26. Chapter Twenty-Six

H ugh had lived in these rooms for four years and, if asked, he’d have never been able to recall the pattern in the plaster on his ceiling.

Until now.

Night had long since covered the city and there was barely a hint of light creeping through the gap in his curtains, but it was enough to keep the room from complete darkness.

It was enough for his eyes to focus on the slight dips and rises in the plasterwork of his ceiling while his thoughts swirled around the implications of Mr. Fletcher’s suggestion.

When he stumbled into work, bleary-eyed and exhausted, it continued to fill his mind. Though he normally chafed against Mr. Johns’ restrictions, that morning he was thankful to be confined to the back room. He wasn’t certain he could hold his end of a reasonable conversation, much less an intricate discussion on the best clock for a particular room or purpose.

He selected the simplest of repairs to fill his time, ones that required only a fraction of his attention. Even those took three times longer than they normally would have.

Unfortunately, his afternoon duties required him to leave his workroom sanctuary. There was a long list of customers that paid for him to regularly come around to their homes and recalibrate the time on their clocks and watches.

Fortunately, most households weren’t like Lord Eversly’s and he could accomplish his duties with little to no conversation. He could enter via the servant entrance, go about his business, and leave without having spoken more than the most basic of greetings.

After he finished his rounds, he hired a hack to take him to St. Anne’s. It wasn’t his normal day to wind and set the clock, but perhaps a change of routine would help his thoughts land in some semblance of order.

After taking care of the clock, he didn’t climb back down. Instead, he left his tools, climbed the rickety ladder several birds had left their mark on while using it as a resting place over the years, and let himself out onto the small ledge of the top of the clock tower.

From here he could see the docks. One of those ships could belong to Mr. Fletcher. In a matter of months, one of those vessels could be using Hugh’s chronometer to calculate their navigational pathway.

He could also see the pale walls for the Tower of London and the beautiful dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Beyond that would be Clara and her family and Mr. Johns’ shop.

From the top of the church’s clock tower, with the wind buffeting him and the birds protesting his presence, it seemed he was looking at his options. A life, ready and waiting, near to hand, accessible. Or the unknown. There was great potential, but no guarantee it would ever see true accomplishment.

He’d always said he wanted his own business. That had been his goal since he’d taken on his apprenticeship. There were notebooks full of ideas back in his rooms of the experiments he would do and the clocks he would make when it was his name decorating the dial.

There’d never been a time when he thought it would come easily, but he’d never guessed that the price to attain it might be more than he was willing to pay. He thought he’d be willing to give anything short of downright thievery.

It turned out reality was a little more complicated.

A few months ago, he might have been willing to trade his life for success, but now there was only one version of the future he could imagine choosing.

He climbed down the rickety ladder and through the maze of stairs. His clothing was covered in dust and grime and his hair was disheveled from the wind, but he didn’t give it a lot of thought.

Until he saw Clara in the porch preparing to leave.

He dropped his toolbox and hastened to smooth his hair.

She smiled and reached up to pluck a feather from his messy locks. “Been making a few friends?”

His face smiled in return even as his insides curled up in embarrassment. This was not the picture he wanted to present next time he spoke to Clara, because now that the words had formed in his head, he didn’t know how long he could keep from saying them aloud. If he voiced them now, this would be the image she would hold alongside that memory.

He cleared his throat and tried to consider his words carefully. “I was doing some thinking. Up in the tower.”

“Oh?” Her gaze dropped to the floor. “What were you thinking about?”

Instead of telling her—because part of him hoped he could get cleaned up and present his pitiful case with some form of decorum—he looked around for Eleanor. “Have you been busy today?”

“Yes. We were mending some donated clothing, but I need to be getting home.” She looked at the door. “There's a ball tonight.”

Would Mr. Pitt be there? Would he hold her as they danced across the floor? Would this be the night when she finally decided she wanted a life Hugh would never be able to give her, even at the height of his success?

“Don’t go.” The words spilled out before he could stop them, and he simply couldn’t wait any longer. No, he wasn’t the picture of gentlemanly elegance, but that wasn’t something he could consistently offer her, either.

She needed to know how he felt before she made a declaration she would feel honor bound to keep. Unlike him, she didn’t have the luxury of refusing an offer that would provide for her future. He would have his own shop one day, even if he had to wait a year to receive his first large order of chronometers. His opportunity was coming.

