Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
Audrey slept unexpectedly well after returning to Violet House from Grosvenor Square.
Her spinning mind should have kept her awake all night, but it seemed nothing could compete with exhaustion, not even the realization that a member of the Sanctuary had been eyeing her with blatant menace all throughout the dinner party.
The moment she’d lain down in bed, she’d been asleep.
She couldn’t even remember Greer taking her leave for the night.
Now, however, she sat on the sofa in her study at the back of the house, in her morning gown and robe, combing over the previous evening as she sipped her tea.
After she’d first noticed Sir Oliver Pendleton glaring at her, she’d been met with several more of his hostile looks: across the drawing room, down the long dining room table, and just before he’d taken his leave, which had been much earlier than other guests. He’d been in a rush to depart.
Genie had only been able to tell her that Sir Oliver was a knight, had been granted the title for his service in the Napoleonic Wars, was a partial owner of a few London newspapers, and that he sat in the House of Commons.
Audrey hadn’t drawn Genie’s attention to the cufflinks Sir Oliver wore; she hadn’t wanted to explain her interest in the inverted white cross emblem.
However, on the way back to Curzon Street, she’d had no choice but to explain her interest in Lord Stromburg.
Michael had, quite valiantly, resisted the urge to corner her before or after dinner and ask her what that nonsense with Prince Paul had been about.
“I will only tell you if you swear to secrecy,” she’d replied in the carriage, earning an exasperated sigh from him. He’d leaned back his head and closed his eyes.
“What have you gotten yourself into now?”
Audrey told them a variation of the truth, stepping carefully around anything that had to do with her vision while holding Harlan Givens’s flask. She’d explained that Mr. Givens wasn’t the only body to have been found at Vauxhall.
“It appears Lord Stromburg was also found there,” she said, then perhaps unnecessarily adding, “Deceased.”
Michael’s exasperation with her had severed. “I’ve heard nothing of this. It hasn’t been reported.”
“That is because Bow Street is handling the investigation quietly to avoid a public panic,” she replied. “Mr. Givens, Lord Stromburg, and a third victim, a…brothel madame, were all found at the pleasure gardens, and all had their left ears removed.”
Genie’s loud gasp of horror rivaled Michael’s exclamation of an obscenity.
“How are you involved in any of this?” Michael asked, but then shook his head and answered his own question. “Neatham.”
He said the name as if it abraded his throat. While the two men were civil toward one another, they were not exactly friends.
“He’s investigating another matter, a disappearance, and it’s beginning to look as if it could correlate to these killings.”
Mr. Comstock’s connection to the Seven Sins, and possibly Harlan Givens, was too loose for Audrey to be sure, but her mind kept coming back to it and sticking.
“I take it Sir Gabriel has asked Neatham to investigate,” Michael said.
“Discreetly,” Audrey replied.
“The man should know better than to involve a peer.”
“Hugh wants to help,” she argued. Her brother-in-law held rigid views on what peers should and should not do, and involving themselves in murder investigations was decidedly off limits.
“It doesn’t matter what he wants. What matters is his duty. He should leave the investigating to the officers at Bow Street. He is no longer a part of that world.”
Genie touched her husband’s arm. “It can’t be easy for him.”
“Perhaps his duty looks different than yours, Michael,” Audrey added, becoming frustrated with him.
Anything that did not conform with society norms did not meet with his approval.
Ever. It was one of the reasons why Philip had always felt apart from his brother.
Why he’d never considered telling Michael the truth about his feelings for men, rather than for women.
“What about his duty to you?” Michael volleyed back. The carriage slowed, and they’d turned onto the half-circle in front of Violet House. Audrey had been eager to flee inside.
“I am not blind. I know he plans to make an offer,” he added. “His interfering with criminal cases will affect you as well.”
“Please allow me to worry about that.” Or not worry about it. And she wasn’t.
What the rest of the ton thought of her did not matter in the least. Some ladies would take to their rooms and sob if they didn’t receive a voucher to Almack’s.
Invitations to balls or to tea were signals of acceptance, of importance.
Audrey had never cared for those things.
She’d never felt a passion for anything the way she did for picking apart a mystery with Hugh.
Right then, finding Bethany Silas and bringing her home safely and arresting the person responsible for Mr. Givens’s murder were the things she cared most about.
