Chapter 3: The Questioning on the Wedding Night

Rain tapped against the windows of the bridal chamber while the ruts the carriage had carved into the muddy road were already swallowed by the night. Clara sat on the edge of the bed, clutching the swaddling cloth she had pulled from the bottom of her trousseau chest. The ivory corner had worn thin with washing, and threads of blue-black silk formed an eagle with spread wings, its stitching dense and fine. Yet the design matched the silverware of the Ashworth house exactly.

She moved the candlestick closer, first examining the left wing, then that crooked, short line beneath the eagle’s beak. The line had been mended once; the thread used for the repair was slightly lighter than the original silk. She had seen the same kind of needlework at the Wentworth estate—Martha Hart always tied an extra half-loop at the end when she patched the maids’ aprons. But the mending on the cloth before her came from a different hand.

A very faint metallic click came from outside the door, as though someone had drawn back the latch. Clara pressed the swaddling cloth beneath the folds of her skirt and tightened her fingers around the strap of her small sewing kit. The door opened, and Theodore Ashworth stepped in, the black mourning armband still pinned to his tailcoat.

He did not congratulate her, nor did he glance at the silver candelabra on the bedside table. He stopped only at the edge of the room. Rainwater dripped from the rims of his tall leather boots onto the stone floor, drop after drop.

Clara rose and curtsied. “My lord, if you wish to summon the servants, it would suffice to instruct someone at the door. That you have come personally on your wedding night suggests there is something you must say face to face.”

The duke’s gaze lingered on her face a moment longer than propriety allowed. He reached up and unpinned the silver hairpin from beneath her veil, his movements clean and efficient. The veil slipped from her shoulders and brushed against the collar of her light blue short jacket.

“I know that you are not Cecilia Wentworth,” he said. “Tell me, where have you hidden the real one?”

Clara’s fingers tightened at her side. She thought of the hasty ceremony that morning. As the priest had opened the marriage register, Cedric Wentworth had stood behind her, the tip of his cane tapping again and again against the flagstones. The sound was like urging a carriage about to tumble into a ditch.

She looked up at the duke. “Since you already knew that the bride had been switched, why did you let the priest finish the vows? Why did you write my married name in the register?”

The duke crossed to the fireplace and laid his soaked gloves on the stone mantel. “I needed a marriage that had already been completed. The Wentworth daughter had to become my wife today. The parish registration, the witnesses’ names, and the bridal trousseau—none of it could be missing.”

“Do you need the daughter of the Wentworth family, or the name Cecilia Wentworth?” Clara asked. “If you believe I am an impostor, the registration should have been stopped immediately. Your rank is more than sufficient to demand that the priest verify the facts.”

“What the priest verifies is the marriage notice received by the parish, the written declaration submitted by my father, and the woman standing before the altar,” the duke said, his voice steady. “All three of those documents bear the name Cecilia Wentworth. If you announced the truth before the assembly, the first one taken away would be you.”

Clara watched the gold signet ring on his thumb. “Are you reminding me that I have already lost the right to defend myself?”

“I am reminding you that a married woman is under her husband’s guardianship, and that her property and debts must pass through his hands,” he said. “Your uncle could claim that you deliberately deceived him, and I could send you back to Wentworth Manor. There are people there far more eager to make you shut up than I am.”

Cedric’s silver-headed cane had beaten the ground too many times for her memory to ignore. Today, when he had adjusted her gloves, the old crest ring on his left little finger had brushed her wrist. A corner of that ring’s crest had worn away, just like the short line beneath the eagle’s beak on the swaddling cloth.

Clara drew the cloth from beneath her skirts and spread it under the candlelight. “You say that I have hidden Cecilia, but you have already searched the carriage, the manor, and the servants’ quarters. If she were truly hiding in Kent, you would not have waited until now to come ask me.”

The duke’s gaze moved to the cloth, and for the first time, his expression changed. He stepped forward and reached for it; Clara immediately drew the cloth back into her palms. The strap of her sewing kit had been pinched into her wrist by the tension, and the pain kept her alert.

“I found this item at the very bottom of the trousseau chest,” she said. “The chest bears the Wentworth family seal, but the corner is embroidered with the Ashworth eagle. You recognize it, don’t you?”

“Give it to me.” The duke’s hand hovered in the air. “You do not understand why it is in your trousseau.”

“I remember where every piece of my trousseau came from,” Clara replied. “The sheets were from a London draper, the silver spoon was my mother’s dowry, and the sewing kit was stitched by Martha Hart. No one told me about this swaddling cloth—not even Cedric Wentworth.”

The duke withdrew his hand, pressing his knuckles into his palm until a patch of white showed through. “You have seen Martha Hart?”

"Before dinner, she arranged my hair for me." Clara said. "When she saw this cloth, she dropped a teacup, then pushed the shards into the pocket of her apron. She said she was getting old, that her hands were no longer steady. I remember she stared at the corner of the cloth far longer than she looked at the broken pieces."

"Did she tell you anything?" the Duke asked.

