timing of the start of the affair had been wretched. And of course affair was all it was or ever would be. When he had broached the subject of marriage as though jokingly, Lady Waggoner had settled her ample body against his with a sigh of sleepy satisfaction and put all his slim hopes to flight.

‘‘Marriage is not for the likes of you and me, Freddie,” she had said. “It would drive us both insane within a fortnight. I believe a fortnight is as long as I was faithful to my late husband. He was not at all pleased with me.”

“You are right, of course,” he had agreed, kissing her lazily as they settled themselves for one of the brief interludes of sleep they had allowed themselves. “Far better a torrid and short-lived passion for people like us.”

“Mmm,” she had said. “You are a man after my own heart, Freddie.”

And so he had left her far too late in the morning to make his appearance at the Pump Room, though that perhaps was just as well. And now he was drowsy and eager with anticipation of the coming night all at the same time. Not at all as composed as he would like to feel when on his way to make a marriage offer.

The thing to do was to treat it as a piece of business. The thing was not to stop and think of it. It was, after all, a business proposition he was about to make, though he would not use those words to Miss Danford. Her money in exchange for his name and protection. She would be a married lady. Such a status was important to women. He would have a baroness’s title to offer her one day, though heaven knew he wished no ill health on his father. He was fond of him. Too damned fond. Sometimes he wished there were no such thing as family.

He took one last look at his image in the glass—at the blue coat, Weston’s finest, and white linen, the buff-colored pantaloons and shiny Hessian boots with their white tassels. His eyes were not bloodshot. He put on his hat, drew on his gloves, and took up his cane. It was time to go. She would be expecting him.

He was twenty-six years old, for God’s sake, he thought as his steps took him toward the Circus. He had not expected to have to think of marriage for another five of six years at the least. Whenever his thoughts had touched on his future bride, he had pictured a young girl, exquisitely lovely, an ornament for his life and his home. Not love. He did not believe in love, only in lust and in friendship. But he would have liked a friendly relationship with his bride. He and Jule had always been friends;—but he resolutely put from his mind thoughts of the new Countess of Beaconswood.

He thought with distaste of Miss Clara Danford as he lifted the brass knocker on her door. She was crippled. Did that mean, he wondered, that she would not be able to ... ? He fully expected that it meant just that, or that anyway she was of such delicate health that she would not be able to endure the exertions of the marriage bed. He hoped that was the case, though he bore her no ill will. He intended to treat her with kindness when they were married. But not that. He had never found himself forced to bed a woman he found unappealing. An unconsummated marriage would suit him very well.

But it was not a thought to be pursued at the moment. The door opened and he stepped inside.

Harriet talked determinedly about the weather and about the people she had met during a morning shopping trip on Milsom Street until Clara looked steadily at her and Frederick, more direct, asked if he might have a private word with Miss Danford.

Harriet left them together with obvious reluctance. She glared tight-lipped at Frederick as he opened the door for her.

“I believe I have offended your companion,” he said quietly as he closed the door and turned back into the room.

“Harriet believes I need a chaperon,” Clara said.

He stood looking down at her for a few moments before resuming his seat opposite her. “She has a care for your happiness,” he said. “I can only honor her for that. Would she feel better, I wonder, if she knew that I share her concern?”

Clara said nothing.

“You are looking lovely this afternoon, ma’am,” he said.

Without her bonnet, her very dark hair looked even thicker and heavier. It had been dressed very carefully into a topknot with ringlets adorning the back of her head and wisps of waves framing her face. The pale blue of her dress had been chosen with care to take away any impression that her pale complexion was sallow.

“Thank you,” she said, but she did not smile. Such words were blatant flattery and not at all welcome. She might have returned the compliment with perfect sincerity, but one did not pay such compliments to a gentleman.

“I missed you this morning,” he said. “I am sorry that business kept me from the Pump Room.”

“I was not there either,” she said. “I was tired after taking the waters and came home.”

“I trust you are not unwell?” he asked.

“No.” She shook her head.

It was an impossibility, she thought. The difference between them was so extreme that it was laughable. She must find kind words with which to send him on his way. He looked even more handsome and virile sitting in her drawing room than he did in the Pump Room.

“You must know why I asked permission to pay this call,” he said, getting to his feet with sudden agitation. Was it genuine or feigned? she wondered. “You must know that admiration and affection have grown in me during the past week until I can only put the word love to my feelings for you, ma’am. I love you. Do you find my declaration offensive?” He looked at her intently from those dark eyes, which must have been felling female hearts for years. They looked anxious.

She shook her head. “No, sir,” she said.

He closed the distance between them, leaned over her, and possessed himself of one of her hands. His hand seemed very large and very brown in comparison with her own, yet well-formed. And warm. She looked down at it and at her own thin, pale wrist.

