“Vowels?” she echoed.What was he saying?
“IOUs, of course.”
She didn’t want to know the language of her dead husband’s seedy world.
“After you sold our London home and everything from my country estate, I consider the debt paid.” Alice thought that was a brave statement, said boldly, but his nostrils flared and his dark eyes narrowed.
Slowly reaching out, Gerald grasped her upper arm tightly, wrapping his fingers and squeezing tightly in a grip she knew too well. The brothers looked very much alike, and he even clutched her arm in a similar fashion to her late husband when he was displeased. It was disconcerting at best to be standing beside him, but she refused to yank her arm away and make a scene.
Still, familiar fear infused her, and Alice glanced around to see if anyone noticed with whom she spoke.
“You couldn’t wait for my brother to die,” Gerald spat out bitingly, getting to the crux of the matter. Two years ago, he had accused her instantly of becoming a merry widow.
“He didn’tmerelydie. Richard killed himself with drink, don’t forget.”
“Unlikely. My brother’s death is onyourhands. And if he drank too much, it was because you drove him to it.”
That accusation would not stand. Alice kept her voice firm despite trembling inside.
“I had nothing to do with it for the little I saw my husband. I was of no use to him once he’d spent every cent we had, including everything I brought to the marriage.”
“So now my brother was an alcoholic and a spendthrift? I suppose next you’ll accuse him of being a wife beater.”
She looked down at his fingers still wrapped tightly around her arm.
“Take your hand off my wife,” Adam’s voice was soft yet steely harsh.
Chapter Seventeen
Alice stepped back at the same time as Gerald released her.
“What’s going on here?” Adam demanded.
“Just a little family reunion,” Gerald said. “I must admit, she has gall showing up here as if nothing ever happened. Did you even know she is considered a pariah for her youthful behavior?”
Alice flinched and glanced at her husband. His expression was inscrutable.
“Your opinion of Lady Diamond is inconsequential to me. I suggest you stay away from her in the future. Your family connection has entirely vanished, and I would like you to do the same.”
Gerald’s face reddened, but he turned and walked away.
Alice wanted to collapse against Adam’s chest and have him soothe her, but she didn’t want him to think Gerald — or memories of Richard — could make any difference to her. Instead, she took a deep breath.
“He always was a toady, worshipping his degenerate brother as if everything the man did was either well thought out or plain good sport.”
Adam nodded, then offered her his arm. “Let’s return to the ballroom and enjoy the rest of the evening.”
She hesitated. “What if he is correct and people are talking about me ... about us?”
Her dear husband shrugged. “If they are talking about you, it is only to wonder what makes you so special you can capture two titled gentlemen within four years. And if they speak about us, it is only to say how lucky we are to have made a love match. For I do love you, my lady.”
“And I, you.”
Adam hated to do it. But Fairclough had been so nasty and Alice was so reticent, he decided he had best dig a little into her background. He didn’t want to ask anyone too close to his family, for if they knew something awful, then it would be awkward in the future. Thus, he didn’t go to the Fenwicks who knew everyone, nor ask either of his brothers-in-law.
Instead, he did something that he loathed. He consulted back issues ofThe Timessociety pages. In the McClary reading room on St. James's Street, right around the corner from his own home, Adam read the gossip from four years earlier up until Alice’s first marriage announcement.
His wife had been a bit of a wild young woman, as it turned out. The newspaper’s journalists who covered London’s upper-class members noticed her dancing at least three times in a single evening with the same man! They made note of her comings and goings from backyard gardens and in Vauxhall, on more than one occasion looking breathless at the side of some swell. The papers also chronicled as with whom she sat at dinner parties and concerts, and how closely she was chaperoned.