But she couldn’t wait that long. She couldn’t wait for him to be ready.

She frowned up at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t go to the ball. I—” A large clump of dust fell from his hair, rolled along his shoulder, and drifted lazily to the floor. Hugh winced. He could not declare himself like this. “I’ve finished the chronometer.”

Her gaze fell. “Congratulations.”

“But I haven’t cleaned up my workspace yet.”

“When do you intend to do so?”

“Tonight.” He tossed his plans to stay with Uncle Patrick’s family aside. This was more important. “I’d like to talk to you.”

“You can talk to me now.”

He glanced down. A smear of white that must have come from the bird droppings on the ladder ran across one leg. He could only imagine how the rest of him appeared. With a wry grin, he looked back up to meet her gaze. “I didn’t really imagine declaring my intentions to someone while looking like this.”

“You . . .” She stopped and looked everywhere in the church but at him. “You imagined doing so in my cousin’s back drawing room?”

“Not originally, no. But now? Yes, I do.”

Now that the door was open, he couldn’t keep from laying all of it out for her. His thoughts, his feelings, his heart, they were all hers, and he couldn’t hold them anymore. “I don’t have a lot to offer you yet, and if we marry, it will take me even longer to build that, but . . .” He dropped the sentence he was forming because that was hardly what a woman wanted to hear.

He opened his mouth to try again. “I know I won’t ever be able to give you what you’ve always dreamed of.”

Honestly, could he make himself sound like a worse choice? Maybe. But the problem was he could not make himself sound like a better one. This was the reality he lived in.

Still, he pressed on because his other option was to give her up. “I’d like to think . . . that is, I hope . . .” He sighed. “Frankly, my dear Clara, I’m hoping you’ll want to choose me anyway.” In frustration, he looked down at his dirty hands. “I’d like to kiss you again, but I can’t touch you like this.”

Her eyes were wide as she looked up at him. Her voice was strained to the point of being barely louder than a whisper. “That’s probably a good thing.”

She stepped to the side, away from him, and put a hand on the door latch. “I . . . um.” She swallowed. “I’ll need to think about this.”

He nodded. He knew he would be thinking of nothing else for the next few hours. “I’ll be there tonight.”

“Cleaning up.”

“Yes.”

“And taking your things home.”

“Yes.” The unspoken understanding was there between them. After tonight, she could be finished with him. He wouldn’t be in her house, wouldn’t be in her life. She could say no by simply never coming to see him again.

After giving him one sharp nod of understanding, she opened the door and walked out.

Hugh departed soon after to go home, get a bath, and go to his temporary place of work in his best Sunday suit of clothing. If anyone else saw him tonight, he’d be a laughingstock, but if it gained him a chance with Clara, it would be worth it.

“There you are.” Aunt Elizabeth met Clara in the front hall. “Did you go off to that church again?”

Clara blinked several times as she handed her spencer and reticule to the maid. “I, what? Oh, yes. I was at the church.”

“I suppose it keeps you out of the gossip papers. Come along, you’ve barely time to get dressed for the ball tonight.” Aunt Elizabeth joined arms with Clara and led her up the stairs. “We had several guests yesterday, and I would like you to keep a particular eye out for them when positioning yourself for dance partners.”

There had been only three guests to their drawing room the day before and Aunt Elizabeth had made sure all of them were out within the customarily accepted twenty minutes. When Clara had asked why, she’d been told they didn’t want to lose the mystery that was driving her popularity.

In other words, Aunt Elizabeth didn’t want them to get to know Clara too well because then they would stop coming around.

But Hugh knew her, and he didn’t want to stop being around her.

What on earth was she going to do about that?

The truth was, she didn’t have to do anything. He’d all but implied that he would stop coming around if she weren’t here tonight.

But how could she know? Yes, she’d been horrified by what she’d learned about Mr. Pitt, but what if her mother and aunt were right? What if he could be a changed man? What if he hadn’t been the man those girls were talking about? What if they’d been lying? The man they’d described wasn’t the one she’d conversed with for the past several weeks.

Or was it? Was she the one who was lying? To herself?

Clara’s mind was spinning as she dressed in her favorite ball gown and sat for her hair to be done.

She’d never been a woman who made quick decisions. It had taken more than a year for her to agree to come to London and have a Season. When she’d been a child, she informed her mother she couldn’t possibly choose a favorite color until she was nine because, to a four-year-old, her nine-year-old brother had known everything about life.