"She said that when a child of the Wentworth house is born, the swaddling cloth is embroidered with a single eagle's feather in the lower right corner. The moment she finished saying that, Cedric Wentworth coughed outside the door." Clara paused. "My lord, if all you are after is Celia, why should you care about a scrap of cloth more than twenty years old?"

The Duke did not answer. He turned to the side, and the candlelight traced a pale, old scar along the hollow of his neck. The wound looked less like the frailty the gossip column suggested and more like the mark of a carriage accident, yet no one in the season dared ask him about it.

Clara folded the corner of the cloth back into place. "What you are truly looking for is tucked away in my dowry. You knew Celia would run from the wedding, so you had men posted along the roads, waiting for a Miss Wentworth to be delivered to your doors. You even knew I would be pushed to the altar."

"I did not know you would come," he said. "I only knew Cedric Wentworth would not let the marriage fail."

"That sentence does not free you." Clara set the swaddling cloth in her palm. "He is afraid you will dig up the old ledgers, afraid you will find out what this marriage was built to bury. By keeping me here, you have placed a fresh witness squarely at your own side."

The Duke regarded her coldly. "You have learned quickly to trade testimony for standing."

"I never had anything else to spend." She said. "My sister has a name, a room, invitations to every ball, and the obedience of everyone in the house. I have only my memory. Who said what, when, where—I remember it all."

"Then remember tonight." The Duke stepped closer, lowering his voice. "The real Celia Wentworth has already left London. She is not among the people travelling with you. She took a small leather trunk; my men could not see what was inside."

Clara stared at him. "You had someone follow her?"

"I had my men guard my borders." The Duke said. "She went out through the rear door of the Wentworth house and climbed into a carriage with no crest on the door. The coachman was paid two guineas. Once past the city gates, the carriage turned south."

"The roads through Kent are full of forks." Clara said. "Your men only saw the carriage leave. They cannot prove where it went. You press your doubt onto me because you want me to hand you the answer."

"I want to know where she went." The Duke replied. "And I want to know who taught her to flee on the very day of her wedding."

Clara pinched the swaddling cloth between two fingers; the dark blue-black thread caught the firelight and threw off a dull sheen. "Celia never told me she was leaving. This morning she sent a short note, asking me to go to the stables and collect a shawl. When I arrived, there was only an empty leather trunk and a broken pearl button."

The Duke raised his eyes. "Where is that note?"

"Cedric Wentworth took it." She said. "He tore it into four pieces in front of me and dropped them into the fireplace. The paper burned fast, but the ink bled through two lines before the flames swallowed it. I remember one of them: 'She will not let you finish this marriage for her.'"

The Duke's hand came to rest on the stone ledge of the hearth. "Why did you not tell me?"

"I had just come back from the church, and you did not ask." Clara answered. "At dinner you did not look at me either. You only asked the butler whether Celia still despised pigeon. It is only now, when you have lifted my veil, that I am being addressed at all. My lord, you carry the air of a man who has already decided his verdict. I had no reason to volunteer testimony on your behalf."

The Duke's gaze pressed down on her like a thin blade laid across the edge of a table. "You are afraid I will kill you."

"I am afraid you will have someone else do it." She said. "Killing takes a knife. Ruining a woman's name takes only a letter. If I am sent back to Wentworth Hall tomorrow, the London papers will say I impersonated my sister, and the parish register will say I am your wife. Either story is enough to trap me."

"What do you want?" the Duke asked.

"I want to see the original entry in the marriage register. I want the banns the Wentworth family filed. And I want to know whether you came into this room tonight to question me or to search for something." She answered. "Give me my memories of Celia, and give me the truth of who this marriage was hiding."

The Duke was silent for a moment, then turned and picked up his gloves. "You have no right to negotiate with me."

Clara laid the swaddling cloth back against the side of her skirt. "My lord, if you truly believed that, you would have sent for me by now. The fact that you are still standing here means what I hold in my hand is more important than you are willing to admit."

The rain outside the door had grown heavier, and wind threaded through the gap in the window, sending the candle flame lurching to one side. The duke's hand closed on the handle, the black seal ring on his finger catching the firelight with a brief, dark gleam. He did not turn back. All he left behind was that single, level sentence, calm to the point of coldness.

"Because what I want is in your dowry."

After the door shut, the click of the lock bolt sliding home reached the bedside. Clara stood there for a long while before she unfolded the swaddling cloth once more. The fabric had been washed so many times it had gone thin and translucent; the eagle crest worked into one corner flickered in the candlelight, now bright, now half-swallowed. The short mended stitch at the edge rose and fell with the movement of her fingertip. She thought of Martha's hands, trembling as they had cradled the cloth, and of the look the duke had just given her—that glance had recognized the cloth, unmistakably, and yet he had said nothing.

In the end, she did not touch the mended stitch. Tonight only a single layer of veil had been lifted; whatever lay beneath this cloth was not yet meant to be uncovered. She folded the cloth back into itself, pressed it flat against her palm, and watched the rain gathering outside the window, motionless for a long time.