* * *
Hugh examined the pages of the illuminated manuscript, trying to concentrate on the beautifully drawn and painted figures, but all he could see was Clara. The moment she’d entered the room, the only thing he’d been able to think about was the Christmas Eve ball when he’d held her in his arms. Her petite body had been languid against his when she’d curved into him with sighs as tender as her fingertips against his neck. Beneath the silk of her gown he’d been able to feel the press of her hips against his and when he’d caressed the line of her back, the sweep of his fingertips over the bare skin above the line of her bodice had made her shiver.
He’d sat across the table from her at Adam’s family home over the years, paying her no more heed than he would the younger sibling of any of his friends. It wasn’t until she’d entered Lady Tillman’s sitting room at the beginning of that fateful Christmas house party, her dark blonde hair done up in ringlets and secured with red ribbons, the plain cut of her dress unable to hide her curving hips or the fullness of her breasts, that he’d viewed her as a woman. Even when dressed in the simplest of fashions, she’d taken his breath way and he’d struggled not to stare at the womanly changes that had come over her while she’d spoken about the falling wheat prices and how they plagued the major landowners. Her girlish interests had changed as much as her figure. In those few moments she’d transformed from the gangling young sister of his closest friend into a lady he couldn’t take his eyes off, one worthy to become mistress of Everburgh Manor.
There hadn’t been any trace of that smitten woman in the one who’d turned to face him today, her full lips opening with surprise before she’d pressed them tight together in disgust. Marriage and loss had changed her as much as it had changed him. The simple young woman he’d fallen for had matured, her plain country styles exchanged for the elegance of London fashion, her once-adoring looks now cutting, but he deserved her anger. It was the grief he’d seen when she’d pored over the vellum that she didn’t deserve.
He turned the manuscript pages until he reached the one of the women crying at the foot of the cross. The mournful looks on their faces reminded him of how Clara had appeared when he’d watched her from across the room, hesitant to interrupt the private moment or to intrude on a sadness he was all too familiar with. While he’d watched her, the anguish and torment he’d suffered after he’d received the Christmas Eve letter six years ago informing him that Lord Matthews had finally agreed to Hugh’s requests for his daughter’s dowry, and that Hugh and Lady Hermione Matthews’s engagement could proceed, had rushed back to him. Along with it had come the regret that had tortured him in the carriage that Christmas morning when he’d ridden away from Stonedown and Clara. The memory of her distraught face when she’d faced him in this very room had torn at him along with the same accusation she’d thrown at him moments ago.
‘Fortune hunter. Bollocks.’ He slapped the book stand, making it rock before it righted itself. He hadn’t married Hermione simply for money, but out of duty to his family. The cold winters at Everburgh when his parents used to struggle to heat even a few rooms while his grandfather had squandered the family fortune on his actress second wife still haunted him, as did the strained and worried faces of his parents. After his grandfather’s hard living had finally killed him, the massive debts had fallen to his father to pay and their quality of life, which had never been high, had declined even further. Although his parents had done everything they could to shield Hugh from the reality of their situation, there was nothing their stories of knights and dragons could do to stave off the cold or place more food on the table. Then, when they’d been on the verge of leaving those days behind them for good, Hugh’s father’s heart had given out, worn down by years of struggles. At his funeral, Hugh had vowed that he would do everything he could to make sure that his mother would one day experience the comfort and ease that a marchioness deserved. His marriage to Hermione had given him the chance to do that and he’d never regretted his decision. He still didn’t. It was his youthful indiscretion at not being more cautious with Clara’s feelings that he lamented, especially today, but there was nothing he could do to change the past, not his one with her or the last three years. He could only move forward and he would.
Hugh left the library in search of Adam and society, needing both more than solitude and regret. Solitude and the constant torment of remorse had already led him to make too many mistakes in London after Hermione’s death, ones he’d have to work twice as hard to overcome if Clara’s reaction to him offered any indication of how people currently regarded him. She and they had heard the stories about his behaviour in London. Most of the tales weren’t even true, or they were exaggerated far beyond recognition, but it didn’t matter. Until recently, he hadn’t worked to check them and enough of them were true to give credence to the rest. At one time he’d been admired as much for himself as his old title and had been known to everyone as an honourable and respectable marquess who hadn’t inherited his grandfather’s taste for ruin. It’d taken a lifetime to build that reputation and three years to throw it all away and make everyone believe he was no better than his grandfather, but he was and he would prove it again.
Striding down the hall, he found Adam in the billiards room with a number of other gentlemen. They bent over the table to examine the shots, change the score on the marker or watch the game, each of them carrying glasses of brandy and sipping them between bits of conversation and breaks in the play. A gaggle of children ran through the room, swarming around the table before running out the opposite door, their noisy chatter barely breaking the conversation of the lords who were willing to tolerate their antics in this season of forgiveness. Hugh hoped everyone was willing to forgive more adult mishaps, especially his.
‘Delamare, good to see you.’ Adam clapped him on the back, then moved to hand him a glass of brandy from a nearby footman’s tray before remembering and setting it back on the salver for someone else to enjoy. ‘Sorry, I forgot you’d given it up.’
‘There are times when I think that might have been a mistake.’ He glanced at the brandy, tempted to throw back a good portion of it and savour the burning in his throat. It was a pain he deserved, but he wasn’t a man to go back on his promises, at least not any more.
Adam tilted his head to one side in scrutiny. ‘I assume you’ve seen Clara, then?’
‘I have. She wasn’t pleased to see me.’
‘I’m not surprised.’ He didn’t look at Hugh, but swirled his brandy in his snifter before taking a generous drink. ‘She didn’t know you would be here.’
‘You didn’t tell her?’ He wanted to take the snifter and break it over his friend’s head. ‘The entire reason I wrote to you was so you could warn her in the hopes it might ease any tension between us.’ The tension that had dominated every word that had passed between them in the library.
‘If I’d told her you’d be here, she wouldn’t have come. You know how it is, no one likes to be reminded of past mistakes and such.’
No, they didn’t. Not Hugh, not Clara, no one.
‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter now,’ Adam continued. ‘You’re both here and now you’ve got your awkward first meeting out of the way, I’m sure the two of you will get on splendidly.’
‘I wish I shared your optimism.’
‘Well, the season of miracles and all that.’ He rapped Hugh on the arm and