Chapter 15
Unexpected arrivals.
Alice woke with a start, momentarily disorientated as Lill bustled into her room carrying a breakfast tray.
For a moment the events of the previous days muddled in her mind, the urgency of her journey to town and the stress of the robbery still vivid in her memories, yet she felt oddly light-hearted and content.
“Wakey, wakey, slug-a-bed. It’s gone midday.”
Alice hauled herself upright as Lill set the tray down on her lap. The tantalising scent of fried bacon wafted from the plate and her stomach rumbled. “I can’t believe I slept so long.”
Lill moved to the windows, drawing back the curtains to reveal a blustery morning as Alice remembered why she was so happy, why the coming day filled her with anticipation.
Aubrey had proposed. They were going to be married.
She stared down at her plate, a stupid smile on her face, barely taking in Lill’s excited chatter.
“Hardly surprising after all the excitement of the past few days. You looked worn to a thread when you arrived last night. I can’t stand it another minute, though. I want to know everything that happened. Every blessed detail, so don’t leave anything out.”
Alice, who had finally picked up her knife and fork in happy anticipation of the feast before her, abruptly remembered the shocking and wonderfully intimate moments with Aubrey in the carriage and turned scarlet.
“Oh, ho!” Lill said, pulling up a chair beside the bed, her blue eyes alight with curiosity. “I especially want to know what’s turned you that colour. Lord above, you’re the colour of a ripe tomato.”
Alice set down her knife and fork and reached for the cup of tea Lill had prepared for her, taking a bracing sip before she replied.
“Aubrey proposed,” she blurted out.
Lill gave a shriek of delight, leaping to her feet and reaching to hug Alice, almost upsetting the entire breakfast tray as she did so.
“Oh, my love! Oh, Alice, that’s… that’s…” Lill burst into tears, fumbling about in her apron pocket until she finally pulled a handkerchief from up her sleeve and gave her nose a vigorous blow. “I’m so h-happy for you. He’s a good man, Alice.”
Alice nodded, about to reply when Lill froze, her eyes growing wide.
“Lord above! Tell me you said yes? You did say yes, didn’t you?” she demanded, looking so alarmed that Alice laughed.
“Of course I said yes, you ridiculous creature. I’m not an idiot.”
Lill sat down again with a thud and gave her nose another hard blow. “Well, I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Neither did I!” Alice retorted. A slightly uneasy silence settled between them and Alice stared down at her hands, pleating the fabric of the counterpane.
“Lill. I’d never go anywhere without you.
Aubrey took it for granted that we came as a pair.
That is, if you want to? I’ve never expected you to work for me.
We were always a partnership before, despite you being housekeeper, but if this feels different—”
“If I want to!” Lill exclaimed, folding her arms and looking indignant. “Where you go, I go. Besides, I’d like to know how you’d get along without me. But I’ll not be working in the kitchens. I’ll be your lady’s maid and valet, all in one.”
Relief flooded Alice. “Of course, love. I’d expect nothing else.”
“Well, that’s all settled, then. Now eat your breakfast before it gets cold.”
Alice grinned, feeling for the first time that a happy, secure future might actually be within their grasp. Outside, the clouds gathered on the horizon still, but inside, the world felt bright.
Hatherley Hall, Little Valentine, 21st January 1816
Aubrey watched his sister as she struggled to comprehend the news of his impending marriage.
He had slept late and kept to his room for most of the day, needing some time on his own after all the worry and exertion.
Having decided Vinnie ought to be the first to know, now he’d done his duty and confronted the duke, he’d finally run his sister to ground in the library where she had curled up with a book by the fire.
As it was close to four, he’d ordered tea to fortify them.
“But you hardly know her!” Vinnie twisted a lock of auburn hair around her finger as she often did when in a state of agitation.
Aubrey stirred sugar into his tea, praying his sister would be as welcoming to Alice as he had promised she would.
“Actually, I know her very well. We’ve spent a lot of time together over the past weeks.”
Vinnie’s expression cleared. “That’s what you’ve been up to! I knew there was something, but I thought you were with her brother.”
Aubrey hesitated. He would explain everything to Vinnie, he promised himself, for he suspected that she would be delighted by his unconventional choice, but it was a lot to take in. That he was getting married was a big enough shock for now. “Well, yes, I was.”
