Read Chapter 10: The Debt Mounts

The rain had stopped by the time Julian’s carriage rolled up the long drive to Ashworth Park, but the sky hung low and grey, as though the weather itself were holding its breath. Clara watched from the library window, one hand pressed flat against the cold glass. She had been standing there since noon, waiting, reading and re-reading the anonymous note in her pocket until the ink had begun to smudge at the creases.

The carriage door opened. Julian stepped out, mud spattering his boots, and she saw at once that his coat was missing a button and his cravat sat crooked. He looked like a man who had not slept, and something in her chest tightened with guilt she could not name.

She met him in the hall. “You should have sent word.”

“There was no time for letters.” He shrugged off his coat and handed it to a waiting footman without meeting her eye. “Where is the study? I need the account ledgers.”

“They are where they always are.” She followed him down the corridor, her slippers whispering against the marble. “Julian, what happened in Cambridge?”

He stopped so abruptly she nearly walked into him. When he turned, his face was drawn, the scar on his left hand visible where he had pushed his glove into his pocket. “There are creditors at the gates, Clara. Not the usual ones—not the ones we planned for. These are new demands. Small tradesmen, a chandler, a vintner, a dressmaker. They claim your father owed them for services rendered over the past three years and they have grown tired of waiting.”

“That cannot be.” She shook her head. “Papa paid his accounts quarterly. I saw the receipts myself.”

“Then your father kept better books than his creditors did, or he paid some and not others.” Julian pushed open the study door and went straight to the desk, where the ledgers lay open from her own examination the day before. “But there is one bill in particular that interests me.” He pulled a folded paper from his inner pocket and set it on the desk. “A bill for ‘services rendered’ from a firm called Halstead & Umbridge, Pall Mall.”

Clara’s blood went cold. She did not reach for the paper. “Umbridge?”

“You know the name.”

“It was on the list at the Golden Hind.” She kept her voice steady with effort. “The man Finch met in Cambridge.”

“The very same.” Julian unfolded the bill and smoothed it flat. “Twenty thousand pounds for services rendered. No itemization. No dates. No explanation of what services might cost twenty thousand pounds.” He looked up at her, and there was something careful in his gaze, something that made her feel he was testing her. “Your father paid eleven thousand of it over the past two years. The balance remains outstanding, and Halstead & Umbridge have retained a solicitor in London to press the claim. They are among the creditors who arrived today.”

Clara’s mother’s portrait hung above the fireplace, watching them with her calm grey eyes. Clara forced herself to look at it, to draw strength from the painted woman who had once told her that a lady’s dignity was the one thing no one could take from her.

“I wrote to Sir Aldridge this morning,” Clara said, hating how small her voice sounded. “I asked for an advance against the investment. I told him the estate needed immediate funds for repairs.”

Julian’s jaw tightened. “You did not tell me.”

“You were not here.”

“I was gone two days.”

“And in those two days, I received a threatening note.” The words came out before she could stop them. She bit her lip, but it was too late; Julian’s head came up sharply, his eyes sharpening like flint.

“A threatening note.” His voice had gone flat. “You said the only correspondence was a letter from Sir Aldridge.”

Clara closed her eyes. The note in her pocket felt like it had grown teeth. “I lied.”

“I know.” The words were quiet, not angry, and somehow that was worse. “You are a terrible liar, Clara. You always have been. I chose not to press you because I assumed you had your reasons.” He took a step toward her. “Do you have reasons?”

She pulled the note from her pocket and held it out. He took it, read it, and for a long moment stood silent. The words were simple, crude, written in a hand that had tried too hard to look uneducated: *Return the Ashworth Sapphire or the truth of your father’s debts will reach every ear in London.*

“This came yesterday,” Clara said. “A boy left it with the kitchen maid. He said a gentleman paid him a shilling to deliver it.”

“Did you see the gentleman?”

“No. He was gone by the time I reached the door.”

Julian folded the note along its creases, then folded it again, and again, until it was a small square that disappeared into his pocket. “Show me the letter from Sir Aldridge.”

She fetched it from her writing desk, and he read it standing by the window, the grey light falling across the paper. When he finished, he set it down with more care than it deserved.

“He does not offer an advance. He asks that we host a house party at Ashworth Park within the month to demonstrate the estate’s vitality to other investors.” Julian’s mouth curved in something that was not quite a smile. “He suggests Colonel Ashworth might make an appearance, as a show of family unity.”

