Alice shook her head, wondering if there were any way to erase the morning from her life. Except that would mean Collins still roamed the earth, free to visit his violence on any unsuspecting victim.
“I’ll leave you in peace, then.” Lady Heathgate rose and brushed a kiss across Alice’s cheek. “Whatever it is, when you’re rested and feeling better, it won’t be so bad. And if we can help, you must not hesitate to let us know. Benjamin would insist, and so do I.”
Alice nodded, staring at her lap.
There was nothing anybody could do, and the ache in her shoulder was a twinge compared to the ache in her heart. Ethan had heard of her disgrace, heard how she’d been unable to help her sister, heard she’d not brought Collins to justice when she’d had the chance.
Ethan was a brave man, the bravest she’d ever met. He’d waded into Collins’s pistol sights, orchestrated a rescue, and seen justice done. There was no way on earth a man like Ethan Grey deserved a woman in his life who’d failed miserably to keep her sister safe from the menace that had been Hart Collins.
Twenty-one
“She asked about you,” Heathgate said, apropos of nothing. His mare walked along the bridle path beside Ethan’s golden gelding, the leaves crunching underfoot in a sound characteristic of the woods in autumn.
“And what did you tell her?” Ethan had no dignity where Alice was concerned, hadn’t had any for weeks.
“I told her a pack of lies,” Heathgate said. “You’re hiring trollops from London, becoming a drunken sot, carrying on with the tweenie.”
“That is not humorous.
“The two of you aren’t humorous.” Heathgate brought his horse to a halt. “Talk to the woman. She mopes around Willowdale like a ghost, smiling only at the children. Lady Heathgate is concerned she’s going into a decline, and she catches your Alice crying at odd moments. She doesn’t eat much, save her desserts, and she spends a prodigious amount of time in bed.”
“She’s had a blow,” Ethan said. “Seeing Collins, much less being taken by him at gunpoint, will put her off her feed.” Finding out that the man she’d taken to her bed had been intimate with Hart Collins was more than a blow.
“She isn’t a damned broodmare. At least call upon her, wish her well before she departs for London.”
Ethan sustained a blow, another blow, at that pronouncement. “She’s going to London? To live with her brother?”
“She does not confide in me, but she did speak of traveling to London tomorrow, and thanked me for my hospitality.”
Ethan nudged his horse back to a walk. “Give her my… best.”
Gareth Alexander, Marquis of Heathgate, held his tongue when he wanted to shout that Alice Portman was likely already carrying the consequences of being given Ethan Grey’s best. But then he caught sight of Grey’s sons, regarding him solemnly from the backs of their ponies.
“Did you say Miss Alice was leaving tomorrow?” Joshua spoke up, his tone oddly adult.
“I did,” Heathgate replied, feeling strangely on trial.
Jeremiah scowled, looking very like his father. “And Papa didn’t say anything?”
“Nothing of consequence.”
“That’s stupid.” Joshua glanced over at his brother, who nodded. “Really stupid.”
Heathgate glared down at them. “If it’s so stupid, why don’t you prodigies do something about it? God knows I’ve tried and gotten no damned where at all.”
He twirled his horse in a walk pirouette and trotted off, only a little chagrined that he’d spoken thusly to mere children.
“You have callers.” The marchioness’s gaze traveled over the possessions Alice had spread out on her bed, then went to the two portmanteaus already waiting beside the door.
Alice paused while folding up a green-and-blue cashmere shawl. “Callers?” The vicar and his wife, maybe? Lord and Lady Greymoor?
“They’re waiting in the family parlor, and I’ve ordered tea.”
“Thank you.” Alice ceased her packing—she still hated to pack but doubted it would ever inspire her to panic again—and took in her ladyship’s guarded expression. The marchioness wasn’t offering to chaperone in the parlor, so it couldn’t be Ethan and Nick waiting for her, and besides, Nick was in Kent with his wife where he belonged. Would Reese and Matthew have come to fetch her? Might Nick have sent for them?
Mind whirling, Alice took herself to the family parlor, glancing around for her visitors.
Joshua grinned at her bashfully. “Hullo, Miss Alice.”
“Oh, Joshua.” Alice went to her knees and held out her arms. “Jeremiah, my favorite gentlemen, it is so good to see you.” They burrowed against her, all elbows and chins and cold, fresh air. Tears sprang to Alice’s eyes as she hugged them to her, and only by force of will did she let them go. “You both look so very well.” She rose to her feet and waved a hand at the sofa. “Won’t you join me for tea, gentlemen?”
“Told you she’d cry,” Joshua muttered at his brother. “There are chocolates too. Lady Heathgate said to tell you. She’s nice.”
“She is.” Alice swiped at her eyes with her knuckles. “You boys are nice too, to come calling like this. I hope you brought a groom.”
“We told Davey where we were going, because he likes to visit his brother,” Jeremiah said, “but after we have some tea and chocolates, we’re not calling on you.”
“You’re not?” Alice set down the teapot, her governess instincts picking up on little-boy mischief in the making. “What are you about?”
“We’re kidnapping you,” Jeremiah said. “We thought about kidnapping Papa, but he’s bigger than you, and he’s already home. You’re not home.”
“I don’t have a home.” This was one of the more painful realizations she’d come to in recent days.
“Yes, you do,” Jeremiah insisted as he helped himself to three chocolates then obligingly held the box for his brother to plunder similarly. “Tydings is your home. We talked about it.”
“Who is this ‘we’?” Alice asked, thinking in some corner of her mind her charges needed to learn proper tea etiquette. Her former charges.
“Both of us,” Joshua chimed in, helping himself to more chocolate. “We love you, so you have to come home with us.”
“Davey isn’t with you, is he?” She did love them—them too.
“We told him we were going to kidnap you,” Jeremiah replied. “He probably followed us.”
“You’re going to get in such trouble,” Alice warned them. “Your father will be beside himself.”
Jeremiah paused between chocolates to spear her with a look. “He doesn’t know we’re gone. He rides with us, and he comes to the table, but he’s in his stupid library all day, and when we tickle him, he only pretends to laugh. It’s stupid.”
“Really stupid.” Joshua sighed dramatically and took yet another chocolate.
“That’s enough, Josh. Miss Alice is getting peevish.”
“Peevish.” Alice rose and wanted to be peevish, but mostly, she was touched and uncertain and worried—worried about Ethan, who needed very much to laugh when he was tickled, and worried she ought to at least say her good-byes to him in person.
She owed him that much.
“Well, then.” Alice held out her hands. “I give up. Kidnap me, gentlemen, or you’ll make that poor box of chocolates walk the plank, right?”
“Right into Davy Jones’s locker!” Joshua crowed, thumping his tummy. He eyed the chocolates, met Alice’s frown, and took one of her outstretched hands. Jeremiah took the other, and when they passed Lord Heathgate on the front stairs, his lordship arched a fine dark eyebrow.
“Going somewhere with my guest, gentlemen?”