Read Chapter 7: The Investor's Ball

The ballroom of Ellesmere House blazed with a thousand candles, their light catching the gilt on the columns and the jewels of the assembled ton. Clara pressed her gloved fingers against Julian’s arm, feeling the rigid set of his shoulders beneath his impeccably cut evening coat.

“You look as though you’re walking to your own execution,” she murmured, keeping her smile fixed for the benefit of the curious eyes tracking their progress down the receiving line.

“I’d prefer it.” Julian’s voice was low, dry. “At least an execution has a predictable end.” He inclined his head to a passing baroness, the gesture precise, practiced. “This is a labyrinth of whispers, and I am the newest curiosity.”

They had been in London for three days, quartered in a modest townhouse Julian had leased on Half Moon Street. It was clean, respectable, and a fraction of the size of what Clara’s family had once occupied in this city. She had not minded. She minded the looks—the way ladies’ fans snapped open too quickly when Julian passed, the way gentlemen’s eyes slid over him as though he were a piece of furniture that had wandered into the wrong room.

“You are the Earl of Ashworth now,” Clara said, squeezing his arm. “Let them look. They will learn to look with respect.”

Julian’s mouth curved, though the smile did not reach his eyes. “I have purchased a title. They know it. The respect will come with the money—and the money is what we came to find.”

They had come to this ball for one purpose: to find Sir Aldridge Hampton, the merchant-king who had made his fortune in the East India trade and was known for his appetite for both social climbing and risky investments. Julian had heard his name whispered in the clubs he’d visited that afternoon, always in connection with deep pockets and odd bargains.

Clara spotted him before Julian did—a broad man in his sixties with a florid face and a waistcoat of startling gold embroidery, standing near the supper room doors. He was holding court with a cluster of younger men, his laugh booming above the strings of the quartet.

“There,” she said, tilting her chin slightly.

Julian followed her gaze. “Indeed.” He did not move. “Wait. Let the crowd thin.”

They drifted to the edge of the dance floor instead, near a bank of potted orange trees that gave off a heady, sweet scent. Clara was aware of being watched—not just by the curious, but by one specific pair of eyes.

Lord Wexford.

He was a thin, weasel-faced man she had known since childhood, a gossip who had ruined more reputations than any duelist. He was making his way toward them with the determined air of a man who smelled fresh meat.

“Lady Clara—or should I say Lady Ashworth now?” Wexford’s bow was exaggeration itself. “I heard of your nuptials. Quite the surprise. No one had an inkling.”

“We preferred it that way,” Julian said flatly.

Wexford’s eyebrows rose. “And you, Mr.… that is, the Earl. You’ve taken on quite the project, sir. Ashworth Park is a grand old pile, but it has been bleeding money for years, or so I’ve heard.” He turned his sharp smile on Clara. “Your father was always a bit too free with his vowels at the tables, was he not, Clara? I remember him losing three thousand at Brooks’ on a single hand in eighteen-oh-nine.”

Clara felt the words like a physical blow. Her face went cold, then hot. She opened her mouth, but nothing came.

“My wife’s father was a gambler?” Julian’s voice was light, almost amused. He turned to Clara with a look of practiced mildness. “You never mentioned that, my dear.”

The game was instant, wordless. Clara forced a brittle laugh. “My lord has a habit of exaggeration. Papa played whist for small stakes, nothing more.”

Wexford’s eyes glittered. “I assure you—“

“I have found,” Julian interrupted, his tone still conversational but with an edge of steel, “that men who remember the losses of others with such precision often have their own accounts to settle. Should I ask about your debts at the same club, Lord Wexford?”

Wexford’s flush spread from his collar to his hairline. He gave a stiff bow and retreated, swallowed by the crowd.

Clara exhaled. “That was deftly done.”

“It was necessary. He will not forget, though.” Julian’s eyes tracked Wexford’s retreating back. “He will be a problem.”

