"You are sitting in my private carriage at midnight after helping me publicly castrate a French envoy," Arthur replied. The gravel in his voice was rougher in the confined space. "Take the glass."
She hesitated, then reached out. Her fingers brushed his thick knuckles. His skin was warm, heavily calloused—a soldier's hands gripping fine crystal. Clara pulled her hand back quickly, cradling the glass in her lap.
Arthur poured his own drink and tossed it back in a single swallow. He set the glass down and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. He was too large for the carriage; his presence ate up the oxygen in the tiny compartment.
"You did not just translate tonight," Arthur stated quietly.
"I did exactly as you instructed. I gave you the signals."
"You did more than that." Arthur's eyes locked onto hers, dark and unblinking. "When Villette spoke in French, he mentioned the Cadiz contracts. He did not say I should fold my hand. He did not say there was a trap on the table. You deduced that. You listened to a fragmented, arrogant boast, calculated the political implications in a matter of seconds, and made a strategic decision to abort the bet. You didn't just translate, Clara. You commanded my retreat."
Hearing her first name in his mouth sent a strange, sharp jolt through her chest. No one in Ashbourne House called her Clara; she was just "the girl," or "you." She looked down at the amber liquid in her glass.
"Would you have preferred that I let you lose a thousand pounds to a man who had already stolen your ships?"
"No." Arthur let out a slow breath. "I would prefer you stop pretending you are just a girl who happens to speak a few languages. A mind like yours does not belong in a scullery. It belongs in a war room."
He leaned back, the shadows reclaiming his face. "Who was he? Your father."
Clara tightened her grip on the glass. The instinct to lie flared violently, a survival mechanism honed by years of hiding from debt collectors in filthy alleyways. But the carriage was dark, the whiskey smelled like smoke, and Arthur had trusted her with his pride and his fortune tonight.
"He was a diplomat," Clara said softly, the truth tasting bitter on her tongue. "Minor nobility. Mostly dealing with Mediterranean and Prussian trade disputes. He was brilliant when he was sober. When he drank, he gambled. When he gambled, he lost. He taught me everything he knew so I could draft his reports when his hands shook too much to hold a pen."
"And the debts?"