Chapter 20

April 30, 1823

Sweat dripped down Clara's brow as she bent over her most recent project. Sun sliced through the window like a yellow knife, sitting heavy across every bit of her exposed skin, heavier on that hidden by layers of muslin. Lovely, though, after such a frigid winter. She'd thrown the window open wide to let birdsong inside. The happy cries of Alfie romping in the yard the music that moved her while she worked.

She stood and wiped a droplet of sweat away with her forearm. Yes. Every line of her new creation seemed right. Was right. Quite possibly, she'd outdone herself with this piece. Perfectly serviceable, and even more uniquely suitable for the recipient.

Atlas.

He had seemed happy over the last several months. But then Atlas always seemed happy. If one looked no further than his jolly, roguish grin. One never knew how deep his happiness stretched, whether it skimmed the surface like a skipping stone or dropped deep below, settling in the very bottom of his heart.

His impulse to protect people, to be a hero, was knit into his very bones. He'd put others before himself no matter the sacrifice it took. Would he regret it one day? Would he regret saving her?

If she had not agreed to marry him, he might already be on his way to France or the Netherlands or Italy or wherever he needed to go to heal his heart. He could have hired a sensible fellow to help finish the dower house, a man who would have gotten the work done and left, and then Atlas would have, too. Across the channel.

It seemed rather unfair, her entire position in his life an imposition. That was one reason she'd begun to make the chair. A sort of apology, an attempt to give comfort when she'd only ever given him more weary work.

No matter how much work they completed on the house, there remained, always, somehow, something else to do.

Somehow? She knew how. Atlas. He'd begun to play a game he thought she could not decipher.

Every time she thought she'd finished something with the house, Atlas would find some flaw that needed attention. He'd pulled down and replaced the molding three separate times. It looked fine to her. Had looked fine the three times he'd pulled it down. They'd had to slow down to add more ornamentation to the mantelpiece. The newel post was not steady enough, he claimed. And then he'd suggested the window seats could be wider because a mother and child might wish to read a book together there. And then he'd requested ornamentation for those seats. And then he'd wondered aloud if the window should be bigger or if there should be another one. And she'd had to kiss that idea right out of his head.

She'd cried at Christmas because she was keeping him where he did not wish to be, so now he pretended their job was never done. For her. To sweep away her guilt, she supposed.

She ran a hand down the chair arm, the stained wood satin beneath her fingertips. She'd copied the design from one for a library chair she'd seen in an old copy of Ackermann's that had fallen from Franny's desk in her private parlor. The desk was stuffed, overflowing, and she constantly shoved more items into its overpacked, paper-wailing drawers. So many old copies of Ackermann's, most with ink and watercolor satirical prints on their pages, drawn by a man named Sir George. Still other bits of paper that exploded from it on occasion possessed even lines and musical notes—Atlas's songs printed by the London presses. The woman hoarded the paper bits of her children's lives.

Clara stepped away from the chair. It was good. The modifications she'd made to the design using Sheraton's Cabinet-Maker had elevated the piece. The square shape much bigger than those usually littering libraries and parlors, the arms sloping low from back to front to open up the space between them more fully. The padding she'd sewn into the seat, back, and sides, much thicker than usual. The seat itself wider, almost humorously wide, almost a bench, allowing a big man to adjust his body as necessary to find comfort. She'd used fabric from a set of matching chairs that had been ruined beyond saving. The upholstery had been salvageable, though, a lovely dark blue. She'd used satinwood. Expensive, to be sure. And difficult to come by on her own, but Zander had helped her procure some from London. She'd sold more of her jewelry to Frampton Son's to afford it. Worth every bit of trouble and expense. The wood's warm golden glow was exactly what Atlas needed. And it accepted well the small oil paintings along the edges—musical notes.

The sky outside the window spread far in the unrelieved blue of spring, and her little labor of… of admiration and gratitude sat complete.

But where was Atlas? He should have arrived some time ago. He'd remained at the big house to help Raph erect a maypole for tomorrow. His mother, Matilda, Fiona, and several of the women from the nearby village had decorated it yesterday, painting its length with bold colors and flowers and affixing the ribbons. Alfie had helped, drawing small soldier figures in a stripe of dried scarlet paint. Clara had helped, too, adding a stripe of yellow. For sun, for life, for how Atlas made her feel—full of light.

