An Inconvenient Arrangement

Chapter 11: Claire, The Shrew

"Helen, you cannot possibly be serious," Claire Weston watched her stepmother in disbelief as she laid out an incredibly audacious gown out for her sister, Elizabeth. The gown was flattering of Lizzie's figure, of course, but the cut was far too revealing for a debutant in her second season. Even Claire might have balked at wearing it, despite the fact that she enjoyed fashion immensely and had been widowed for three years. "She will appear desperate!"

Lizzie flushed in embarrassment, unable to say anything to her mother. It was what infuriated Claire even further, in all the years that she had been away her stepmother had molded her sister into her perfect little puppet who never said a word against Lady Newcastle's wishes.

"We are desperate, Claire!" Helen hissed as she straightened out the dress, inspecting it for any wrinkles or tears. "We have no money; Elizabeth has to make a good match of it. Every coin we could spare has gone into sponsoring her previous season, but she could not wrangle a single proposal. Why do you think we did not retire to the country estate this winter? The creditors have already taken it! The Marquess of Lindsey is the only thing standing between us and poverty! Lord knows you are beyond any hope. Do you think it is easy for us to have the burden of your expenditures as well?"

Claire's cheeks heated in embarrassment at her current predicament. It was not as if she wanted to be part of her father's household again. As a widow to a wealthy aristocrat, she should be living in a house of her own with a comfortable income. It was not as if she had asked for the humiliation of being left with nothing, sitting in shock at the reading of her husband's will where it was announced that everything he had owned had been bequeathed to his mistress, leaving her penniless.

Her marriage to a man thirty years her senior, taking the blame for his impotence on herself, her near two decades of silently bearing his infidelity, her being forced to spend night after night alone knowing that he was with someone else, it had all been for naught. She had done all that, she had borne all that indignity, only to be betrayed in the end. There were days she wished he had died in a more painful and humiliating way than simply passing on in his sleep. Even in his final days, he had moved to the apartments he had shared with that woman, passing away in her bed.

Romantic wasn't it? The two star-crossed lovers, who had been separated by their stations, coming together in spite of it all. And she, the villain, standing in their way. Forcing him to appear at functions by her side so that she could scrape together the facade of a marriage. A phantom of respect. She, restricting the extravagant sums he would have spent on her. She, the heartless bitch, refusing to let him buy her better accommodations closer to their residence.

Well. He and his mistress had the last laugh in the end, hadn't they? Even now that woman would be languishing in the house Claire had renovated. Sitting in the furniture Claire had chosen, enjoying food from the cook Claire had employed.

And her husband was resting easy, knowing the woman he loved was comfortable and the shrew that he had married was suffering.

He had denied her dignity, he had denied her his inheritance, he had denied her his love and the worst of his sins; he had denied her a child. And then he had let everyone blame her for their empty nursery, in spite of the fact that it was his advanced age that had kept her from motherhood. All that indignity may have been worth it if only she had a child to call her own, but she had not been allowed even that.

"You would thrust her into the arms of a man who is four and thirty years older than her," Claire could not keep the bitterness from her tone, nor could she stop the way her own heart turned to ice at the thought of sweet, bright Lizzie having her spirit crushed year after year until she became as cold as Claire. "For God's sake Helen, he could be her father. His son is a solid decade older than her!"