Never Land the First Fish

Chapter Seventeen: Part 2

On one point, Julia was adamant. "No, Gills, we are not making villains of the Wellbridges. My cousin has been out of England since he was a boy, and his wife was on her way to the Pacific somewhere before Athol and I were exiled from Society. And I don't for one minute believe that the Duke of Wellbridge instructed Mr d'Alvieri to spread all my dirty linen out in the newspapers."

"D'Alvieri is Wellbridge's tool in this, whether or not Wellbridge knows exactly what lengths he is going to," Gills argued. "Besides, it won't matter to them what American newspapers say about the Wellbridges. Vanderbilt says the bullying duke plot will play well with the media. Even if it was his father rather than him." Gills didn't want to hurt Sally, the duchess, but he wouldn't mind seeing the duke taken down a peg or too.

Julia shook her head, her lips pressed firmly together.

"It makes for a better story," Gills coaxed.

"No, Gills," Julia repeated. "You said you wouldn't do anything I don't like, and I won't have you blaming my cousins for what Athol did to me."

"Good for you," said a voice from the doorway. Stocke entered, with Maddox close behind him. The little maid could be glimpsed in the background, wringing her hands in her apron.

"More tea, perhaps," Lady Rookscoombe suggested, and Julia nodded at the maid, who flushed scarlet and hurried away.

Maddox and Stocke turned towards the older woman, noticing her for the first time. Both inclined their head, which became a true bow when Emily presented them. "Maausi, the gentlemen on the right is my friend Lord Maddox, and this is his brother, Lord Stocke. Gentlemen, Lady Rookscoombe."

Lady Rookscoombe examined Maddox with an interest that hinted she knew about him and Emily, but her words were neutral. "Lord Maddox, my younger children are great fans of your books. I am pleased to meet you."

Maddox, uncharacteristically tongue-tied, managed an awkward thanks.

The baroness turned her attention to Maddox's brother. "Lord Stocke, I understand you came to New York with Mr d'Alvieri, who is apparently the source of these calumnies in the newspapers. Are you his ally in this defamation?"

"No, ma'am." Stocke made the disclaimer with force. "And I've made sure d'Alvieri knows it, too. Lady Julia, I can assure you I didn't know what he was going to do, or I would have stopped him."

From his brief acquaintance with the man, Gills doubted that d'Alvieri allowed anything to stop him, but he supposed Stocke meant well. "You might be willing to help us, then, Stocke. We're planning to give the newspapers a different version of the story to chew on."

"A version that does not implicate the Wellbridges," Julia insisted. "They have had enough scandal circulate about them—and Maddox, you have no need to point out that I played my part in that. All the more reason to leave them out of this one."

"We can make it work without," Gills said, his mind sifting through the possibilities. "Evil second son of the aristocracy, innocent victim of the class system, lords can get away with anything, abandoned to a degenerate. Family unaware. Left England by mistake."

"That actually happened," Julia agreed. "That is all true."

Gills grinned. "All the better."

***

Gills didn't tell any of them the name of the friendly reporter Vanderbilt had sent him to. "Better if you treat him the same as the others," he'd said.

Julia knew the man, though, the first time he appeared at their door. Arm in arm, she and Emily ran the gauntlet of the press who waited outside their apartment. Julia's father had hired extra footmen to hold the crowd back, but the reporters surged forward anyway, calling out, as they always did, damning accusations in the form of questions.

"Lady Julia, what does it feel like to stand over your husband's dead body?" "Lady Julia, did you kill your husband or did your lover do it?" "Lady Julia, why did you kill your husband?"

Then a tall thin man with a crop of unruly red hair pushed his way to the front and yelled, "Mrs Marlowe, is it true you came to the United States to escape the persecution of the aristocracy?"

She didn't realise, at first, that he was Gills' reporter. Indeed, she nearly kept on, ignoring him as she did all the others, but something about the question caught her attention, and then Emily squeezed her arm and whispered, "This is your chance."

Julia took a deep breath and turned to face him. "Not precisely. I had no confidence that the upper classes would support justice, but I didn't mean to leave England, or to come to the United States, though I am very pleased to be here."

The reporters went into a frenzy with their questions, but Emily was a silent bulwark at her side, and Julia kept her eyes on the man with the red hair. "Are you saying you accidentally got on Lord Maddox's ship, Mrs Marlowe?"

That was easy. "I boarded the ship on purpose, sir. I knew the owner, and I knew he was not planning to leave for several days. I needed a place to sleep and to recover."

The reporter nodded. "Because you had been badly beaten."

Just tell the truth. Gills had been helping her to rehearse. They all had, but it was his voice that steadied her now. "Yes. It was some days before I was able to get out of bed. The bruising took weeks to heal, and my broken finger has mended crooked." She held it up so they could see.

Another reporter asked, "Are you saying your husband beat you? So badly you couldn't walk? How did you get to this ship, then? And how did your husband end up dead?"

The tricky bit first. "My husband was alive when I fled the house," she said. "And I cannot tell you how I found the strength to do so." Distract them. Give them more. "Fortunately, an acquaintance happened along and took me to safety. When I return to England to face these unfortunate charges, the landlord of the inn he took me too will be able to witness that I had to be carried into the inn."

That set off another cacophony, but she answered the red head. "Yes, that is what I said. When my employer, Miss Kilbrierry, is ready to travel, we shall be returning to England, where I intend to prove my innocence."

After that, the questioning became more friendly, but Julia still shook like a leaf through the twenty minutes of their carriage ride to the rehearsal hall and had to pull herself together to follow Emily to her dressing room. Gills and Maddox were waiting, and Gills took one look at her and held out his arms.

Just this once. Julia walked into them. Emily was telling the two men about the questions, and how well Julia had answered them, but Julia barely listened as she stood within Gills embrace, drawing strength from the sound of his heartbeat.