“Dare I hope,” he asked her, “that you have any tender feelings for me, ma’am? I know myself quite unworthy.”

She wished she could just look him in the eye, tell him that she understood, and explain that they could marry each other in all honesty for their own very separate reasons. But she could not do so. There were conventions to be observed.

“I am not indifferent, sir,” she said. “Though my feelings are not as violent as those you describe.”

“I would not expect them to be,” he said, setting one knee on the floor. A man kneeling to make a proposal of marriage did not look nearly as ridiculous as she had always imagined, she found. In fact, he looked enormously attractive. “You are a lady, ma’am. You cannot know how you have delighted me by the admission that you are not indifferent to me.”

She watched him raise her hand to his lips and hold it there for a long moment. A man’s lips, she found, were warm, warmer than his hand. His breath fanned the back of her hand. She found herself swallowing involuntarily.

“Miss Danford,” he said, “will you make me the happiest of men? Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she said. It was a strange unreal moment. She felt almost as if she were standing a distance behind herself, observing the scene. She felt almost as if someone else had spoken the single word. It had happened, then. He had made the offer and she had accepted.

He was gazing up into her face. “Yes?” he said. “You said yes? I have hardly dared hope. Even now I hardly dare believe the evidence of my own ears. Say it again.” 

“Yes,” she said. “I will marry you, sir, I thank you.”

He smiled then, slowly, a smile that spread from his eyes to his mouth and finally to his whole face. She could well imagine that a woman with more reason to believe in his sincerity might have her stomach performing somersaults at the expression. She felt a wave of sadness that she could not suddenly be beautiful and youthful and agile. But she would not dwell on it. She had reconciled herself to reality long before.

“You have done it,” he said, and he laughed and tightened his hold of her hand. “You have made me the happiest of men. How—how happy I am!”

She found herself returning his smile. Yes, she thought, he probably was happy. So was she. God help her, so was she. “And so am I, sir,” she said.

“Sir.” He laughed at her again. “My name is Frederick, ma’am. Freddie to my family and friends. You are going to be both.”

“Freddie,” she said. She was going to be his family and his friend. Yes, definitely the first and perhaps the second. There was no reason, surely, why they could not become friends. “I would like to be both. I am Clara.” She smiled again. “To my family and friends.”

“And now,” he said, “the first and highest hurdle safely over, I am all impatience. When will you be my wife, ma’am—Clara? Soon? I cannot bear the thought of waiting even for the banns. I shall go to London for a special license. Shall I? Tomorrow? Don’t say no.”

“A special license, yes,” she said. “But not tomorrow, Freddie. My man of business is in Bath—he arrived yesterday by design, though neither of us realized when it was arranged just how opportune a time it would be for his visit. He is also the trustee of my father’s estate. He will want to talk with you about a marriage settlement.”

She might have imagined the flicker at the back of his eyes since she was looking for it. If it was there, it was well controlled. He laughed. “Marriage settlement,” he said. “How coldly mercenary that sounds. Is it necessary? I suppose it is, but all I can think of is you, Clara, and making you my bride. Are you going to be the voice of good sense in our marriage? Very well, then, I shall delay for one day in order to speak with this ogre who will demand to know how I am to support you. My father will be generous, I do assure you. We will not be paupers, my love.”

My love. She did not realize how much her heart had yearned to hear the words directed at her until Freddie spoke them—and did not mean them. She would have liked so dearly to be some man’s love. But she must not wish for the moon now that she had the stars. She had never expected the stars either. She was going to be married—to the most beautiful man she had ever seen. She would be content with that.

“No, of course we will not,” she said. “My fortune is vast, Freddie, and Mr. Whitehead is not ungenerous. But I warn you that he is very protective of my interests. He will probably treat you as if you are a fortune hunter whose only motive is to part me from all my possessions.”

He took her other hand in his free one and squeezed both. “I like him already,” he said. “I am glad you have had someone to protect you since the death of your father, Clara, and to continue to do so even after our betrothal and marriage. Soon enough he will know that the only treasure I want from our marriage is the one I am gazing at at this very moment.”

“Thank you, Freddie,” she said, drawing her hands from his before she could forget that it was all charade, before she could forget that he would spend an anxious night wondering if he had trapped himself into a pointless marriage, wondering if there were any honorable way out. “I shall try to be a treasure to you.”

He got to his feet and smiled down at her. “I have been so nervous,” he said. “I slept scarcely a wink last night.”

“If you pull the bell rope behind you,” she said, “Harriet will return. I think we should share our news with her, Freddie.”

“Of course,” he said, turning quickly. “I must not keep you too long alone, my love.” He turned back to her after pulling on the rope. “She does not like me, does she? She suspects my motives. She too will learn the truth soon enough. I love you, Clara.”

She smiled at him.