Chapter Sixteen
Chapter
SIXTEEN
It was nearly nine when Leo finally arrived back home, still in a horrible mood as he marched up the garden despite the long hours he had put in on his estate to try to shake it.
He hoped a decent soak in a hot bath might help him feel less aggrieved before bed, although didn’t hold out much hope.
He was just too angry and too hurt to do anything other than fester.
I cannot be with a duke! What the blazes did that even mean?
He could understand and accept that she didn’t want him—as that was her right, but he could not bloody well understand what his blasted title had to do with anything.
Because if her only objection was that he was a duke, that was unreasonable.
He couldn’t help being born a duke any more than she could help being born into her station.
Bloody woman!
In fact, he would even go as far today to say bloody women because every single one that he cared about seemed hell-bent on making his life a misery!
His dogs met him at the kitchen door, and he tried to be thankful that they did not hate him. However, even they were oddly subdued as they followed him. Snifferson especially had the drooped ears and sad eyes he only wore when he was upset.
He heard his mother in the hallway and seriously considered sneaking all the way up to his bedchamber via the servants’ stairs to avoid her before he decided to bite the bullet.
If he allowed her to lecture him en route about his latest argument with his infuriating sister, then it not only got that inevitability over and done with, it put a short and sweet time limit on how long she could lambast him.
Then, with any luck, he would be left alone to fester in private.
“Leo!” Instead of instantly castigating him, his mother ran toward him, her eyes red and her demeanor agitated. “Thank god you are home! Abigail is missing!”
And just like that, all his self-pity evaporated and was replaced by panic. “Missing! Since when?”
“Nobody has seen her since this afternoon.”
“Did she take a horse?” Because if she had, she could be bloody miles away by now.
His mother shook her head. “Wherever she went, it had to have initially been on foot. I was in the drawing room all afternoon and would have seen if a carriage pulled up outside.” His mother tugged at his sleeve.
“But she has been gone so long and was so angry, I fear she could have decided to take the afternoon post back to London.”
“What does Emilia know?” Because he wouldn’t put it past either of his sisters to do something like this to punish him.
“Nothing—she raised the alarm at seven when she failed to locate Abigail.” That was two hours ago. A person could go a great distance and find a great deal of trouble in two hours. More if she had been gone since earlier in the afternoon.
Leo tried to calm his racing mind by running through all the sensible next steps in his head. “Have you sent someone into town to investigate?” If they could retrace her route, it might give them a clue where Abigail was headed.
“I sent the footman and the stable lad to do that over an hour ago but neither have returned yet.”
“Have you made inquiries with some of her new friends? And have you called the constable?” As much as Leo loathed Nolley, the man knew the city well and had a sizable group of watchmen at his disposal who could all help.
“I did not realize that she was missing when the constable called for you earlier and by the time that I did, it seemed prudent to wait for you before I escalated this and potentially dragged her good name into disrepute unnecessarily.” His mother’s voice cracked.
“I had hoped that she would have had the good sense to return home before dark. Or to at least have the decency to send us a message to reassure us that she was safe.” Her eyes refilled with tears.
“Aside from the fact that making us worry so much is unforgivable, she is a woman on her own in the dark, for pity’s sake.
Clearly, she has no care whatsoever for her own safety! ”
Finally, his mother now realized what he had known for months.
“I think we’ve passed the point of trying to avoid a scandal.
” Their top priority now had to be getting Abigail home safe.
He wished Portia was here so that she could help him.
She had a level head on her shoulders and also knew the city well, but he knew she had likely already gone to her mother’s before Abigail’s disappearance had come to light.
“If you call on her friends, I’ll alert the constable. ”
He was about to dash back out to the stable to do just that when somebody hammered on the front door. Leo didn’t wait for a servant to come and answer it and flung it open himself. Then experienced a moment of sheer terror when he saw Constable Nolley’s grave face.