The chair seemed to warm the air around her, make it fizz and pop. Where had Atlas got to? She found her pelisse, more for propriety's sake than for warmth, and stuffed her arms inside it as she left the dower house. Once she buttoned it up, no one would be able to tell she wore man's clothing. As long as she didn't stride as fully as the pants allowed.

Beyond the garden hedge, she saw him, hands shoved into pockets, a lock of hair falling over one eye, his gait long and strong, not a single hitch. She'd been massaging his leg with oil after his baths. Mostly to care for him as no one else could, to thank him for so much sacrifice, but also because as she pressed her fingers up and down his magnificent thigh, his shaft leapt to life, and then they put it to good use. The scent of the lavender oil had begun to cling to them both.

He kissed her when he reached her, his hands somehow all over her all at once, caressing her backside, smoothing up her spine, giving her neck a gentle squeeze before threading through her hair. The other hand's journey much shorter, cupping her cheek and staying there as if it had found a home, his thumb rubbing sparking lines up and down the length of her jaw. His hands, his touch swallowed her whole, and his mouth devoured her. No tame midday kiss, this. A revelation that left her breathless.

When he pulled away, she wavered, falling against his chest as he chuckled into her hair.

"Where have you been?" Her voice raspy with desire.

"Helping Mother. Took longer than expected. Raph got several ribbons wrapped round him, and they wouldn't come off. He looked like a belligerent dog on a fashionable young lady's lead." He chuckled, nuzzled the top of her head. "I'm here now." He tipped her chin up so he could look into her face. "Do you need my help with anything?"

The pulsing between her legs demanded his attention, but she put herself out of his arms and smoothed her skirts, tamed her rioting heart, and tugged through the garden back toward the dower house. "I'd like to show you something."

"Have you finished a room?" A curious flatness to his tone.

"No, but?—"

"Do you hear that?"

She tugged harder. "Just wheels, an approaching cart or similar. Come."

"Could be one of my brothers." A smile in his voice as he pulled her around the side of the house where the road passed by. A carriage lumbered down it, black and shiny and with a golden crest painted on the side.

Clara choked on a gasp and pressed closer to Atlas's side, her body running to numb all at once.

"I don't think we know whoever that is," Atlas said. "Perhaps it's one of my father's old friends come to?—"

"It's Lord Tefler." She knew the crest, a relatively new affectation of stars and stag created by Lord Tefler in his youth to elevate the family name. She ripped from Atlas's side and ran to the back of the house. The garden offered some protection, but— "No!" She ran harder, out of the garden, her legs pumping quick toward Briarcliff.

Heavy bootsteps behind her, catching up. A strong grip around her shoulder, swinging her around.

She jerked out of his hold. "I must get to Alfie."

"Are you… sure… it's him?" Atlas panted between words, his long legs keeping pace with her.

"Yes!"

They ran together all the way to the manor where the black coach sat waiting like a giant, squat spider. Her heart swelled with dread, and her stomach threatened to release everything she'd consumed that morning, but she swallowed the bile working its way up her throat and pushed past the spider and through the door.

"Alfie," she squeaked. "I must find Alfie."

"Up the stairs to the nursery." Atlas stood before her, his large hands on her shoulders, trying to comfort, failing. Not his fault. "Tefler will have been taken to Mother, likely. I'll face him first. Will you let me?"

"Yes." For Alfie, she would. Wasn't that why she'd married this man? So he could fight the monsters for her? It seemed a cowardly thing now, to flee while he fought her battles. But… Alfie. She flew up the stairs and found him right where he usually was in the mornings, in the nursery. But not curved over a desk shaping his letters with meticulous concentration, the tip of his tongue poking out from the corner of his mouth.

He stood in a corner of the room scowling at his nursemaid. His legs were spread into a wide stance and his arms crossed over his chest. He'd pointed his chin down and narrowed his eyes, and holy Hepplewhite, she knew that stance, had often seen Atlas take it when he disapproved of something.

He saw her as soon as she rushed into the room, and so did the nursemaid, who held her hands out, palms up.

"Please do help me, my lady. Young Alfred refuses to go downstairs, and there's a gentleman to see him."

"He doesn't have to go downstairs." She strode across the distance separating them and crushed him to her side. "He stays right here."

The nursemaid's hands dropped. "He says he's the lad's grandfather."

