She lay staring at the plaster ceiling rose for 10 minutes, cataloging her new reality. She was a duchess. She was also, for all intents and purposes, a prisoner of war. She dressed herself in a subdued navy day dress. It was old, the hem slightly frayed, a stark contrast to the absurd wedding gown currently draped over the chairs.
When she descended the grand staircase, the house felt like a museum: beautiful, immaculate, and entirely lifeless. She found the breakfast room by following the faint smell of roasted coffee.
Arthur was already there. He sat at the far end of a long mahogany table, the morning paper spread wide, a cup of black tea at his elbow. He looked up when she entered. There was a brief tightening of his jaw, a momentary recalibration, as if he had forgotten she existed in his house.
"Good morning," Clara said.
She took a seat halfway down the table, refusing to shout from the opposite end, but giving him his space. A footman materialized instantly, pouring her coffee and uncovering silver dishes of eggs, kippers, and toast. The staff moved with a tense, hushed urgency, keeping their eyes firmly glued to the floor. Clara noticed they were terrified of him.
"Did you sleep?" Arthur asked. He didn't lower the paper.
"Well enough," Clara lied. The mattress was harder than she was used to, and the silence of the house had been deafening. "And you?"
"I always sleep," he said flatly. He folded the paper and set it aside. In the morning light, he looked older. The shadows under his eyes were bruised and purple. "My solicitor will send over the papers regarding your allowance this afternoon. Β£500 a quarter. Is that sufficient?"
"It is exorbitant," Clara said, buttering a piece of toast. "I am unaccustomed to having more than Β£5 to my name at any given time. I may buy a very small, very loud dog."
Arthur stopped chewing. He stared at her, trying to determine if she was mocking him. Clara simply took a bite of her toast, her expression mild.
"There are rules," Arthur said, abandoning his plate. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. "You may spend your days as you see fit. You may visit whom you please, though I expect you to avoid men with terrible reputations to spare the family name any further scandal, naturally. In public, we will present a united front. The ton must believe this was a sudden, passionate match. Your father's humiliation is only complete if society believes you chose me over the grander titles he was courting, and that you are perfectly content with your choice."
Clara swallowed the dry toast. It tasted like ash. "You want me to play the besotted bride?"
"I want you to be a convincing duchess."
"That requires a certain level of participation from you, Your Grace," Clara pointed out. "If you glare at me in the middle of Almack's the way you are glaring at me now, people will assume you are planning to murder me, not bed me."
Arthur's mouth twitched. It wasn't a smile, not exactly, but the anger in his face receded by a fraction. "I am capable of acting a part, Clara."
"Good, because we have the Harrington ball tonight."
He frowned. "I sent our regrets."
"I overrode them this morning. I gave a note to the footman an hour ago," Clara said calmly while wiping her mouth with a linen napkin. "If we hide in this house the day after our wedding, the gossips will say you forced me. They will say I am weeping in my chambers. If you want my father to look like a fool who lost his prize, I need to be seen immediately looking radiant and wealthy."
Arthur looked at her with a new, guarded expression. It was the look of a man who had bought a horse expecting it to buck, only to find it calculating the distance to the next fence.
"You are surprisingly pragmatic about a marriage designed to ruin you," he noted.
Clara met his gaze. "My father ruined me the day I was born, Arthur. He spent my dowry on racehorses when I was 10. He used my face as collateral for his debts when I was 18. I have spent my entire life being traded by angry, desperate men." She picked up her coffee cup, her hand perfectly steady. "At least you are paying me well."
Silence settled over the breakfast room. The clock on the mantel ticked heavily. Arthur stood up, his chair scraping loudly against the floorboards.
"I will have the carriage brought round at 8:00." He walked towards the door, pausing just before he crossed the threshold. He didn't look back. "Buy the dog if you wish," he said softly. Then he was gone.
The Harrington ball was a crush of silk, sweat, and malice. The ton operated on a very simple economy: scandal was currency, and a sudden, unannounced wedding between the Duke of Westford and Richard Ashford's penniless daughter was a gold mine.
As Clara and Arthur stepped into the grand ballroom, the string quartet's music seemed to dip beneath the sudden collective whisper of 300 aristocrats. Eyes raked over them. Fans snapped open, shielding vicious, delighted mouths.
Clara took a slow breath. Her corset was laced tight, digging into her lower ribs. She was wearing a gown of deep emerald velvet, purchased that afternoon with a fraction of her new allowance. It was not a maiden's dress; it was the dress of a woman who owned her position.
Arthur's hand rested at the small of her back. His touch was warm through the velvet, a stark contrast to the freezing fingers that had unbuttoned her wedding gown.
"Smile," he murmured, his breath brushing her ear. To anyone watching, it looked like an intimate nothing whispered between newlyweds.
Clara curved her lips into a bright, impenetrable smile. "I am smiling. You are stepping on the hem of my gown."
"Apologies," he muttered, shifting his weight.
They moved into the room. Immediately, the waters parted and the sharks circled. Lady Harrington, a woman composed entirely of sharp angles and diamonds, swooped down upon them.
"Your Grace... and the new Duchess." Lady Harrington's eyes darted between them, looking for bruises, for tears, for any sign of a fracture. "We were so shocked. A special license, and without a word to anyone! We all thought Lord Ashford was holding out for the Prince of Naples."
"The Prince of Naples is a bore, Lady Harrington," Clara said smoothly, her voice carrying just enough to be heard by the eavesdropping countesses nearby. "And I have never cared for the Italian climate."
She turned her face up to Arthur, forcing her eyes to soften. It was a practiced look, one she had perfected over four seasons of masking her utter exhaustion with polite society.