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 notmaking 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 ofcloth 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 couldmake 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 toget 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 verygood 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 leftofyou. 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 creepingup the stairs in the shadowy predawn darkness.
