Henry dropped the box upon his desk and set about lighting a lamp as Aunt Alicia dug her hand into her reticule and withdrew something that jingled and clanged as she set it atop the box. “Housebreaker’s keys,” she said. “Grace gave them to me, along with a very heavy and difficult padlock with which to practice. I’m afraid I had to leave it behind.”
“Do you know what is in this strongbox?” Henry asked as he set his hand upon it.
“A—A passenger manifest,” she said, wringing her hands nervously. “Grace told me. She said—she said Nigel means to use it to take the earldom from you.”
“And you brought it to me instead?”
“I could never let him do that to you,” she said tearfully. “But we must be quick, Henry, or—”
“Alicia!” The masculine shout was too loud, and far too close.
Aunt Alicia jerked and flinched, her eyes rounding in terror. “He’s inside,” she whispered.
He hadn’t locked the front door behind her. He hadn’t had a chance before Aunt Alicia had begun to pull him away, deeper into the house. He hadn’t known, before they’d begun to climb the stairs, exactly what she had brought to him.
Henry raced for the door of his study, yanking it closed andthrowing the lock. “Grace hasn’t taught me to pick locks,” he said. “And the door won’t hold him forever.” Outside the room, there was the sound of heavy footsteps pounding up the stairs. “It has got to be you,” he said.
“I can’t do it,” she wailed, wringing her hands. “I’ve tried, Henry, I swear it!”
There was a furious rattle of the handle, a fierce pull. Wood groaned beneath the strain; iron hinges squealed. As solid as the door itself was, the frame was likely less so. The hinges on the outside were the largest point of vulnerability.
Henry took Aunt Alicia’s trembling hands in his. “Grace believes in you,” he said fiercely. “And so do I.”
A heavy pound of a fist against the solid wood of the door. “Alicia, you stupid bloody bitch,” Uncle Nigel seethed. “You have no idea what you’ve done!”
But she did. She knew exactly what she had done; Grace had made certain of it. And despite the fear that pinched her shoulders tight, despite the fact that if she had only let it alone she might’ve called herself a countess one day, stillshe had chosen to thwart the will of her husband, steal his most prized possession, and go haring across town in the deepest hours of the night in the service of protectinghim.
Grace had been right. You couldalways tell from the eyes. And Aunt Alicia’s were wide and frightened, but determined. Honest. Loyal. And above all,kind.
“I’ll do it,” she whispered, flinching once more as Uncle Nigel kicked at the door, and the sound crashed through the house. “I’ll do it.” She flexed her fingers to still their trembling and reached for the housebreaker’s keys she’d laid upon the strongbox.
A roar of rage resounded without the study, and Henry growled at the door, “You’ll wake the whole damned household! Someone will go for a constable—is that what you want?”Impossible to say, at this juncture, whose cause such a thing would help. Uncle Nigel would find it hard to explain why he’d invaded his nephew’s home in the middle of the night. Henry would find it perhaps more difficult to explain the contents of the strongbox.
Unless they could get it open first.
Alicia bent over it, squinting in the low light of the lamp, attempting to manipulate the lock with the help of the housebreaker’s keys. Her breath came in quick, panicked little catches, but her fingers were steady.
Uncle Nigel battered the door like a man possessed. Probably he hadn’t the luxury of subtlety any longer, nor the capability to restrain himself. The whole of his future hinged upon recovering his strongbox, and he would not surrender it without a fight. “I’ll kill you, you worthless whelp,” he roared. “Andyou, you faithless, scheming shrew—”
“Don’t listen to him,” Henry implored as he cast about for a weapon. Something, anything, which might provide some measure of protection.
A malicious laugh, low and satisfied, slid in from beneath the door. It was followed by the shrill squeal of metal, hinge pins being yanked ruthlessly from their moorings. Uncle Nigel had figured it out at last—he was going to pry the door straight off of its hinges.
A sob caught in Aunt Alicia’s throat as she redoubled her efforts, housebreaker’s keys jangling sharply.
Henry grabbed for a heavy marble statuette placed upon a bookshelf just as Uncle Nigel began to pry the solid wood of the door away from the frame. The wood creaked beneath the pressure, and with a solidcrack, the lock gave at last, tearing itself free of the frame. The whole of the door tipped, wobbled, and fell with a deafening slam out into the hallway.
Henry hefted the statuette in one hand, placing himselfbetween the void of the doorway and Aunt Alicia just as Uncle Nigel stepped inside.
In his hand, Uncle Nigel held a flintlock pistol. “I wouldn’t,” he advised, with an uncanny calm as he levered the pistol straight at Henry. His chest still heaved with his exertions, but his hand was steady, his aim impeccable.
One shot only, but at this range he couldn’t possibly miss. He couldn’t have risked it through the door; there had been no way for him to be certain he’d hit. But now—now there was nothing in his way.
Aunt Alicia gave a wild little cry of distress.
“Get beneath the desk,” Henry urged, and Aunt Alicia scrambled to obey. “He’s got only one shot.”
“I onlyneedone shot,” Uncle Nigel said with a sneer. “I couldn’t have gotten away with shooting you in cold blood only to advance my inheritance. But a man has got a certain legal rights over his wife. You stood in my way. No one could fault me for it.”
