22. Chapter Twenty-Two

H ugh carefully turned the screw on the casing of the chronometer. Too tight and the box would bind, restricting the accurate movement of the carefully balanced mechanism. Too loose and the interior parts could shift, throwing everything out of alignment.

Satisfied, he sat back and looked at the device. Had he made all the right choices? Only time would tell.

A grin touched his lips and some of the tension eased from his shoulders as he appreciated his own mental joke.

“Don’t you get tired of spending your evenings here?”

There was no quelling the snap of pleasure that sliced through him as he looked up and confirmed that his visitor was indeed Clara. He should discourage her visits, but there was something so refreshing about conversing with someone who wanted nothing from him but his thoughts and could provide nothing for him aside from companionship.

Not having to weigh the benefits of maintaining an easy relationship was more of a luxury than he’d have guessed.

He considered her question and gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Not really.” And soon he would have less reason to be here. Checking in daily to maintain the device and verify it was keeping accurate time wouldn’t require him to spend hours in this room.

He didn’t tell her that. “I only have a month until the device has to be turned into Greenwich. Of course, it will be a year until they announce a winner.”

Clara’s eye widened. “That seems a long time.”

“It’s the only way to test a chronometer and see how accurate it remains without being adjusted.” He grinned and shared his earlier joke with her. “Only time will tell.”

She gave him a small smile and shook her head as she came further into the room. “That makes sense.” With a deep sigh, she sat in her customary seat near the door. As if her proximity to escape would be enough to assuage anyone’s displeasure if they were to find her in the room with him unchaperoned.

He fiddled with the items on his worktable, needlessly arranging and rearranging them. In truth, there was little more he could do tonight. Since she hadn’t come by already this evening, he’d assumed they’d gone to an earlier evening event, and he might see Miss Woodbury upon their return. He’d intended to be well away from the house before that could happen. Not only did he badly need a full night of sleep, but he needed to separate himself from the nightly discussions.

They were making him discontent with his life in ways he might never be able to rectify.

Now that she was here, though, he couldn’t bring himself to leave.

They couldn’t just sit here in silence, though. The obvious topic would be the charity fundraiser he was supposed to be helping her with but had so far done nothing toward.

A man did not deliberately bring up his shortcomings to a beautiful woman, though, even if he did not have romantic intentions toward her.

“Mr. Lockhart,” she said softly, “might I ask your opinion on something? As a man?”

Maybe he wanted to discuss the charity after all. Hadn’t she wanted a clock for a lottery or something? He swallowed. A gentleman really couldn’t deny a request such as hers, not if they were friends. “If you need to ask, I am, of course, at your service.”

“Do you have a sister?”

Of the dozens of possibilities that had flooded through his mind, that question wasn’t even on the fringes. “I . . . no.”

“But you have your cousin Eleanor.”

“Yes.”

Miss Woodbury frowned. “Do you listen to her?”

Hugh grinned. “She would box my ears if I didn’t.”

The sigh she emitted was the deflating kind, the sort someone gave when they were on the verge of admitting defeat.

He didn’t like hearing it from her.

“What has you so troubled that you stayed in tonight? The servants mentioned the carriage left hours ago.”

“I didn’t want to come to London, you know.” She twisted her fingers together in her lap. “But since I had no choice in the matter, I tried to make the best of the situation. There are always possibilities, even in the most dismal of circumstances.”

There weren’t many young ladies in England that would find a fully sponsored Season in London a dismal circumstance, but he wisely kept that observation to himself.

“By the time we arrived, I had dreams of what I would do here.”

That sounded like a far more normal circumstance. Even Eleanor occasionally dreamed of what she would do with a London Season, even though she’d never have one that included aristocratic balls and theater boxes.

When she fell silent, Hugh prompted, “I assume that things are not progressing according to plan, then?”

“No.” Her voice was small. “They are not.”

Every time they’d spoken, Hugh had stayed firmly in position behind his worktable. The distance now seemed almost rude when the woman appeared to be near tears. He crossed the room and took the chair that had been pushed up against the wall behind the door.

“What has you troubled, Miss Woodbury?”

Her face scrunched up into a frown as she rose to her feet. “My apologies. I should not be imposing on you in this manner.”

Hugh’s eyebrows lifted as he stood as well, careful to keep a proper distance between them. “If I’d felt your conversation was an imposition, I’d have put an end to it the first time you visited me.”

