“Oh, but you do. His lordship has been paying us wages to keep the place. But Jenny’s not in, and I’ve never taken food nor drink out to the drawing room before. I should have realized and come a running.”
“No matter, don’t worry,” Alice assured her. “We can manage.”
With that, she hurried along with the glass in hand, not even bothering with a tray. When it sloshed over her hand, she swore under her breath but managed to appear calm as she reentered the drawing room.
The sight of him, the handsome man she’d married, not smiling at her entrance shook her and set her heart to pounding. He had always looked pleased to see her until that moment.
After thrusting the glass into his hand and shaking the liquid off her own, she backed away.
“A good thing you chose the ruse of governess and not a tavern wench for you spilled more than remains.”
It was said in jest, yet was strangely mirthless. Adam Diamond was angry. Swallowing, she resumed her seat.
“Let me begin,” she offered. “I know you are upset that I left.”
“Indeed,” he said quietly.
“When I agreed to marry you, I vowed never to bring my old troubles to your door, nor let you or your family be affected. Removing myself from London in the same way as I did when I first went to Bath, that was the only way I knew to stop Lord Fairclough.”
“It solved nothing,” Adam said. “You forget that your troubles became my troubles once we wed. As they should. Meanwhile, I’ve told my brothers-in-law everything.”
Alice felt instantly sick inside to have lost their good opinion of her. Naturally, the husbands would talk to their wives, and then Clarity and Purity would disclose her ugly past to the rest of the family. “What did you tell them?”
“I explained how Fairclough persists in his accusations that you lured your husband into marrying you and then killed him. In fact, the oaf warned me against you while at the same time saying either I should pay up or see you go to jail.”
She felt the blood drain from her head. “He is a liar.”
“I know that. Thus, there was no reason for you to run away.”
“It was the perfect reason to run,” she said. “I thought ... I thought I could protect you by leaving.”What choice did she have?She was powerless otherwise.
Adam narrowed his eyes. “Why don’t you tell me why you fear Fairclough’s charges?”
“Richard died at my feet, his forehead bloodied from falling down the stairs and his neck twisted. I told you that. Who would believe I hadn’t hit him over the head with a candlestick or pushed him from the landing as his brother likes to believe?”
She rose to her feet again, her hands twisting in her skirts, and began to pace.
“I tell you truthfully, there had been times when I had dreamed of doing precisely that. Not that I ever would, but I could imagine doing nearly anything to be free of him. Yet when he died, with his eyes open and lifeless, staring up at me from the foyer of his mistress’s home, I actually felt sorry for him.”
“That was a mistake,” Adam said in clipped tones. “If there is one thing that has blurred your clarity in this matter, it is emotion.”
She sighed. Privately, she thought she had done very well in considering her options and hiding out as a governess. She’d made a plan to do something so foreign to her upbringing, it had taken all her resolve. And yet, she’d accomplished it and could have remained hiding for the rest of her days if Adam hadn’t come along and made her love him.
What’s more, she was prepared to remain at Stonely Grange for the rest of her life if Gerald would only leave her husband alone.
“At home the night of his death,” Alice continued, “I felt utter relief, wicked as that might be, knowing Richard was never again going to stumble through the front door, smelling of other women’s cloying perfume and the distinct aromas of swiving and strong liquor. I thought the nightmare of a mistaken marriage and a dreadful husband were behind me. I thought I was free.”
“And then his brother showed up,” Adam prompted.
“Indeed. Before my hypocritical widow’s weeds were even ordered, Gerald came knocking with loud accusations, demands for payments of his brother’s debts, and the information that Richard had given his brother permission to sell everything in our London house and to sell off the Grange, too.”
She still shivered when recalling Gerald’s fearsome rage at being thwarted in the latter, the same way Richard was infuriated by the inability to sell her house and land. She hadbeen exceedingly grateful for the legal trust that kept Stonely Grange in the family.
“When he couldn’t sell this place, he emptied it instead. But still it wasn’t enough to pay off the debts, or so he said. Even if it had been, I don’t think it would have kept Gerald from pestering me. He so desperately wants everything to be my fault, anyone’s but his precious older brother’s.”
“I understand your decision when you were alone two years ago, but as my wife, you should have trusted me.” Adam drank down the ale and finally took a seat beside her. Alice wished things were different, and she could simply lean toward him and be assured of a kiss rather than rejection.
Adam had swallowedhis anger along with the good homemade ale. For obvious reasons, Alice had not felt comfortable going straight to the police as soon as Fairclough started to threaten her. That didn’t excuse her running away rather than counting on him, but he could, at the very least, set her mind at ease.
