Chapter 5 #2
Audrey had been shut up tight in her nursery rooms on the upper floors for her own protection, unable to see anyone for days.
Her nanny would sit with her, leaving only to fetch meal trays.
It had been unbearably hot and stuffy in those rooms, even with the windows open to the spring air, and Audrey had been sticky and irritable.
No one would let her see James. No one would even take a letter to him.
She’d written a whole page in her broad scrawl, telling him that once he was better, she would teach him a card game she’d grown rather good at.
She wasn’t sure how many days she stayed tucked in that nursery.
A whole week? Maybe more. All she knew for certain was that when her nanny finally took her by the hand and led her out, Audrey had emerged into a world where James and her father were dead.
Papa. Audrey hadn’t even known he’d fallen ill.
No one had told her. She’d been so furious that she’d yanked away from her nanny’s strangling embrace and run.
Out of the house, through the lawns, into the woods, and the fields beyond.
No one had chased her down, and it had felt like hours later when she saw the imposing roofs of Fournier House through a clump of trees.
Tired, hungry, and a little scared at how quickly dusk had fallen, she had strolled into her neighbor’s circular drive, where a few footmen spotted her.
The next thing Audrey knew, she was lying on a silk sofa in a cool sitting room, munching on lemon ice with the lady of the house fretting over her.
The former Duchess of Fournier had shed real tears when Audrey told her about James and her papa.
She’d then beckoned Philip, who’d been James’s age, and he’d played jacks with her while a carriage was prepared to bring her home to Haverfield.
She’d fallen a little bit in love with Philip that day; him and the duchess and the rest of Fournier House, that was.
Now, she was Duchess of Fournier. Philip was her husband, and he did love her, though just not in the way Audrey always imagined she’d be loved one day.
It was quite all right by her though. She loved Philip as a friend, the very best of friend.
Her eyes were watering when Millie entered the sitting room behind Barton, and she blinked to clear them.
“Thank you, Barton,” she said, standing to greet her sister.
It had been months since Millie had paid her a visit. They had seen one another at balls and dinners, but Millie didn’t often call on her, and Audrey, guiltily, avoided calling on her as well.
Millie took Audrey’s gloved hands, and Audrey held her breath, prepared for something like what had happened the night before with Mr. Marsden. But the moment passed without a bursting vision, and Audrey exhaled.
“Tell me the rumors are not true,” Millie said before she’d even settled herself on the edge of a slipper chair.
It had been more than twenty-four hours since Philip’s arrest. Plenty of time for gossip to have bled into every household in London, aristocratic or common.
A duke had been arrested for a grisly murder.
Now that she thought of it, Audrey couldn’t believe Violet House hadn’t been overrun with callers.
Or perhaps Barton had only allowed notice of Millie’s arrival because she was a blood relation.
It wouldn’t surprise her to know her butler had taken up the task of fending off nosey busybodies.
“Of course, it isn’t true,” Audrey replied. “Philip hasn’t killed anyone.”
Her sister’s rounded figure seemed to expand as she held her breath. “But he has been arrested? He is in prison?”
“Yes, but—”
“This is disastrous!” Millie shot up off the sofa and toward the hearth. “He is utterly ruined. How could he have allowed himself to be caught in such a compromising situation?”
Audrey frowned. “What have you heard, exactly?”
Millie briefly met her eyes, but she looked overwhelmed and embarrassed. “Nothing a lady should have heard.”
Audrey suppressed a sigh. Her sister had always been a bit of a prude. Not to mention self-centered. She wanted to scream at her for thinking first of Philip’s reputation, and nothing of his innocence.
“You heard she was an opera singer,” Audrey guessed.
Millie made a hissing sound and stalked back toward the sofa. “Actresses…they’re all immoral light skirts.”
The pain on Mr. Bernadetto’s expression, and the fury on Porter’s the night before came at Audrey. “She’s dead, Millie. Loose morals or no, she was murdered.”
Millie pressed her lips thin, looking so much like their mother, Audrey shivered. “And your dear duke stands accused.”
Millie had never cared for Philip, though Audrey suspected it wasn’t anything to do with him personally so much as it was the fact that he was a duke, and that he’d asked for Audrey’s hand instead of Millie’s.
