In Favour |Clara Walseworth|

Royal duties ~ Chapter 13

Germany, 1818.

The first blush of morning had barely touched the sky when Clara opened her eyes. She lay still for a moment, listening. Beside her, William remained asleep—face half-buried in the pillow, his breath shallow and sour with the staleness of last night's drink. The bedsheets were tangled, the room heavy with the scent of perfume and liquor. His arm lay limply across the mattress, not reaching for her.

Clara slipped from the bed soundlessly. She did not call for her maid. She dressed herself in the pale grey riding habit she had brought from home—sturdier, simpler than the ornate garments she was expected to wear now. The boots were scuffed. The waistcoat slightly loose. It had always been meant for freedom, not for display. It was meant just for her.

Her hair she pinned loosely, tucked beneath her riding cap. She did not care if it came loose in the wind. At the door, she hesitated only once. William let out a muffled groan in his sleep and turned his face the other way. She left without a word.

The morning air was sharp and clean, the cobblestones of the courtyard still damp with dew. A few startled servants watched her pass, too polite—or too wary—to question where she was going. She entered the stables alone.

Beatrice nickered softly at the sound of her footsteps, her white mane glinting in the pale light and Clara smiled.

"There you are," she whispered, resting a hand against the mare's neck. "Shall we?" Within minutes, she was in the saddle. No guards, no ladies, no servants, no fuss and no one to remind her, with gentle condescension, that such activity might disturb her "delicate condition"—the condition she had not achieved, and which every dowager in court now seemed to silently mourn.

She did not care not in this soft sweet morning light.

Her heels pressed gently to Beatrice's sides, and the mare moved forward, elegant and eager. Clara kept her head high as they left the stables, passed the stone archway, and turned out toward the lower gardens and then she kicked making the mare surged forward.

Wind tore at her coat while her cheeks burned and her eyes stung but her grip was steady, and her spine strong, and she rode like a woman who had something to outrun—though she would never name what it was, there were no eyes on her now and no expectations.

Just the sound of hooves pounding the earth, the whisper of wind through trees, and the fierce, breathless relief of being untethered—if only for a while.

She rode hard across the damp edges of the lower fields, letting Beatrice stretch into a full gallop, her hooves flinging up flecks of mud and grass. The sharp wind tore at Clara's face, reddening her cheeks, loosening strands of hair from their pins. The palace disappeared behind her—its windows dim, its walls unmoving—until it was just a grey smudge in the distance.

Here, in the open, Clara felt the tightness in her chest begin to crack. Not entirely, but enough to draw breath without that hollow ache. It was not freedom—she knew that but it mimicked it well enough.

Eventually, she pulled the reins, slowing Beatrice to a brisk trot, then a walk. The mare tossed her head but obeyed, snorting softly as they moved along the wooded edge of the riding trail and Clara let her hands rest lightly on the reins.

She did not think of William or rather—she did but more so as one remembers a fever dream. A shadow of something that had once mattered, once cut, but now felt curiously dull.

The lipstick. The silence. The reek of wine and rum. It had all confirmed what her heart had long suspected: she was not loved, not really maybe liked for a passing moment more how a child like a toy before becoming born or maybe she never was maybe she had been chosen, not cherished.