"And I'm his mother. Where is Lady Bromley?" Franny would never allow Alfie to be taken from them.

"She's at the maypole with the marquess and marchioness. Mr. Smith's gone to get them, and I'm to bring him"—she nodded to Alfie—"downstairs."

"Not anymore, Daisy. Thank you, but Alfie will stay right here."

"I'm not going downstairs, Mama."

She dropped to her knees and pulled her son into her arms. "I know. Of course you're not. Atlas is with Lord Tefler right now. He'll take care of everything. He won't let you go anywhere."

Alfie's body, stiff as a soldier's, collapsed against Clara's chest, trembling. "I like it here. I don't want to go. I don't want to leave you. I don't want to leave Atlas and Grandmama and the others."

She kissed the top of his head again, again, and again. "You won't. You won't. I won't let him take you. Atlas won't let him."

But they could not stand there whispering their hopes into the air all day. They must act. Run? Or face the monster? Only one choice, really.

Clara stood, her hands on Alfie's shoulders. "Remain here." She turned to Daisy. "Lock the door behind me. Let no one in but Lord Atlas or myself."

Daisy, face pale, nodded.

Clara stroked Alfie's hair, banished the fear from her eyes and from her voice. "I'll return shortly. After I send Lord Tefler off. Play with your soldiers, yes?"

"Yes." Said with a firm jaw and hard eyes, and it almost broke Clara to see her son so strong when he should not have to be.

She marched from the room but did not make her way to the stairs until she heard the click of the door's lock. When she reached the ground floor, she found Matilda, Raph, and Franny entering from the front door. Reinforcements to make Clara's heart braver than before.

"Are we too late?" Matilda asked, her hand over her prominent belly.

Raph's arm hung around his wife's shoulders, and his entire body seemed taut and poised for battle. "The coach is still here. We're not too late."

Franny took Clara's hands. "Never fear, Clara dear. We'll send him packing." She threw her bonnet to the floor and marched down the hall, hair loose and streaming down her back.

Oh dear. She looked the very picture of a warrior queen, a Boadicea, but such a show of force, of oddity for the peerage would not endear Lord Tefler, might frighten him to extremes.

"Franny, come back!" Clara rushed after her, Raph and Matilda at her heels. "You cannot face him like that."

"Like what? Enraged?" Electricity crackled around the older woman.

"Your hair. You must put it up. Lord Tefler is… enamored of propriety, of the proper way of things, and if we're to convince him Alfie is better here than in his care, we must be?—"

"Pictures of perfect propriety." Raph dragged a hand though his hair. "Bollocks. We're about as far from that as can be."

"But we'll try." Matilda gave a stout nod, and in a single breath had straightened herself into a pillar of good behavior. How had she done it? A tilt of her chin, a set of her jaw, the steel-stiff spine. As if she'd had years of practice presenting a very particular image of feminine perfection.

Franny's eyes lit up, and she flew up the stairs.

"She has always enjoyed a good pantomime," Matilda said, watching her mother-in-law's skirts disappear above her.

"Let's hope her dramatics prove helpful." Raph set his sights on the end of the hall. He hooked his arm with Matilda's, and they marched, chins high, toward the open parlor there.

Clara followed, trying to show as much courage as they did, as much composure, but by the time he stepped into the room, she could hardly breathe.

"Ah," she heard Atlas say from inside, "you have the honor of meeting my brother, the Marquess of Waneborough. And his wife, the marchioness."

Some stuttering, the silence of a formal bow. Clara forced a breath into her lungs then entered just as Lord Tefler rose. He spotted her immediately, his eyes widening then narrowing as his lips took the shape of a sneer. She knew the sneer well. He'd seemed only ever to aim it at her beneath eyes of an icy blue. She'd always wanted to put something sticky in that dark-gray hair of his. Honey. Or glue. To see if his vanity could be shattered, to bend his tall frame low. As he'd bent hers.

Atlas moved to her side. "And you know my wife, Lady Atlas Bromley."

"Clara." Lord Tefler spit her name, refusing to bow.

"Lord Tefler." She offered no curtsy. "It's time for you to leave."

The baron stepped closer, and Atlas stepped before her, blocking the other man, who rocked back several paces. He craned his neck to glare up at Atlas. "Not without my grandson. Not without my heir."