She did not sleep again after the housemaid left.
By the time grey morning light crept under the curtain, Clara had given up pretending. She sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and pressed her feet flat against the cold floor — a small, grounding thing she had learned to do when her mind would not settle.
A soft knock came at the door.
Martha entered without waiting for an answer, the way she always did — not out of rudeness but out of the particular confidence of someone who had decided long ago that Clara's well-being was her personal business. She carried a pitcher of warm water in one hand and Clara's day dress draped over her arm, and she took one look at Clara's face and set both things down without a word.
She crossed the room and opened the curtains.
"You look like you haven't slept," she said, pouring the warm water into the basin.
"I slept a little."
Martha's expression said she did not believe this, but had decided not to argue about it before breakfast. She was twenty-three, broad-shouldered, with a calm face that rarely changed much regardless of what was happening around it. She had come to the Peri household at sixteen, an orphan placed through the parish — and in the seven years since, she had become the most reliable presence in Clara's daily life without either of them ever making a formal announcement of it.
She helped Clara wash and dress with the quiet efficiency of someone who considered fussing a waste of everyone's time, and when she was pinning Clara's hair, she paused, met Clara's eyes in the mirror, and said, "Edmund said you came home looking pale yesterday."
"Edmund talks too much."
"Edmund notices things." A pin placed carefully. "So do I."
Clara held her gaze in the mirror for a moment, then looked away. "I'm fine, Martha."
Martha made a small sound that communicated, without a single word, that she would be watching.
The palace invitation arrived with the afternoon post. Edmund brought it upstairs himself — a cream envelope with a gold seal, held in both hands as though he understood its weight before anyone had opened it.
He was twenty-one, a farmer's son from the eastern counties, with an honest face and the kind of steadiness that came from growing up doing real work. He handed the envelope to Clara's uncle with a short bow, and on his way back out, he passed Martha in the doorway and said something low that made her press her lips together to hide a smile.
Clara noticed. She always noticed.
She thought, not for the first time, that she would find a way to see them married properly before marriage happened to her. It seemed important. The kind of thing worth arranging while she still could.
Her uncle read the invitation standing in the hallway, and his shoulders settled in the way they did when a decision had already been made.
"The bicentennial celebration this evening," he said. "All noble families are expected." He looked at Clara. "You will come with us."
From the sitting room, her aunt's voice arrived precisely. "She has nothing suitable for a royal —"
"She will wear the green dress." He folded the invitation. "She is my ward. She attends."
He walked back toward his study, and the matter was finished.
Clara looked down at her hands. A small, private thing moved through her — not quite a smile, but close enough to borrow its warmth.
Behind her, Martha reappeared from the doorway. "I'll press the green dress," she said, as though she had heard everything and had already been three steps ahead.
The palace banquet hall held every noble family in the kingdom, arranged across long white tables by rank and favour, lit by more candles than Clara could count. She had attended three of these events in her life. Each time she found the same thing — the room was magnificent, and she felt invisible in it.
She had barely found her seat at the Peri table when Lord Evander Ashworth appeared at her elbow.
"Miss Peri." He gave a short bow, dark eyes bright with the confidence of someone who had never once doubted his welcome anywhere. "You look remarkable this evening. I was hoping you would attend."
"Thank you, Lord Ashworth."
"Will you dance? The first, if you haven't promised it."
Before she could answer, Lord Calloway's youngest son materialised on her other side. "You cannot ask before she has even sat down, Evander. It's uncivilised."
"And yet here I am, asking." Evander glanced at him. "You were going to do the same thing."
"I was going to wait at least until after the soup."
Clara looked between them. "I was not aware I had become a competition."
"You have been a competition since last season," Evander said pleasantly, "when Harrow danced with you three times and told everyone about it for a month."
She laughed despite herself — a short, genuine thing that she hadn't planned. "Very well. I'll dance with you, Lord Ashworth."
He smiled and retreated, and Clara turned back to the table to find her aunt watching her with the expression she reserved for things she found inconvenient but could not argue with.
Across the hall, she felt a gaze.