“But His Grace told me…”
“I imagine he gave very explicit orders regarding me,” Alicia said with some amusement. “At the same time, if I am seen riding up to my father’s house on one of the Duke’s horses, I expect I will be in no end of trouble. He told you to see me home safe, you have done so. I will walk from here. It is not far.”
The boy sat on the horse, his face the very picture of consternation. The animal shifted restlessly beneath him, impatient and likely anxious to be away home given the lateness of the hour. The animal had earned its grain long ago given how many trips back and forth to Ballycrainn it had made that day.
“Allow me to make this easier for you,” she said and pursing her lips, whistled exactly the way her brother had taught her long ago. “Oy! You may as well show your face. I know full well you are there.”
For a moment she wasn’t sure she’d been right. She jumped near a mile when she realized that she was no longer alone on the road.
“You are a cat-footed one…” she murmured in surprise as Tom raised his hand and passed something to the boy, who sat open-mouthed atop his mount.
“’Tis all right, lad,” Tom said, and the boy nodded. She heard the clink of a coin within his palm as he shifted his seat and gathered the reins. A moment later he had the mare clattering back up the road the way they had come.
“Your own horse…” she prompted, with a keen look at the Duke’s man.
“Is just over yonder,” he said, with a nod back the way they had come. “I left him in the farmer’s field along with a herd of rather surprised cattle.”
“I should have realized when I heard them lowing.” Alicia shrugged and nodded toward the village below. The houses lay dark and snug between river and forest, with nary a light between them. “I expect we will wake them all…” she sighed and started down the long winding way.
“Only if you insist on making so much noise,” Tom said and she laughed, the sound carrying on the night air.
She clapped a hand over the mouth, but could not stop giggling. “After such a day ‘tis no surprise that I seem to have lost me wits. You shall have to teach me your cat-footed ways as we walk, for I would dearly love to know the trick of it.”
“It is not so hard as you might think,” he said, and proceeded to explain as they walked.
After several long minutes during which Alicia proved she was a quick study, she looked up at the young man beside her and smiled. “You remind me of my brother. I think you would have liked him.”
“I expect I would have,” he agreed. They had almost reached the outermost houses, and thus far, save the exception of an uncanny dog or two who barked as they had passed, they had gone without notice. Alicia reached here to tug at his sleeve, needing to ask before they reached the village proper and could speak no more.
“I need to know,” she said when he turned to look at her. “What will His Grace do to us? To all of us, I mean.”
“Will he punish the village?” Tom asked, seeming to understand immediately what she was getting at.
She nodded, unable to speak.
Tom thought a long moment. “He will punish those who are deserving of it,” he said finally. “As our Captain, he was always a fair man.”
“My father…” she said softly, forcing the words out, “My father, I think, is one who will be deserving.”
Tom looked at her sympathetically. “There is still time. Perhaps he can be convinced otherwise.”
“Not if he has already killed a man,” she whispered.
There seemed little else to say. They moved as one toward the village, edging silently along, keeping to the shadows. In no time at all, they stood before the house that was her own.
“Tell him…tell him I will do what is necessary. He will understand,” Alicia said and disappeared up the walk.
She could feel Tom’s eyes upon her as she reached the door, fumbling for the latchstring that she might let herself in. Surprisingly, her father had left it out. Either he had forgotten it, or was feeling regretful of his actions toward her. She prayed it was the latter.
The door creaked open under her touch. Alicia held her breath and entered.
Chapter 33
“’Tis far enough. I would no have a betrayer in my house.”
Alicia’s father sat by the fire, staring into the flames. He never so much as looked her way as she came in, though she had heard him clear enough.
Alicia shut the door behind her carefully, pulling in the latch string as she did so. Much as she appreciated the Duke’s gesture in sending someone to stand guard outside her door, she had no need of being rescued and felt more secure were she the one to determine who should or should not come through that door. “Da…” she said softly, speaking the childhood nickname almost without thinking.
He sat, slumped in his chair, his face slack with drink, his hand still wrapped around the neck of the bottle, though at first glance it appeared empty. His eyes, though, were cold and hard. Not sober, but not drunk enough by a long shot.
“I am no traitor,” she said quietly. “I might question whether you are.”
The bottle shattered upon the hearth. Alicia jumped, her heart thumping wildly in her chest as her father drew himself up and faced her. She found herself rethinking that latchstring, calling herself a fool for being proud and wondering whether the night would end in violence. Would she soon be slumbering in the churchyard beside her beloved Adam?
Oddly enough, the thought was not so terrifying as it might have been. She was tired, and had been living in the shadow of violence for far too long. In truth, her only regret was that she would have liked to have seen the Duke again, if only to see if she could make him smile one last time. He had a glorious smile.
