Peter reacted to their news as expected. Which was to say, not well at all.
“What do you mean, a fake engagement?”
For the first time since knowing him, a frisson of unease worked through Quincy at the sight of his friend’s anger.
“It came about quite by accident,” he said.
“Accident!”
Lenora, seated beside her husband, laid a gentle hand on his arm. “I’m sure Quincy and Clara have a perfectly reasonable explanation for this,” she said brightly. The crease between her brows, however, was proof of her disquiet.
“Of course,” Quincy hastened to reassure her. He opened his mouth to continue, to tell them the details of the debacle Clara and he had found themselves embroiled in.
The words, however, wouldn’t come. How ridiculous it sounded. Were it his cousin being taken advantage of, he would be furious.
Clara, as ever, came to his rescue. “It was my doing, Peter. I couldn’t sit by and say nothing.”
“But why in hell would you say you were engaged? You had to have known the repercussions.”
“I admit, I didn’t think beyond the moment.” Clara held her head high, though a faint blush stained her cheeks.
“Of all the idiotic, thoughtless…” Peter muttered, yanking mercilessly at his cravat until it lay in limp disarray about his neck.
But Quincy had heard enough abuse leveled on Clara’s head. He pinned his friend with a stern glare. “It was not thoughtless or idiotic. She did it to protect me. And I continued the subterfuge to save her.”
That stopped Peter cold. He leveled narrowed eyes on Quincy. “How so?”
“I may not have told youwhomy mother is, Peter. But you’ve heard enough stories ofwhatshe is. And she hasn’t changed. She is just as cruel, just as vindictive. She would have shredded Clara for daring to thwart her. And if we come out now with the truth, it will be not only Clara who suffers, but Phoebe as well. What do you think will happen to her upcoming nuptials should Lady Crabtree get wind of this?”
Lenora made a worried sound in her throat. Peter, too, appeared slightly shaken, though he jutted out that stubborn, whiskered jaw of his in defiance. “Your mother would not dare.”
“She would. You forget, she’s a duchess, and despite the setback in our family’s finances, she holds much power. She’ll make us rue the day we crossed her.”
“Damnation.” Peter scrubbed at his beard with agitated fingers. “And so we’re to just go on as if this is an engagement in truth?”
“Yes.”
Peter shook his head. “It’s madness.” He speared Clara with a look that would have frightened a stronger person. “You cannot mean to tell me you think this is a good idea.”
Clara lifted her chin, not at all daunted by her brute of a cousin glowering at her. “I think it’s a brilliant idea. And if the repercussions for Phoebe’s future happiness are not enough to make you see the wisdom of this scheme, perhaps you might take my own situation into account.”
In a heartbeat Quincy knew she meant to throw her pride out the window to see this happen. “Clara, no—” he tried.
She held up one slender hand, though her eyes did not leave Peter’s. “Do you think it’s been easy these past months, having Aunt Olivia throw me at man after man as if I were some pitiful worm on a hook? She refuses to accept that I don’t wish to marry, nor shall I ever.”
When Peter, looking decidedly abashed, opened his mouth to speak, she continued, louder this time. “Quincy’s suggestion that we remain engaged gives me a certain amount of freedom. If I’m single, do you think Aunt Olivia will stop her attempts at matchmaking once we’re back on Synne for the wedding? No, she’ll only grow more desperate to sacrifice the last of the fatted nobles on the altar of my spinsterhood. And I’m tired of it, Peter.”
Her voice broke at the very end, proof of a vulnerability barely held in check, wrenching at Quincy’s heart.
Then she paused, closing her eyes, breathing slow and deep. When she opened them again the vulnerability was gone, replaced by determination.
“So you see,” she continued, her voice quieter now that the storm in her had been leashed, “this false engagement is a godsend. It will give me a month of peace, so I might enjoy my sister’s fortune, before settling back down to life as I like it, on Synne with my family.”
Peter, looking decidedly chastised, nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry, Clara.”
“You have nothing to apologize for, dear cousin,” she said, smiling in that calm way of hers. “We only need your word that you shall both keep our secret safe.”
Quincy studied her with a troubled heart. He felt he was watching a master actress. She had turned off her emotions so quickly, so easily. He wondered if she always lived thus, keeping her more volatile self under lock and key.