Clara’s stomach turned. “Please say you jest.”

“I never jest about investors.” He turned from the window. “But this bill—this bill from Umbridge—I do not like it. I have seen such bills before. They are often used to encumber an estate so that the holder can force a sale at a depressed price.” He paused. “Umbridge is not merely Finch’s contact. He may be the one arranging your father’s debts to be called in at strategic moments. And if that is the case, his goal may be the estate itself.”

“But why?” Clara spread her hands helplessly. “The clay seam is modest. The land is good but not exceptional. There are a dozen properties near this one that would serve better for any purpose. Unless—” She stopped.

“Unless he wants something no one is speaking of.” Julian finished for her. “The sapphire. It is not just Aldridge and Lady Eastleigh who want it. There is a market for such things, Clara, and your father’s generation knew exactly who dealt in that market.”

Clara looked up at her mother’s portrait. “The year before she died, Mama had the sapphire in her possession. I remember it. She wore it at my father’s birthday ball, and all the ladies remarked on its color.” She swallowed. “I have often wondered if she knew something about it that Papa did not.”

Julian said nothing. He stood looking at the portrait too, and Clara saw his gaze move from the painted face down to the painted bosom, where a blue stone glowed against the cream silk of the gown.

“Mrs. Hale,” he said slowly. “She knew your mother. She spoke of the sapphire. What exactly did she tell you?”

Clara thought back to the ball, to the old woman’s warm hand on hers. “She told me to ask you about it. That you knew more than you said.” She met his eyes. “Do you?”

Julian’s scarred hand was very still at his side. For a moment she thought he would not answer, and then he said: “I know that your father tried to sell it three years ago through an intermediary in London, and the intermediary was killed before the sale could be completed.”

The words fell into the silence like stones into deep water.

“Killed?” Clara repeated.

“His body was found in the river. The sapphire was never recovered.” Julian’s voice was very low. “The magistrate called it a robbery gone wrong. Your father believed otherwise.” He moved to stand before the portrait, looking up at Clara’s mother. “He hired me, Clara. That is how we met. Your father engaged me to find the sapphire and the truth of what happened to his intermediary. He suspected it was not a robbery at all, but men who wanted to ensure the sapphire never reached the market.”

Clara swayed, reaching for the back of a chair. “He never told me.”

“He did not want you involved.” Julian’s voice softened. “But I have been looking for that sapphire since before I married you. And I have reason to believe Umbridge is looking for it as well.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper, worn at the edges, covered in a cramped ledger hand. “This is the list the innkeeper gave me. Finch’s payments, twelve of them, made to the same account every month. And at the bottom, crossed out, a final entry from November—the month your father died.” He held it out to her. “The crossed-out entry has no name. But the payment amount is the same as the first payment your father made to Umbridge. Fifty thousand pounds.”

Clara stared at the scrap. Her father had gambled away more than she knew. The ledgers had shown only a portion. She had hidden that truth from Julian since the first days of their marriage, and now the weight of it pressed down on her like a physical thing.

“Julian,” she said slowly, carefully. “There is something I have not told you.”

He looked at her, and his eyes were very tired. “I know.”

The words hung between them. Clara opened her mouth to speak, to confess the full wreck of her father’s gambling, but before she could, a knock came at the study door. The butler entered with a silver tray, upon which rested a single card.

“Lord Wexford is here, my lady. He requests a private word with you regarding a matter of urgent importance.”

Clara’s heart stopped. Julian turned to her, his face unreadable, and she saw in his eyes not accusation but something far worse—anticipation, as if he had known this moment was coming.

“Show him into the blue drawing room,” Clara said. Her voice did not shake. “Tell him I will be along directly.”

The butler bowed and left. Julian moved close enough that she could smell the road dust on his coat. “Wexford,” he said quietly. “He knows about your father’s gambling. You have been dreading this conversation.”

“Yes.”

“Then do not have it alone.” Julian’s voice was steady. “Whatever he knows, whatever he threatens, we face it together. That was the agreement, was it not?”

Clara looked at him, this cold, careful lawyer who had married her for consequence and land, who had removed his glove around her for the first time only a week before. She thought of the note in his pocket, the crossed-out payment on the scrap of paper, the sapphire her mother had worn at a ball long ago.

“Yes,” she said. “The agreement.”

She did not believe herself. And from the look in Julian’s eyes, he did not believe her either.