Never Kiss a Toad

Chapter Seventy-Five, Part 2

Three days later, Sally set out for the market to buy the roots and herbs Aronui needed for the medicine Mama had discovered in the islands. After running the gauntlet of invasive sympathy at the hotel, she welcomed the anonymity of the market. Here, especially with their bonnets' veils down over their faces, she and Aronui were just two of hundreds of women covered head to toe in dark clothing; more than a dozen of the women, like them, were in European blacks.

They found the stall to which they'd been directed by the hotel manager and made their purchases.

They should go straight back to the hotel, where Papa clung to Mama's hand while he read and reread the letters from all their kin, as if the bad news would change on another perusal, and the double blows would prove to be a bad dream. Sally blinked hard as her eyes watered yet again. She had cried rivers these past days, as had Mama, but Papa had barely shed a tear since hearing of the loss of his mother and his dearest friend.

Instead, he had aged ten years in a moment, and he sat white and drawn in their hotel apartment, losing track of conversations and forgetting even what he'd said himself moments after he'd said it. Mama had confided that she'd insisted on the stopover in Alexandria to give him time to absorb the first blow before the close confines of the ship put him on display before others. They disembarked tomorrow and would then be at close quarters until England and whatever awaited them there.

Sally's steps slowed at the thought of returning to the close confines of the hotel, and the dark cloud of grief that permeated their rooms. "I would like to have a last look around before we sail," she told Maddox.

"Whatever you want, Sally," he agreed, and dropped back from her side to have a few words with the commander of her escort.

She'd buy presents, Sally decided, as if she did not already have a trunk full. Tears threatened again when she thought of the lengths of Indian silk she'd bought for Grandmama, the elegant coffee pot for Uncle Wellbridge. She shook them off and began looking along a stall of wooden objects—carved animals, walking sticks, trays inlaid with patterns in different woods, cunningly devised containers for men's and women's dressing tables, and more.

She was selecting a set of animals for each of the babies her friends had produced when she overheard a familiar name.

"... the Duke of Wellbridge, who is as much of a scoundrel as his father was, for all his high position."

In the booth next door, where tables and chairs had been set on the pavement before a counter serving tea and coffee, two Englishwomen sat with their heads together, just visible through the palm fronds that screened one booth from the other.

"The young duke is so handsome, my dear," said the second lady, the one with the yellow roses on her bonnet. "Young, handsome, titled, and wealthy. He could hardly avoid being a scoundrel."

"Hmmmph," replied the first lady, fiddling with the fringe of her paisley shawl. "Wealthy, true, and no wonder! Not only does he inherit the Wellbridge fortune, but he has spent the past several years as a pirate."

Sally grinned. Silly hens.

"Surely not!" Yellow roses sounded thrilled rather than shocked. "A pirate? I understood he was at school in France!"

"That was his parents' plan." Paisley shawl dropped her voice, so that Sally had to lean forward to listen. "After he debauched the daughter of the Duke of Haverford, they sent him off to the continent to university. But—and my dear, I have this on the best of authority—he ran off after six months to work on the wharves in Marseilles, which is where he fell in with a gang of pirates. Truly!"

"I can scarcely believe it," said yellow roses, unable to keep her delight out of her voice.

"Believe it. My friend tells me he and his friends have ships all over the world, stealing cargoes even from his own mother!"