A Lady Undone by Máire Claremont

muck.”
    Byron leveled a stare at the man, filled with all the contempt he could muster. “It really isn’t my place to judge what she does.”
    Soames snorted. “Well, it’s mine. She’s a member of my family, and I’m the head of it.”
    “Soames,” Clare said calmly, though her hands were clenched in fists. “My husband was a very controlling man—”
    “You were young. A girl needs a husband who will—”
    “Knock me down?” she gritted. “Beat me? Choose all my gowns and my friends, and bring the doctors in when I didn’t acquiesce to his every whim?”
    “Clare,” Soames chided. “If you did not do as the duke asked, of course he beat you. You provoked him to anger. A good wife knows—”
    “My God,” Byron seethed. “I never realized how entirely alone Clare was married to that monster. Now I see. You would have thrown her to the cruelest of men for a dukedom and the power it brings.”
    “Alone?” Soames echoed, his voice brittle. “I arranged that marriage. It was one of the last things my poor brother wished for and all I want is to see his daughter well looked after and behaving as a lady ought. And don’t you dare paint me the demon. The law, the church, and society commands that a wife obey her husband in all things. To not do so is to go against nature.”
    Clare’s gaze grew steely. She lifted her chin. “I know you care for me, Uncle, in the only way you know how, but how far would you go to see I am looked after?”
    Soames blinked. “I don’t understand.”
    Wyndham shook his head theatrically, almost savoring the coming moment. “Your arrogance is quite astonishing. You demanded your niece receive some form of protection, and it was you she needed protection from, was it not?”
    “Don’t be absurd.”
    “Am I? Absurd? Or didn’t you send your man to the East End looking for someone who’d be willing to do a bit of rough work? If the Duke of Fairleigh had found a simple guard for her as you wished, you might have succeeded. Instead, he asked for my aid. Luckily, Fairleigh is clever man and wanted to know who wished to harm his wife’s stepmother. So did I. It was almost pitiable, your attempt to hide your role in all this.”
    Soames faltered. “Nonsense.”
    “Nonsense?” he challenged. “My informants were quite clear about the identity of the man soliciting the aid of a confidence man. It’s your misfortune that I simply know more ruffians than you. You see, it took me less than twenty-four hours to surmise it was someone close to Clare. After all, they knew the whereabouts of her chamber and they knew her schedule. Both things a family member might know. It saddens me, but when a woman is in jeopardy, the threat almost always lies in either her husband or her family. Now, Clare has had the misfortune of being threatened by both.”
    “Clare, you can’t believe—”
    “Can you truly deny it?” Clare demanded, her tone surprisingly calm. “Can you look me full in the face and deny you didn’t send your man to arrange it all?”
    Soames started to protest, but his words sputtered out. “No. And I assume that the earl has sufficient witnesses. Otherwise he never would have come. Wyndham is also correct in that I assumed the duke would hire you a capable guard.” Soames glared at Wyndham. “Not some damned spy. With a guard keeping you away from the East End, the attacks would have ended. Clare, you must understand, I needed you to cease going there and you wouldn’t listen to reason. You gave me no choice.”
    “Don’t you dare blame her Grace for your weakness of character. A man of honor would have stood beside her, aided her.”
    “What?” Soames’s genuine horror tensed his features. “You would condone such behavior in a woman, tending to whores and women who don’t know their place?”
    “Yes. I would,” he replied in the face of the other man’s poison. “Clare is the bravest, best lady I have ever known and her work only raises her in