She crossed her arms as if all that was holding her together was sheer force of will.

“I shan’t stop you if you choose to go, but you may depend upon my discretion if you need to speak freely, Miss Woodbury.”

Her nose scrunched again, and Hugh almost laughed. “It’s the Miss Woodbury, isn’t it?”

She sighed. “Yes. I’m afraid I haven’t had a confidant that wasn’t my family or a friend from childhood. All of them call me Clara.”

“Have I your permission then? You, of course, may refer to me as Hugh if you wish.”

She nodded. “I think that will help.”

“Shall we try again, then?” He gestured toward the chairs, and they both lowered themselves to the seats.

“What has you troubled, Clara?” The intimacy of her given name in his mouth nearly drove him to his feet once more. Perhaps, since it was just the two of them, he would simply not call her anything. Yes, that would be safer.

“While I didn’t particularly want to come to London, I knew the marriage was a necessity. I can hardly live on my family’s generosity forever.” She took a deep breath. “After I got here, I made a plan. You inspired it, actually.”

“Me?”

“Yes. You.” Whatever Hugh had been expecting to follow that revelation, he could never have been prepared for the flood of words that followed.

Once Clara started talking, there was simply no stopping her as the thought process behind selecting Mr. Pitt was detailed, along with her growing concerns over Ambrose’s depraved habits and her failure to do more for Eleanor’s cause than provide a plausible front for her true mission.

“Nothing is going the way it should.” Clara clenched her fists together in her lap.

Hugh took a deep breath and sent a silent prayer for wisdom heavenward. Was this what it would have been like if he’d had a sister? Not that he felt all that brotherly toward Clara, but maybe if he’d grown up with an understanding of what happened when a woman let loose all her problems, he would know better what to say.

Since he didn’t have experience to lean on, he was just going to have to tread carefully and follow his instincts. “How do you know it isn’t?”

She blinked at him. “Weren’t you listening? This wasn’t the plan.”

“I know, but you aren’t the one in control.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Everything is running away from me like a frightened horse.”

So the put your trust in God angle wasn’t going to work tonight. What was Eleanor always telling him to do? Try a little empathy? “You feel powerless.”

“Yes.” Clara slumped into the chair. “No matter how badly I want to drive life in a certain direction, my efforts are insignificant.” Her voice roughened as if tears were imminent. “I want to return to the village where I matter.”

Against his better judgment, Hugh reached across the space and took her hand, bumping the door a few more inches closed in the process. “You matter here. Your intentions are noble, and your motivations are good. Regardless of the outcome, you can only ever control your own actions.”

Her hand squeezed his as her head dropped back against the chair. She stared at the ceiling as if the answers to life could be found in the floating dust. “Why wouldn’t noble and good actions have the desired reaction?”

“I didn’t say your actions were good. I said your intentions were.”

Her head snapped up and she narrowed her gaze at him. “What do you mean?”

How should he put this? He cast his eyes around the room, desperate for inspiration. His eyes lit on the worktable and the scattering of clock components on the surface. “Have you ever wound a clock?”

Her hand let go of his so she could cross her arms in agitation. “Of course I have.”

He flexed his fingers to ease the sudden chill that crossed his skin. “Right. Of course.” He cleared his throat. “Have you ever wound one too tight?”

She frowned. “Possibly. I’ve attempted to wind clocks that had apparently been broken, but I would hardly know why.”

“If you wind the spring too tight, it can snap or twist in on itself so that it can’t drive the clock anymore.”

She sat up straighter on the edge of her seat. “If you mean to call me uptight as Ambrose tends to do, I will leave this room.”

Hugh winced. He was clearly making a mess of this conversation, but he couldn’t stop now, especially not when he was right. “I didn’t say you were wound too tight.” He took a deep breath and plunged on. “But it’s possible you are trying to keep winding a clock, hoping it will give you a different time.”

“So I should stop winding the clock? I should stop trying to change things and just stand idly by while misguided decisions are made, and lives are left to wallow in the mire of the consequences of those decisions?”

She rose to her feet and began to pace the small room. “You would have me stand by and accept the outcome as I watch my cousin run himself to ruin, Mr. Pitt squander the shepherding responsibilities he is to have, and my name be given credit for efforts I have no part in?”

“I said no such thing.” Hugh stood because it was either move his body or raise his voice. “Acceptance is not surrender, but you have to understand that no matter how much you influence or guide, you have no command over the will of others.”

