Lord Weatherby visited Clara at the dressmaker’s shop where she had begun her apprenticeship.
He arrived without warning and asked to speak privately.
Clara refused to leave the workroom.
Weatherby smiled thinly and informed her that Arthur had accepted an advance against the proposed marriage settlement.
He claimed that Clara’s refusal had caused him financial loss.
Clara stared at him.
“You cannot buy a wife with an advance to her father.”
Weatherby’s expression hardened.
“Your father represented that the arrangement was agreed.”
“Then he misrepresented it.”
The dressmaker, Mrs. Larkin, put down her shears.
“I believe Miss Harrington has answered you, my lord.”
Weatherby left with a threat to pursue repayment.
Clara went straight to Mrs. Fenwick.
The solicitor examined the correspondence and discovered that Arthur had signed a document promising the disputed meadow as security for the advance.
It was another attempt to pledge property that did not belong to him.
Weatherby had been careless, but he was not necessarily part of the fraud.
When Mrs. Fenwick explained the situation, he withdrew his claim against Clara and directed his demand toward Arthur.
The episode shook Clara badly.
She had imagined marriage as a glittering doorway into safety.
Now she understood how easily a woman could become the subject of negotiations she had never approved.
Emily visited her that evening.
Clara sat at a worktable surrounded by fabric scraps.
“I used to laugh when Mother called you plain,” she said without looking up.
Emily waited.
“I thought being beautiful meant I would never have to worry about anything.”
“Beauty is not a contract that guarantees kindness.”
Clara pulled a needle through a seam.
“I am beginning to discover that.”
They worked side by side until the candles burned low.
There was no grand reconciliation.
Clara still spoke thoughtlessly at times, and Emily still remembered every old injury.
But when Clara made a mistake, she apologized without demanding immediate forgiveness.
That was more useful than any dramatic promise.
At Oak Haven, Arthur’s debts were coming due.
The bank refused another extension.
The railway company withdrew its preliminary offer until the ownership dispute could be settled.
Servants left, tradesmen demanded payment, and the house grew colder as coal supplies dwindled.
Lady Harrington began writing to distant relatives for assistance.
Most replied with polite excuses.
One sent five pounds and a stern recommendation that Arthur sell his remaining horses.
He refused.
His horses were the last visible evidence of the life he believed he deserved.
Then Isaac Rook made a second statement to the constable.
