Alaric did not speak. He reached into his coat, pulled out the red leather ledger, and dropped it onto the low mahogany table between them. "Open it," Alaric said.
Melville frowned. He set down his tea, picked up his reading glasses from the side table, and opened the book. For 3 minutes, the only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock and the sharp rustle of thick paper. As Melville turned the pages, the annoyance on the First Lord's face slowly dissolved. It was replaced by shock and then by a cold, terrifying fury. Melville was a bureaucrat, but he loved the Navy. He knew what these numbers meant. He saw the rotting hulls, the snapped masts, the drowned sailors.
"This is Viscount Carlisle's hand," Melville whispered, looking up. His face had gone completely pale. "This is a record of his timber contracts."
"He is buying unseasoned Baltic pine, paying off the port inspectors, and stamping it as English oak," Alaric said, his voice flat, stripped of all emotion. "He has been doing it for 3 years. Every ship built in the Portsmouth dry docks since 1823 is fundamentally compromised."
Melville closed the book. He pressed his hand flat against the red leather as if trying to keep the treason contained within its pages. "How did you come by this?" Melville asked.
"It was brought to my attention by a source who wishes to remain dead to the world," Alaric replied, his eyes locking with the older man's. "The method of its acquisition is irrelevant. The ink is real. The shipments can be verified by your own clerks within the hour. The question is, my lord, what are you going to do about it?"
Melville stood up. The fatigue was gone from his bones. "Defrauding the crown on military contracts during a period of naval expansion," Melville stated, his voice ringing with absolute authority, "It is high treason. The penalty is death. His title will be stripped. His lands will be forfeit to the crown."
"Then I suggest you send the magistrate and the foot guards to Grosvenor Square immediately," Alaric said, buttoning his coat. "He hosts a card game on Tuesdays. He will likely be asleep in his chair."
By noon, the arrest was the only thing anyone in London could talk about. It was not a quiet affair. Melville had not sent the local watch. He had sent a detachment of Royal Marines. They kicked in the front doors of the Mayfair townhouse in broad daylight. Carlisle was dragged out in his shirt sleeves, screaming obscenities, his wrists chained in heavy iron. The aristocrats who had been smoking his opium and drinking his brandy scattered like rats fleeing a sinking ship, terrified of being implicated in the treason.
Alaric stood on the corner of the square, watching from the shadow of a haberdasher's awning. He watched the Marines shove the Viscount into the back of a barred carriage. He watched the heavy iron door slam shut. He watched the carriage rattle over the cobblestones, heading east toward the grim stone walls of Newgate Prison.
It was done. The trap had snapped shut. Carlisle was a dead man walking. He would never see a courtroom. He would be tried by a military tribunal and he would hang. The doctrine of coverture, the legal chain that bound Penelope to her abuser, dissolved the moment the crown seized Carlisle's assets. A traitor had no property. A traitor had no wife.
Alaric turned and walked away. The rain had finally stopped.
Four weeks passed. Cuddon House slowly adapted to a new rhythm. The whispers among the staff had initially been ferocious. The sudden elevation of the mute, terrifying scullery maid to the Duke's private guest suite was the stuff of penny dreadfuls. But Bramwell ruled the household with an iron fist, and Mrs. Higgins, terrified by the Duke's wrath, ensured that any maid or footman caught gossiping was immediately dismissed.
Penelope did not leave the Sapphire suite for the first two weeks. The sudden removal of fear is not the same as the arrival of peace. When you have spent years waiting for the next blow, the absence of violence feels like a trick. She slept on the floor for the first three nights, unable to tolerate the softness of the mattress. She hoarded food in the pockets of her dressing gowns. She jumped when the floorboards creaked.
Alaric did not push her. He did not ask her to dine with him. He did not demand gratitude. He simply existed in her orbit, an immovable anchor. He left books outside her door. He ensured her fires were always lit. He had Caldwell, the solicitor, draft the documents confirming the total dissolution of her marriage under the crown's attainder of treason against Carlisle. He slipped the sealed parchment under her door without a word.
Slowly, the ice began to thaw. The color returned to her cheeks. The hollows beneath her eyes faded. Her hands, treated daily with heavy salves, lost their raw, angry redness. The physical wounds healed, leaving only the silvery scars that would remain with her forever.
In the third week, she asked for a piano. Alaric had a Broadwood grand moved into the sitting room of the sapphire suite. For 3 days it sat untouched. Then on a Tuesday afternoon Alaric was sitting in his study reviewing estate accounts when he heard it. The faint hesitant notes of a Mozart sonata drifting through the massive house. The playing was clumsy. Her fingers were stiff out of practice, occasionally missing a key. But it was music. It was a sound that belonged to Penelope Alden, not to the ghost called Jane.
Alaric closed his ledger, leaned back in his chair, and listened to the halting melody until the sun went down.
On a crisp, clear afternoon in late November, Alaric walked into the library to find Penelope waiting for him. She was standing by the hearth, the same hearth she had been scrubbing on her knees a month ago. She wore a deep blue silk gown that Alaric had ordered from a Bond Street modiste. Her dark hair was pinned up completely free of coal dust. She looked beautiful, but more than that, she looked solid, real.
"The fire is burning perfectly today," Penelope said, her voice steady. She did not turn around immediately, watching the orange flames lick the clean bricks.
"I had Bramwell sack the chimney sweep," Alaric said, stepping into the room. "He was cutting corners."
Penelope turned to face him. The gray of her eyes was no longer stormy. It was the calm, clear color of a winter sky.
"Carlisle was hanged yesterday morning," she said. It was a statement of fact. There was no triumph in her voice, but there was no pity either.