The warden furiously turned his head towards Andy wondering why the latter had stopped his hand when they were clearly standing on the same side.
Andy leaned in closer to his ear and whispered, "Don't do anything stupid. He is a prince of the royal family even if only in name. As long as he died in this prison, none of us will be able to take responsibility for it. All of us would be as good as dead. Even if he did kill one of your jailers, he has that right. You can't judge him and the law can't hold him accountable for it. Calm down and don't implicate us with your stupidity."
The warden visibly calmed down after listening to Andy's words but the anger in his eyes didn't wane. Luke didn't back down either and glared back at him provocatively.
"Just because we can't hold you accountable, does not mean there isn't anyone who can. I will make sure that you get the punishment you deserve."
The warden didn't wait to listen to whatever clever retort Luke was preparing in his mind and stomped out of the prison with forceful steps that revealed his anger and the fury searing his insides.
…
Clara and Violet came back home after Luke left on his own to see Marico in the police station. Since Luke had been riding his warhorse, he didn't let the two girls tag along. Firstly, he was concerned that the girls would tire themselves out emotionally if they kept running around in their current state. Secondly, Luke didn't want them to see the condition their father might be in while incarcerated in the prison cell.
Clara was pacing around anxiously inside the living room of the Windsor family mansion waiting for further news on her father from Luke. At the same time she had sent several servants to look for her guard but there was not a single trace of him anywhere.
Previously whenever there was a need, Grace was always there and would usually take charge of the situation considering that Clara with her impulsive personality wasn't suitable for it. But now that she needed him the most Clara couldn't find him anywhere. This perturbed her already disturbed mind.
When she was at the end of her sanity, Clara could only think of one shoulder to lean on. Previously she had been hesitating to call him for help because she didn't want to trouble him any more than her family already had. They already owed him far too much and didn't want to drag him into their troubles.
At her wit's end, she called on a few servants to the living room as she paced around like a robot following and repeating a fixed path.
"Go find my fiancée and tell him about our family's troubles. Tell him how my father got arrested and how the three other families are targeting our family. Tell him that I need him. Tell him that I am waiting for his help."
While Clara was busy thinking of different ways to acquire help, Violet was busy with her own set of troubles. She was sitting on the head chair of the dining table as the gears in her head turned rapidly while the events of her way back replayed in her mind like a perfect recollection.
On their way back, Violet had heard several people gossiping about them. The people tried to act as if they were talking about something else but Violet wasn't a fool. She had spent several years getting used to such hidden voices during her father's illness. As such, her sharp ears had already picked up on the conversation that the people were having behind her back.
There were several rumors circulating amongst the masses regarding the toxicity of sugar being supplied by the Windsor family. Many people were talking about how the sweet cane sugar had in fact caused poisoning in many individuals around the city and was actually harmful for human consumption. Some even discussed how heartless the Windsor family was for supplying such a harmful product in huge quantities among the masses. One of them even wondered if the price of the sugar was deliberately set so low because the Windsor family already knew of the side effects and wanted to make as much money as possible before they were found out. Otherwise, no other family would have agreed to sell such a product as a common commodity instead of a luxury product as it should have been.
Violet had no arguments against their allegations because whosoever was behind the rumors had dished out elaborate schemes against the Windsor family and made perfect sense to those who didn't know the reality of the product.
The timing of these rumors was quite in synch with the arrest of her father. Therefore she was sure that it was another ploy of the Hunter family to undermine the booming business of the Windsor family.
Violet had already gotten the gist of the plan that the Hunter family had concocted but there was one thing that she had yet to figure out. She was currently deliberating on how the Hunter family had poisoned the sugar in their stores or production stream to cause so many cases of poisoning among the masses.
Violet put in some thought and finally concluded that there were only two possible methods that the Hunter family might have used. Firstly, they might have poisoned the sugar owned by a few specific individuals among the masses because poisoning the sugar at the source just wasn't possible. There was always a strict quality check and a scrutiny of the production mechanism by the various assigned managers and Violet herself. Therefore, the only possibility that she could come up with was to poison the product of the end user. The second possibility that she had thought of was even more horrifying. The Hunter family might have bought a few people who deliberately ingested mild poison to accuse the Windsor family.
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