“I refuse to be a passive bystander in my own life.”

“Yet you would have them passively allow you to steer their path.”

“Well, someone has to step in because they are all doing it wrong.”

“And who are you to declare that?”

“It is obvious to anyone who has ever listened to a sermon.” She paced until she was standing directly in front of Hugh, eyes bright with the conviction of her stance. “Everything we do affects others. You don’t just stick meaningless gears into a clock, do you? Everything has a purpose and changes something else.”

He sighed. She had a point, and he had to concede it with a sharp nod.

“Then we owe it to the people around us to consider the weight of our choices and ensure that others are correctly impacted by our behavior.”

He wanted to shove a hand through his hair or perhaps take his own turn eating up the floor with his paces, but she had him blocked into a corner between the chair and the door. “There is, perhaps, merit in your tenacity, but you cannot simply badger someone into accepting your view. I know little about Mr. Pitt’s situation”—though he wasn’t surprised to learn the man was less than honorable—“and I know even less of society ladies, but I’ve been spending a great deal of time with your cousin lately.”

“Then you know the situation is dire.”

“I know what you’ve set in motion is not directing his mind toward the thoughts you would like him to have.”

“I will not give up on him.”

Was she willfully misinterpreting him? “I never said you should.”

“But you would have me simply accept his debauchery.”

“I would have you accept his freedom of choice.”

“He cannot be free when he is shackled by the consequences of his vices.”

“And what of your shackles?”

“Mine?”

“You think you have none?”

She blinked at him.

Hugh was too caught up in the conversation to choose his words carefully anymore. As much as he knew he had a valid point to make, part of him was whispering that perhaps she had a valid point as well. The conflict robbed him of the careful control he’d used earlier.

“Pride is a vice, Clara.”

She narrowed her gaze and leaned toward him. “As is apathy.”

“You think I’m apathetic?”

“You seem to have nary a qualm that Ambrose spends his evenings . . .” She drifted off, clearly uncertain exactly how Ambrose was whiling away the night hours. “Coming home in a clearly disheveled state.”

He didn’t want to admit to her that he had indeed been apathetic about the choices Ambrose made in his personal life, as he’d given little to no thought to the condition of the man’s soul. It wasn’t a comfortable idea, and he refused to be the only one convicted in this conversation. “You would be satisfied with his proper behavior while you are here? Is it just that you don’t want to see the indications of the state of his heart?”

She poked him in the chest. “Do not insinuate that I do not love my cousin.”

“Then perhaps you should show that love a little differently. No one likes a beating, even if it is only a verbal one.”

“You don’t know everything about me.”

“I never claimed to. But I’ve been in this home for a few weeks now, and I’ve observed an awful lot.”

Their voices had dropped to a whisper. Somehow, they had edged their way closer and closer to each other. Hugh could see the flecks of blue in her eyes, make out the individual spikes of lashes still wet from her earlier unshed tears.

The agitation that had burned through him from the argument shifted, and his heart pounded for an entirely different reason. “Clara,” he whispered.

Her voice was nearly silent as she answered, “Hugh.”

And then they were kissing. Whether he moved or she did was unclear. All he knew was her lips were under his and her hands were gripping his shoulders while his fingers wrapped around the top of her waist.

The contact lasted but a moment until they both tore away, stepping back, chests moving with the effort to control their rapid breathing. His lips felt the chill of the separation, and all he wanted to do was step forward and take her into his arms again, though more firmly this time, and kiss her with predetermined intention.

“Good heavens,” she whispered, one hand coming up to lightly trace her bottom lip.

“Indeed.” Hugh shoved his hands into his pockets to keep them under control.

Silence stretched as they simply stared at each other.

“I should go,” Clara said softly, though her feet didn’t move.

“That would probably be best.”

They stared at each other for a long while, until their breathing had returned to normal, until any remaining shred of dusk had disappeared from the window, until the clock in the corner struck the hour.

“I should go,” she said again. This time she moved toward the door, but Hugh’s stance in front of the chair made it difficult to open. He stepped to the side, trying to pull the door open for her, but that maneuvered him back into her space. She scrambled back as he nearly fell into the chair he’d vacated earlier.

Finally, he was able to open the door and step aside like a gentleman and she all but ran out of the room.

Several steps away, she paused and looked at him over her shoulder before fleeing into the darkened areas of the house.

It was a long time before Hugh was able to do the same.