A Fine Passion (Bastion Club 4)

Clarice exchanged a firm glance with Jack and James, then patted Anthony’s hand where it lay on the covers. “I daresay, but you don’t need to worry about that now. You’ve delivered your message, and may leave the rest to us. You should rest. Mrs. Connimore will bring some broth for you in an hour or so.”

She pushed back her chair and rose, forcing Jack and James reluctantly to follow suit.

Anthony lifted his lids enough to look up at her, and smile, rather sweetly. “You’re Clarice. Teddy said you’d be here. You probably don’t remember me. I was still at school when you…left, but Teddy said to remember him to you.”

Clarice was surprised—if James was the black sheep of the family, then she was obsidian—but she smiled and inclined her head regally. “Thank you. Now you should sleep.”

She turned and led the way from the room, with one glance ensuring that James and Jack followed, then headed for the stairs.

With a nod to Anthony, Jack left in James’s wake, closing the door behind him. He paused, then ambled after James, wondering if he’d read that last exchange between Clarice and Anthony correctly.

Teddy and Anthony both viewed Clarice warmly, something she hadn’t expected. Jack couldn’t help but wonder how deep the break with her family had been, how acrimonious. Apparently enough for her not to expect to be fondly thought of by other family members.

He started down the stairs some steps behind James. Clarice was already sweeping across the front hall toward the drawing room, presumably expecting a serious confabulation over Anthony’s revelations, when the front doorbell was rung with considerable force.

Clarice stopped at the drawing room door. James stepped off the stairs and halted, too. Jack continued his descent, outwardly unperturbed, inwardly aware of his instincts stirring even though he couldn’t yet see why.

Howlett appeared and swept majesterially to the door. He opened it; over Howlett’s shoulder Jack saw Dickens, James’s groom.

Dickens nodded to Howlett. “I’ve a message for the master and Lady Clarice. Urgent, it is.”

Howlett stepped back as Clarice, James, and Jack converged on the door. Clarice got there first. “Dickens.” She nodded at the man. “What’s the message?”

Dickens bobbed to her, and to James and Jack behind her. “M’lady, m’lord, sir, Macimber sent me.” Dickens’s gaze settled on James. “The dean’s come from Gloucester and he’s waiting to see you, sir. He’s not staying, but he has an urgent communication from the bishop and must see you right away.”

Standing beside James, Jack felt reluctance sweep over his friend, closely followed by resignation. James sighed. “Thank you, Dickens. I’ll come straightaway.”

James went to move past Clarice, but she briskly descended the steps, tightening her shawl about her shoulders as she swung to glance at James. “I’ll come, too, of course.”

Jack hid a faint smile and followed at James’s heels. “We’ll all go.” He met Clarice’s dark gaze. “Of course.”

She hesitated for a heartbeat, then nodded, and turned to follow Dickens down the drive.

“I’m afraid, James, that I must insist that you abide by the bishop’s stated wishes.” Dean Halliwell, the rural dean representing the Bishop of London, tried his best not to meet Clarice’s eyes. “You must remain within your parish of Avening until the investigation into these allegations is complete.”

“These allegations are nonsense,” Clarice stated, haughty censure coloring her tone, “but if the bishop is so misguided as to give them any credence, then clearly the best person to refute them is James himself.”

Seated in one of the armchairs in James’s study, his fingers steepled defensively before him, Dean Halliwell carefully inclined his head her way. “Be that as it may—”

“To suggest anything else would, I feel sure, be tantamount to a miscarriage of justice.” Seated regally in the other armchair, Clarice speared the hapless dean with her gaze. “It could hardly be construed as fair were my cousin not to know of the charges brought against him, nor be given the opportunity to defend himself against them.”

Dean Halliwell drew in a tight breath. “The Church has its own procedures in such matters, Lady Clarice.”

Clarice’s expression grew even more stony. She raised her brows. Before she could utter the blistering setdown forming on her lips, Jack shifted in his chair, set beside hers, drawing the dean’s attention.

“Perhaps,” Jack said, his tone even and unthreatening, “you might explain those procedures.”

As he’d hoped, Dean Halliwell was eager to offer whatever he could in the hope of appeasing the irate personage on Jack’s right.

“I believe the matter will be heard by the bishop himself in the first instance, purely within the palace, you understand.” Halliwell hurried to add, “Regardless, the procedures are the same as a full ecclesiastical court. There will be a prosecutor and a defender appointed.”

“And who will those individuals be?” Clarice asked.

Her accents were arctic; Dean Halliwell tried not to shiver. “I understand the prosecutor will be the deacon who first brought the allegations to the bishop’s notice.”

Clarice opened her lips, doubtless on a withering denunciation of Deacon Humphries; Jack evenly cut in, “And the defender?”

He ignored Clarice’s fulminating glare.