Chapter Fourteen
He’s going to say no,” Henry muttered dolefully as he poked at his blancmange with the bowl of his spoon.
Grace kicked the back of Henry’s calf beneath the table in silent reproach. “He isn’t,” she said beneath her breath. “Well—he might, at first,” she allowed. “But it won’t stay a no.”
Henry had gone a bit green about the gills as the end of dinner had approached. Grace didn’t know if it was nerves alone or the possibility of rejection. Or perhaps just that Uncle Chris could be a mite intimidating when he wished to be, and she rather thought he wished to intimidate Henry.
But still, Henry had come to a family dinner this evening anyway.
Aunt Phoebe had been pleased as punch to offer him an invitation, as Grace had never requested one for any gentleman of her acquaintance before now.
Uncle Chris was somewhat less than enthused.
He’d made a passable show of politeness for Aunt Phoebe’s sake, but he had certainly gripped Henry’s hand entirely too hard upon greeting him.
“I still don’t know how I let you talk me into this,” Henry said as his eyes scanned the sheer number of guests warily. “Is it always like this?”
“Oh, no,” Grace said, hiding a smile beneath the corner of her napkin as she patted her mouth daintily.
“Usually it’s much worse. Aunt Phoebe has got just dozens and dozens of nieces and nephews.
” But tonight was just for the adults—which still amounted to well over forty people.
“And I might have brought Tansy, if I had had a mind.”
Henry’s head darted toward her. “Whatever for?”
“Aunt Phoebe’s quite fond of cats.” Even if Tansy was not quite fond of her. “And Tansy is just fascinated with Hieronymus.”
“Who the devil is Hieronymus?”
“Uncle Chris’ terrapin. He’s got a pond out in the garden.” Grace allowed herself a tiny bit of private amusement at the startled look upon his face. Probably this sort of chaos, with conversation volleying back and forth across the great length of the table, was anathema to him.
But Grace loved it. She always had. Her life had become so much richer for all the people—blood relations and otherwise—who had welcomed her into theirs with open arms. She had come into their lives a frightened, lonely girl, and though they had had no obligation to her, every one of them had embraced her.
And that was how she knew that Uncle Chris would say yes…eventually. Any one of them would have, only because she had asked it of them.
“Well,” Aunt Phoebe said with a smile as she rose at last as the servants began to clear away the dishes. “Ladies, shall we adjourn to the drawing room?”
It had to be now. Grace pushed back her chair, abandoning Henry to the company of the rest of her relations as she wove her way toward the head of the table and Uncle Chris. “Could I speak to you?” she asked as she reached him, pitching her voice low. “In private?”
“Has it got to be now?” he inquired. “It’s cards this evening. Thought I’d see if yer lord has learned to properly recognize a cheat. See how much o’ his fortune I can help myself to.”
Probably less than he hoped, though still more than he needed.
But Henry might well prove himself a better cheat even than Uncle Chris could have expected, which might even win his respect.
Or a portion of it, at least. “It really has got to be now. And he’s not my lord.
” Though she thought—perhaps he might be.
Just a little. A little more than he had been only yesterday, even.
A little more hers, with every day that passed between them.
“Hell,” Uncle Chris grunted. “My study, then. Two minutes.”
In the pandemonium that was the mad rush from the table and the crush of bodies weaving through the room to their respective destinations—ladies to the drawing room and gentlemen to the library—Grace managed to shepherd Henry out into the hall and toward the stairs.
He tugged at his cravat as they climbed. “My stomach is in knots,” he confessed. “I’m almost certain he already knows my situation. The broad strokes of it, anyway.”
“It’s a possibility,” she allowed. “There was a time that Uncle Chris was involved in the business of extortion.”
Henry’s feet stutter-stepped upon the stairs. “And you want to give him more ammunition?”
“Untwist your smallclothes, if you please,” Grace said, planting one hand at the small of his back to urge him onward once again. “He doesn’t do it any longer. Aunt Phoebe would have his head.”
Reluctantly, Henry began to ascend once again. “He doesn’t seem the sort to be led about by his wife.”
“He doesn’t seem it,” Grace agreed. “But he is. Every one of us knows it.” Even Uncle Chris, who had just come to accept it as a sort of inevitability. “Here we are,” she said as they reached the study at last. “Have a drink. Uncle Chris will be along soon.”
“I don’t know that making free with his liquor will endear me to him,” Henry muttered.
“Casting up your accounts in his study will endear you less,” Grace advised.
“You’ve been green since the second course.
” When he failed to move, she swept around him toward the sideboard and poured a healthy glass of amber liquid from a crystal decanter.