“You mean he chaperoned you?”
“Er… in a manner of speaking, yes,” Aubrey asked, setting down his teacup and hoping they could get off the subject of her brother quickly.
“But the thing is, Vinnie. I love her. Alice is so remarkable and has overcome so much hardship and yet she’s never daunted, not by anything.
She’s the bravest person I’ve ever met, and clever and beautiful and—”
Vinnie laughed, reaching out and taking his hand in hers. “Oh, poor Aubrey. You are in a bad way.”
He returned a rueful smile. “I am.”
Her green eyes, so like his own, warmed as she gazed at him.
“You really love her?”
“I really do.”
“Then I shall too,” she said firmly.
Aubrey got up and pulled her to her feet, enveloping her in the kind of brotherly bear hug he’d not shared with her in years. “Thanks, Vinnie. I needed to hear that. Hawk’s in the most frightful stew about it because she’s not of our class and… and her brother is a bit of a scoundrel.”
Vinnie scoffed at this reaction. “Oh, he’s so stuffy. I don’t give a fig for that sort of thing, and Miss Marwick has always had impeccable manners whenever I have seen her. If anything, she is rather reserved, so I don’t see how Hawkney can complain, though he will.”
Aubrey nodded, Hawkney’s disapproval still ringing in his ears. “At least I don’t have to face him for a while. I left him brooding in town,” he admitted with a wry smile, his amusement fading as Vinnie bit her lip. “Oh, no.”
“Howard said he arrived an hour or so after you did.”
Aubrey groaned and sat down again. “Devil take him. Why couldn’t he just stay put?”
“He wasn’t alone,” she added, almost apologetically.
Aubrey stared at her and then cursed. “Oh, bloody hell. Not Sherry?”
“Who else?” Vinnie shrugged, though laughter danced in her eyes.
She liked Lord Sheringham, of course. Most women did.
He was a handsome devil with black hair and cold grey eyes and a lean athletic build that made the ladies sigh.
The younger son of the Duke of Devlin, he had inherited the courtesy title of earl when his older brother died.
He was sophisticated, clever, and had a tongue like a viper when roused, which was seldom.
He was also the most indolent devil Aubrey had ever met, and his friendship with stodgy Hawkney was something no one could understand.
Not even Hawkney, if Aubrey had to guess.
“Why on earth did he come back so soon, never mind with Sherry in tow?” he demanded, knowing what havoc the devil could wreak upon the household.
Vinnie cut him a slice of plum cake, laying it on a delicately painted porcelain plate. She offered it to him, her smile sympathetic. “Perhaps he wanted to apologise for all the rotten things he said about Miss Marwick?”
Aubrey’s reply to this improbable suggestion was a snort of derision.
Hatherley Hall, Little Valentine, 21st January 1816
Justin Caldecott, the Earl of Sheringham, affectionately known as Sherry to his intimates, stretched out his long legs before the fire in the Duke of Hawkney’s study and surveyed his friend with a keen eye.
Most people could not understand how two men who were so vastly different could keep up a friendship begun only to survive the horrors of school, but they had, and Sherry cared little for what anybody thought about anything, least of all what they thought of him.
He had called in on the duke upon a whim last night, whilst on his way back from his club.
Hawkney had been about to step into his carriage and refused to linger, so Sherry, being a little the worse for drink, had come for the ride.
A mistake, possibly. Certainly the pounding in his temples seemed to suggest so, but Hawk looked troubled, and God knew he wouldn’t confide in anyone else.
Likely he’d not confide in Sherry either, but it was worth a try. He owed the stuff devil that much.
“You look like you’ve swallowed a bad oyster.”
Hawk looked up from the letter he was glowering at to regard his friend. Sherry suspected Hawkney had forgotten he was there at all. Well, that would never do.
“My digestion is perfectly fine, I thank you,” his grace replied, and returned his attention to the letter.
“A billet doux?” Sherry enquired sweetly, earning himself a withering look from Hawkney.
“Certainly not.”
Sheringham hid a smile. “That is a relief. One hopes you do not scowl so prodigiously at your light o’love. I’m certain the fair Caroline would not quiver under such an expression, for she is made of sterner stuff, but one worries, you know, Hawk. One worries.”
“I wish you would not,” was the duke’s terse reply, though he did not take his eyes from the letter.