The Duke stood a little way behind them with his hat in his hands. He did not say anything; he simply waited as long as they needed. And when Clara finally stood up, cold and stiff and wet with tears, he was there to wrap his own warm coat around her shoulders.
And what became of Lady Cecilia Marlowe?
When her father was sent away and every last thing the family owned was sold, Lady Cecilia found herself with nothing: no money, no house, no carriage, no jewels. Her famous dowry had never existed, and now nobody in London society would even look at her.
The very same ladies who had once begged for invitations to her parties now crossed the street when they saw her coming. The gentlemen who had written poems about her golden curls now pretended not to know her name. She received no letters, no invitations, no proposals—not one.
So Lady Cecilia and her mother were forced to leave London. They went far north to Yorkshire to live with the only relative who would take them in: a very old, very rich, very strict great-aunt named Lady Agatha Proud.
Lady Agatha was ninety years old, sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued, and had not laughed since 1760. She did not believe in idleness, she did not believe in fashion, and she most certainly did not believe in feeding two penniless relatives for nothing.
So Lady Cecilia, the most admired young woman in London, became her great-aunt's paid companion—which is to say, her servant.
She fetched Lady Agatha's shawls; she read to her aloud for four hours every evening from very long, very dull books of sermons; she carried her tea and was scolded if it was too hot or too cold; she wound her wool, fed her six fat, bad-tempered cats, and cleaned up after them when they were sick on the carpet.
And on the very first morning, when Cecilia came down to breakfast with her golden curls arranged as beautifully as ever, Lady Agatha looked her up and down over the top of her spectacles.
"Pin that hair up under a cap, girl," the old woman snapped. "A plain one. I will not have you flouncing about my house like a peacock."
"But, Aunt Agatha—"
"Vanity is a sin," said Lady Agatha, "especially for those who cannot afford it."
Cecilia went white. They were her own words—the very words she had spoken in the great hall at Ravenshire with the silver scissors in her hand.
She wore a plain cap every day after that.
They say that sometimes late at night, alone in her cold little room at the top of her great-aunt's house, Cecilia would take off that cap and stand in front of the mirror. And she would think about a great hall full of servants, and a long chestnut braid burning in a fireplace, and a quiet voice saying, *"You will pay for every strand."*
She was paying now, every single day.