His nerves were catching, she thought. Her heart beat a rapid tattoo as the distinctive thump of Uncle Chris’ cane resounded in the hallway outside.
“Drink,” she insisted as she shoved the glass into Henry’s hand.
Henry managed only the tiniest of sips before the door flew open, and Uncle Chris walked in. He was already scowling. Not the best of omens, Grace thought.
He slanted a glare at Henry as he strolled across the room toward his desk, bracing himself against it to lift his cane in a pointed jab in Henry’s direction. “If you’ve come to ask my blessing,” he said acerbically, “save your damned breath. I won’t give it.”
Henry choked on his liquor.
“It’s not like that,” Grace said, lifting her hands in entreaty.
“What a clanker.” The words dripped with the scathing mockery to which Uncle Chris was often inclined.
“Really,” Grace insisted. “This—us, I mean to say”—she gave a little gesture to Henry—“it’s just fiction.” Although it hadn’t felt quite so…fictional just lately. “And besides,” she added cheekily, “your blessing is not strictly required.”
Uncle Chris’ scowl deepened. “It damned well ought to be.”
“I believe Charity and Anthony have got that well enough in hand.” Grace pursed her lips together to smother a giggle. “You would have been proud. Anthony told the last suitor I refused to fuck off.”
Somewhere behind her, Henry made a strange sound in his throat, like a cough that had gotten stuck. But at last, a reluctant smile from Uncle Chris. “Did ‘e, then?” he asked. “Never would’ve imagined.”
“I beg your pardon,” Henry said, in a particularly scandalized tone of voice. “Did you just say fuck off?”
“Gracie’s learned all the best words from me,” Uncle Chris said.
“Daresay she could make a sailor blush. She’s fluent in the sort of language that even members of yer club wouldn’t dare to utter amongst themselves.
” But by the sly smile that clung to the corner of his mouth, Grace suspected he was enjoying Henry’s discomfiture at present.
“All right, then, Gracie. Pour me a drink and tell me what you’ve gotten yerself into this time. ”
“This time?” Henry inquired.
“Gracie’s got a soft spot for helpless little things,” Uncle Chris said snidely as he accepted the drink Grace offered to him, “and a predilection toward the pursuit of justice that borders on the unnatural. Somehow, I’ve got the feeling that ye qualify for both. So what is it, then?”
Grace fumbled for the reticule hanging from her wrist and dug within for the letter she’d tucked inside. “I was hoping,” she said, “that you might be able to tell us something about the sender of this letter.”
Uncle Chris snatched it out of her hands, shaking it open to scan the lines contained within. “Hell,” he said on a sigh. “Suppose someone found out yer little secret, then, Lockhart?”
“You knew?” Grace asked.
“’Course I knew. I trafficked in such secrets, once, and that was a damned good one. I once had possession of this very manifest, if memory serves.”
Once—but no longer. “What became of it?” Grace asked. “That is—how did this Cooper come into possession of it?”
“No fucking idea,” Uncle Chris said. “I rid m’self of that sort of thing years and years ago, at yer Aunt Phoebe’s insistence. My butler was meant to dispose of it all properly. Suppose it’s possible ‘e returned it to its original owner rather than to Lockhart’s family.”
“And you never…used it yourself?” Henry asked carefully.
“Naw. What for? My coffers were overflowing already by the time I came into possession of it. And yer father was a good sort. Yer uncle, however…” A shrug that spoke volumes.
“The money I might’ve gotten from yer father weren’t worth the risk o’ puttin’ yer uncle in a position ‘e’s not fit to occupy. ”
“Then we’re in agreement,” Grace said, relieved. “Something must be done.”
“Hell, no.” Uncle Chris folded the letter up and handed it back. “This is none o’ yer nevermind, Gracie. Let ‘is lordship solve ‘is own problems. That’s my advice to ye.”
“I can’t. He’s not like us. You and me, I mean to say. He’s only just learned to cheat at cards—”
A disdainful sniff. “Hopeless, then.”
“Oh, please, Uncle Chris.” Grace clasped her hands before her; a gesture of supplication. “It’s important to me. I promised him my assistance, and—”
“Why? He threaten ye or something o’ that nature?” Uncle Chris leveled a firm stare at Henry.
“No.” The denial had come from Henry, firm and clear. “I’ll admit that I did use Grace’s penchant for thievery to persuade her to hear me out, but nothing more than that. Her secrets are safe with me, and always will be.”
Uncle Chris’ stiff posture loosened, just a little. The barest sign of a begrudging respect, Grace thought. “Why, then, Gracie?”