“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.”
Twenty-One
Atlas could hide her. And he would, too. If Clara let him. Every one of her nerves demanded she remain in her spot, screamed at her to stay put behind her lovely mountain of a husband and ignore the word ringing through her ears.
Heir?
No. Impossible. Why would Lord Tefler call Alfie that? Surely he did not mean…
“Where is he?” Tefler demanded, his gaze swinging to Clara.
“What do you mean your heir?” Not a single wobble in one of Clara’s words. Miracle, that. “You have an heir.” An elder son who’d never hurt Clara but never helped her, either. A bit of a useless fellow. “And he has a wife. So even the succession after him will soon be secure, I’m sure. Do not lie about who Alfie is.”
Tefler’s jaw twitched. “Elizabeth has proved unable to carry her fourth child to term.”
Matilda’s hand flew to her large, rounded belly.
“I am sorry to startle you, my lady.” Tefler spoke to Matilda’s stomach more than to her, and when he returned his attention to Clara, his eyes shone glassy with water rimming the edges. He cleared his voice. “If my son’s wife proves incapable ofproviding what she was born to provide, young Simon grows in significance.”
“Simon?” Raph asked, glancing at Clara.
“It’s one of Alfie’s names. It’shisname.” She nodded toward the baron. “But Alfred is his first name, and my father’s.”
“And thus,” Tefler said, “insignificant, while the boy himself is?—”
“My son is significant no matter the name he goes by,” Atlas growled. “And he prefers Alfred, so that is what you’ll call him. And, while I am correcting your inaccuracies, he is not your heir. Your son yet lives. And while he and his wife may not as yet be blessed with a child, they may one day be. You have no power here.”
Clara put a hand on her husband’s arm. The wordsmy sonon his lips drained all fear from her body. The certainty in his cool logic strengthened her spine. One truth, bright and bold, glowed in her mind—she loved Lord Atlas Bromley. With her entire heart and soul.
That chair she’d been working on for four months—not born of the sweat of gratitude and admiration at all. She’d put love into every curve, her heart into every corner. She knew she’d been falling, but here she was, at the glorious end result, madly in love with a singing soldier with fire in his blue, blue eyes.
Lord Tefler’s sneer curled even more tightly on his lips as he studied Atlas like a pinned bug from scuffed boots to hatless head, taking in all in between—rumpled clothing, no cravat, smudges of paint on his hands from where he’d helped with the maypole. “You seem to have a talent, Clara, for catching titled men. Tell me, Lord Atlas, did she fuck you to catch you? Get herself with child to back you into a corner?”
One large step in Tefler’s direction brought Atlas almost right up against the other man, his hands hammers at his sides.“Watch your tongue. I will feel no guilt for tossing you out the window.”
“Except, maybe,” Raph added, standing at his brother’s side, “for the cost of the broken glass.”
Tefler clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Another fine man brought low. She’s a menace. But I do not blame you, Lord Atlas.” He sighed, walking away from the brothers. “You should have been raised better, raised to appreciate your station, raised to?—”
