My words bore a confident air, but I didn’t know how this would end. We weren’t spies, not even retired ones. We were foreign women seeking justice on these shores.
Footsteps sounded outside. The trim around the door vibrated but the door never opened. I still didn’t know if Felton was safe.
I freed my arms from twisting in my shawl. “Say something, sister. I need to know that you’re well.”
“I am, Chari, just a little hard to breathe sometimes. So many others are trapped. They have no recourse. Demerara is still a colony of free, enslaved, and slavers.”
Sitting beside her, I put my arms about her and held her shaking limbs. “We’ll find ways to help from here. My husband and father-in-law have connections. We’ll aid the cause of abolition. I can definitely paint images to evoke emotion.”
Helena hadn’t asked the obvious, about her son, Noah. Other than a few tears of gratitude that he was alive and well, she didn’t say much. Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe a mind or a body could only take so much.
Helena linked her hands with mine. “I’ve lived for six months thinking you all gone. Thinking I’d never see any of you. It will take a bit of adjusting, having a future, having a living family, not merely ghosts in my head.”
“You’ve time. And you can be new. We’ll invent new dreams. My father-in-law will make sure your rights are recognized. You and Noah will be fine. I sent word to Patience. Enna, Quamina’s sister, and your son will be sent here. As soon as things die down, we’ll visit Patience.”
Helena gripped my hand. “Our son, Chari. Your son. I have no means to do anything. I’m not enough for him.”
She cried in my arms. I knew that feeling, and I had more support and means than many. “You shall be wonderful. Our Noah will be wonderful.”
“It all sounds nice, Chari. But I’ve learned to wait for each day to come.”
That had to be the worst part, the waiting. And though time heals all wounds, it does nothing about memories.
Her arms wrapped about my neck. She felt so small. “Seems you made up your mind about keeping that husband of yours.”
Looking at the door, waiting for it to move and a free Felton to rush inside, I rocked my baby sister but spared her my fears. Felton could be charged for murder—something he didn’t do, something he attempted for me but for the wrong reasons.
* * *
In the main drawing room of Warwick, the local magistrate stood by the roaring fireplace and continued to ask questions.
He was particularly incensed about the multiple gunshot wounds to Gladstone—the one Felton had put to the man’s arm and the mysterious one to his chest.
The gun Helena held had misfired. She didn’t kill Gladstone. It was a pleasure to give the magistrate Old Brown.
The only person who had a clear shot was the man everyone least suspected, the man everyone thought dying.
Tramel.
Felton schooled his face from years of practice to hide his suspicions. With a shot of brandy, he feigned adequate remorse for his duplicitous cousin’s death.
“So, you shot at a covey, Lord Gantry. Do you admit to shooting Gladstone?”
“I admit to nothing of the sort, except hunting with my party and having trouble with my gun. You saw it, the lodged bullet packet. It didn’t shoot at all.”
The man nodded. “The fall and the rocks below would’ve brought death instantly. There was no need for the wound to the chest and arm.”
His father sat in a chair, tapping his cane. “Please, gentlemen, let’s hurry this. Warwick is in chaos. There’s family to comfort. My sister, Nelly—Gladstone’s mother—will be here soon. I have to tell her about her youngest.”
The magistrate wiped at his spectacles, thick glass pieces.
A younger man, one of his runners, came in. “We’ve checked all the weapons. All shots accounted for. The bullets must have been from the shooting party. It’s an accident. Gladstone was well-liked by all.”
The magistrate nodded. “Perhaps Jeremiah Gladstone was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He lost his balance and fell. It was meant for him to die.”
Tramel rose up, slow like a phoenix. “My household must grieve. The loss of my nephew is tragic. Magistrate, make everyone leave us.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” the man said. Like before, like always, the local law enforcement bowed and scraped and left Warwick.