Her father wavered on his feet, still a mighty figure of a man when he drew himself up like that. Alicia faced him without moving, terrified, trying to think what to say, when she caught sight of the crumpled pages lying on the table between her father’s pipe and the family Bible, the latter being coated with a thick covering of dust.
“What did you take from the Duke’s office?” she asked quietly, starting forward the instant she saw the papers. She snagged the sheets, but could not hold onto them for long.
He tore them from her grasp with a growl, casting them into the fire. They old paper caught quickly. She watched the edges curl and turn black. Long lines of numbers on one side of the page, what looked like names on the other.
She looked at him, seeing for the first time the ghosts that lay within the depths of his eyes. “What have you done?” she asked again, coming forward to lay a hand upon his face, the way she had when she was small.
He shuddered beneath her touch, sinking into the old chair and bending forward as though he could no longer hold himself upright. A single sob shook him. “I should not have hurt you.”
The words came out hoarse and strained, spoken as through with great effort. “I have not been a good father. Not to you, nor to Adam.”
She nearly replied that it was all right, giving both absolution and forgiveness in that simple phrase. But she could not make herself frame the words with her lips. Denying she was ill-treated was not forgiveness. It was not all right. It had never been all right. Regardless of what the law said, she did not agree. He had not the right to hurt her.
“No,” she said finally, “You have not.”
His eyes never left the fire. She followed his gaze, seeing the papers collapse into so much ash, flaring brightly for a moment and then gone.
“A long time ago,” he said finally, “I did a terrible thing.”
Alicia cocked her head to listen, sitting carefully on the footstool at his feet, the way she had as a child. “What did you do, Da?”
He sighed, rubbing one leathery hand over his face roughly. “I need a drink.”
“What did you do?”
He looked up, as though seeing her for the first time. “I gave up Ballyroyal and your birthright for gold.�
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The ledger, the pages…Alicia felt as though she could not breathe. The books had been ledgers of some sort, accountings from the past, dating back to the time of the old Duke. “He paid you.”
“He paid many of us. Gold for a peaceful transition. Give land and title to the Crown, and make no nevermind about it. It seemed harmless, prudent even. The English would take what we did not give, we were told. There would be war. People would die. To sell our birthrights was to ensure peace.”
“There was no war,” Alicia said softly as she thought this through. “The Irish yielded. They even supported…” she faltered here. “The British lied.”
“I know not about the Crown. Whether the Duke of Woodworth was acting under orders or simply lining his own pockets, I dinna know.”
Alicia shot to her feet. “Why would you do that? You had to know it was a trick.”
“Alicia, you dinna understand.” Her father reached beside him, groping for something that wasn’t there. He was looking for the bottle, she realized, when he stared mournfully at the broken glass upon the heart. “I need a drink.”
She caught his hand. “Stop. Just stop. Talk to me. Why did you trust him?”
He shook his head. “Alicia, my pet, there are things I have never told you. Things…about your mother.”
Alicia stumbled back, coming up short against the footstool and sinking down to sit again, not because she wanted to, but because her legs would no longer support her. “What about my mother? You have told me all there is to know.”
He winced, and rubbed his hand over his face again. His eyes were tired, and filled with sorrow. “I might have left out a few things.”
“Like what?” she asked, eyeing him suspiciously. “You told me about her, about meeting her when you went to buy horses in England, she being the daughter of the Lord who bred that bay you used to ride.”
“Aye, she was a bonny mare…”
“Da!” Alicia could have screamed from frustration. “We were talking about my mother. About Juliet, whose hair was like the sun,” she said, quoting the story the way he always told it, almost desperately. “You said she was sickly, but you loved her all the same. That you brought her here, but she died when we were born. That is all there is to know. You said so yourself.”
“I said all that, aye.” He reached down to rummage on the floor under his chair. “I could have sworn I had a bottle here somewhere…” He came up triumphant, only to swear when he realized the decanter he held was likewise empty.
She was on him in an instant, wrenching the decanter away and throwing it on the hearth beside its mate. The glass shattered, sparking bits that reflected the light of the fire, which was dying low, sending the room into deep shadows.
“What have you kept hidden from me, from us? What did you not tell Adam?”
“Adam…his death was my fault, too. Did you know it? I felt so guilty about losing the estate that I pushed him. Oh, I admit it, dinna look so shocked. He was too young, too scared, but I invoked the name of Ballyroyal as though it were a magic talisman and he fought. My God, he fought as well as any of them. Died every bit as well.”
“You still have not explained. Why did you sell our land to the old Duke? Why would you give away our title, our home? There are Irish nobility still, what could possibly induce you to throw away everything?”
