The first laugh came from a woman holding an ivory fan. The second came from a gentleman who had never in his life made anything more complicated than an excuse. By the time the third laugh echoed through the Duke of Bellmont's library, Clara Whitcomb had begun to wonder whether she had made the greatest mistake of her twenty-three years. Then Captain James Calder opened her father's gold pocket watch, and every trace of amusement left his face.
There were nearly forty people in the room, all dressed for a November evening in London in 1817. Candles burned in silver branches along the walls, throwing warm light over towering shelves of books and portraits of men who had inherited fortunes without ever having to count the pennies required to earn them. At the center stood a mahogany table displaying maps, miniature ship models, and scientific curiosities selected for the duke's annual gathering of naval patrons. Clara, with her red curls pinned imperfectly above a pale cream gown that had been altered twice to fit her, belonged to none of those polished circles. She had come carrying a watch wrapped in a piece of blue wool.
"A clockmaker's daughter," Lady Beatrice Bellmont announced, almost tenderly, as though introducing an unusual little animal. "How charming of you to bring us a family trinket, Miss Whitcomb. We had expected something with a little more distinction." Two ladies beside her smiled behind their fans. Clara kept her back straight and placed the watch on the table rather than in Lady Beatrice's waiting hand.
"It was made by my father," she said. "And I believe someone in this room knows why his finest work was called a failure." The words were neither loud nor dramatic, but they landed in the library like a plate dropped on stone. Near the hearth, Sir Lionel Wexford stopped adjusting the cuff of his expensive coat.
Sir Lionel had provided a considerable portion of the money for the evening's charitable exhibition. He also owned a company that supplied navigational instruments to the Royal Navy, held several valuable patents, and had been among the first to condemn Clara's father after a naval vessel ran aground two years earlier. His public expression was a gentle, superior smile. "My dear young woman, grief is apt to make people confuse suspicion with truth," he said. "Your father's reputation was decided by qualified gentlemen, not by a daughter's disappointment."
Captain Calder had been standing near a globe, silent and apart from the others. His dark blue coat carried the careful tailoring of a man accustomed to inspection, but there was nothing careless about the way he watched Clara. He had commanded the HMS Meridian during the disaster, and the inquiry that followed had left him with a scar beside his right eyebrow and an absence in his family that no report could explain. His younger brother Matthew, a lieutenant on the ship, had not survived. For two years James had believed that Edmund Whitcomb's defective chronometer helped send the Meridian onto the rocks.