Never Land the First Fish

Chapter Twenty-Three, Part 2

"Yes, well, we needn't belabor the point. Your inheritance has been restored, which is as it should be."

"Aunt Bella, I do not believe you understand the extent to which Athol mistreated me."

"I'm sure I can guess."

"You do not need to guess! I will tell you myself!" Julia stood, her arms gesturing broadly. "Endless bruises, bones broken, many nights hungry, days locked in an armoire. He took me against my will hundreds of times. It was hell living in that house, Aunt Bella! Hell!" Thankfully, her aunt had lived for years among sailors. A bit of blasphemy didn't even warrant a dark look. "I thought I would die so many times." She was starting to cry. "And none of you did a thing about any of it. Not even my own mother." She broke down and wept into her hands. She had never cried so much in years with Athol as she had since she'd met Gills.

As though he had been summoned, Gills knocked on the door jamb as he came in. "Julia? Julia, what is it?" He gave a spare nod to the duchess, but no deference. "Your Grace."

Julia took Gills' presence as license to walk into his embrace, even to his confusion.

"Your Grace?" he asked the duchess.

"I have come to make my peace with Jewel, but I'm afraid she is not inclined to accept my apology."

Hardly an apology, Julia thought, though, to be fair, for a duchess, it had come perilously close. Julia sniffled and dried her tears on the back of her hand.

"Whether or not you accept my regrets about how I handled your... situation, I have come to make amends. While I know it is only money, and you are far from destitute, I wish you to know I have left you a sizable block of Seventh Sea stock upon my death, in trust for you alone, and for any of your female children, so neither you nor they need count on a husband to feed you, nor be concerned he will lose your home in a game of cards."

"Your Grace, I--"

The duchess held up and imperious hand. "No, I will hear no argument."

Julia felt herself smile just slightly. That was the Aunt Bella she remembered. Next, she would pull out a rapier. "No, Your Grace. You are very kind, when I treated your family very..." her lips twitched. "...poorly." The duchess traded ironic looks with her and with that, Julia could feel it: their relationship was restored.

"We shall accept each other's apologies," the duchess pronounced without asking Julia's agreement, "and there will be an end to it. And you will call me Aunt Bella again, as you did while you were yelling at me. I do hope you yell at this young man with as much vehemence."

"She does," Gills said, his lips twitching.

"Very good. Now give me your arm, Lord Joseph. You will help me to my carriage. No, not you, Jewel, I am going to talk about you, and I won't have you eavesdropping."

***

The dowager duchess of Wellbridge had led a fascinating life; had she been Gills' generation—or only one generation away, not two—he would have tried to take her as a lover. He had been flirting with her for years, under her husband's watchful eye, long before he'd made the connection that she was Julia's aunt. He'd felt a deep sense of betrayal on Julia's behalf when she'd told him what the duchess had done, in part because he found the duchess charming.

He wasn't sure what she had to say about Jewel, but he knew he'd better listen. In the vestibule, he ordered the duchess's carriage brought 'round while he helped her on with her coat. She took a seat on a chair near the door, and he stood over her, rather more protectively than he consciously intended.

"Lord Joseph Gildeforte, do you mean to marry her?"

He didn't hesitate an instant before he said, "If she will have me, yes, but she has not agreed."

"I see. Do you wish to marry her for her now-sizable fortune?"

"I have my own sizable fortune, Your Grace, left to me by my mother."

"Out of a sense of honor, then, because you were caught by circumstance? That is why you offered for Sally Grenford, is it not?"

"Have you never listened to the gossips, Your Grace? I have no honor, nor has any man in my family. Except Coventon. He has everyone else's."

"Do not be absurd. Are you trying to redeem her honor?"

"Lady Julia Marloughe needs no absolution or redemption from me, Your Grace. I wish to marry her because I love her. I've said it to her, and I will say it to anyone. I plan to say it to her father as soon as she agrees."

"You are a careless rake, but you have a kind heart and the potential to grow into a fine gentleman."

"Your Grace, I--"

She held up her hand again. "I am not finished."

"Yes, Your Grace."

"I warrant this entire experience—debacle, I would call it—has aged you ten years or more, and I hope your maturity has grown in with the sprinkle of grey hair I see."

His hand went to his hair. Grey? Surely not.

"Because I have always liked you, young man, I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but I will not have Jewel pushed into a marriage for any reason—certainly not to appease the sensibilities of the ton. Not after fifteen years of Athol Soddenfeld. She deserves as much freedom as she can manage to take for herself, and if we can keep her from Newgate, I will see she has the means to do it."

At his crestfallen look, she said, "I will not have her pushed. But... I wish my niece to be happy. Are you not the Lord Joseph Gildeforte who was sent to the nursery without his supper for throwing mud at Jewel's new dress, some twenty-five years ago?"

Did everyone in England remember his entire childhood?

The dowager chuckled. "I see." Her face took on a serious cast, though, and she followed it with, "If you allow her to come to you, and you do not balk at the weight she carries—and make no mistake, the memories of Lord Athol will not be a small cross to bear—I will make no objection to a marriage, and I will see that Jewel's father doesn't either."

"You are all that is gracious, Your Grace."

"Now, you may kiss my hand in that rakish way that makes the young ladies swoon and always made my husband scowl, and then I must go; my carriage is here, and you have wooing to do in the other room."