Chapter 8
Chapter
Eight
Saturday Evening
Far from the center of London, Kensington Square had always given Hugh the impression of a sleepy, countryside corner.
A few miles west from here, past Kensington Palace, Hyde Park, and Mayfair, lay Covent Garden and Bow Street, where he had spent the last years burying the many memories that he’d formed here, around the garden square enclosed by fashionable homes.
Neatham House looked no different than it had when Hugh had been living there. But he couldn’t fool himself into believing the soul of the place hadn’t mutated into something disappointing and foreign. And not just because Barty had taken the helm here after their father’s death.
One lie often led to a second, and then a third, and now Hugh questioned where the lies would end in regard to April Barlow.
If Eloisa knew about the woman, so might Barty.
It seemed out of character for him to have visited the Field Street school himself, but if Barty wanted to ensure total privacy, he could not have sent a man to relay his message.
Hugh climbed the three whitewashed steps to Neatham House’s front entrance and with a knot in his stomach, brought the pineapple-shaped brass knocker down thrice.
The pineapple was the symbol of hospitality, and so it adorned many of the more gracious homes in town.
He scoffed at it here, however, knowing the viscount’s hospitality would not extend to his exiled half-brother.
The door opened, revealing a footman Hugh did not recognize.
“Officer Hugh Marsden of Bow Street to see his lordship.”
The servant gave him a once over before advising him to stay put.
He then closed the door in his face. The name of his employer’s past enemy must have been made known to all and sundry at Neatham House.
Hugh darkened the doorstep for a full ten minutes—just long enough for him to think the footman did not plan to return—before the door opened again.
“His lordship will see you in his study.”
Hugh doffed his hat as he entered the entrance lobby. The décor had changed some, though the oil portrait of their father, Fitzgerald Humphrey Neatham, still hung on the same wall at the staircase landing.
“This way,” the footman said, starting up the stairs.
Hugh knew where the study was—he’d spent endless hours in it with the late viscount—but followed the servant for propriety’s sake. He hadn’t come here to cause trouble or a scene. This was an investigation. He had questions, and Barty likely had answers.
When the footman showed Hugh into the study, he took a deep breath, expecting the pleasant scents of pipe tobacco and cedar wood.
But of course, those scents were not present.
They were mere memories, attached to his long dead father.
Instead, he found a slightly older and heavier version of Bartholomew than he’d been six years ago.
He stood next to his desk, waiting for Hugh to enter.
Though only four months older than Hugh, he had the soft paunch and chin that so many lords developed, along with thinning hair.
Their father’s hair had been full and thick to the end; Barty had always favored his mother’s looks.
“You are not welcome here, Marsden,” was the greeting he received.
The footman closed the door behind him, and Hugh stepped forward, toward the same cherrywood desk that had been their father’s.
“Then I will make my visit as brief as possible.” He remained standing, his eyes taking in his brother’s face. Still the same old Barty, wearing the expression of a man who’d just cracked open a rotten soft-boiled egg.
“Do that,” Barty said. “Lila will be displeased if she gets wind that you are here.”
The viscountess might have cared for Hugh even less than Barty did. Instead of dying in the duel, as planned, he’d had the audacity to shoot her husband and cripple him.
“You paid a call on Field Street Finishing School earlier this week, did you not?” Hugh asked.
Barty walked around his desk, his face screwed up into a scowl. “No, I did not. Why the devil would I call on a finishing school?”
“To speak to Miss April Barlow,” Hugh answered.
“I don’t know anyone by that name.”
Hugh’s theory quickly began to dissipate. He knew Barty’s expression when he was lying; he adopted a blasé arched brow and shrugged more than was necessary. But now, as he continued to sneer at Hugh, he only appeared aggravated.
“Nearly six years without seeing you and the first thing you do is ask me insipid questions. My God, Bow Street truly was desperate to take you on.” Barty snorted mean laughter and plopped into the chair behind his desk. He laced his fingers over his stomach and stared at Hugh. “Well? Is that all?”
The mysterious lord the pupil at Field Street had heard in April’s office the other night had not been Barty, then. As simple as the theory would have made things had it panned out, Hugh had to admit it had been too convenient. Too easy.
“No,” he went on, letting the viscount’s insult slide past. “Are you aware Eloisa is in town?”
The expression of arrogant disdain slipped. It seemed he still could not discipline himself against revealing his thoughts and feelings so openly. He was anything but shrewd, and without having to even speak, he gave his answer: Barty had not been wise to Eloisa’s presence in London.
“What is the little fool doing here?” he asked.
“Not in your interest for her to visit, is it?” Hugh replied, his blood beginning to simmer as he looked at Barty, ensconced in their father’s old, quilted leather chair. “Eloisa has come, and you are worried she will be seen. Why is that I wonder?”
The viscount did not know the name April Barlow, but he did have something to fear when it came to his sister.
