“Not often.”
“No.”
“Were you unhappy?”
Claire looked at him directly.
“Would the answer have altered the morning?”
There it was again.
Not accusation.
Not bitterness.
A practical question.
Duke felt more ashamed of it than he would have felt under shouting.
“Probably not,” he said.
Claire nodded once.
“Then there seemed little purpose in making everyone uncomfortable.”
“Everyone except you.”
Something moved behind her eyes.
“I am accustomed to being uncomfortable without inconveniencing other people.”
Duke leaned back slowly.
“Your father?”
Claire’s expression closed.
“My family is not cruel, if that is what you mean.”
“I did not say cruel.”
“No.”
She looked down at the book.
“But when there are debts, land, three daughters, and no sons, the eldest daughter eventually understands which problems she may be useful in solving.”
Duke heard the words as an indictment of both their fathers and himself.
“You knew why I proposed.”
“Of course.”
“And you knew about Vivian Rourke.”
For the first time, Claire looked genuinely startled.
Only for a moment.
Then composure returned.
“People were not as discreet as they believed.”
“Why didn’t you object?”
Claire’s answer came quietly.
“To whom?”
Duke said nothing.
She continued.
“My father needed the settlement.
You needed the riverfront.
The invitations were printed before I met half the people who attended today.
You had already chosen the shape of your life.
I assumed my duty was to fit inside the part left vacant.”
The cruelty of his original plan had never been clearer.
Not because Claire dramatized it.
Because she did not.
Duke rested both hands on his knees.
“I went to Vivian’s house this evening.”
Claire’s face became still.
“I see.”
He could almost watch her prepare herself not to react.
“I ended it.”
Her eyes lifted sharply.
Silence stretched between them.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because continuing it would be wrong.”
Claire’s expression was unreadable.
