"Yes," Theodore kept his gaze fixed on the valley. "My brother, William, was meant to inherit all of this. He was the golden boy. Gregarious, charming. He loved London."
"He loved the politics and the parties.
I was the spare. I was perfectly content to spend my life in a library in Rome, studying dead languages. It was the first time he had spoken of his brother. Clara stayed perfectly still, letting the wind whip loose strands of hair her face, not wanting to break the fragile spell. William broke his neck taking a fence on a fox hunt.
"Drunk." Theodore said, the words flat and devoid of emotion. "Suddenly the title was mine. The responsibilities, the debts he had hidden, the tenants who were starving because he had squandered the estate's income on racing horses." He turned to look at her.
The wind tore at his dark hair. "When I returned to London, they expected me to be William, to throw balls, to smile, to play their games. I couldn't do it. I hated them for dancing while my people here were struggling to afford coal for the winter. So, I stopped talking to them."
"I spent my time with Weston and a few other academics. The ton did what they do best. They invented a story to explain what they couldn't understand." "The rumors." Clara said softly."
"I let them think I was a deviant because a deviant is ignored. A grieving, angry man is managed. I refused to be managed." He reached out, his gloved hand covering hers where it rested on the pommel of her saddle. "I hid behind the gossip, Clara."
"It was cowardice." "It was survival." She corrected fiercely. She turned her hand over, threading her fingers through his. "They are parasites.
You starved them of the drama they craved. That is not cowardice. That is strategy." Theodore stared at her. Slowly, the rigid tension in his shoulders melted away."
The phantom smile she had seen in the theater returned. But this time, it reached his eyes. It was a beautiful, devastating thing. "You." He murmured, his voice carrying over the wind, "are exactly the Duchess I needed."
A month passed. The rhythm of Ironwood Hall settled into a deep, steady heartbeat. Clara took to her role with a vengeance. She commandeered the estate's ledgers, sitting for hours in Theodore's study while he worked across from her. She discovered that her father's ruthless gambling had inadvertently taught her an immense amount about accounting and the masking of funds.
She applied that ruthless logic to the estate, finding leaks, streamlining the supply chains for the tenant farmers, and funding the repair of three collapsed cottages before the first snow fell. Theodore watched her work with a quiet, burning pride. He rarely left her side. The brooding, solitary Duke had vanished, replaced by a man who touched his wife's waist every time he walked past her chair, who kissed the ink smudges from her fingers, who read poetry to her in bed while the storms battered the stone walls outside. Their nights were a consuming, desperate exploration of each other.
Clara discovered a fiery, demanding passion within herself that she had never known existed. Theodore matched her at every turn, worshipping her body with the same intense, singular focus he applied to his estate. They were happy. It was a terrifying, fragile thing.
The outside world intruded on a dreary Tuesday in November. The post arrived from London, a leather bag slung over the shoulder of the exhausted rider. Clara was sitting in the drawing room, a ledger in her lap, when Mrs. Gable brought in the silver tray piled high with correspondence. "Thank you, Mrs."
"Gable," Clara said, setting her pen aside. Most of the letters were bills, architectural drafts from Theodore's colleagues, and estate business."
But nestled in the middle was a thick parchment envelope bearing the unmistakable sprawling handwriting of Clara's mother. Clara's stomach plummeted. She hadn't spoken to her parents since the wedding day. Her father had his money. He had no further use for her.
She sliced the wax seal with a silver letter opener. Clara, the season has begun and the whispers are unbearable. It is all Clementine can talk about. We assumed your isolation in the north was a temporary exile, but your extended absence is confirming the worst of the society gossip. They are saying he has locked you away to hide his continued indiscretions.
Lord Weston was seen purchasing a ticket for the northern stagecoach two days ago. If he is flaunting his perversions under your roof, you must return to London immediately. Do not be a martyr. Your father's debts are paid. You owe the beast nothing more.
Play the wronged wife. Society will welcome you back, provided you abandon him to his squalor. Burn this upon reading. Your mother. Clara stared at the ink.
The words seemed to writhe on the page like venomous snakes. The sheer audacity. The absolute suffocating cruelty of the world they had left behind. They could not stand the idea that the Duke of Windermere had found peace. They needed him to be a monster so they could feel righteous in their fake, glittering lives.
The drawing room door opened. Theodore walked in, shaking the damp rain from his heavy coat. He carried a rolled-up architectural draft under one arm. He stopped when he saw her face. The relaxed, easy demeanor vanished instantly, replaced by the lethal stillness of a predator.
"What is it?" he asked, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. Clara looked up. She looked at her husband, the man who had spent the last month peeling away her armor, who kissed her spine in the dark, who cared more for the freezing sheep farmers than the opinion of the Prince Regent himself. She looked at the fireplace.
The flames were crackling brightly behind the iron grate. Clara stood up. She walked to the hearth, holding the letter by the corner. She didn't crumple it. She didn't tear it.