The Duke’s Guests Laughed as the Maid Fell Into the Lake — She Said, “I’ll Remember Every Face”
Chapter 15
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The Duke's face did not change, but something in his eyes went out like a candle in the wind. He looked at her for one long, terrible moment. Then he turned his back on her."Get her out of my house."The Dowager Duchess said it quietly, but every person in the great hall heard it. Nobody needed to be told twice. Mrs. Pratt marched forward and seized Clara by the wrist, her fingernails digging into the skin. Two footmen took her by the shoulders, and the whole household watched in silence as the murderer's daughter was dragged across the stone floor toward the servants' door.Clara did not fight. She did not beg. But as she passed the bottom of the staircase, she turned her head and looked back one last time.The Duke was still standing with his back to her. He had not moved. He had not turned around. Lord Vane was watching her over the Duke's shoulder. And for one tiny second, when nobody else was looking, he smiled.Then the door slammed shut behind her.Mrs. Pratt did not even let her go up to the attic for her things."Your box stays here," she said, pushing Clara out through the kitchen door into the stable yard. "You came with nothing, you'll leave with nothing. And you can thank God His Grace was too soft to send for the constable.""Please," Clara said. "Please, Mrs. Pratt, just let me go to the stables for one minute, just to say goodbye to the old mare."Mrs. Pratt laughed in her face. "To steal a horse as well, is it? No. You'll walk out of that gate, and you'll keep walking. And if anyone at Ravensworth ever sees your face again, I'll have you hanged like your father should have been."She stood in the doorway with her arms folded and watched until Clara reached the gate.The sky had gone dark while they were all in the great hall. Black clouds rolled low over the hills. As Clara walked out through the iron gates of Ravensworth Hall, the first heavy drops of rain began to fall.She stopped at the end of the long drive and looked back. The great house stood against the stormy sky with lights glowing in a hundred windows. Somewhere inside was a man who had looked at her as if she mattered. Somewhere in the stables, behind a loose board in an old horse's stall, was the only proof in the world that her father was innocent—and she could not reach either of them.Up in a high window, a thin figure in black stood watching her. The Dowager Duchess did not move. She simply watched the girl in the gray dress until the rain hid her from view.Clara walked. The rain came down harder and harder. Within half an hour, she was soaked through to the skin for the second time in two weeks. Only this time, there was no warm kitchen waiting for her, no dry dress, nobody at all.The road to the village was four miles long. Her thin shoes filled with mud. The wind tore at her hair and pushed against her like a living thing. Thunder cracked across the sky. Twice she fell in the dark and cut her hands on the stones. She kept walking.