"Massive," Clara whispered, staring out the rain-streaked window. "He owed men who do not accept apologies in lieu of coin. When he died, the debts transferred to me. I sold the house, the furniture, the books. It wasn't enough. I ran. I stripped the lace off my dresses, rubbed ash into my hair, and begged for a kitchen position through the servants' entrance at Ashbourne House. I figured the men hunting me would never think to look for a diplomat's daughter scrubbing the Duke of Ashbourne's fireplaces."
Arthur was silent for a long time. The carriage rattled over a section of uneven cobblestones.
"Are they still looking for you?" he asked.
"I don't know," Clara admitted, the cynical shell she usually wore cracking just a fraction. "Probably. Blood debts don't expire."
Arthur reached out. He didn't touch her, but his hand hovered over the space between them, a silent, grounding presence.
"They will never cross my threshold," he said, the words carrying the absolute, terrifying weight of a promise. "And you will never scrub another floor as long as I draw breath. Do you understand?"
Clara looked up. The streetlamp caught his face again. He wasn't looking at her like a servant; he was looking at her like a soldier looks at a comrade in the trenches.
She lifted her glass and took a slow sip of the whiskey. It burned her throat, hot and sharp. And for the first time in four years, the cold knot of panic in her stomach began to thaw.
Morning light did little to soften the brutal edges of Ashbourne House. The massive stone structure sat under a gray London sky like a fortress bracing for a siege. In the ground-floor study, the siege was already underway.
Clara stood by the massive oak desk, her sleeves rolled up past her wrists, exposing skin pale from years spent indoors. The desk was completely buried under a sprawling map of the European continent. Small wooden blocks painted red and black were scattered across the coastlines, marking Ashbourne's ships and competitive vessels.
Arthur stood next to her. The physical proximity was scandalous by any societal standard: their shoulders brushed when they reached for the same region of the map. Clara could smell the shaving soap on his jaw, a sharp scent of cedar and mint. She ignored it—or at least she tried to. Focus was survival.
"Westfall will move on Cadiz by the end of the month," Clara said, tapping a black block sitting off the coast of Spain. "By publicly folding last night, you signaled that you know his hand. He will accelerate his timeline to secure the guilds before you can rally a counter-offer."
Arthur leaned over the map, planting his heavy hands on the edge of the desk. "Let him have Cadiz. The Spanish tariffs are strangling profit margins anyway. I want a new route. Something he hasn't thought of."