Part of her wanted to convince herself that staying and listening to Hugh wouldn’t be her making a decision, but she knew, in reality, it would be. She would be either staying in London forever or leaving it as soon as possible. It was likely both options would leave her with fewer prospects than she’d arrived with. Her future would be all but determined, even if she tossed it all aside and determined to live as a spinster.

It wasn’t just a question of if she loved Hugh. She rather thought she might, though she wasn’t entirely convinced she knew what love really was yet. But was that enough for her to change everything she’d thought? How could she possibly be a woman of charity if her husband was a man of business? No matter what everyone tried to tell her about the church needing funds and that being as necessary as the work, she wasn’t certain she was meant to be on the more monetary side.

Could she be the woman he thought she was? London was already making her say and do and think things she never would at home. Did that mean she was changing or that the person Hugh knew wasn’t the real her?

She went downstairs and made her way to the small drawing room at the back of the house. The box that had sat in prime position on the table was gone. Only the tools and extra springs remained.

He would be there tonight to retrieve these items.

And she wouldn’t be here when he did.

Hugh risked Ambrose’s displeasure and entered the house through the kitchens. The servants gave him a few concerned looks, but he ignored them. He might return to this house a time or two if the cousins chose to continue socializing with him, but in time, that connection was likely to fade.

Unless Clara was waiting for him.

Hugh tried desperately to assume she wouldn’t be there, but he couldn’t possibly eradicate the hope his heart pumped through his veins.

He made it to his drawing room with minimal interactions.

It was empty.

She wasn’t there.

Still, his hope refused to die. She would hardly want to be caught waiting for his arrival in this private room. It was more likely she’d wait in a reasonable location, like the front hall or the main drawing room.

Hugh should have come in the front door as he normally did.

As quietly as possible, he moved through the house. She wasn’t in the front hall, the drawing room, or the billiard room. Desperate, he looked in the library, but it, too, was empty.

He didn’t dare to check her rooms, but the lack of servants on the private floors—indeed the lack of servants much of anywhere—indicated the family had vacated the home for the evening.

She’d gone to the ball.

She’d chosen Mr. Pitt. Or perhaps she’d chosen to wait for a man she hadn’t yet met or return home and find a match in the country.

What was certain was that she hadn’t chosen him.

He didn’t blame her. Mr. Pitt was truly the better choice. Yes, the man was a third son, but he was still of aristocratic lineage. He had a fine living lined up for him, thereby securing his future, and until then he had an allowance that was enough to keep him in high fashion and social connections.

Hugh didn’t know much about the man, but his reputation must not have been too bad, or Ambrose and Duke would have been angry about her choice instead of merely disgruntled about it.

What he did know was Mr. Pitt couldn’t love Clara like Hugh did. Clara might not know that, though. Hugh hadn’t exactly been eloquent that afternoon.

Clara didn’t know that Hugh craved her conversation because her view of the world and understanding of faith challenged his own and made him think. She didn’t know that she’d made him a better person in the past weeks of their acquaintance. She didn’t know that his first thought in the morning was not about clocks and shops and ledger books, but about whether or not she’d come by his workroom that day.

What she knew was that he thought she wouldn’t help his business and he’d never be able to give her what she’d always wanted.

Was it any wonder she wasn’t here tonight?

He’d never been a man who followed his feelings, and it would seem there was a reason he didn’t. Feelings weren’t something a man could plan and work toward, like a business.

Now the business was all he was going to have. Did that mean he was willing to marry Mr. Fletcher’s daughter? The idea sent a shudder through him, but he had to entertain the idea. He could court her, get to know her, see if they would suit. He refused to marry someone for money or have them feel like they’d been bought and sold, but he was willing to see if she would make a decent wife.

The question was, could Hugh be a decent husband?

Back in the workroom, he began gathering his tools. He should be prouder of the work he’d done within these walls. He knew enough about the industry and who was working in it to know that there wasn’t going to be a better chronometer than his submitted to the Royal Observatory. Even if he had to while away his time working for Mr. Johns for another year, his life would change eventually. His opportunity would come.

It would seem he’d lost his opportunity to win Clara, though. Not that he’d ever had much of a chance.

He’d had his moment to dream, and now it was time to go home and be practical.