A Duke in the Night(17)

“Not available,” he repeated in a low voice. “Yes, she certainly seems to be good at that.”

Well, then. Clara’s mind was racing, and the conclusions that it was reaching were not good, though at least they were smothering the damn butterflies one by one. “Is there something amiss, Your Grace?” she tried.

“Amiss?” Holloway looked at her askance.

“A death in the family? An impending wedding?”

He stared at her. “You lump death and weddings in the same category, Miss Hayward?”

“Depends on the participants in each, I would imagine, Your Grace.”

His brow creased, and he continued to stare, unsmiling.

Clara resisted the urge to squirm. She had a sinking feeling that Lady Anne had chosen to ask forgiveness rather than permission when she had committed to this venture. It explained Holloway’s presence here, and it explained why he hadn’t brought the subject up during their conversation in the museum. Clara had made the monumental mistake of simply assuming that the payments on Anne’s behalf had been made at the duke’s direction, for very few women had access to the substantial fees that Haverhall demanded.

She would need to speak with Anne later. She didn’t blame her, admired her resourcefulness even, but a warning would have been appreciated.

“My sister, Miss Hayward. Please fetch her.” Holloway was making a visible effort at patience.

“As I said, Your Grace, she is unavailable. If you wish, you may come back on the morrow, and I will ensure that Lady Anne has time in her schedule to meet with you. It’s the best I can do at the moment.”

“The best you can do?” He took a step closer, his eyes not leaving hers. Clara was quite certain many people had quailed under that intense, probing gaze. People who saw only a powerful, ambitious duke and not a boy who had once been dared to dance. “Then perhaps, Miss Hayward, you can give me the answer I came for.”

She lifted her chin and met his gaze coolly, without flinching. “And is there a question?”

His lips thinned. “I’d like to know what it is that you think you can give to my sister that an army of expensive governesses and tutors could not. I could not answer that question. My man of business could not answer that question, nor could he explain how my sister had managed to forge my signature on no fewer than two bank drafts directed to you that he failed to notice. So here I find myself forced to ask the very woman with whom my sister hatched her diabolical, secretive plot that brought her to Dover without my knowledge.”

Clara felt her brows shoot to her hairline. “You think…” She stopped. “Ah.” She supposed it wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion to jump to.

“That is not an answer, Miss Hayward.”

“No, I suppose it isn’t.” Clara looked up at the sky, trying to frame in her head the answer he sought before she spoke.

“Is she well?”

That snapped her attention back to the duke, the note of genuine worry in his voice making something inside her melt. For Holloway’s all-powerful, devil-may-care reputation, it was obvious that the duke cared very much when it came to his sister. “Lady Anne is very well, Your Grace,” she answered. “She is also intelligent and capable and, as it turns out, quite ingenious.”

“She is.” There was a note of pride now, and Clara felt another part of her melt.

“You should know that I was unaware that you were unaware,” Clara said steadily. “Of Lady Anne’s intentions, that is. Bank drafts weren’t the only documents she signed on your behalf. It would seem that she deceived us both.”

Holloway raked a hand through his hair and muttered something under his breath. “Then it appears that I owe you another apology, Miss Hayward.”

Clara shook her head, thinking that the duke suddenly sounded weary beyond measure. “Had I known, I would have encouraged her to share her plans with you.”

“Encouraged? Not insisted?”

Clara gazed at him, considering. “Tell me, why do you think she hatched a diabolical, secretive plot that brought her to Dover without your knowledge?”

She watched with some fascination as a muscle in Holloway’s jaw jumped and he looked away. “I couldn’t begin to tell you.” It came out harshly, but there was a certain unhappy vulnerability in his answer that tugged at her. “I was hoping you knew why she felt she needed a finishing school. And one so far away from London.”

Holloway wasn’t the first man to question the value of Haverhall. Past experience had taught Clara that there was a fine balance in what peers wanted to hear when it came to their wards. The prevailing attitude that women’s natural, and often hysterical, tendencies prevented them from understanding any sort of higher education had to be minded. Even if, after all this time, it made her want to kick something. Or someone.

But Clara had long since learned to use that attitude as a shield, presenting a curriculum that was as familiar as a receipt from a Bond Street modiste. Painting, music, dance, language. A smattering of the geography and history of Kent to justify the travel. Most men nodded and accepted her practiced pitch, either indifferent or more interested in making sure their wards were visibly part of something exclusive and elite than in what those wards might actually accomplish.

The Duke of Holloway, however, was not most men. And he would not be so easily placated.