Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Alice gathered her cloak more firmly around herself as the carriage rattled back down the street, and she forced her teeth to stop chattering.
Much as she had wanted to see the fallout from the damage, she knew she didn’t have time to waste.
She needed to return to her aunt and uncle’s home before they discovered she was missing.
Or, at least, before it got too late for her to travel. As it was, she knew she was not doing it respectably, but at least she had Jenny with her.
“How did it go?” Jenny whispered.
What a question.
Alice’s stomach twisted as she thought about the wave of shock she had left behind. With her limp, people would soon identify her—or at least, she would be identifiable from the scandal sheets. If her family found out—
But they wouldn’t.
Her aunt occasionally read the scandal sheets, but certainly not with any regularity, and only usually when she found them lying around.
If Alice could contrive a way to hide them as soon as they entered the house, her aunt would never read them.
After a week or two, the scandal would die down and new scandals would overtake it.
She drew in a deep breath. “I…” The chattering of her teeth wouldn’t stop. She twisted her hands together.
When she’d planned this, she’d felt certain that this would give her the overwhelming feeling of victory. Success. Righteous retribution.
Instead… she felt empty. As though she had spilled something vital there, in that church, in front of the man who had ruined her.
“Ma’am?” Jenny asked, her brows tightening in concern.
Alice shook herself and forced a smile she didn’t feel.
“I certainly caused a stir,” she said with a trying smile. “And hopefully it is enough to call off the wedding. I couldn’t risk staying to find out, but it seemed promising. I saw the Duke talking to the father of the bride as I left, and he looked very cross indeed.”
She let out a nervous giggle. “If I was the Duke, I would have expired on the spot. But he seemed perfectly composed.”
Irritatingly so.
She would have rather he’d fallen to the ground weeping. After the death of her parents, she had lost so many days to a haze of grief so thick, that she had been unable to see an end to it. Even now, the parameters of her life had shrunk so much, she hardly recognized it.
All the while, the Duke had been continuing to live as though he did not have the deaths of beloved people on his shoulders.
He deserved to suffer. He should pay penance for his crimes. If the magistrate would not condemn him, then she would.
“I hope he finally feels the full weight of what he has done,” she finally added.
“I hope so too, Miss.”
They arrived in the dark, a little after supper, and Alice crept in a side door, hoping not to be discovered. Unfortunately, she should have known better than to hope for such a thing.
“And where do you think you have been, young lady?” her uncle demanded, his voice sharp and hard.
Alice turned, leaning heavily on her stick. The day had been a difficult one—even riding in a carriage caused her pain—and she wanted nothing more than a hot bath and a rest.
“Uncle,” she tried for a disarming smile, her words measured.
“You took a horse out. Against my express permission!”
“And I rode her with no issues.” She flicked her skirt. As it happens, the mare had been so docile, plodding along with no hint of spirit, that Alice would have had to be a poor horsewoman indeed to have any problems. “My father taught me to ride well.”
“I forbade it!”
“And I proved it can be done.” Alice glanced away in case her uncle could see the lie in her eyes. “There is really nothing more to be said on the matter.”
“That is a matter of opinion,” her uncle snapped.
“You are not to go riding without a groom, and you are not to do so without my permission. Think of what might have happened if you had fallen! We would not know where you were. You might have been severely hurt, and we would never have known. Does that not occur to you, Alice?”
If she had truly been riding, that would have been a consideration. Her father usually requested she take a groom to ride with her, at least if she was going any great distance. But the grooms never interfered with where she chose to ride.
A groom here would.
Since her accident, everyone had been so very smothering in their concern, and their determination to keep her locked inside at all times.
She knew her limitations better than anyone. Knew she could walk no great distance; knew she relied on her stick for basic mobility. She knew that her leg was weak, the muscle wasted, the pain in it a constant reminder of the injury she had suffered.
The last thing she needed was someone else drawing yet more attention to it.
But, as she looked into her uncle’s eyes, she could at least acknowledge that his anger came from a place of concern. He did not want his reputation to suffer—and he had never asked for her to come and live with them—but he did care for her.
That understanding tempered her response. “I know you worry for me, and I know you think it likely that I will hurt myself still further, but you must understand, Uncle—if you keep me shut here like a caged bird, then I will slowly fade away.
“What sort of life is it, to be denied the chance to fly?”
Gently, pressing her stick under her arm once more, she hobbled for the steps. Jenny had let herself in through the servants’ entrance, and Alice hoped no one would be any wiser.
