Chapter Eighteen
Alice’s carriage made the last turn and slowed before her father’s townhouse. She was more than ready to close herself in her room with a pot of tea and think.
Stepping down, Alice lifted her face, letting the cool rain settle on her skin briefly. All she wanted was to find Jackson, and she’d complicated that by including Lord Stafford in her hunt—but no more.
“Hello, Phipps,” Alice said to her butler.
“Lord Smythe arrived an hour ago, my lady.”
Alice stared at the butler, stunned at what he’d said.
“He has been asking for you since,” Phipps added, his expression giving away nothing of what he felt.
The staff were not fond of Alice’s father, which was fine because she was not very fond of him either. She just hoped he had not brought his mistress.
“Thank you, Phipps. Where is he?”
“The blue parlor, my lady.”
“Excellent. If you will have a fresh tea tray prepared. I shall tidy myself and then see him,” Alice said. “Where is my aunt?”
“She is out visiting with Lady Hetherington.”
“Let’s hope she stays there,” Alice muttered. Aunt Gwen loathed her father too.
The butler left, and Maggie, who took her coat, looked Alice up and down.
“Will I pass, or do I need to change, Maggie? Because my father is not a patient man, so I would like to see him as soon as I can.”
Maggie brushed at Alice’s skirts, and then fixed some pins in her hair. “You’ll do,” her maid then said.
Alice climbed the stairs to the second floor and headed for the blue parlor, nerves fluttering in her belly. Why was her father here? He never came to London unannounced.
She inhaled the scent of beeswax and orange oil, her housekeeper’s concoction, and looked up at portraits of her ancestors gazing down at her in judgment as she attempted to regain control of herself.
Her steps made no sound on the carpet as she reached the parlor door and paused with her hand on the latch.
He will leave again soon, she reminded herself. Just get through this.
She entered.
Her father stood at the hearth with a glass of claret, spectacles low on his nose, and he read from the book her aunt had left in here this morning.
His hair had gone grayer this past year since she’d seen him.
Tall, elegant as always, he was a man who had aged well.
A selfish, spoiled man who cared only for himself.
“Hello, Father. To what do we owe this honor?” Alice tried to say the words without giving away any of the emotion she felt. She’d fought long and hard against her resentment toward this man, who had simply abandoned her and Charles for a woman he was not even married to.
“Ah, Alice.” He surveyed her, but made no move to kiss her cheek or hug the daughter he’d not seen in many months. The monster that was resentment roared louder inside her. “You are late.”
“I did not receive word you were arriving, so I fail to see how I could be late, Father.”
“Where have you been?”
“Out visiting friends,” she said.
Alice knew how this worked. He liked to be right all the time and hated anyone challenging him. Loathed the fact that Alice didn’t just bow to his every whim and flatter his ego.
She had long ago realized she would always love her father, but she in no way liked or respected him.
“In the rain?”
“She lives in a house, not on the streets, Father.”
His lips tightened, and then formed a sneer. “Lord Braxton called to see you. I told him you would be home tomorrow to receive him.”
“Why are you here, Father?”
“It is my townhouse, daughter; do not forget that,” he snapped at her.
“How could I? It is I who runs your affairs and deals with everything. It is I who sends you and your mistress money.” The words slipped out before she could swallow them down.
No good ever came from speaking to her father like this, but perhaps because she was already unsettled, she’d done just that.
“How dare you speak to me like that!” he thundered.
“How dare I?” Alice snorted. “I think you have that wrong, my lord. How dare you walk away from all your responsibilities. How dare you put your mistress before your duty.” Her words were coated in ice.
“Enough!” He raised a hand. “I have decided you will wed, Alice, and soon, because I wish to return to London, and have no wish for you to still be living in my homes.”
Shock had her taking a step backward.
“Clearly, Lord Braxton has an interest in you. He is a sensible young man,” her father said. “Attentive, but not—”
“You know nothing about him,” Alice said through her teeth. “You have no right to do this. Come in here and demand I wed, when I have kept everything running while you frolic with your mistress.”
“I am an earl, and as such can do as I wish,” he declared. “We will return for next year’s season, and you and your aunt will not be living here.”
It hit her then, hard. “You would bring your mistress back here for everyone to see, and to mock?”
“How dare you speak of the woman I love in such a way. We are going to marry.”
The word was like a gunshot to Alice. It silenced her and had her reeling.
“You can’t mean that?” she whispered.
“Of course I mean it. I am traveling to the country now briefly and will return in a few days to discuss this matter further. I expect by then you will have something to report to me.”
“So you came here for a single day, to see me, your only surviving child, who you’ve barely spoken a word to in years, and tell me you are throwing us out of our house, so you and that…that woman can live here?”
“It is time,” he said with deadly finality. “I will discuss this no more. See you find a suitable husband, daughter. I shall return soon.”
She moved to the door and opened it, but before she left, Alice had a last thing to say. She’d never taken her father to task, but it was clearly past time.
