“We have received an invitation to a Christmas house party from Lady Eleanor Kingston,” Clarissa said quickly, watching the surprise ripple over her mother’s face.
“Lady Eleanor?” Lady Crompton replied weakly. “I see.”
She proceeded to do the same thing that Clarissa had done,reading the invitation and then reading it again as though to ensure it was genuine. She looked at the back, the front, and then the back again, then lowered it to her lap.
Clarissa waited, dreading the reaction before it came but knowing there was no escaping it.
“Oh, this is wonderful,” her mother exclaimed, leaping to her feet and walking to the fire. She began pacing in front of it, her hands gripping the invitation like a lifeline. She rang for a servant immediately, and a footman entered the room. “Please ask Lord Crompton to join us at his earliest convenience.”
The footman disappeared again, and Clarissa closed her eyes, begging for patience.
“Mama…”
“Lady Eleanor has always been one of my closest friends; I knew she would not abandon us like the rest of them.” She read the invitation again. “Just think of it, Clarissa, a house party for Christmas! There could be any number of people there to whom we are not yet acquainted. It has been so long since… this could be just what we need.”
Her mother never mentioned the elopement or said Catherine’s name aloud, and neither did her father. She was always simply referred to as ‘your sister’.
Despite knowing that her parents did not wish her ill, Clarissa could not help but take the phrase personally. It sounded accusatory, as though she were tainted by her sister’s disgrace.
“Are we truly going to a party?” Emily asked, her eyes sparkling with glee.
“Of course!” Lady Crompton said quickly. “How could we possibly refuse?”
“Mama,” Clarissa said again, her tone cautious and measured, “consider the potential risks.”
Lady Crompton stopped pacing and turned to glare at her.“Risks? What risks?”
Clarissa cleared her throat. “Lady Eleanor may wish for us to attend, it is true, but the very people we would be circulating with might still shun us as a family. It could be yet another humiliation and there would be no escape. We would be guests in a house where we do not belong amongst animosity and derision. We attended so many balls to ‘keep up appearances,’ and I need not remind you how difficult they were by the end.”
“Oh Heavens,” her mother exclaimed. “Those balls were directly after your sister left us. It has been so long that there will be, and have been, a host of new scandals for the gossips to sink their teeth into by now.”
“And if we make a misstep somehow amidst this new company? What then? We would be in a worse position than when we started.”
“Are you planning to misstep?” her mother asked, her eyes narrowing cruelly at Clarissa as though she was intentionally attempting to sabotage her mother’s good humour.
“Of course not, Mama, but—”
“Clarissa is right, my dear.”
They all turned at the deep voice from the doorway. Her father, Lord Robert Crompton, stood behind them, one hand still on the door handle. As he scanned the room, his gaze rested on Clarissa for a fraction longer than the others.
He closed the door behind him and walked into the room, cutting a smart figure in his morning coat. Although he was clean-shaven, he had always had a thick head of hair, and his sideburns and eyebrows had only grown bushier over the intervening years.
Clarissa’s mother hated them.
Lord Crompton took up his position by the fireplace as his wife repaired to one of the sofas. She sat very straight, the invitation still clutched in her elegant fingers.
“What do you mean, my dear?” she asked, feigning nonchalance. “You cannot possibly be considering refusing?”
Her father turned to Clarissa, those bushy eyebrows raising to his hairline.
“Well, Clary? It is you who has shouldered the burdens for this family over the past few years. I think it fair that we hear your views.”
Her mother scoffed derisively. “We have already heard her views—”
“Bernadette,” her father said with quiet comment. “Please let our daughter speak,” and Lady Crompton fell into an uncomfortable silence.
Clarissa hesitated, feeling her mother’s gaze burning into her skin.
