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“Her being here is a sign that the war could start up any day,” I point out. “I’ve had to accelerate plans and face off with Morgan and rescue helpless damsels more than once in the last week. Nothing about this is normal.”
Iris glowers at me. “You should be taking me with you to the banquet, not Clara. Unless your goal is to provoke Morgan.”
“Morgan provokes himself on a daily basis,” I argue. “Showing strong ties between my family and the heiress of the Speare family will do more good than harm in front of Lindman.”
“Will it? Or will it just give you more opportunities to see her in a backless gown?”
Iris wasn’t the one to accept the plastic sleeve containing Clara’s gown when it arrived at the estate. But she did see it being carried by my housekeeper, Mr. Eaves, up the stairs toward Clara’s room.
I can’t help narrowing my eyes at her. “Say what you mean, Iris.”
“You first,” she shoots back. “Is it part of your plan to seduce Morgan Speare’s niece? Or are you taking orders from a body part that isn’t your brain, and putting the future of your family in jeopardy?”
We watch each other over the table for a moment. From the look on her face, Iris is just as stunned as I am at what she just said. She’s never doubted my intentions, not to my face. And, I assumed, not behind my back either.
I sit back in my chair, measuring everything I want to say with everything I should say. We’ve always operated on the same wavelength, but she just accused me of throwing away my life for a woman. I want to be pissed as hell, to order her never to speak to me about Clara again. I won’t. That’s my father’s response to the criticism of his advisors, not mine.
“Do you really think,” I say instead, keeping each word level, “that I intend to ruin my own plans for Clara’s sake?”
I’m giving her a chance to back down, but Iris has never backed down a day in her life, and I’m not surprised she doesn’t now. “I think,” she returns, picking her own words just as carefully, “that your intentions are irrelevant. The way it looks from the outside is that you’re taking risks you never have before. You’re distracted during meetings. You’re bringing Clara with you on public errands, knowing she’s wanted by her uncle- who you punched in the face more than once! You’ve even given her free range of the house, like she’s no longer your prisoner.”
I slide my gaze away from Iris’s searching one and study the papers in front of me, but the words on them swim in and out of focus. If I were behaving normally, I would talk to Iris rationally about Clara. I’d have told her outright that I planned to seduce her, because it would have been nothing more than a strategy, a means to an end. But seducing Clara hasn’t been a goal since our first time alone in a room together, and there is no ‘end’ that I’m working toward.
In fact, telling Iris about Clara feels, somehow, like losing. Losing what, I don’t know. My self control? My sanity? All I know is that Iris would dissect my moments with Clara and shuffle through them for clues to her motivations, her weaknesses, the ways she could be controlled. And all I want from those moments is to relive the carnal pleasure they made me feel.
“I am taking a risk,” I admit. “I’m giving Clara a chance to remember what being allies with the Warwicks feels like. If I keep her on too tight a leash, how can she imagine freedom? It’ll be easier for her to stand against her uncle if she has something to contrast him with.”
Iris’s face is stony. “You’re a very, very good liar, Thomas,” she says after a long moment. “That’s why I can only hope you haven’t started lying to yourself.”
CHAPTER 18
Clara
The first thing I do with my newfound freedom is find Raleigh’s room. When I knock on her door, there’s a lot of shuffling and thumping from within, like she’s rolled off the bed and can’t get out of her sheets. The door opens on her croaking,
“I swear to god, Tommy, if you’re here for another interrogation-”
Her bleary eyes blink when she realizes she’s not berating her brother. “Oh- Clara?”
She crosses her arms over her stomach and leans against the doorframe, glancing up and down the hallway behind me. Just like the night of the fire, I’m astonished by her casual beauty. She’s in rumpled pajamas and her dyed black curls are a mess, but if she told me she spent an hour perfecting this look, I’d believe her.
“What’s going on? Did you break out?” she asks.
“No- um, Thomas is letting me walk around,” I admit.
When we got back from the boutique yesterday and he brought me back to my room, there was another moment when I thought he might stay, and I had been tempted to ask. But instead he told me that since we were allies now, he could stand to show me a bit more courtesy. I was free to roam the house, but for security reasons, I wasn’t allowed to leave the estate without him at my side.
It’s the closest I think I’ll get to an apology for all his false accusations, but I’m so sick of staring at the walls of my room that I’ll take what I can get.
“Oh,” is Raleigh’s entire response, and I blink. She doesn’t sound all that happy about my newfound freedom. Then again, the last few times we’ve crossed paths haven’t exactly been a good time. I try to push that aside, but my stomach still flips with nerves.
“Well- first off, I wanted to give this back to you,” I say, holding up her daypack.
Raleigh frowns down at it. I wonder if I’ve insulted her by returning something she put together for me. But now that I’ve decided to work with Thomas, I can hardly keep a bag ready like I’m going to run away again.
“You should hang onto it,” Raleigh says, keeping her arms crossed. “Just in case you get another opening. After last time, I don’t think I’ll be able to help you again. Tommy and Iris are watching me like suspicious hens.”
I hate that I’ve brought so much down on her. I want to apologize, but she’s already told me not to say sorry. Instead, I let her bag fall back to my side. “Can we get some breakfast together?” I ask uncertainly. “It’d be nice to talk without being on the run.”