“I had already lost everything. My Juliet, as beautiful as the rising sun, had already been taken from me, and when her brother came to me and told me this was the right thing to do, I believed him. Why would I not? They were twins, too, though they looked not a thing alike. Not the way of you and Adam, who were as two peas in a pod.”
“Her brother? Our mother had a brother?” Alicia blinked. “I thought… You had said her family was dead. Is the whole of it a lie?”
“Oh, they died long ago. Her sister-in-law, her brother’s wife, though, she was a conniving thing. She came to Ireland and saw the potential. Her husband could have power, riches for the taking. He had only to prove himself. If he claimed the Irish lands as his own, without there being bloodshed, the government would reward it. The Crown was well-pleased, they said. I saw the letter that worded it thus. ‘The Crown is well-pleased.’”
“My mother’s brother,” she prompted. “Who was he?”
Her father peered up at her, and sighed, seeming suddenly very tired. “Why, he was the old Duke of Woodworth. I thought you knew.”
Chapter 34
Alicia stared at her father, reeling in shock. “My uncle was… the old Duke? So, my aunt is… the Duchess of Woodworth?”
He nodded woozily. “Aye, though I don’t take kindly to you calling that wretch any family of ours. She ain’t no such thing. She’s as guilty as that husband of hers, right enough. She were the one who gave him the idea in the first place. I’d stake me last coin on it.”
But that means… Her heart lurched violently, and she thought she might be sick. Her near empty stomach would not be happy about the loss of that bread and cheese. For that reason, and that reason alone, she held onto the bile in her throat and swallowed it bitterly.
If the old Duke of Woodworth was truly Alicia’s uncle, then it meant Jacob was her cousin. And just when she was starting to wonder if there was something more between them… The blow could not have come at a worse moment. She knew a lot of folks barely sniffed at that sort of thing, especially the wealthy ones, but it did not sit well with her at all. Marrying relatives only resulted in sickly children and inflictions. Given the weakly nature of her own youth, she did not want that for her children.
What am I worrying for? As if I could ever marry a Duke, besides, she scolded herself sternly.
“You’ve gone awful silent.” Her father peered at her, closing one eye so he might see her better. He always did that when he’d had a tipple or more.
“I were just thinking, Da. You’d know what it looked like if you ever bothered to do any of your own.” She paused, not wanting to rile him up when he seemed to have settled. “What does the Duchess of Woodworth have to do with them papers?” She nodded toward the fireplace, where the last remnants of her father’s pilfered pages had curled to ash.
He sighed heavily. “I wanted a list.”
“I gave you a list. The ball list, with all the arriving guests,” she replied.
“Not that list, pet. That’ll serve its own purpose, right enough, but that ain’t the most important list.”
“Da, will you be straight with me, for once?” Exasperation bristled through her, making her agitated.
“There were names on them papers,” her father said, after a moment.
She nodded. “What names? What could be so important to you, that you’d toss them into the flames like that?”
“I suppose there’s no use in telling you falsehoods no more.” He bowed his head, as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders. “Them names were the names of all those that purchased houses and estates from the Irish. I was told where I could find the ledger, and I was told to put them against the names of the guests arriving for that ball.”
Her brow knitted together in confusion. “You were told? Told by who?”
“I don’t rightly know, pet. Letters come, they give me orders, and I carry them out. Same as you, except you don’t get the letters—you just get me, coming to bother you, and slapping you about the face for your troubles.” He buried his face in his hands, clearly sinking deeper into his cups.
“Letters? What letters? I haven’t seen any.” She held her breath, feeling a stone of dread sink into the pit of her stomach. Or maybe that was just the gnawing hunger—she could no longer tell the difference.
“No, you won’t have done. I had strict instructions to burn them, soon as I received them. I were told to burn them names, too, but keep them here.” Her father tapped his skull. “But they came all the same. And now, I’ve to compare the names in my head with the names on that list of guests. See if any are the same.”
“Why?” Al
icia had a feeling she already knew the answer, but she needed clarification. After all, through everything that had happened with Elias, she could well believe that her imagination might be running away with her.
Her father shrugged. “I weren’t told, but I know it’s like to have something to do with that ball.”
“Is there a plan of attack?” Alicia asked, her throat tight with anxiety. “Are the Ribbonmen wanting to make an example of those that took their lands? Is that it? That’s it, isn’t it? Da, you have to tell me. Innocent lives are at stake here. I know the English have done wrong to us, and I can see they used some underhand means to claim what was rightfully ours, but what will killing solve? It’ll only bring more men from England, and there’ll only be more bloodshed. Before you know it, there’ll be a war that we can’t stop.”
The Remarkable Myth of a Nameless Lady: A Historical Regency Romance Novel Page 18