A dozen years after seventeen-year-old Millie exchanged vows with Viscount Redding, a doughy-chinned middle-aged man, her sister had become a widow, left with four children and a substantial fortune.
By then, Philip, the new Duke of Fournier, had been on the market, and Millie had wanted him, four-year age gap be damned.
Audrey clasped her hands in her lap. “You know him. You know he would never do such a thing.”
Millie shrugged and sat again on the slipper chair. “What do we really know of our husbands? Don’t be na?ve, darling. They lead secret lives, and we must pretend we’re ignorant of them.”
“Perhaps that’s how it was with Lord Redding, but things are different between me and Philip.”
Millie shook her head and laughed. “Dear Audrey, I forget how newly wed you are. But come, we must prepare for what happens next.” She sat taller, her figure, made full and voluptuous from children, appeared too constricted within the confines of her day dress and spencer.
“Decamping to Fournier Downs is the only option for you while the courts sort everything out. Now I know mother will be mortified, but I do believe, with time, she will come from Haverfield to call on you—”
“Fournier Downs? Millie, I’m not decamping to Hertfordshire.”
Her sister gaped. “You cannot possibly think to stay in London.”
“Of course, I’m staying.” She bit her tongue before she could say anything more. Telling Millie that she’d decided to launch her own investigation, counter to Bow Street’s, would result in one of her sister’s histrionic fits. She’d never be rid of her then.
“Absurd! Staying on in London while your husband stands trial for the murder of his mistress—”
“He did not murder anyone!”
“—is scandalous. Withdraw to the country. Preserve your dignity while you still maintain a shred of it.”
Audrey knew then that it didn’t matter to Millie whether Philip did or did not kill his mistress, just like it wouldn’t matter to anyone else in the ton.
The arrest alone was scandal enough to ruin him forever, and her by proxy.
It turned her stomach into knots, and a cold sweat crackled over her chest. How had things gone so very wrong so quickly?
“Running away will only make me look ashamed of Philip, and I’m not. So no, I will not go to Fournier Downs.”
Audrey stood, the muscles in her legs sore from how tensely she’d been sitting since Millie arrived. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have some business to attend to.”
Her sister’s mouth dropped open. “Business? Ladies do not attend to business.”
Always so proper, Audrey thought as she moved toward the sitting room door. And as shallow as a rain puddle.
“As the head of this household for the time being, I’m afraid I must.”
“Surely, Lord Harrick could help you in those matters,” Millie said, slowly rising and following her sister to the door.
Surely, Michael would, though honestly, the only business Audrey needed to attend to right then was seeing her older sister out of her sitting room before she screeched loud enough for all of Curzon Street to hear.
“Thank you for your advice,” Audrey said, as sweetly as was manageable. “I’ll take it into consideration.”
Millie pressed her lips thinly; it was their mother’s favored expression and it settled into the grooves of Millie’s face with startling ease. Audrey glanced away, not wanting to see their mother if she didn’t have to.
“I’ll call again in a few days. I hope by then you are ready to be more reasonable,” Millie said as she swept out of the sitting room.
Audrey dropped the prim hold of her posture. Retreat to the country. It was what everyone would expect her to do, not just Millie. And perhaps she would…if she had any doubts at all about Philip’s innocence.
A soft knock landed upon the door frame, and Barton appeared.
“Thank you for not offering to bring tea,” she said. He’d known she wouldn’t wish Millie to stay very long.
Barton bowed, his coal black hair neatly trimmed and parted. Like most butlers, his manners were impeccable, along with his presentation. He ran a duke’s household and took pride in the task.
“May I be of any more service, Your Grace?”
Audrey hesitated. Seeing Millie had dredged up the past. It had been so long since she’d thought of the day James and her papa had died, and how she’d once laid in the sitting room at Fournier Downs with a longing to never leave. It reminded her of how long Philip had been her friend.
And now, he was sitting in a guarded room at the Brown Bear tavern, alone. Perhaps enough time had passed and he would be ready to speak to her. If not…well, she would simply take his hands and try to see for herself what haunted him so deeply. She would help him, whether he wanted it or not.
She looked to Barton and gave a decisive nod. “Have my carriage readied.”