"It seems a young woman in a gray scarf came into Drummond's Bank with a key—the key to the old Duke's private box—and she ran away before anyone could stop her." He held out his gloved hand. "I want that key, Miss Hartley."
Clara said nothing.
"Come, let us be sensible." The Earl's voice became soft and reasonable. "I am not a cruel man; I am a practical one, and I can see that you are in a great deal of trouble." He glanced past her shoulder toward the bed. "Your little sister is very ill, I hear. That cough sounds dreadful. Consumption, is it?"
Clara stepped sideways to block his view of Polly.
"Here is my offer," said the Earl. "You give me the key. In return, I give you five hundred pounds."
Clara's breath caught: five hundred pounds, more money than she had seen since she was sixteen years old.
"Five hundred pounds," the Earl repeated slowly, watching her face. "And two tickets on a fine ship to America: warm cabins, good food, a doctor on board. I hear the air in Virginia is very good for weak lungs." He smiled. "Your sister could be well again by summer. She could grow up. She could have a life."
He let the words sink in, then went on in the same gentle voice:
"Or you can refuse, and then I am afraid the Dowager Duchess's complaint about that stolen bracelet will reach a magistrate who happens to be a very dear friend of mine, and you will be arrested. And your little sister will be alone in this cold room with a landlady who wants her gone—alone and coughing." He shook his head sadly. "I do not think she would last very long, do you?"
Clara could not speak. She thought of the doctor's grave face: *I fear she will not see the spring.* She thought of the key sewn into the hem of her petticoat, where she had hidden it the night she arrived. She thought of her father, alone in a prison cell dying of fever, keeping his promise to the truth until the very end.
And then, from the bed behind her, a small, weak voice spoke: "Don't, Clara."
Clara turned. Polly was awake, pushed up on one thin elbow, her face white as paper, but her eyes clear and fierce.
"I heard him," Polly whispered. "I heard everything. Don't give it to him. Papa wouldn't. Papa never would."
"Polly—"
"I don't want to get well that way!" Polly's voice cracked. "I don't! Promise me, Clara!"
Clara stood between them: her sister on one side, the man who had destroyed their family on the other. For one long moment, the whole world hung in silence.
Then she turned back to the Earl of Marlowe and lifted her chin—her father's stubborn chin.
"My father did not sell the truth," she said, "and neither will I."
The Earl looked at her for a long time. Then the smile left his face completely; without it, he looked old and cold and terrible.