A Spring Deception (Seasons Book 2) (7 page)

Celia nodded. “I do.”

“Then that is a fine start. Whatever comes next will happen naturally.” Rosalinde kissed her cheek. “And you deserve a great deal of happiness, so I will intervene if I feel you won’t receive it.”

“Big sister to the rescue.” Celia laughed. “Good, I will trust you to steer me correctly.”

Rosalinde broke away with her own laugh and both of them took a place on the settee this time. Celia sighed as her thoughts moved from ones of Clairemont to the further reaching consequences if their new connection did blossom.

“He’s a duke,” she said softly.

“He is,” Rosalinde said. “Would you ask me to curtsey when I meet with you if you were to marry him?”

“Of course not.” Celia didn’t laugh at her sister’s teasing, but shifted. “I-I was just thinking that Grandfather would be very happy if I were to wed him. A duke, and one with money and power, is a far better catch in his eyes than the earl he despises me for breaking with.”

Rosalinde stiffened and one of her hands lifted to her throat. Celia flinched at the instinctive action. The last time either of them had seen their grandfather, the man who had raised them, was just before Rosalinde’s wedding. He had attacked her, trying to choke her to death. He might have succeeded too, if it weren’t for Gray’s violent intervention.

Neither woman had heard a peep from him since. Not a threat. Not a conciliatory apology. Not a holiday wish. He was in London, of course, but he hadn’t tried to come in contact with them since their recent arrival.

“Do you
care
what Grandfather thinks?” Rosalinde asked softly, her voice catching just a touch.

“No,” Celia said. “I despise him for what he did to you, for his attempt at blackmailing me into wedding a title for his ambition. But Rosalinde, Gray’s attempts at uncovering the true identity of our father have been unsuccessful. The only man with that information seems to be Grandfather. If I were to be pursued by a duke, it
could
give us a bargaining chip for that information.”

Rosalinde recoiled, as if Celia had suggested they invite a poisonous snake to sleep in their beds. She supposed that was exactly what she was doing, in a way. But the facts were the facts, unpleasant as Rosalinde might find them to be.

“You cannot mean you would actually involve him in your future,” Rosalinde said. “Not after what he did, what he is capable of doing.”

“Don’t you want to know about the man who sired us?” Celia asked. “Because I do! I dream of him at night, I wonder about him almost daily. Who was he? Did he care for us? When our mother died, did he grieve? When Grandfather took us, did he fight for us at all?”

“I
do
wonder those things,” Rosalinde said. “But I still think we are better off continuing to look on our own, rather than making yet another twisted bargain with Gregory Fitzgilbert.”

“Rosalinde—” she began.

Her sister caught her hands and stopped her by saying, “Please, Celia. Enough! I don’t wish to discuss this subject any further.”

Celia let out a great sigh. She couldn’t blame her sister for her strong feelings on the matter, given what she’d endured not so long ago. But Celia feared Rosalinde wasn’t seeing the whole picture. Or perhaps her picture was just different. Rosalinde could make peace with not knowing.

Celia couldn’t.

But there was no use upsetting Rosalinde further. At least not yet. But she wasn’t going to put aside the idea of using her grandfather to get what she wanted.

Especially if a good opportunity was provided by the duke who would rejoin them soon.

Clairemont folded his hands on his lap and smiled as Danford poured him another drink. So far their conversation had been little more than small talk, a continuation of supper’s topics of discussion.

But Clairemont was about to make a move.

“I suppose I should thank you,” he said.

Danford laughed. “For supper? We were pleased to have you join us.”

“Not for supper, though it was delicious and I more than enjoyed the company,” Clairemont said, trying to push aside thoughts of Celia which kept infecting his mind.

Danford’s eyebrows came up. “Then what?”

“My investments in your ventures have paid off very well,” he said. “I have no illusions that it isn’t from your keen mind that all these things flow.”

Danford brushed off the compliment with a shrug. “I think any man who recognized the potential for the canals, for steam engines, for all these things that will lead our country into the future, would have done just as well as I have.”

“I’m not certain that is true. To succeed you must have a vision for the future,” Clairemont insisted.

He nodded. “I suppose.”

“And what is yours?”

His companion seemed to ponder his answer for a moment before he responded, “I think industry is the future. Building, inventing, expanding.”

Danford’s eyes lit up as he spoke, perhaps not with the same passion that he showed when speaking of his wife, but some small version of it. It was clear he was enthusiastic about his ventures. But what was he willing to trade for that zeal?

“Does the war not make it more difficult?” Clairemont pressed, careful now. The correspondence between the real duke and this man had never blatantly addressed the issue of the war, the embargo, the information and weaponry being traded at the expense of the effort.

But there had to be a reason the dead duke had filed Danford’s letters in hidden places just like he did with more incriminating papers.

Danford dipped his head, and Clairemont leaned forward as he awaited the answer. He wanted to see the body language, hear the tone, as well as analyze each word.

“The war is difficult for many reasons,” Danford said, his tone suddenly rough. “Trade is impossible in some ways, which makes
any
business more complicated. Some of the effort that could go to building must go to defense. But I think I see the results more in my workers.”

“How so?”