When she reached her bedchamber, she collapsed on the bed with a huff. Jenny appeared in the doorway moments later.
“No one suspected a thing,” she whispered nervously as she dragged the bath back out in front of the fire. “I think… I think we may have gotten away with it, Miss!”
“Let’s not speak too soon,” Alice pressed her lips into a thin line. “A few days should let us know whether we have succeeded or not.” She grimaced. “Let us pray we have.”
Three more days passed without Alice’s family discovering what she had been up to that fateful morning.
Her aunt delivered another stern lecture about her recklessness at breakfast the next day, and with the attempt of not appearing too suspicious, Alice accepted it as meekly as she was able.
If she had been out riding all day without so much as a by-your-leave, lunch, or a groom following, she could admit that she would deserve at least some of the horror directed at her.
If they knew what she had truly been up to, all the more so.
Alice tasked Jenny with procuring her the scandal sheets before they left the servants’ quarters, and on any occasion where Jenny was unable to do so, Alice stole them herself. Once in her bedchamber every morning, she would read through the latest updates from London.
To her delight, she discovered the Duke of Langford appeared more than once.
The Duke of Langford found himself in a peculiar predicament yesterday when a young lady interrupted the wedding before it could take place, accusing L.
of acting terribly against her. The lady’s identity is a mystery, but it’s widely believed that L.
has done wrongly by her. Will she step up and demand recompense in the form of marriage?
Our scandalous Duke finds himself in want of a wife once more!
There were several along similar veins. Several mentioned the Duke having a broken heart, seen drinking away his sorrows at any number of places.
There were also reports of him at several houses of ill repute, although there seemed to be no credible sources for those claims, and they were worded in such a way that made Alice doubt their veracity.
Still, she found an odd satisfaction in knowing that once again, he was the center of attention—and not in the way he had no doubt hoped, the owner of a fine young wife.
Finally, she had succeeded in ruining his life the way he had ruined hers!
Revenge was certainly a dish that could be served cold, and she found it just as delectable now as she would have done when the accident had first happened.
Perhaps more so; back then, she had been a shell of a person, barely functioning enough to sit up and eat.
Now, she had regained a little of her fire, her passion, and her hatred.
It burned bright inside her every time she saw his name, saw again the manner by which he had addressed her.
How she despised him.
How she gloried in his downfall.
Her name did not seem to have been released—or perhaps even discovered—but there were enough descriptions of her that Alice knew if her aunt or uncle were to discover the scandal sheets, they would recognize her immediately.
So, after she read each she burned them.
Busy with preparing for Harriet’s Season, her aunt didn’t seem to notice.
Bit by bit, Alice began to relax.
By the end of the third day, even her uncle seemed to have forgiven her for riding without his permission.
“In our absence, I’m sure you will find plenty to occupy yourself,” he noted at dinner, sympathy in his eyes. Although it wouldn’t change his mind about leaving her behind, at least he felt guilty about it. “And we shall write to you often. Won’t we, dear Harriet?”
Harriet, dozing at the table, jerked upright again. “Yes, of course. Every day.”
Alice smiled. Ordinarily, she might have been angry at their dismissive behavior—as though she could be appeased by letters detailing everything she was missing—but her relief at not being discovered made her pliant.
“Thank you, Uncle,” she nodded warmly.
Still, even her relief could not make her wish to sit with the family after dinner, and she retired to her room, intending to write in her journal. The journey upstairs was arduous, and she had only just settled herself at her desk when she heard a disturbance through the house.
No, not heard it—she felt it, like an earthquake rippling through the building.
Her first thought was that her aunt had received a letter from someone who had recognized her from the scandal papers, and her fingers tightened around her pen.
“Alice!” Her aunt’s voice was strident and angry.
“There goes my hope of remaining undiscovered…” Alice sighed bleakly, reaching for her stick and hobbling to the door. She opened it to her aunt storming up the stairs, her face tight.
“Aunt, I—”
“A gentleman is here to see you.”
Shock spiraled through her body, cold as ice. A gentleman? In all the time she’d been here, she’d never once had a gentleman caller. Not once. Ever.
This could not be unconnected.
Her heart lurched into her chest as she stared at her aunt in horror. “A gentleman?”
“The Duke of Langford.” Her aunt bit off the words, her eyes glittering dangerously. “He says he is going to demand recompense for the ways you ruined his life. So tell me, Alice, what in heavens have you done?”