Before Clara could respond, Sir Aldridge detached himself from his cluster and approached, glass in hand. Up close, he was even more imposing—barrel-chested, with a jaw that could have been carved from oak and eyes that missed nothing.

“Lord Ashworth,” he said, his voice a rumble. “I’ve been watching you. You carry yourself like a man who knows the price of things.”

“I do,” Julian said. “I also know their value. They are rarely the same.”

Sir Aldridge laughed, a genuine sound. “I like you. Come—walk with me. Your lady wife will not mind, I trust.”

Clara tightened her hold on Julian’s arm but released him with a smile. “I will find refreshment. Do not keep him long, Sir Aldridge.”

The two men moved into the relative privacy of a corridor lined with portraits, their voices fading. Clara watched them go, then turned toward the supper room. Her heart was still hammering from Wexford’s jab. The gambling debts—she had hidden them from Julian, concealed the extent of her father’s ruin while laying out the bribes to him like a screen. The deception sat heavy in her chest.

She was halfway to the punch bowl when she felt a hand on her elbow.

“Lady Ashworth.”

She turned. A woman stood there—older, perhaps forty, with striking dark hair threaded with silver and eyes of an unusual pale green. There was something familiar about her face, though Clara could not place it.

“Forgive the liberty,” the woman said. “I am Mrs. Hale. I saw you at your wedding.”

The wedding. Clara stared at her. “You were the woman in the chapel. The one who left early.”

Mrs. Hale’s smile was thin. “I was. I had business that could not wait.” She tilted her head, studying Clara with unsettling intensity. “I knew your mother.”

The air went out of Clara’s lungs. “You did?”

“We were girls together. I was a maid at Meridian House when she first came to London.” Mrs. Hale’s voice dropped. “I am sorry for your losses, Lady Ashworth. Your father’s death—and now the state of the estate.”

Clara’s suspicion sharpened. “How do you know the state of the estate?”

“Because I was hired by Lord Umbridge’s agent to track the accounts.” Mrs. Hale’s smile widened, revealing a small chip in her front tooth. “He paid well. I found nothing he didn’t already know—but I found something else.”

Footsteps approached. Julian appeared at the end of the corridor, his face unreadable. Behind him, Sir Aldridge was shaking hands with another man, his part in the conversation clearly concluded.

“My dear,” Julian called, “we should be going.”

“One moment.” Clara turned back to Mrs. Hale, but the woman was already retreating, melting into the crowd of the ballroom with practiced ease. She left behind a single whispered sentence, thrown over her shoulder:

“Ask your husband about the sapphire.”

Clara stood frozen as Julian reached her.

“Who was that?” he asked, scanning the corridor.

“I don’t know. She said she knew my mother.” Clara shook her head, trying to clear it. “What did Sir Aldridge say?”

Julian’s expression shifted—a flicker of something calculating, then carefully blank. “He knows about the clay seam. He wants the land. But he also mentioned something else.” He paused, his eyes meeting hers. “He says he knows where the Ashworth Sapphire is, and he wants it recovered. He’ll fund the estate in exchange.”

Clara’s breath caught. “He knows who took it?”

“I think he knows who holds it.” Julian pulled her glove slowly from her hand, turning her palm up. He traced a line across it. “I told him we would consider the proposition.”

“Julian, if that necklace is out there—if we can recover it—” She thought of her mother’s portrait, the painted jewels at her throat. “It could mean everything.”

“Or it could be a trap,” Julian said softly. His scarred hand was still against the candles’ glow, and Clara realized he had removed his glove. For the first time, she saw the full pattern of it—a pale web of scar tissue across his knuckles, the mark of an old, vicious burn. “Sir Aldridge earned his fortune by knowing more than he let slip. He mentioned the sapphire as if it were a casual thing. A man who spoke of it so lightly has known where it was for a long time.”

Clara’s mind raced. “Then why offer to help us now?”

Julian’s hand closed over hers. “Because he wants something we don’t yet know we have. And I want to find out what it is before the month is out.”