Danford frowned. “Many of their relatives are enlisted men. They are dying, and it breaks the spirit. There is discontent and I can hardly blame them for it.”

Clairemont nodded, but his heart rate had increased with that statement. Turncoats on the inside were said to be breeding the very discontent in the populace that Danford referred to. Was he part of that treasonous effort or just commenting on it?

“You think they should hate our leaders?” he pressed, trying to maintain a disinterested tone.

Danford shrugged. “I think it’s hard
not
to blame the leadership when you are scraping for bread and burying your brothers. I try to provide a good and safe environment for them and pay them fairly. It is the best I can do for crown and country, I suppose.”

Clairemont pondered the answer. Those were not the words of a traitor, but of a fair and decent employer. A man of principle who could see the feelings of his workers and tried to better them. Perhaps even tried to calm them for the sake of his king.

Danford rose to his feet and set his empty glass aside. “Two lovely ladies are awaiting our return in the parlor,” he said. “Shall we set aside these less than pleasant topics and join them?”

Clairemont nodded, perhaps more enthusiastically than he should, for he was pressing his finger on the topic he needed to explore most. But right now he wanted so much to put duty aside and spend a little time with the very interesting woman in the parlor.

He placed his glass next to Grayson’s and followed him into the hall. “Miss Fitzgilbert was engaged to your brother once, wasn’t she?”

Danford sent him a side glance, and in an instant their positions were reversed. Where Clairemont had until this point been investigating him, he now felt Danford searching
him
. He was protective of Celia, and there was a part of Clairemont that appreciated that.

“She was,” Danford said slowly. “An arranged union, as many are. She and my brother were kind enough to step aside from it when they realized Rosalinde and I had fallen in love.”

“To appease her grandfather, so she said,” Clairemont mused. “But you do not see the man now, do you?”

Danford’s body language transformed to an angry tension, coiled and ready to strike. “He was not appeased, unfortunately. But it is for the best. Celia is better off with us.”

Clairemont tilted his head. There was more to this story. He had sensed it before, but now he was certain. And though he doubted it had anything to do with his case, he found himself wanting to understand the truth.

“Here we are,” Danford said, his tone still taut as he opened the parlor door. But the moment he stepped inside, his body language changed. Clairemont watched as he strode across the room to his wife and took her hand as if they had been separated for days rather than less than an hour.

He found his gaze shifting to Celia. She, too, watched the almost intimate exchange, and when her eyes moved to him, she blushed.

He moved toward her and smiled. “What is it that ladies discuss when the gentlemen leave the room?” he asked. “I’ve always wanted to know.”

He expected her to smile at his teasing, but instead her face fell a fraction. Whatever she had discussed with her sister, it hadn’t been a happy topic. The tension in the room was now palpable.

“Celia?” he asked, dropping his tone so the other two wouldn’t hear the familiarity of his address. “What is it?”

Celia blinked. Was she being so obvious in her feelings regarding her conversation with Rosalinde? She must be, for Clairemont seemed to recognize them effortlessly.

She dipped her head. “Why, we discuss the gentlemen, of course,” she said, trying for a teasing tone that would hopefully distract him.

He pursed his lips as he looked at her, then turned toward Rosalinde and Gray. “It is a mild night,” he said. “Might I have your permission to take a turn around the terrace with Miss Fitzgilbert?”

Rosalinde arched a brow and exchanged a look with Gray. He stepped forward. “If it is what Celia would like,” he said.

“Miss Fitzgilbert?” Clairemont pressed, his gray gaze flitting over her face with rapid, reading focus.

She nodded. “Of course. I would very much enjoy that.”

She said those bland words, but inside her heart was beating rapidly. Her hands were shaking at her sides. He
liked
her. And she liked him.

Rosalinde moved to the bell at the door and asked the servant who appeared for Celia’s wrap. There were a few moments of mindless small talk as it was fetched, but Celia hardly heard the exchange between Clairemont and her family. All she could think was that in a moment she would be alone with him again.

And she wondered what in the world she would talk to him about. He seemed to remove all thought from her head, all words from her lips. She didn’t want to look a fool.

The servant returned with a wrap and Celia draped it over her shoulders before she took the arm Clairemont offered. Touching him brought a jolt of awareness through her, just as it had earlier in the evening, and she clung to his strong arm for purchase as he smiled at Rosalinde and Gray and then led her to the terrace.

Once the door had closed behind them, he drew in a long breath of cool spring air and took her farther down the long stone terrace, away from the parlor window. At last, he released her.

“I thought you might need some air,” he said, his low, gravely tone hitting her in the chest. “You seemed tense.”

Her eyes widened. “I did? Oh, I assure you, I wasn’t.”

He arched a brow. “I have a little talent, Celia—would you like to know what it is?”

Celia caught her breath. She could name a dozen talents she would guess he had, but none of them were appropriate to list, especially when they were alone together.

“C-certainly,” she managed to stammer.

He moved a little closer. “I can read people. When I asked you what you and Rosalinde talked about, I saw your response.”

Celia ducked her head. “Oh. Well, I certainly wasn’t trying to drag you into my petty troubles. You needn’t have gone out of your way to save me.”

He took another step closer, and suddenly he slipped a rough finger beneath her chin. He lifted her face toward his and her heart pounded at how near he was.