Arthur studied her for a long moment. Then he reached over, retrieved a second glass from the tray, and poured a generous measure of whiskey. He held it out.
Clara crossed the room and took it. Her fingers brushed his; it was warm. She sat in the chair opposite him, pulling her legs up underneath her robe to ward off the chill of the leather. She took a sip of the whiskey. It burned a fiery path down her throat, settling heavily in her stomach.
"It's terrible," she choked out, her eyes watering.
"It's a single malt from Islay," Arthur replied dryly, taking a slow sip of his own. "It is entirely wasted on you."
They sat in silence for several minutes. It wasn't the hostile, loaded silence they usually shared; it was the quiet of two people who had run out of energy to fight.
"This is the room," Clara said softly, looking at the dark stains on the oriental rug that no amount of scrubbing had ever fully removed.
Arthur's gaze followed hers. He didn't flinch. "Yes."
"He was 20, you said."
"20," Arthur confirmed. He swirled the amber liquid in his glass, watching the firelight catch in the crystal. "He was a brilliant boy. Too trusting. Too eager to prove himself to me after our father died. Your father smelled the desperation on him from across the room."
"My father has a gift for finding the fracture in a person's spine and leaning on it until it snaps," Clara said. She took another, smaller sip of the whiskey; it burned less the second time.
Arthur looked at her. In the dim light, the harsh lines of his face were softened. "I spent the last 2 years imagining the man who drove my brother to a bloody end as some sort of criminal mastermind. A monster. And instead, he is just a pathetic man who reeks of gin and borrows money from his tailor."
"Yes."
Arthur leaned his head back against the chair. "Watching him today, it didn't feel like justice. It felt dirty. Like kicking a dying dog." He paused, glancing at the door where Barnaby was presumably sleeping upstairs. "No offense to your beast."
"Barnaby takes no offense," Clara said. She traced the rim of her glass. "Revenge rarely looks the way we want it to, Arthur. It doesn't bring the dead back. It just anchors the living to the graveyard."
Arthur's eyes snapped to hers. They were sharp, searching, stripping away the polite veneer they wore for society. "Is that what you think I've done? Anchored you to a graveyard?"
"You married me to punish him. And today, you realized he isn't worth punishing." Clara kept her voice remarkably steady. "So, where does that leave us, Your Grace? The debt is paid. The point is proven. We are locked in a house together for the next 40 years, acting out a play for an audience of one who has already left the theater."
Arthur didn't answer immediately. He set his glass down on the table with a soft clink. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, closing the physical distance between them.
"I was angry," Arthur said, his voice dropping to a low, ragged whisper. "I was so blindingly angry. When I saw you for the first time at Almack's, you were laughing at something Lord Stanhope said. You looked so perfect, untouchable. It made me sick that you could wear diamonds while my brother was in the ground."
"The diamonds were paste," Clara said quietly. "Rented for the evening."
Arthur let out a harsh breath. "I know that now. I know a great many things now." He reached out. For a moment, Clara thought he was going to take her glass. Instead, his fingers brushed against her wrist where it rested on the arm of the chair. His touch was light, but it sent an electric jolt straight up her arm. "I saw his face today when he looked at you," Arthur continued, his thumb lightly stroking the fragile pulse point at her wrist. "He didn't see a daughter. He saw a banknote that had lost its value. I realized... I haven't just punished him, Clara. I punished you for surviving him."
Clara couldn't breathe. The walls she had spent a lifetime building were cracking, the mortar turning to dust under the quiet sincerity in his voice. She pulled her hand back, curling it against her chest.
"Do not pity me, Arthur," she whispered fiercely. "I told you I will not have it."
"It isn't pity," he said. He stood up, towering over her, but there was no threat in his posture, only a bone-deep weariness. "It is regret."
He didn't wait for her to respond. He turned and walked out of the study, leaving her alone with the dying fire and the ghosts.
The decision to leave London was sudden, executed with the brutal efficiency Arthur applied to all things. Three days after Richard Ashford's visit, the gossip columns began to run thinly veiled blind items about a ruined patriarch. Arthur did not ask for Clara's opinion; he simply ordered the trunks packed.
By dawn on Friday, they were in a dark, heavy traveling coach rattling violently down the frozen roads towards Somerset. The journey was a grueling, bone-rattling endurance test that left Clara's spine feeling like shattered glass and her temper strung tighter than a piano wire. They stopped at miserable coaching inns, eating cold mutton and sleeping in drafty beds. It took four agonizing days.
By the time they reached the imposing iron gates of Westford Hall, Clara was shivering violently, wrapped in three wool blankets, unable to get warm. The estate was a sprawling Gothic monster of gray stone surrounded by ancient, skeletal oaks. It was beautiful in a savage, unforgiving way.
As the carriage pulled to a halt, the massive front doors opened, spilling warm golden light onto the snowy gravel. Arthur stepped out first, turning to offer Clara his hand. When her fingers closed over his, she stumbled. Her legs felt made of lead, her vision swimming at the edges.
Arthur caught her instantly, his arm wrapping around her waist, anchoring her against his heavy greatcoat.
"Clara!" he asked, his voice sharp with alarm.
"I am quite well," she lied, her teeth chattering so hard she bit her tongue. "The carriage simply made me stiff."
He stripped off one of his leather gloves and pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. "You are burning up. You've caught a chill."
"It's just the damp."