For a while, there was no scandal to speak of. I passed a very good week staying in my bed. For days, I slept, but once I was waking more often Lillian managed to smuggle some books in to me. I hadn’t had so much leisure time in my entire life, and while I brushed up on French I was able to think with leisure of the future. Very soon, I would have the only protection that the law could offer me, both from poverty and from unscrupulous men.

My mother and I had never had much money, but she was convinced that I would be the one to change our fortunes. In fact, she had always proposed that I do so by working. “Marriage isn’t worth it, my dear,” she had always said to me. “Too little reward, and all the risk in the world. You can trust me on that one.”

In spite of this conviction, mama did manage to give me the best possible education, and I often suspected that she was secretly grooming me to make an excellent match. In exchange for helping her in her duties as housekeeper, I was educated for a few hours each day along with the daughters of the house. I was also the quickest to learn but the last to admit to knowing anything, as mama told me in no uncertain terms that well brought up girls did not like to be outclassed by a scamp with no family background and no fortune to speak of. Still, I learned how to read and write several languages, even if by the time the dancing mistress or the piano tutor arrived I would have gone back to my own chores.

What was even more valuable was my ability to blend with the upper classes, and I cursed myself for letting my sharp tongue get the better of me with the Barlows. My speech was impeccable, my accent flawless. Though I could slip up and start speaking like my mother at any moment, I took care to keep my vowels in check, and I knew that I passed for a woman from a “better” family than I actually had.

At the end of the week, I was firmly resolved to get well and reestablish myself in the household. If the marriage did not happen, I should have to be very careful not to get sacked. But as I recovered, I knew that admitting I was healthy would expose me again to the wretch who snuck by my door at night. The thought filled me with so much terror that I felt I might stay sick forever.

The answer to that problem, however, presented itself to me a week after I had fallen ill.

“Granddad really looks much worse,” Luke said to Nurse Britton, convincing her to leave me. “If you would only look in on him, that would give us all a bit of peace.”

She snorted. “A bit of peace because he’ll be railing at me, not at you, Mr. Barlow.”

Luke sighed. “Yes, that’s true. But I’ll just sit with Miss Quinton for a moment while you check, please.”

“You needn’t stay long, then,” she said to him, glaring with such spirit that I was sure she was on to me.

After all, for some days I had been feeling much better, and she must have seen it. But she likely knew why I was pretending that my cold continued. If she left me, even the strongest lock on the door was apparently not enough to protect me from the ugly old man.

Of course, he had made a few attempts to get near the room in the week that I was ill, but Nurse Britton made it clear each time that she was not afraid to slap him. And this tactic was so effective that I had to laugh. If Luke’s family had only employed the approach I had suggested before, that of treating the old man like a spoilt child, much of the trouble could be avoided.

This, apparently, was what Luke had come to ask me. “Are you quite well, Miss Quinton?” he asked, standing over me so that I could hardly resist pulling him underneath the soft blankets.

“Alice,” I said to him, taking his hand and hoping that my outwardly sickly nature had not made him change his mind about his offer.

He blushed. “Alice. You’ve not been troubled at night?”

“No. The old coot is leaving me alone,” I said, and smiled stupidly from the warmth of Luke’s hand in mine. “Your idea to have Nurse Britton here was a brilliant one.”

“Well, you shan’t have to worry about him much longer,” said Luke in a low voice. “There vicar has been to see me. We can marry tomorrow morning if you are well enough.”

I leapt out of bed, checking my impulse to throw my arms around the man. After all, a week had gone by, and I could no longer be sure whether he still felt quite the same. “Well enough? I could run there, or make some sort of pilgrimage on my hands and knees. To finally get away from that horrid man!”

Luke frowned for a moment, but then nodded. “Of course. He won’t be able to bother you after. But you’re sure that you are well?”

I cackled. “Of course I am! As you rightly suspected, Nurse Britton keeps the old man away. But I can’t stay in bed for another minute. Tonight, I shall have to go down to dinner.”

Just then, Nurse Britton returned, and she looked at me with a practiced eye. “Feeling better then, Miss Quinton?”

“Much better,” I managed, as Luke retreated and bowed to both of us.

“I’m going down to dinner tonight,” I told her, no longer worried about being forced into a purgatory of fear and dread by the old granddad. He would soon be sorted, after all. “Thank you for nursing me back to health.”