“You are still my family, Audrey,” Michael had said, some of the fire leeched from his tone. “I care for you like a sister. I would like to see you happy and settled and for once, free from murder investigations.”
They’d descended from the carriage, and she had kissed Michael’s cheek as soon as Travers had handed her out of the carriage.
Her brother-in-law did not mean to constrict her; he only wanted the best for her, and blustering about improprieties and safety was his method of choice.
She admired his loyalty to her, even now that Philip was gone.
“I am glad to have you mother-henning me.”
He’d scowled. “I am not a mother hen.”
“Fine, then, papa-henning.”
He’d not argued, and Genie had led him toward the front door with a knowing smirk.
They were likely still abed, as it was only ten in the morning.
Unlike most married couples, Genie had shared with Audrey once that Michael did not often use the bedchamber attached to her own.
He preferred his wife’s company. The notion that Michael’s rigid and severe character turned to soft pulp when it came to his wife and children always made Audrey grin—and forgive him after he’d squalled at her.
She sipped her tea while turning the page in the Times, her legs stretched out on the cushion.
There was nothing in the gossip column regarding her blunder the night before in all but asking the princess for a voucher to Almack’s, but it was still early.
A cartoon could still appear somewhere in a print shop window, or a pamphlet of All the Chatter could be published later in the day.
Greer bustled into the study.
“You’ve a message from Lord Neatham.” She extended a folded and sealed note. Audrey let the broadsheet fall open on her lap and handed her cup to Greer in exchange for the note. She’d been eager to hear how his visit to the Seven Sins turned out.
Quickly, she read that although he’d learned nothing about Comstock or Bethany, he had found Sir, and that it was possible Mr. Givens had been an informant to someone regarding a sensitive matter.
Hugh didn’t elaborate, and Audrey wondered if that sensitive matter had anything to do with the Sanctuary.
He signed off with a request to call on Violet House that afternoon.
Audrey folded the letter and bit her lower lip.
Greer freshened her tea and handed it back. “Is there anything amiss, Your Grace?”
“He’s found Sir,” Audrey reported, distracted.
“That’s a relief,” Greer said, but then cocked her head. “Isn’t it?”
Audrey snapped out of her reverie regarding Mr. Givens and the Sanctuary.
“Oh, yes, of course it is. I’m sorry, I’m just…
” Her tongue went heavy and useless as she stared at a bold headline on the newspaper page open on her lap.
She jerked forward and swung her feet to the carpet.
Tea splashed from the rim of the cup and sprinkled the newsprint.
“Your Grace?” Greer said with alarm.
“Call for my carriage.” Audrey’s heart began to thrash. “I need to dress, right away.”
She’d just found the elusive Mr. Travis Comstock.
Hugh climbed into Audrey’s carriage, latched the door, and pulled down the tasseled curtain in the window. He reached across to the other window and did the same, plunging the interior of the carriage into dimness.
“What are you—?”
Hugh sat beside her and with a forceful tug, lifted her from the bench and brought her onto his lap.
“Hugh!” His lips devoured her laughter as he kissed her. At the barest pressure of his mouth, she yielded, going soft in his arms. They wrapped around her, his hand bracing her back as he hinged her tightly against him.
“God, I’ve missed this,” he murmured against her skin as his feverish kisses lowered to her jaw, then her throat. Audrey sighed and reveled in the pleasure. Sunlight seeped around the corners of the curtains, allowing a shadowy view of Hugh’s face as she lifted his chin and kissed him.
“As have I,” she said.
“I saw Greer in the driver’s box with Carrigan and marveled at my luck.”
“I don’t think her sole objective was to give us time alone,” Audrey said.
Greer and Carrigan spent their days off together, she knew, and this was another opportunity for them to sit and be together.
“Intentional or not, I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” Using his teeth, Hugh tugged at the tips of one of his gloves, and then flung it to the floor. His bared fingers undid the first button of her spencer jacket. “This must go.”
She laughed again, even as he attempted to unbutton her spencer. “It cannot. We will be there within minutes.”
The advertisement in the newspaper for a parcel of land in Essex, being sold by Mr. Travis Comstock, Esq. for the amount of one hundred pounds, pointed to an address on Gower Street near the University of London. A ten-minute carriage drive, at the most.