It could have just been damage to his reputation by proxy; Eloisa’s presence, if made known, would drag up old demons and fodder for the gossips.
But Barty’s sharpened eyes, sealed lips, and the panicked flare of his nostrils hinted toward something more considerable.
“There was a baby,” Hugh said, speculating, his stomach cramping in protest. “You don’t want anyone learning of it.”
The panic on his half-brother’s face subsided, to be replaced by a suddenly cautious expression.
“Of course, I don’t want anyone learning of it,” Barty replied waspishly. “Five, fifteen, fifty—it doesn’t matter how many years pass, the truth will always be a cancer on this family.”
“You are wrong. The cancer is not the truth. It is the hushed-up secret you sold your soul to protect.” Hugh clenched his jaw, knowing his patience was thinning and that it could prove disastrous.
“I did what needed to be done to protect my family.”
That he did not consider Hugh family was no new stab of insult; he’d never felt a brotherly connection to Barty, nor to Thomas. Eloisa had always been aloof, urged by the late viscountess to keep her distance from the unfortunate family ward.
“You were merely protecting yourself,” Hugh scoffed. “But continue to fool yourself if it helps you sleep at night.”
Barty stood from his chair. Taller and broader in the shoulder, perhaps he wanted to intimidate Hugh into backing down.
But by standing, all he succeeded at was showcasing the arm that had been shattered in the duel.
The left arm seemed to have withered; the muscles, useless as they were, unable to develop as the right had over the last several years.
The left simply hung there, no better than a dead appendage.
“You have never respected your place in this household, Marsden. You always thought you were something more, something better.”
“I think the problem, brother, is that you think I am. For whatever reason, despite your title and birth right, you feel inferior.”
“Inferior? To you?” Barty barked laughter, but the false note of it made Hugh’s back teeth ache. “You are delusional, Marsden.”
There was no reasoning with Barty. He’d concocted a rivalry between them that apparently still consumed him. It didn’t matter. Hugh had not come here to comb over the past.
“April Barlow. Headmistress at Field Street Finishing School for Young Ladies. Do you or do you not know her?” He’d raised his voice, attempting to get back to the point of his visit.
“I have already answered your question and it has not changed. What does she have to do with Eloisa?”
Informing Barty on anything more could jeopardize the tempting possibility of April Barlow somehow bringing ruination down upon his lofty head. Not answering his question would also leave him frustratingly peeved. Hugh grinned and turned toward the door.
“Good day, my lord. Forgive my insipid questions.”
“Is this about the baby?” Barty rushed to ask. “Because it died, as it should have.”
The cruel sentiment stopped Hugh in his tracks. It seemed to suck the very air out of the room. He slowly turned back toward Barty, who gave an insouciant sniff. “Better still if Eloisa had gone with it, but she always did wiggle out of a hard spot, didn’t she?”
The whistling sound of wind, funneling down a narrow passageway filled Hugh’s ears and head, and the next thing he knew, his control snapped.
He shoved a chair aside and leaped across the desk, scattering papers and an ink pot.
He and Barty went down in a tangle of thrashing arms and legs, with Hugh’s knuckles connecting decisively with the viscount’s smug face.
Barty’s howling drew company, and within seconds, a pair of footmen were tearing at Hugh’s arms and pulling him off the viscount.
“Get that ingrate out of my house!” Barty screamed. “Call for the police! I will not be treated thus!”
“You!” The viscountess’s shriek reached Hugh’s ears. She filled the doorframe as the footmen dragged Hugh toward it. “How dare you enter this home and attack my husband? You will pay for this!”
Lila Neatham glared at Hugh with the same loathing she’d shown him years ago. He paid her no attention as he wrenched his arms from the footmen’s iron-like grips.
“I will go, and with pleasure,” he told them, not sparing his half-brother or the viscountess another glance or word.
He took the stairs to the entrance lobby, and then stalked out the front door.
He was on the pavements when he felt the throb of his lip; he tasted blood. Barty had gotten in a punch then.
Passersby on Kensington Square slid from Hugh’s path, alarmed by the bloodied man in a fit of temper.
Regret swirled in his gut. His anger had started stewing before even entering Neatham House, and the comment about Eloisa being better off dying alongside her child had been his breaking point.
His vile brother had claimed the high ground.
Hell, Hugh had practically handed it to him.
To make things worse, he was leaving no wiser about April Barlow.
Hugh flagged a passing hackney driver. He was finished. If Eloisa wanted to find Miss Barlow, then she was welcome to it. But he was done hunting the woman down. In less than a few days, he’d upended nearly six years’ worth of progress in burying the warped muddle of his past.
The hired cab pulled to the curb, but then Hugh waved the driver on, changing his mind. He needed to move, and a mile down the Knightsbridge turnpike should do it. There would be a tavern along the way to stop in and drown his frustration. There was no one waiting on him at home anyhow.
“Bloody terrific,” he grumbled, and kept walking.