“You are a selfish, horrible man. You have neglected your children for many years and now want to throw one of them out of the only home she’s ever known.
This speaks to your weak, mean spirited, and shallow character, my lord.
I will be more than happy to never see you again.
I will also ensure to never look at another of the household accounts or the investments I have undertaken on your behalf.
Your estates and finances are flourishing because of me, but that will no longer be the case. ”
Her father’s mouth dropped open at Alice’s speech.
“Rot in hell, Father. It’s what you deserve, and know that for your many sins there is a single one I will never ever forgive you for: Turning your back on your son when he most needed you.”
She walked out the door to her father roaring her name. In the hall, Phipps, the butler, waited with his impenetrable calm. “A card came for you, my lady. Delivered not ten minutes past.”
Her stomach tightened. “For me?”
“Yes, my lady.” He extended the silver salver.
Alice did not look. She knew the quality of the card before she turned it, felt it in the crispness of the edge beneath her gloved fingers. Lord Stafford’s crest. The ink black as a bruise.
A single line, written in a strong, slanted hand.
We must speak. Tonight.—S.
Heat flared up her spine, as she looked at that bold stroke of a letter. She slipped the card back onto the tray.
“Please send word to Lord Stafford’s townhouse,” she said, keeping her tone even, “that I will be unable to see him this evening.”
Phipps hesitated, perhaps surprised by the steel in her voice. “Very good, my lady.”
“And, Phipps?”
“My lady?”
“If any other notes arrive from Lord Stafford, they are to be placed on my writing desk unopened. I will attend to them myself.”
“Of course.”
She climbed the stairs, rage, hurt, and pain roiling inside her, and made for her room.
Once there, she resisted the urge to hurl herself onto her bed, and instead sat in the chair before the fire. Maggie followed with a tea tray and a small plate of sugared biscuits.
“Eat please, my lady,” her maid said, setting the tray by the writing desk, “before you faint on me and give the housemaids stories to tell their grandchildren.”
“Why would I faint?” Alice said, picking up a biscuit and nibbling. It tasted like dust.
“I have eyes,” Maggie said, and then, softer, “and I can see you are pale and upset.”
“’Tis nothing,” Alice added. “My father is a fool, but that’s nothing I did not already know.”
Maggie’s brows climbed, but she only bobbed a curtsy and left, closing the door with the quiet efficiency of a woman who had learned how to vanish when her mistress needed to think.
Alice rose with her tea and went to the desk she’d had placed before the windows. Opening a drawer, she slid out the little inlaid box. Pulling out paper and pen, she began to write.
Ledger stolen. Three nobles in disguise. Questioned girls about K. Jackson, and the men who questioned them, Lord Stafford being one of them.
Look into securing more staff for clinic. Supplies: carbolic, laudanum, liniment—more. Ward: at least six beds to begin; two nurses.
She paused, and ink blotted the paper, before writing Stafford did not tell me what he was doing, or had uncovered. She set the nib down hard enough to nick the paper.
Wind rattled the window behind her. Alice looked up as rain rolled steadily down the pane. She heard a carriage roll past. The city went on beyond these walls regardless of whether a gentleman kept his word, or a father abandoned his daughter yet again.
Picking up the pen, she then began to make notes about what she needed to do to secure the future for herself, her staff, and her aunt before her father returned to town with his mistress, who was to become her stepmother. The thought made her shudder.
Alice would not be in society if her father and that woman were there. In fact, she would be long gone. A little house in the country should do.
She had many things to sort out. One of them was how to keep supplying money to the clinic and other causes when her father returned. She would have to cover her tracks well, and ensure she had enough money left to do what she needed to.
Alice closed the box and set it back in the drawer, then took the card once more, looking at the black slanted writing.
“Not tonight,” she said aloud to the empty room. “Not on your terms. In fact, never again, Lord Stafford.” You are not to be trusted.
A knock on her door was followed by her aunt.
“Don’t forget that this evening we are to go to the dinner party, dear.”
Damn, she’d forgotten about that. Lord Anthony’s aunts were hosting it and had called on her to invite Alice and her aunt, who was a personal friend.
“I know your father is here, and I’m afraid he is not invited. Would you like me to see if I can change that, Alice?”
“No, Aunt Gwen. He is leaving London again this evening,” Alice said, and noted the relief on her aunt’s face at her words.
“Well then, you rest now, dear, as it should be a late night.”
The door shut, and Alice rose from her seat.
This time she did head for the bed, and fell face first onto the cover.
Lord Stafford would be there, she was sure of it.
Firstly, because of that conversation she’d had with Lord Hamilton’s aunts, and secondly, because he was a close friend of their nephew.
And that mattered not, because she didn’t have to speak to him. Closing her eyes, she let exhaustion take its toll. She’d need all her wits about her this evening. Alice just hoped her father did leave before she came downstairs as she had no wish to see him again.
The first tears fell, and they would be the only ones. Alice had plans to make, and she could not afford the weakness of self-pity. Her aunt depended on her, and she would not let her down.