Chapter Twenty Seven
So what are we to do with him?” Henry asked, directing a nod to his uncle, who lay twitching with unspent rage upon the floor.
Grace draped a blanket around Alicia’s shoulders as Henry’s mother, Rose, drifted into the room with a fresh cup of tea, which she pressed into Alicia’s trembling hands.
The poor woman was exhausted, beyond peaked, and still trembling with the stress she’d endured this evening. But she seemed rather proud of herself, and Grace—Grace was proud of her, too. It had taken a great deal of courage to do what she’d done this evening, and a great deal of love, besides.
“I don’t know,” Grace admitted. “There are…options,” she said delicately.
Uncle Chris rapped the tip of his cane upon the floor. “How do you feel about becomin’ a widow?” he asked of Alicia, who blinked at him, wide-eyed and bewildered.
“We are not making my aunt a party to murder,” Henry growled.
“Only a suggestion,” Uncle Chris said, jabbing the tip of his cane into Nigel’s fleshy belly as the bound man writhed upon the floor, making a series of high-pitched whines behind the wad of cloth in his mouth. “Stop sniveling, you damned coward. He said no.”
“We’ve got other ways of making a fellow disappear,” Uncle Rafe said. “The trouble is making it stick.”
“Oh, it’ll stick,” Uncle Chris said. “I just ‘appen to prefer ‘aving no loose ends.” He offered a careless shrug as Henry stared at him. “What? He’d ‘ave done you in wivout a qualm.”
“Perhaps,” Grace ventured, “we could make it appear that he’s run off of his own volition.
” She tugged the loose edges of her wrapper tighter about her.
“That is to say, I have a great number of his letters in my possession. He’s buried beneath mountains of debt.
He’ll have creditors pounding upon his door within weeks, if I’m not mistaken. ”
“Hmm,” Uncle Rafe said pensively. “It’s been done before. Not uncommon for a man so deeply in debt to slip out of the country beneath the cover of darkness.”
Henry hesitated. “But Aunt Alicia—”
“Will be welcome with us as long as she likes,” Rose said, as she took up a place beside Alicia’s chair, laying her hands upon Alicia’s thin shoulders and squeezing gently. “Forever, if it so pleases her.”
“Of course she will,” Henry said. “But she’ll lose everything else. All of those debts Uncle Nigel has run up—”
“We will pay them,” Rose said staunchly. “And I daresay she will find more happiness and comfort with us than she ever has with Nigel.”
Alicia gave a muffled sob, and her now-empty tea cup tumbled to her lap as she cast her arms about Rose. “Oh, I have missed you dreadfully,” she mumbled against Rose’s shoulder. Her breath slid out of her lungs on a feathery sigh of relief. “Can—can we make him go away forever?”
“That will depend upon him,” Uncle Rafe said.
“We can ship him out penniless and under a false name. I doubt he could make it back beneath his own power anytime soon. He’s not the sort who would fancy working for his living, much less to afford the passage back.
Of course, if we have those letters, we can make certain he’s got naught to return to, even if he tried.
” He hesitated as he turned to address Alicia.
“There must be a bit of a scandal,” he said.
“But we can help insulate you from it. You’ll be a wronged party; another victim of your husband’s treachery. ”
“But I’ll be free of him?” Alicia sniffled, scrubbing at her eyes.
“Yes. He’ll have nothing to return to but a ruined reputation.
No assets to his name, nor even the barest hint of public goodwill.
” Uncle Rafe levered a severe look at Nigel, who still struggled against his bonds.
“It would behoove him to live out the rest of his days in exile, as there will be nothing left for him in England.”
Alicia managed a wretched little laugh. “What shall I have to do?”
“Not much,” Uncle Rafe assured her. “Only make a wreck of his bedchamber to make it appear he’s left in a hurry, strew the letters containing the details of his debts about his study, and wail and gnash your teeth about his defection. Will that prove difficult?”
“No,” she said, with a determined shake of her head. “I’ve wanted to wail and gnash my teeth for a good long while now. I’ll be delighted to do it.”
“Well, you’ll have your chance at last,” Uncle Rafe said. “If there is anything you’d like to preserve, we’ll make arrangements to do so in the coming days. It won’t take long for the creditors to begin beating down the door, I’m afraid. But we’ll have you well clear of the chaos of it by then.”
“Gather your letters, Gracie, and take Mrs. Marsden ‘ome for the evening,” Uncle Chris said. “She’s got work to do before morning, and we’ve only got two hours or so of darkness left to get this wretched piece of shite on a ship out o’ the country.”
