Lydia had sold a carriage after her husband died.
They rented rooms seasonally.
Clara repaired gloves.
She wore the same evening slippers until the soles thinned.
Twenty-eight thousand six hundred pounds was not unimaginable wealth in their world.
It was security.
Independence.
Choice.
Perhaps the most expensive word.
Julian proposed:
Eight thousand in cash immediately.
Ten thousand in Consols transferred within sixty days.
Remaining ten thousand six hundred secured by a first charge against the unentailed Bath property, with interest, payable upon sale within twelve months.
Pritchard reviewed.
Gray reviewed.
Clara reviewed.
She rejected one clause allowing Harcourt to delay sale for “market disruption.”
Julian accepted the deletion.
Augusta almost objected.
Then stopped.
The settlement was signed April 18, 1817.
No marriage proposal.
That mattered.
Clara received the first transfer.
The Bath house was placed for sale.
London society became bored.
Also important.
Scandal required novelty.
By May, attention moved to an elopement involving a duke’s daughter and an opera singer.
Clara could enter a drawing room again without conversations dying completely.
Some people still whispered.
Others suddenly discovered they had always admired Edward Bellamy.
Those people irritated her most.
Lydia said:
“Society has extraordinary memory once money returns.”
Clara laughed.
She began receiving invitations.
More than before.
That made her angry too.
She declined many.
Accepted some.
Not Harcourt House.
Not yet.
Julian did not press.
They met in other places.
Lady Fenwick’s musicale.
A charity committee.
Amelia’s birthday luncheon, held deliberately at her aunt’s house rather than Harcourt House.
They spoke.
Carefully.
The financial dispute no longer sat directly between them.
Its shadow remained.
One afternoon in June, Julian found Clara alone in Lady Fenwick’s garden.
Not completely alone.
The French doors stood open.
Three elderly women played cards inside and could have testified to propriety with enthusiasm.
Julian stopped several feet away.
“May I walk with you?”
Clara looked toward the doors.
“Within sight.”
“Yes.”
They walked.
Roses.
Gravel.
London air pretending not to be London.
Julian said:
“I have not spoken about February.”
“I know.”
“May I?”
Clara took time.
“Yes.”
He looked ahead.
“I admired you before the trust account.”
She stared.
“That sounds unlikely.”
“It is inconveniently true.”
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
Clara stopped walking.
“What?”
“You were at Lady Fenwick’s Christmas supper.”
“I spoke to you for six minutes.”
“Eight.”
“That is worse.”
He smiled.
“You argued with Sir Frederick about enclosure rents.”
“I did not argue.”
“You told him his theory required tenants to eat optimism.”
Clara covered her face briefly.
“I said that?”
“Yes.”
“Good Lord.”
“I thought it excellent.”
They resumed walking.
Julian continued.
“I asked Amelia who you were.”
“And?”
“She said Clara Bellamy.”
“I recognized the name because Father had mentioned Edward.”
“Then why did you not speak to me again?”
“I was engaged.”
Clara stared.
“You were?”
“Informally.”
“To Lady Marianne Kersey.”
The name was known.
Beautiful.
Rich.
Daughter of an earl.