Nathaniel stared at her. "You know your brother's accounts."
"I know the estate. Those are different things."
"Not if one wishes to keep an estate."
A small sound escaped him, almost a laugh. Edward heard it. His expression tightened.
"Clara," he called across the table. "Do try not to bore His Grace with agricultural matters."
Heat touched Clara's face, but her voice remained level. "His Grace asked."
"I did," Nathaniel said.
Edward smiled too quickly. "My sister has always taken an unnecessary interest in business."
Nathaniel's gaze moved from Edward to Clara. "Unnecessary to whom?"
The question landed softly. Edward reached for his wine. Clara felt something unfamiliar. Not rescue, exactly, because Nathaniel had not spoken for her. He had merely refused to accept her brother's dismissal.
After dinner, the gentlemen remained briefly while the ladies withdrew to the drawing room. Clara took a chair near the fireplace, grateful for the low crack of burning wood. Lady Beatrice Langley settled opposite her with two younger women.
"You survived Ashborne," Beatrice said. "Was it dreadful?"
"The soup was slightly oversalted."
One young woman laughed before hiding it behind her hand. Beatrice frowned. "I meant the Duke."
"So did everyone else." Clara looked into the fire. "He asked questions and listened to the answers."
Beatrice blinked, apparently disappointed by the absence of bloodshed.
Twenty minutes later, the gentlemen entered. Nathaniel was immediately surrounded by men who wanted something from him. Clara watched him become colder with each approach. A smile disappeared. His posture stiffened. His answers shortened. She understood then what she had sensed at dinner. People were not merely afraid of Nathaniel Blackwood. They approached him already armed against the man they expected to meet, then treated his defenses as proof of the stories.
Nathaniel glanced across the room. His eyes found hers. Clara did not smile. She simply held his gaze for one quiet second before looking back at the fire. When the group finally released him, he crossed the room.
"Miss Whitmore."
Clara looked up. "Your Grace."
"You were watching me briefly and judging me constantly." He sat in the chair beside hers. "Should I be concerned?"
"Not yet."
The fire cracked between them. Around the room, conversation lowered by an almost comic degree. Nathaniel heard it, too.
"You see what happens when I sit beside someone."
Clara glanced around. "I had assumed they were overwhelmed by the furniture."
His mouth finally curved into an unmistakable smile. It transformed his face. Clara looked away before he could notice how much she noticed.
"Why aren't you married?" he asked.
Her hands stilled on the arm of the chair. The question was too direct, too personal. "Society generally asks that behind my back."
"I have poor manners, so I have heard. Is there an answer?"
Clara watched a coal collapse into orange sparks. "There are several."
Nathaniel waited. He did not soften the question or withdraw it. "And which one is true?" he asked.
Clara lifted her eyes to his. "The one no one has ever bothered to ask about."
Clara let the words remain between them. Nathaniel did not press. That, more than the question itself, unsettled her. Most people treated silence as permission to invent an answer. He simply waited beside the fire, one hand resting loosely against the chair arm.
"Perhaps another evening," Clara said.
"Perhaps." His gaze stayed on the flames. "Though now I am considerably more curious. A terrible burden."
"I have survived worse."
Before she could answer, a man's voice drifted across the drawing room. "Ashborne, you have stolen our most dependable spare lady."
Mr. Julian Caro, a wealthy gentleman with an unfortunate confidence in his own wit, approached with a glass of brandy in hand. Lady Beatrice followed close behind, already smiling.
Nathaniel's expression cooled. "Have I?"
"Miss Whitmore, of course." Caro gestured toward Clara as though identifying a familiar piece of furniture. "Every hostess needs one unmarried woman past 30. Someone must fill the empty chairs when the younger ladies are claimed."
A few people nearby laughed. Clara felt the old sensation. Not surprise, not even pain exactly, but the small inward withdrawal she had perfected over years. Nathaniel shifted. She saw the movement from the corner of her eye and spoke before he could.
"How fortunate for hostesses, Mr. Caro."
Caro grinned. "You agree entirely. Empty chairs are useful."
Clara looked at his brandy. "They allow gentlemen who have mistaken cruelty for wit somewhere to sit when everyone else grows tired of them."
The laughter stopped. Then an elderly lady near the card table coughed into her hand to hide a smile. Caro's face reddened.
"I was only teasing."
"Then one of us should have enjoyed it."
Nathaniel lowered his head. His shoulders moved once. Caro stared at him. "Are you laughing, Ashborne?"
Nathaniel looked up, perfectly composed. "Not anymore."
Caro muttered something about finding another drink and retreated. Clara watched him go.
"You were going to interfere."
"I was."
"Why didn't you?"
"You appeared to have the matter under control."
"I did. I noticed."
Something in his tone made her turn. There was no pity in Nathaniel's face. That mattered more than she wanted it to.
"Most men would have defended me afterward," she said, "and received gratitude for saving you."
"Precisely. That seems inefficient when you were doing so well yourself."
Clara's mouth softened. "You are surprisingly teachable, Your Grace."
"Do not damage my reputation."
Lady Hartwell announced cards, breaking the moment. Clara rose, but Nathaniel's voice stopped her.
"Miss Whitmore." She glanced back. "Being quiet is not the same as having nothing to say."