Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
Sunday Evening
Lady Derby had not canceled her scheduled musicale, and Audrey was nearly certain that was to the utmost relief of all those who’d been planning to attend.
If anyone assumed a woman’s murder the evening before would dampen the ton’s incessant need to mingle and keep up appearances, they would have been wide of the mark.
If anything, the spectacle of Eloisa’s death had spurred on a frantic need to socialize.
Even Audrey, with last year’s scandal still clinging like bramble weed, had been called on several times that afternoon.
The news that she and the duke had been among the first few people to find the body had made its way around town.
After her return from Lady Reed’s home, she’d hardly had enough time to dash off a letter to Lord Thornton to ask him about the Lyceum lecture she had missed featuring the married chemists, the Marcets, before their butler, Barton, had started fielding an influx of visitors.
With each one, Audrey expected to hear some comment on her behavior at Lady Reed’s, but no one mentioned a thing.
Perhaps it was too soon for the marchioness to have blabbed to her acquaintances about the duchess’s revolting accusations.
Or perhaps the woman would not breathe a word of it to anyone.
That she had lied to Officer Tyne was true, and she wouldn’t want to risk that coming out.
By dinner, Audrey’s temples ached from the endless stream of visitors and their invariable questions about the murder.
Those who had been on the snowy veranda with Audrey, Philip, and Cassie had all heard the scream too, but none of them had re-entered the ballroom.
What had driven her to do so, they all wondered, some of them lauding her as heroic, and others as rash and unthinking.
And isn’t it just so odd, many came around to saying, that it would be the Bow Street officer whom Audrey and the duke had so recently made an acquaintance with who stands accused?
It had been a trial to form polite replies, however she soon realized her responses were not truly being sought.
What these callers wished to do was simply convey their suspicions and of course, take part of the commotion gripping the whole town.
It was equally horrific and diverting, and by the time Audrey had dressed for dinner, her stomach roiled with distaste.
The only bright moment of the afternoon had been the arrival of a reply from Lord Thornton, in which he’d confirmed that he’d attended the Marcets’ lecture.
He also mentioned a curiously similar incident at the lecture; a smoke explosion experiment that had required a clearing of the lecture hall.
He planned to inquire with Alexander and Jane Marcet themselves in their London home, and that he would see what he could discover about the smoke deployed at Lord and Lady Reed’s soiree.
After sending a brief note of thanks, she went down to dinner, her head filled with ideas about potential connections to the smoke experiment at the lecture. Had it been the same kind of device used at the soiree?
She entered the dining room to find Philip, alone.
“Cassie has gone to Michael and Genie’s for the night. Possibly for longer,” he said by way of greeting.
Audrey stopped on her way to her seat and stared at him, dumbfounded.
Cassie had deigned to sit in with a few of the day’s callers, but eventually retreated to her room.
She’d appeared pale and morose, and understandably so.
But she had said nothing, nor sent word to Audrey that she was leaving Violet House.
“We will try to keep this hushed,” he went on without meeting her eyes, preoccupied with placing his napkin in his lap. “I cannot fathom an excuse for her leaving that would not inflame the gossips right now. But she was adamant. I couldn’t convince her to stay.”
“Is she cross with us?” Audrey asked as she sat across from him at the table. To leave the home of her hosts was surely a snub.
“No,” he said, finally looking up at her. He sighed. “She cannot stand the attention, that is all. This house will be overrun, as you can imagine. She is nervous. Lady Dutton’s questions last night affected her.”
It was small relief hearing the reason for her leaving, but it didn’t settle Audrey. Far from it. Cassie couldn’t escape whispers or questions just by switching roofs. Only time would quiet those wagging tongues.
“How was your outing this morning?” he asked quietly. With a pair of footmen standing in the corners of the dining room, nothing could be said specifically. She did not understand why he’d even bothered to ask.
“Brief,” Audrey replied. Then, “I saw Colonel Trenton there.”
Philip frowned into his glass of wine. “He must be in town for the military review. You remember we are attending on Wednesday with Michael and Genie?”
As Audrey spread her napkin over her lap, she groaned audibly at the reminder of their upcoming outing to the military review in Hyde Park.
“I know you don’t enjoy them,” Philip said in an attempt to stave off her usual complaint.
“But Michael looks forward to them, yes,” she sighed.
Philip’s brother, having been commissioned into the Royal Army during the war in France, adored the reviews.
Though he was no longer commissioned, they allowed him to reminisce, and the last few they had all attended together, he’d been a fount of commentary during the drills and reenactments.
“The toll they take on the park landscape is absurd,” Philip said with a snort of derision. “The troops and their horses leave it a terrific mess.”
Leave it to Philip to consider the affect the reviews had on the flora and fauna of a place.
