"Arthur was quite thorough," Clara agreed. She kept her hands folded in her lap so her father wouldn't see them shaking. She had spent 24 years mitigating this man's disasters, soothing his rages, and cleaning up his messes. Old habits died screaming.
Ashford crossed the room and dropped into the armchair opposite her, leaning forward. The smell of alcohol was overpowering now. "You have to talk to him, Clara. You're in his bed now. You know how to manage men. Coax him. Tell him a few thousand pounds is nothing to him, a drop in the ocean."
Clara stared at him. The sheer, blinding audacity of it left her momentarily breathless. "You sold me to a man who explicitly wants to destroy you, and you are asking me to beg him for an allowance?"
"I secured your future!" Ashford hissed, slamming a hand on the armrest. Barnaby barked sharply, scrambling backward. "You're a duchess! You have everything you ever wanted! Do you think you would have married half as well if I hadn't orchestrated this?"
"You didn't orchestrate anything," she replied softly. "You got caught in a trap of your own making, and you left me behind in the jaws."
"Don't take that tone with me, you ungrateful little bitch!" he snarled, his face flushing a mottled, ugly purple. He stood up, towering over her. "You are my daughter! You owe me! I want Β£5,000 by Friday, Clara, or I will start talking to the papers. I'll tell them the Duke of Westford's new bride is a barren, frigid piece of work who had to be bought because no decent man would have her!"
"You will do no such thing."
The voice didn't come from Clara. It came from the doorway.
Arthur stood there. He was still wearing his damp riding coat, his riding crop gripped loosely in one gloved hand. His expression was not angry. It was something far worse: it was the absolute, icy stillness of an apex predator that had just cornered its prey.
Ashford flinched, instinctively taking a step back from Clara. The bluster drained out of him instantly, replaced by a pathetic, cringing sycophancy. "Your Grace, I was just paying my respects to the Duchess."
Arthur walked slowly into the room. He didn't look at Clara. His pale gray eyes were fixed entirely on her father.
"I bought your debts, Ashford," Arthur said, his voice dropping into a register that vibrated with menace. "I bought your house. I bought your daughter. You own nothing. You are nothing. If you ever set foot in my home again, if you ever speak to my wife in that tone again, I will not send you to debtors' prison. I will simply have you beaten within an inch of your life and dropped in the Thames."
Ashford's mouth opened and closed like a dying fish. "You can'tβ"
"I am a duke," Arthur interrupted quietly. "I can do precisely whatever I please. Get out."
Ashford looked at Clara, a last, desperate plea in his eyes. She looked away, staring firmly at the cold fireplace. Swallowing hard, her father scrambled past Arthur, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste to reach the door. The heavy oak slammed shut behind him.
The silence that followed was suffocating. Clara sat perfectly still. She didn't cry. She just felt hollowed out, scraped clean with a rusted knife.
Arthur turned to her. He looked at the mud on the rug, at the discarded book, and finally at Clara's white, rigid face. He tossed his riding crop onto a side table.
"Are you all right?" he asked. The coldness was gone from his voice, replaced by a strange, gruff hesitation.
Clara looked up. "He asked for Β£5,000."
"I heard."
"He would have settled for 50." She let out a short, broken laugh that contained absolutely no humor. "He always starts high. It's his negotiating tactic."
Arthur walked over. He didn't sit in the chair Ashford had vacated. Instead, he crouched down in front of her, bringing himself to her eye level. It was an incredibly intimate, unguarded gesture for a man who wore his pride like armor. Barnaby trotted over and tentatively sniffed Arthur's wet knee. For once, the duke didn't shove the dog away.
"He will not come back, Clara," Arthur said.
"No, he won't." Clara finally looked into his eyes. "You have your revenge, Arthur. You broke him completely today. I hope it brings you the peace you were looking for."
She stood up, brushing past him, and walked out of the room before he could see the first tear fall.
Midnight came and went. The house was entombed in sleep, but Clara's mind was running a frantic, exhausting marathon. She lay in the dark, listening to the rain beat against the glass. The encounter with her father played on a relentless loop: "Ungrateful little bitch."
She had survived him by building a fortress around her emotions, brick by miserable brick. Today, Arthur had watched her father take a hammer to it.
Unable to stand the suffocating weight of the blankets, she rose. She pulled a thick velvet robe over her nightgown, lit a single candle, and slipped out into the hallway. She intended to go to the kitchen to warm some milkβa childish remedy that had never once worked.
But as she passed the ground-floor study, she noticed a sliver of golden light bleeding out from beneath the door. She hesitated. The study was Arthur's domain. More importantly, it was the room where Lord Henry had ended his life. The staff avoided it whenever possible, crossing themselves when they had to go in to dust the mahogany shelves.
Clara pushed the door open.
The fire was dying, reducing the room to deep, flickering shadows. Arthur was sitting in a winged leather chair by the hearth. He had discarded his coat and cravat, his white linen shirt unbuttoned at the collar. A heavy crystal decanter of amber liquid sat on the table beside him, nearly half empty. He was staring into the embers, a glass resting loosely in his hand.
He didn't startle when she entered. He just slowly turned his head.
"Milk?" he asked, his voice rough with whiskey and exhaustion.
"I thought about it," Clara said, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. "But I think the situation calls for something stronger."