Chapter 45
Sand still stung Alice’s eyes and rasped in her mouth, but her gaze darted between the men spread out on the beach, landing at last on Henry. Lord Berkeley stepped from her, his attempts to pull her from the beach abandoned. She had been unwilling to leave Henry.
Henry with a gun pointed at him.
Oh, please. Please do not let him get shot. Please keep him safe.
A tear leaked from her eye and she blinked it aside, not willing to sacrifice her vision.
Lieutenant Carruthers adjusted his grip on his gun. “What is going on here?” he asked in a level voice. As if he had all the time in the world.
No one spoke.
“I asked a question.” Carruthers began to lift his weapon.
Alice had no clue if she was helping or hurting the situation, but she had to try to keep a second gun from being trained on the man she loved.
Her voice rang out across the silent beach, a shake to the words.
“Lieutenant Shelbourne attacked me. He wanted jewels, but I did not know about any of it.”
Henry’s gaze flicked to her, anguish in his expression, but she steadied her eyes on Carruthers.
His expression was shadowed and calculating. There was a heartbeat. Two.
Then he raised his gun.
And trained it on Shelbourne. “You,” he said in a cold voice. “It was you all along.”
A trickle of blood leaked from Shelbourne’s temple into his eye. He ignored it, grinning that chilling smile and turning his own gun onto the man meant to be his friend. “Me and the commander.”
Henry inched away from the men. Closer to Alice.
Carruthers shook his head, his jaw set. “How’d you manage it beneath my nose?”
“Not hard, when you’re a clod. You got a mighty large amount of leave, taking care of those chits of yours.”
Carruthers’s hand tightened around his gun. “You mean my brothers? My mother?” His voice was affronted.
Shelbourne tilted the gun in a shrug. “We ran jobs then, just small ones. Then you requested a new post closer to your family.” His words dripped with derision. “And we were free of you; free to improve upon the operation.”
Something akin to a growl escaped Carruthers. “I’ve always been a better shot, Shelbourne. Lower your gun.”
“And return to London to be hanged?”
“Return to plead your case. Or else die here. Now.”
A muscle ticked in Shelbourne’s jaw.
Henry moved in a flash. He darted to the ground, swiping across the beach before standing. Sand drifted from his hand as he pointed Shelbourne’s discarded gun at the man himself, holding a gun he’d pulled seemingly from the air, aimed at Shelbourne.
A shot rang out, and the gun flew from Shelbourne’s hand.
Alice instinctively flung arms over her head.
Carruthers was only an instant behind Henry. He fired a warning shot into the sand at the smugglers’ feet, sending them retreating down the beach, while Lord Berkeley swept in, forcing Shelbourne back to the ground.
Henry left his comrades to the smugglers, rushing to Alice’s side and tucking the flintlock in his waistband. Gentle hands ran over her arms. “Are you hurt?” His eyes were harried as they swept her from head to toe.
She shook her head, unable to speak, and he pulled her to him, pressing her to his chest with a shuddering breath.
“I have you,” he said into her hair, and at his voice she wilted, blinking back rising tears.
He pulled away just enough to look over his shoulder. Carruthers had his gun on the smugglers, forcing them to the ground, and Lord Berkeley had Shelbourne in hand.
Henry’s hand wrapped around hers, squeezing as though she’d fall if he let go.
She might, honestly.
“I’m going to help our navy friend get these men secured. I don’t know that there is anything we can do about the ship,” Lord Berkeley called.
Henry looked out at the sea, his jaw tight. But he nodded, turning back to Alice.
“Come with me,” he said. “Let’s get you home.”
Alice felt as though she were living in a dream. Or rather, a nightmare.
Numb, she followed Henry up the path to Windvale. They made it as far as the steps up to the drawing room before she halted. The telltale signs of dancing and music blanketed the shrubs.
“I had rather forgotten I was hosting a masquerade just now,” she said, staring up into the lit windows.
“Understandably, I think.” Henry tugged her around the house to the side gardens, seeming to sense her need to process the events of the night—or perhaps he needed to as well—and stopped at a bench tucked between rose bushes. He helped her sit, then lowered himself beside her.
Her chest felt odd—heavy and empty all at once now that the danger was gone. But his look, the way he traced every inch of her face in the darkness, set her heart to racing again.
