Chapter 6
“Should you not be with her?” Owen Hunt, the Duke of Shawton, asked gruffly, a deep frown competing with the scars upon his brow. “You did not need to keep this appointment if your wife is in such a condition. Go on, away with you.”
The sentiment surprised Henry, for Owen was not someone who showed concern too often.
In all the years that they had known one another, Henry could count on one hand the amount of times that his oldest friend had offered empathy.
That was not to say that he was an unfeeling sort of fellow; he just did not wear any emotions upon his sleeve, showing care in action rather than words or sentimentality.
“Clearly, he needs a moment away from her, to be among those who do recognize him,” Luke Jennings, the Duke of Foxhill, and Henry’s only other friend, chimed in with a grin.
Henry was grateful that both of his friends were in attendance at Rowley’s Gentlemen’s Club: a secret, out of the way sort of place, on the outskirts of London, where frank discussions could be held and not a word would leave those walls.
Indeed, the two of them, Owen and Luke, had a natural way of balancing each other out and, right now, Henry needed the cheerier perspective as well as the gloomier.
“Your situation is a disaster,” Owen said, as he summoned the waiter for more brandy. “There is no kindly way to say it.”
Luke put up a disagreeing finger. “Or it is a rare opportunity.”
“What do you mean?” Henry asked, intrigued.
“Well,” Luke replied with a shrug, “how many of us have often wished that we could do something all over again, and do it better this time? You can reintroduce yourself to your own wife! There are countless men in England who would give their pistol arm for such a blessing!”
Owen gave a snort of disapproval. “Until she remembers everything.”
“The physician said she might not,” Luke pointed out. “Now, I am not saying that anyone should be wishing that her memories remain lost, but I still think it is a golden opportunity. You can woo her, Henry. Have the courtship you never had before. Be whatever sort of husband you might like to be.”
Henry almost choked on his own mouthful of brandy, as he stared wide-eyed at his friend. “Why would I do that? We are already married. An agreeable union.”
“Agreeable?” Luke arched an eyebrow. “Come now, it is only agreeable because the two of you do not see one another. You live in the hunting lodge when you are at home and spend the majority of your time in London. Of course, your marriage is ‘agreeable.’”
“Seems ideal to me,” Owen muttered, as the waiter brought over a new bottle and left it in the center of the table.
Rolling his eyes, Luke pointed an accusatory finger at Henry.
“But you, Henry, have always liked her. That is the difference. This ‘leading separate lives’ business was part of the arrangement, so you have kept to it out of duty and diligence, but do not think I did not see the way you looked at her on your wedding day. Unlike your wife, I remember it keenly.”
Managing to swallow his drink, Henry refused to look his livelier friend in the eye. He had not thought anyone had noticed the way he had stared at Thalia on their wedding day, and Luke certainly had not brought it up in conversation before.
Was I so obvious? Henry could still picture the moment she had set foot in the church on that day. She had looked… perfect. Indeed, he had not lied to Thalia when she had asked if there had been something amiss on their wedding day. To him, she had looked entirely flawless, veiled and beautiful.
“Why, you are almost blushing,” Luke teased, sitting back in his chair with a rather smug expression upon his face.
“I have no notion of what you are talking about,” Henry retorted with a bite in his voice. “Was I not supposed to at least see what my bride looked like on our wedding day? That is all it was.”
Luke sighed and pretended to flutter his eyelashes, his hand clasped to his chest. “Ah, my good man, but it was the manner in which you gazed at her, as if you could not bear to look away. And who would, married to such a woman? She is as fine a lady as any I can think of.”
“You should remind her of that,” Owen said in grumbling agreement. “It is your duty, now, to remind her of her life before this accident.”
Henry puffed out a frustrated breath. “And that would be a far simpler task if I knew anything about her.” He shook his head.
“We have never lived together. I could not even tell you her favorite flower or what she does of an evening, other than she spends a great deal of time in the library and prefers to dine late.”
“That is something,” Owen offered. “Dine with her, read with her, spend time with her wherever she has an instinct to be, see if that does not help bring some memories back.”
Luke nodded. “Like I said, court her. Behave as if you have only just met. Discover who your wife is at the same time as her, and be better off than you were before.”
Concentrating upon his brandy, Henry shoved down the fleeting, foolish idea of such a thing.
He had made an arrangement with Thalia when they were first married that she would be free to live her life however she pleased, in a manor that would, essentially, be all her own.
There was no reason to try and change that now.
Indeed, if he suddenly altered his behavior toward her, it had every chance of worsening her condition, confusing any memories that might return.
He told his friends as much. “All I mean to concern myself with, now that she is awake and otherwise unharmed, is to figure out what happened to her.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Owen asked, tilting his head to one side. “To me, it is obvious what happened.”
“It is?” Henry countered.
“Evidently, she was coming to speak to you in your tower, when she slipped and fell,” Owen replied with a shrug. “I have seen those steps, Henry, they are treacherous at the best of times.”
Henry had given some of the details of how he had found Thalia at the bottom of those stairs, pale and lifeless, but he realized he had not yet spoken of the strangeness of it all.
How wrong the scene had seemed to him, not merely because his wife was unconscious on the ground, but because of where she was.
