A Fine Passion (Bastion Club 4)

She met his eyes, clearly heard his suggestion. Considered it, then asked, “How’s Anthony?”

“Better and steadily improving.” Jack dipped his nib in the inkwell, then looked again at her. “He’s getting restless over being confined to his bed.”

“Hmm.” Lowering her arms, she walked around the desk. “I’ll call on him this afternoon.”

“That might be wise.” Jack bent over the paper. “I’ll be out this afternoon, and I’ll have Percy with me. Anthony would probably appreciate the company.”

James looked up. “I’ll go, too. Must do all I can, given it was me he came to speak with—”

“The best way you can repay his bravery and all he’s suffered in bringing Teddy’s message to you is to compile all the information Jack is about to request from you.”

Clarice hadn’t raised her voice, yet there was a note in it that brooked no argument. Jack shut his lips against the urge to soften her words; in this case, she was absolutely right, and he knew James more than well enough to know he would seize any opportunity to drag his heels over the business.

There was stubborn—James’s rather weak brand—and stubborn, Clarice’s battle hardness. The latter might not be comfortable; it was, in this instance, necessary.

James sighed; a touch of grimness about his mouth, he nodded. “Very well.” He glanced across the desk. “What do you need?”

Jack told him; once James had started making a list of all his journeys over the past decade, Jack settled to write down the other questions regarding James’s work he wanted answered.

Clarice paced, slowly, behind him, watching them both; occasionally she drew near and read his list over his shoulder. Jack simply bided his time.

So did James. When Macimber put his head around the door and summoned Clarice to deal with some household matter, James waited only until the door had shut, cutting off Clarice’s final narrow-eyed glance, to lay down his pen and appeal to Jack. “My boy, you have to help me. I really do not wish Clarice to go to London on my behalf.”

Why? was the first word that popped into Jack’s mind, but he hesitated…instead felt compelled to make James see something he was clearly missing. “It’s not that simple, James. For a start, Clarice is under no man’s thumb. If she decides to go to London, neither I nor you can prevent her doing so—indeed, I doubt if hell or high water would suffice.”

James grimaced. “I suppose persuading her is the only real option.”

Jack met his gaze. “My powers of persuasion are considerable, but they’re not that good.”

James frowned.

Jack paused, and chose his words with care. “I’m not sure, in this, that she’s wrong. With you confined here, someone from your family does need to alert the other members, more definitively than by letter, to explain to them what the situation is, and regardless of her past, Clarice is the late marquess’s daughter, the current marquess’s sister. The family will listen to her.”

“Perhaps.” James looked unconvinced, strangely uncertain.

Puzzled, Jack raised his brows.

James sighed unhappily. “Very well, I concede they’ll most likely listen to her, because she’ll make them. She’ll engineer an audience, and get her point across, but at what cost to her?”

Jack blinked. “I don’t understand.”

“I know.” James closed his eyes, then opened them. “Clarice isn’t spoken of within the family. She was cast off by her father, disowned, or as near to it as his sons would allow.”

Jack frowned. “So you intimated, but I didn’t imagine—”

“No, why would you?” James shook his head, concern in his eyes. “I didn’t explain as clearly, as completely, as I might have. Melton, her father, wasn’t the only one in the family who was furious with Clarice and, as they saw it, her intransigence. Her aunts, Melton’s sisters, and even Edith’s family were horrified. In holding to her refusal to marry Emsworth, in the eyes of the family, Clarice stepped far beyond the pale.”

Jack held James’s gaze, read his eyes. “Are you saying that she might not even be acknowledged by the family, that they might still, seven years later, treat her as an outcast?”

“Yes.” James nodded very definitely. “The Altwoods aren’t renowned for their forgiving natures. I greatly fear that, regardless of what she allows to show, their…rejection hurt Clarice deeply. Returning to the fold to plead my

case will unquestionably exacerbate long-buried wounds. Worse, certain members of the family might take advantage of having her at their mercy, in the sense of having her in a position of begging for their help for me, to…”

In imagining what vindictiveness his and her family might visit on Clarice, James was out of his depth; that showed in his confused, distressed expression as he searched for words. “Well,” he eventually admitted, “I don’t know what they might take it into their hard heads to do, but whatever.” James fixed Jack with a for him belligerent and decisive look. “I don’t want Clarice placed in such a situation on my account.”

A minute ticked past, then Jack exhaled. “I see.”

“Indeed.” James leaned across the desk. “So will you help me, dear boy, in dissuading her from going to London?”