“Your grace.” The man had taken off his hat and was twisting the brim around in his fingers, and something about his demeanor made the roots of Leo’s hair tingle ominously as if it knew something was very wrong. “I am afraid I come here on official business pertaining to your sister—”
Tight bands of panic constricted his throat as he instantly spiraled into thinking the worst. “Is she dead?” All Leo needed were the particulars, not the preamble, when a thousand terrible scenarios were already whizzing through his head. “Is she hurt?” Please god let her not be dead!
The constable shook his head. “She is neither—” The breath he had been holding whooshed out of Leo’s lungs in relief. “But if the woman who is currently claiming to be Lady Abigail Sloane is indeed your sister, then I have to inform you that she is currently under arrest.”
“What the…” Of all the awful things he had expected the constable to say, it certainly wasn’t that! “What the hell has she been arrested for?” Fresh panic swamped him, but he tried to beat it back. At least until he fixed whatever needed fixing.
“There has been some trouble in town with those radical agitators, your grace.” Nolley said that with more glee than was necessary. “And your sister was among them.”
“What sort of trouble?” Although after their heated words this morning, he had a nasty suspicion he knew what was coming.
“An illegal protest for that traitor Matthew Reynolds which turned violent.”
“Did it turn violent before or after the militia were sent in to quash it?” He feared he knew the answer to that question too.
“They needed to be cleared,” said the constable, unrepentant, “because that chanting rabble were amassed in direct contradiction to the Seditious Meetings Act of 1819, among various other statutes which were willfully broken by most of those in attendance. We’ve arrested forty-three of the blighters so far.
” A number which obviously delighted him.
“We’ve mustered as many of the magistrates as we can to hear all their charges as swiftly as possible and issue warrants for further arrests, but there are a lot of them to get through.
I came to summon you earlier to assist, but your mother informed me that she had no clue where you were.
But now that your sister is implicated, I realize that it wouldn’t be proper for you to serve on the bench tonight. ”
Bloody Abigail! Trust her to rebel against him by joining another illegal protest! “What charge is my sister held on?”
“On top of attending an unlawful meeting, she is charged with a breach of the peace, resisting arrest, and seditious and blasphemous libel.” Serious charges indeed.
“But if the woman we have in custody is actually your sister as she claims to be, then the other justices have agreed that as a mark of respect to you, they will let her off with a warning and release her to your care to deal with privately—what with you being a peer of the realm and a sitting magistrate and all.” Leniency that the constable’s expression screamed he did not approve of.
“Lady Abigail Sloane is my sister, Constable Nolley, as I am sure you already know seeing as you’ve met her on several occasions.”
“Still,” said the man, enjoying putting Leo in his place for a change.
“As you are so fond of telling me, we must follow the proper procedures and, for the sake of the official records, I will need you to formally identify her as such, in person, before we can release her, your grace. We have, as you have repeated often, a civic and moral responsibility to the citizens of Bath to do things properly, after all.”
It was galling to be quoted back by a man who would happily ride roughshod over the law at the slightest provocation—but they were Leo’s words so he could hardly argue with them. “Where is she?”
“The city jail on Grove Street with all the other rioters.”
Of all the things Portia had considered she might, one day, be arrested for, trying to save the rebellious sister of a duke wasn’t one of them.
Yet here she was, manacled at the wrists, bruised and battered and jammed into a cramped and airless, filthy cell with the stupid girl alongside twenty other prisoners who were all, rather worryingly, men.
At least half of those men were not ones she recognized from the protest, so that meant that she and Lady Abigail had been placed into this cell alongside a great many regular criminals. A couple of whom were sending them lecherous glances as they sat huddled together on the floor in the corner
“Why haven’t they released me yet?” The duke’s sister was becoming increasingly agitated and that, in turn, made the timbre of her voice higher pitched.
“Don’t they know that they have no right to keep me?
Don’t they know who my brother is? Are they not aware that Leo is a duke as well as a magistrate? ”