She grinned and sipped her wine. This was the first she had seen her husband since that morning, and though she was a little envious that he had not had to endure the social calls as she had, she also couldn’t be overly vexed about it.
Or about anything else, for that matter.
Meeting with Sir and hearing his brief message outside Lady Reed’s home had left her tingling with anticipation all day. It had been the only thing pulling her through the long afternoon.
Their soup arrived, and she and Philip ate in relative quiet for a short while.
Audrey’s thoughts were anything but quiet, though.
Sir’s instruction to keep her bedroom window open led her to think that someone might attempt to enter through it.
Would it be Sir with some message from Hugh?
Or Hugh himself? Ten o’clock wasn’t terribly late.
In fact, it might be too early. She would have to dismiss Greer sooner than usual and ask not to be disturbed.
The undercurrent of eagerness couldn’t be denied. Her skin practically itched with it.
“I met with an old friend today.”
Audrey’s ears had grown accustomed to the silence of the room while she’d picked at her venison pie, too nervous to eat. Philip’s voice sounded like the crack of a gunshot. She looked up at him.
“An old friend?” she echoed.
He placed his utensils down and sat back, as if finished with his pie as well. He cleared his throat. “Yes, someone I had not thought to see again.” The timbre of his voice was much softer than usual. Apprehensive, almost.
While waiting for him to name the person he’d been reunited with, the footmen stepped forward to clear their plates.
With much practiced precision, the door to the room opened and another footman emerged with bowls of trifle.
Guiltily, Audrey knew that she would not be able to take more than a single bite.
Mrs. Comstock had worked all day to provide this meal, and would be receiving it back, as if it was not appreciated.
“Can you please have mine sent to my room?” she asked of the footman before he could place it before her. He whisked it away, and Audrey thought to give it to Sir, should the boy be the one to arrive.
“Are you not well?” Philip asked.
“Just a bit tired,” she said lamely. The tedious excuse would have to do. Confessing she might be receiving a caller that night via her bedroom window was out of the question. Especially if it was a man wanted by the authorities.
“This friend,” she said to redirect the conversation, “who is it?”
Philip was not one to shrink away from a question; his mind worked in such a way that he didn’t require time to ponder or consider a reply carefully.
His ability to converse, to cut with dry wit, or impress with an intelligent response were among his greatest attributes.
And yet, he now hesitated. It was as if he’d changed his mind and didn’t wish to speak of this friend that he himself had just brought up.
“A Cambridge mate,” he said after a moment, then pushed back his chair to stand, adding, “who I have agreed to meet tonight at Brooks’s. I may be very late.”
With a quick glimpse at the mantelpiece clock, she tried not to show her delight. What luck! Very late likely meant early morning, especially if he hadn’t seen this friend in some time.
“Is Carrigan driving you?” she asked.
“Unless you are attending the musicale?” Philip pinned her with a knowing look. One of his other great attributes was having a keen memory and caring enough to keep track of her planned schedule. Evidently, he also presumed that she’d sent her regrets earlier in the day, which she had.
“I am curling up in bed after a long bath,” she said, and it wasn’t a complete lie.
He departed, and Audrey swiftly made her way to her room. There were still two hours yet until the arranged time, so she did indeed bathe and have Greer towel and dry her hair.
“Just a braid tonight,” she told her maid, not wishing for Sir or Hugh, depending on who arrived, to see her in curling papers.
Greer plaited Audrey’s thick blonde hair and draped it over her shoulder. Then, at Audrey’s urging, she took her leave for the night.
She paced as the designated hour grew close.
The trifle had been sent to her room, as requested, but just looking at it on the table near her chaise made her stomach turn.
Though it was freezing outside and still windy, she opened the sash a few inches and peered into the darkened lawn below.
Only her reflection in the glass showed.
Where was he? The police had been hunting him all day. He couldn’t have gone back to Bedford Street or to Bow Street, though perhaps he’d been hiding at Lord Thornton’s home on St. James’s Square after all. Otherwise, he might have been out in this wretched weather.
Twisting her fingers together, she traveled the carpet’s circumference several times, eyes jumping to the window on every turn.
The room was cold after a quarter hour, the fire in the grate not enough to battle the March air gusting inside.
When her fingers started to prickle from the chill, she gave in and went to her boudoir, where her robe hung.
With a start, she realized she’d been so preoccupied that she’d been pacing in nothing but her nightdress and stockings.
Quickly, she draped herself in a sapphire blue, embroidered India silk robe and tied the belt with a sigh of relief.
Audrey left the boudoir—and a pair of arms grabbed her from behind. Before she could shout, a coarse hand clamped down over her mouth. She was tugged back, against a solid chest and stomach. A muscled arm trapped her in place as she struggled.
“Easy, duchess,” a voice whispered into her ear. “It’s only me.”