His forehead crumpled and his hand lifted to cup the side of her cheek. “Your bruise is already turning purple. Alice . . . I am so sorry I was not there.”
“You came at nearly the perfect time, I think,” she said in a whisper, fascinated by the mixture of pain and pleasure that came from the throbbing wound counteracted by his hesitant touch. “Henry, I still do not understand. You have been following the smuggling since you arrived?”
He nodded, his expression solemn. “I think the parties must have been a front.”
“Tell me everything you know. Please.”
“Some of it is only guesswork, but I will tell you all I can.” And he did.
He told her of how the night they’d met, he’d been following a tip regarding the Gentleman Pirate.
They’d learned that the criminal would be exchanging information just after midnight.
It had been their chance to catch the elusive traitor, and they’d laid a trap for him.
But too late, the time for the drop was changed, and Henry’s father had faced the men alone.
In the end, Daniel Ainsley had been caught, not the man in charge. Her own husband.
Bile rose in Alice’s throat. That was the evening she’d met George. And his actions had led to a man’s murder that very night?
How had she married him? How could she not have known?
Henry’s hand covered hers. “You know I lost myself . . . but from what I’ve learned since, Seymour laid low for a time after that.
At some point, I expect he realized that with a bit of work, he could take over the island’s smuggling force.
He’d make money smuggling, but also, when the time was right, use the island’s cliffs and fog to fake beacons, sending ships into the rocks.
These parties must have been a front. An excuse to get his contacts in London here, to take the more valuable items across the Channel where they could be quietly sold.
That, I imagine, is where Jennings comes into play. ”
Jennings. She’d forgotten all about him. “Did you catch him?”
Henry shook his head. “No. But I will. And I can only hope no hint of his connection to Julia is heard before he is tried. She doesn’t deserve the stain it will bring to her reputation.
Combined with the fact that Hastings has evidently made my debt to him public, I don’t know if she would recover. ”
“We will tell the guests tomorrow before everyone leaves that they broke the betrothal. Without Jennings there to refute it, everyone should accept that easily enough.”
Henry nodded. “That should help.” He paused. “I don’t know when Shelbourne took up Commander Seymour’s role as the pirate, but he was supposed to be stationed elsewhere during the masquerade. He must have falsified a record somewhere along the way, which made me discount him.”
“He’s an absolute snake. Even still, you found him out when it mattered most.”
With a grateful smile, he lifted his hand from hers, wrapping it instead around her shoulders and pulling her against his side.
They lapsed into silence, Alice’s mind working to align this information with her experience.
Seeing moments in her past that should have been clues: how they never lacked for anything during the war, how George had only ever cared for the guest list at their parties, and how absent he was even when home.
The staff.
“Martha. My staff. Where were they . . . are they . . . ?”
He shook his head, expression solemn. “I do not know. But I have to tell you that some of your staff has been involved in this. Trumble certainly, and I believe Milton might have kept some of my letters from being sent; tonight, he was meant to pass a message to you.”
“To go to the kitchen?” she asked.
“No,” he muttered. “To not be alone. This settles it, then, that he was involved. I hope not all your staff was, but we will find out for certain.”
He might have sensed the pain that sentence brought, because his arm tightened around her.
“I am sorry, Alice. I am so sorry to be the one to tell you this.”
She pressed her lips together, holding back the emotion. Trying to stop the wave of betrayal.
Except, she did not feel betrayed by everyone.
Her staff—if they were involved—yes. George?
No. She did not even feel sad. It was as if all those feelings had already passed through her as she pulled back layer by layer of their marriage and her feelings over the last five weeks.
Now, she only felt angry. Angry that she had given everything to a man who had .
. . “He used me, Henry. Used my money to set himself up here. Used my skills to throw his parties. He never cared for me.”
He shifted to face her, arm still encircling her shoulders.
His own anguish showed in every line on his face.
“I hate how he treated you. To say you did not deserve it is weak indeed, but you did not.” He brushed back a tear she’d not realized had escaped.
“He was abominable. Despicable. If you only knew how often I’ve wished to plant him a facer . . . ”
A watery laugh escaped her. He smiled, but it fell as his eyes dropped to their laps. “But I haven’t any right to be angry. Not when I am the reason all of this happened.”
That gave her pause, and she stared at him.