"Do not speak of my father."
"Ah, yes, still angry, I see." He sighed as if she were a tiresome child. "Well, I suppose that is natural."
"How did you find me?"
"Oh, my dear girl, I have known about you for years." He said it calmly, as though remarking on the weather. "When your father died, I kept an eye on his daughters. A man in my position must be careful. I knew you were sewing shirts in Whitechapel, and then two years ago, you vanished. I wondered where you had gone."
He tapped his cane gently on the floor.
"I have always known that my old friend, the Duke of Ravenshire, had something of mine—some papers your father foolishly gave him. For years I tried to find a way into that house, and then, quite by happy chance, the Dowager Duchess decided that my Cecilia would make a perfect wife for her son." He smiled. "A wedding, you see, opens many doors, including locked ones."
Clara felt cold all over. "So that is why," she whispered. "The marriage—it was never about the Duke at all."
"Oh, it is a little about the Duke," said the Earl lightly. "He is very rich, you know, and I... I am sorry to say I am not—not anymore. That handsome dowry everyone talks about? It does not exist. I have debts, Miss Hartley, very large debts to very impatient men. The Ravenshire fortune will settle them nicely."
"And Lady Cecilia knows all this?"
"Cecilia knows what she needs to know. I told her years ago to watch out for anyone who showed too much interest in the old Duke's rooms. She is a clever girl, my Cecilia." He chuckled. "She wrote to me the very night she cut off your hair. She said there was a maid who looked at her as if she were an equal—a maid who spoke like a lady and promised she would pay. Cecilia did not like it at all, so she began to watch you. And then she found the old Duke's little diary in your mattress with your father's name in it." He spread his gloved hands. "And so, here I am."
Clara's hands were clenched so tightly at her sides that her nails cut into her palms. "Then you have the diary," she said. "What more do you want from me?"
"The diary is nothing—the ramblings of an old man. No court would care about it." The Earl's eyes grew harder. "But two days ago, a letter arrived at Ravenshire Hall from old Drummond, the banker. It was addressed to the Duke. The Duke was away, so his mother opened it, and she showed it to my daughter."
He took a step closer.