Never Land the First Fish

Chapter Eighteen: Part 2

Sally frowned. "What have you done, Piero?"

Piero examined his fingernails. "Made sure the newspapers in New York knew who she was and what she was wanted for."

Sally's chair scraped across the floor as she surged to her feet. "You hound! How could you?"

Piero's eyes opened in alarm. "Sally..." he began, but she overrode him.

"That was despicable. We asked you to bring her back. Not throw her to the wolves."

"That was what I was trying to do! Despite everyone else, I might add. Even Stocke took the woman's side. May I remind you, duchess, that this female tried to destroy you and your husband!"

Sally drew herself up, her voice as cold as ice. "My husband and I wish to heal this breach in our family, and you may have made that impossible. Julia is Almyra's cousin, too, I might add."

Toad stretched out a hand to his wife. "Sally, Piero may have overstretched his commission, but he meant it for the best."

Sally snorted. "Overstretched! Your Grace, I am removing myself from this company before I am tempted to fetch out my rapier to cut off your friend's balls and feed them to him. I am going to see what your sister thinks of this unwarranted assault on an already injured woman."

She swept out of the room, leaving silence behind her.

Piero broke it. "I didn't think Sally would mind. Do you think Almyra will agree with her?"

Toad shrugged. "If Sally gets to her first. Coventon will be here in a few hours from London. I suggest you make haste to find my sister and see if you can make peace with her and my duchess before he arrives."

***

"They must return to England," Coventon explained, "though we have obtained agreement that they can be held for questioning at a location of the duke's choosing. I've implied it will be here at Toadstone Hall, as it is closest to Bristol and the magistrate leading the hunt for your cousin, but I made no promises."

"Good," Sally said, "as I cannot see Julia staying anywhere we are."

"There will be an inquest?" Toad asked.

"There will. The magistrate insists Lord Athol was murdered by his wife and her lover, and he will not give up without taking formal evidence."

"Do they want Maddox, too, or only Gills and Julia?"

"They want to talk to Maddox to find out why he took them aboard his ship, but the story the magistrate is telling is that Julia and Gills stowed away. Given their 'flight from justice,' he insists upon a formal investigation. We've hired Wakefield and Wakefield, of course, to perform our own investigation, and engaged His Grace's firm of attorneys. All agree, had they stayed in England, this might all be over by now."

"There is no taking that back now," Toad said with a shrug. "We will house them at the Brickdale estate; it is close enough to the center of things, and Julia will not have to abide us. I will see them here first, however, as soon as they make landfall."

"Mustn't defy the duke, after all," Sally teased, but Toad just steepled his fingers and shrugged. She squeezed his shoulder. He was becoming more ducal by the day, and Sally joined him in both maintaining the dignity of the House of Wellbridge and reminding him that he was only a man.

"We must place them under guard at Brickdale," Toad warned. "I trust them both to keep their word, but I do not wish it said I used my influence to coddle criminals or provide my family and friends a means to escape. When Julia and Gills are cleared of these charges, I do not want it said they got away with murder because they know a duke."

"We are in agreement," Coventon said, "with the magistrate, too. He wishes them gaoled, but he will be satisfied if they are legitimately confined to the duke's estate, by guards of the court's choosing."

"We must find a chaperone," Sally reminded him. "Julia's reputation is destroyed, but we needn't make it worse by putting her under the same roof with Lord Joseph Gildeforte alone. Especially not just before she must answer for herself in a legal inquiry."

"My mother is out of the question," Toad muttered to himself, "but perhaps Aunt Cherry could..."

"Your Grace, my wife and I would be pleased to act as chaperones for Lady Julia," Coventon offered. "We had offered to host them, but the magistrate was averse to the distance from Bristol to our estate, and was not convinced I would keep my own brother under lock and key."

"We are decided, then," Toad said. "The magistrate will have to agree, though I suspect we should take steps to make sure he doesn't arrest them at the wharf. I'll set watchers waiting in Bristol to let me know as soon as the ship arrives, and will leave instructions that they are to remain aboard ship until I arrive to escort them to Brickdale."

Coventon nodded. "Then all we can do is wait, Your Grace."