He took a breath, knowing he might sound ridiculous.
“In four years, my wife has never sought me out in my bedchamber when I have been in residence. If there was something she wished to ask me, a message would be delivered by one of her maids or the housekeeper.” He paused.
“It does not make a jot of sense that I discovered her there.”
“She could not have had a change of heart?” Luke suggested, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “Perhaps, she wished to alter your arrangement, and was thwarted by those awful steps.”
Henry shook his head more insistently. “I cannot explain it in a way that you will understand, but the circumstances feel suspicious to me. Thalia would not have come to my tower of her own volition; I am convinced of that.”
He poured more brandy into his glass and sat back, exasperated by his lack of ability to put into words what was nagging away at the back of his mind. Then, there was the prickle of foolishness that simmered beneath, wondering if he was making something out of nothing.
What if she was just coming to see me? What if she did just fall because of those dangerous steps?
Ever since boyhood, he had noted how treacherous they were.
His brother, James, had slipped on them many a time when they were younger, when that tower had been Henry’s private study, where he could, in theory, work without being disturbed.
“Say you are right,” Owen began, playing devil’s advocate. “Say that there is something… deliberate about this entire situation. Who would do such a thing in your household?”
Henry glanced around the room as if the culprit might emerge from the fog of tobacco smoke, before he leaned in and lowered his voice, “I fear her family’s involvement.
I cannot prove anything, nor do I have any thought of motives, but her father arrived much too quickly for my liking, and though word was sent to her brother, he has not appeared.
That is odd to me, when he is supposedly such a dutiful son and sibling. ”
He shrugged. “Anyway, I mean to get to the bottom of it, whether it be a simple accident or something more nefarious.” His gaze was stern as he looked to his two friends. “Word of my wife’s condition cannot leave this establishment. It cannot reach society’s knowledge.”
“Whyever not?” Luke asked, not in defiance but curiosity.
“I have… concerns that it may place her in greater danger,” Henry replied.
Owen nodded slowly. “If someone deliberately attacked her, they might have assumed she was dead; is that what you are saying?”
“In part, but a woman who cannot remember the last four years is also someone who can easily be manipulated,” Henry added, a shudder running down his spine.
“And as I have not paid much attention to who has come and gone from the manor, I, too, would not be able to verify who is legitimate and who is not in terms of… friends, acquaintances, and so on.”
Downing what was left in his glass, Owen cleared his throat. “You should take note of your staff. See who has recently been employed. Moreover, you should use them to verify any suspicious newcomers. There is very little that the staff of a household do not know.”
“You say that,” Henry sighed, “but not one has any notion of what happened on the night my wife fell. It is infuriating.”
Luke tilted his head to one side. “Or very carefully planned. If there is foul play here, someone clearly knew the routine and the whereabouts of your staff on that night.”
“Indeed…”
Henry had considered that in the days since the accident, while he had been anxiously waiting for his wife to wake up.
However, it only led to another dead end, for it would have taken a great deal of effort and ingenuity to get in and out of Holdridge Court without a single person noticing. In truth, it was impossible.
“Anyway, I have said enough,” Henry murmured. “Tell me of pleasanter things. Luke, surely you can oblige?”
His friend flashed him a sympathetic smile, and promptly leaped into a tale of a ball he had recently attended, in which he had been chased by a gaggle of mothers who were eager for him to dance with their daughters.
By midnight, the gentlemen’s club lay empty, and Henry was alone within its walls. His friends had gone a while ago, and though he knew he ought to return to Holdridge at once, there were things he needed to attend to here. But only after everyone else had gone.
Grabbing his greatcoat from the back of his chair, Henry made his way through to the bar, where just two of the staff remained to clean up: Vince and Toby Kildare, a father and son who had worked here for several years. The younger of the two, Toby, quickly made himself scarce at Henry’s approach.
“I didn’t expect to see you this week, Your Grace,” Vince said with a nod, as he wiped a glass with a cloth.
“You may not see me for some time,” Henry replied, glancing around at the empty establishment. “I have some business to attend to that may keep me occupied for some weeks. Send your reports to Holdridge Court. Send them with a trusted messenger.”
Vince dipped his head. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“And have the waiters listen closely,” Henry added, meeting Vince’s cautious stare with a stern one of his own. “Write anything unusual in the reports.”
“You want the boys to eavesdrop?”
Henry paused, then nodded. “As ever, discretion is of paramount importance.”
“Of course, Your Grace,” Vince replied.
“There will be a fair sum for information,” Henry added, by way of explanation.
“Any information in particular?” Vince pressed.
Henry shook his head. “As I said, just anything… unusual. Suspicious. I trust that you will not let me down.”
“I won’t,” Vince replied, and Henry knew the man meant it.
Inheriting a seedy gambling den from his father had been a rare shock to Henry, but he had transformed it into one of society’s best-kept secrets: a gentlemen’s club where gentlemen could feel entirely at ease, outside of the watchful eyes of London.
The place still felt like a distasteful thing to Henry, a stain upon his reputation, but that was only in his own opinion. After all, no one else knew it belonged to him, and that, he hoped, would be his advantage if there was anyone at all in society who knew what had happened to his wife.