The carriage had not yet come to a full stop when Clara saw the black coach waiting below the front steps.
There was no crest on its door. The driver sat hunched beneath a rain cape, water dripping from the brim of his hat.
Aunt Miriam followed Clara's gaze. "A lawyer from London," she said.
Clara was still holding the invitation she had received six weeks earlier. The Dowager Duchess of Ashburn had written it herself, asking Clara to stay at the estate.
Julian had returned from the war, the letter said, but his injuries were not yet stable; the wedding would have to be postponed.
Then, three days ago, a second letter had arrived at the Whitmore house. It had been much shorter:
"The engagement will be dissolved. Please come to Ashburn Hall on Thursday to settle the remaining matters."
There was no "Julian" at the bottom, only his full title: The Duke of Ashburn.
The butler showed Clara and her aunt into the study. The lawyer had already spread his papers across the long table.
The Dowager Duchess Eleanor sat beside the fire, twisting a handkerchief between her fingers. Lord Edmund Harcourt stood near the desk, speaking to the lawyer in a low voice. He stopped when the door opened.
Julian sat at the far end of the table.
When he had left England three years earlier, he had been the second son of the Harcourt family. Since then, his elder brother had died of illness, Julian had inherited the dukedom, and returned home with a left leg that no longer bent as it once had.
An ebony cane rested against his chair. His right hand lay over its handle, and a fresh scar crossed the back of it.
Clara saw the injured leg—of course she did—but that was not what stopped her in the doorway. It was the way Julian looked at her once, then turned his eyes away.
"Miss Whitmore."
He used to call her Clara.
The lawyer began to read. The Duke of Ashburn accepted full responsibility for ending the engagement. Clara's reputation would remain beyond reproach. All gifts and marriage property would be returned, and the Whitmore family would owe nothing for expenses already paid toward the wedding.
Julian had arranged everything carefully—so carefully that Clara might as well not have come.
The lawyer placed a pen beside the document. "If Miss Whitmore has no objection, she may sign here."
Clara did not touch it. "Do you no longer love me?"
Edmund straightened one of his cuffs. Eleanor's hands went still around the crumpled handkerchief.
Julian said, "That is not the question we are here to discuss."
"I travelled for two days. I did not come so your lawyer could tell me which questions I am allowed to ask."
His hand shifted on the cane. "You should not have to give the rest of your life to a husband who needs help climbing a staircase."
Clara waited. He said nothing more.
"You still haven't answered me. The engagement is over because you decided it was?"
"Yes."
"Then don't call this freedom." Clara glanced at the papers. "You have simply chosen the manner in which I am to leave."
Julian finally looked at her. For one brief moment, the coldness in his face gave way, then it closed again.
Clara took out Eleanor's invitation and placed it on the table. "Your Grace, you invited my aunt and me to stay for six weeks. Does the invitation still stand?"
"Of course," Eleanor looked at her son, then quickly away. "If you still wish to stay."
Aunt Miriam had already taken a chair beside the fire. She folded her gloves neatly in her lap; she plainly had no intention of going back out into the rain.
"Then we will stay as planned," Clara said.
Julian frowned. "Why?"
"When I know what I want to do, I will tell you."
"I will not change my mind."
"That is your concern." Clara pulled out a chair and sat down. "I did not come here today to change it."
For the next three days, Julian gave her almost no chance to try.
He did not come down to dinner on the first night. On the second day, the servants would say only that the Duke needed rest.
Clara sent him a travel journal he had once loved; it came back to her room that afternoon unopened. Even the ribbon she had tucked into page 7 had not moved.
On the fourth morning, he finally appeared at breakfast.
A servant pulled out his chair, then hurried to bring a cushion. Julian's jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Eleanor immediately ordered the kitchen to make his tea weaker. Edmund gathered the estate correspondence to his own side of the table and announced that he would answer it that afternoon.
Clara dropped a slice of lemon into her tea. From the moment Julian entered the room until the moment he sat down, no one had asked what he wanted.
After breakfast, he refused a servant's arm and went into the long gallery alone.
Clara was on her way to the library when she turned beneath an arch and saw the tip of his cane skid across the stone floor. Julian caught the wall. His left leg had failed to follow the rest of him, and his shoulder nearly struck the window frame.
Clara stopped several paces away. "Do you need my hand?"
"No." The answer came too quickly.
Clara stayed where she was. Julian planted the cane again and kept his breathing low. After a while, he managed to straighten.
When he turned and saw her, his expression darkened. "You were simply going to stand there and watch?"
"You said you didn't need me."
"And if I had fallen?"
"I would have asked again."
"Most people would not do that."
"Most people have already taken away your tea, your letters, and your estate."
Julian stared at her.