Grace collected one of Alicia’s hands in hers. “You’ll be all right for one night?” she asked as she helped ease the woman to her feet. “It’s just a few hours, to put on a good show of his disappearance.”
“Yes,” Alicia said firmly as she smoothed at her skirts. “So long as he’s elsewhere, it will be the most peaceful night in memory.”
“It’s not the first time they’ve had to make someone disappear,” Grace said, as she draped her arm around Alicia’s thin shoulders. “Probably I shouldn’t brag of it, but they are very good at it. Come, let’s get you home.”
And as she and Henry led Alicia toward the stairs, she heard Uncle Chris say to Nigel, in a perfectly enunciated, searing hiss, “Believe me when I tell you that there is nothing left here for you, for if you choose to return, there will be nothing left of you. Tonight they gave you mercy—but should I ever hear a whisper of your name again, I will not. And no one else will ever have to know.”
∞∞∞
“I am certain,” Henry said sternly as he stepped into his bed chamber, “that I left you at your door, madam.”
“You did,” Grace acknowledged, turning onto her side and burying her cheek in the feathery softness of Henry’s pillow.
It smelled like him; warm and salty and just a bit spicy.
A hint of clove in his shaving soap, she thought.
Perhaps a touch of bergamot. “But then you spent half an hour in the drawing room with your mother and Eliza.” No one had even seen her creeping up the stairs in the shadowy predawn darkness.
“We had things to discuss,” he said. “Eliza was thrilled to learn that Aunt Alicia will be staying with us. Not so thrilled,” he added as he shut and locked the door behind him, padding further into the room, “to learn she had missed all the excitement.” His eyes followed the trail she’d left in her wake—her wrapper tossed carelessly to the floor; her nightgown draped across the end of his bed.
“She’s just a girl,” Grace said. “I didn’t want her anywhere near that wretched scene.”
“Wise of you,” he said, as he settled at the edge of the bed and pulled off the belt of his banyan. “Really, I owe you more than I can express. We all do.”
“I promised you my assistance,” she said. “I don’t make such commitments lightly. You’re not going to send me home again?”
“God, no,” he said as he drew off his banyan and slung it away. “You always seem to end up in places you oughtn’t be, but for once—for once, you are exactly where you’re meant to be.”
Where she was meant to be. She liked that. Grace snuggled down into the mattress as Henry shucked off his trousers and slid into bed, nestling his head beside hers upon the pillow. “This is lovely,” she said. “Quiet. Peaceful.”
“I’ve had dreams about you climbing into bed with me,” he confessed as he slid his fingers into the tangle of her hair. “I can’t quite believe I’ve somehow gotten lucky enough to climb into bed with you.” He brushed his lips to her forehead, the tip of her nose. “Tansy?”
“Sleeping,” she said. “In the window, looking out over the garden.”
“Good.”
“She won’t always. And she does take up rather a lot of space in bed.”
“I’m aware,” he said dryly. “She was excessively put out that I abandoned her when Aunt Alicia arrived. I’m convinced that’s what drew her down to my study this evening.”
“Likely,” Grace admitted. “She prefers an audience for her sulks. And she does sulk so dramatically.” She walked her fingers up his bare chest, pausing to dip a fingertip into the hollow of his throat. “You will have to indulge her on occasion, as she is so fond of you.”
“Just now, I’d rather indulge you.” Henry captured her fingers in his and pressed a kiss into her palm. “Just how many contingencies did you have, besides Aunt Alicia?” he asked, cradling her hand in his. “Was I ever in danger of losing my title?”
“Yes, of course, but…perhaps not quite so much as you had imagined,” Grace admitted.
“If Alicia had run into difficulties, I would have begged Uncle Chris’ aid.
But he hasn’t got a shred of subtlety in him any longer,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“And he’s always liable to exact payment for services rendered. ”
“So we’re indebted to him, now?”
“For evening last? No,” she said, “but I wouldn’t expect a wedding gift.”
Henry wheezed with laughter, and pressed his face into the pillow to muffle it.
“Still,” Grace said, turning to slide one knee between his. “I’m so sorry I placed you and Alicia in such danger. I didn’t plan for your uncle to come chasing after her as he did. But she wanted to help so badly, and I knew she would do everything she could.”
“She did that and more, and you—you made it happen.” Henry dropped a kiss upon her cheek, lingered over the line of her jaw. “You are so brave and clever and…just a little terrifying on occasion.”
Grace’s toes curled at the praise. “Even if you had lost the title,” she said, “I would have proud to be simply Mrs. Marsden.”
“I know,” he said against the curve of her shoulder. “And I love you for that.”
“Only for that?”