Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
Michael would arrive any moment, she was certain of it, and then the pair of them would descend upon Bow Street together. She shivered beneath her cloak.
This was not happening.
This could not be happening.
A clattering of wheels and tack announced another carriage’s arrival, and her driver leaped down from the box, shaking the chassis.
The fringe of beaded tassels clinked against the window’s glass as Carrigan pulled open the door and extended his gloved hand.
Audrey’s heart squeezed, almost painfully, and her knees went a bit soft as she came down onto the pavements.
Michael descended from his carriage and immediately saw her.
“You should not be here,” he said, his deep voice as gruff as usual. Tonight, however, it held an additional snap. “This is no place for you, Audrey.”
His comment was not unexpected. She’d spent the entire ride from Curzon Street preparing for it.
“He is my husband,” she said. “I refuse to sit at home and wait.”
Patience and grace were virtues that duchesses of the realm were supposed to exude. However, when one’s husband had just been arrested for murder, one didn’t cling to such stiff-necked rules.
Her brother-in-law knew her well enough to forgo arguing, and simply made a growl of discontent before ascending the front steps, his great coat flapping behind him like the dark wings of an avenging angel.
The second son of a duke, Michael was a titled noble, and Audrey prayed the magistrate would kneel to his power.
If anyone could exonerate her husband and secure his release from this wretched place, it was him.
He was a persuasive man, and Audrey had every faith he would sway the fools who had arrested Philip in the first place.
Then again, Michael had not been successful in persuading Audrey to remain at Violet House.
Well past midnight, she’d been awoken by the sounds of a commotion just outside her bedchamber.
She’d opened the door, revealing their butler, Barton, and her sleepy maid, Greer, both wearing dressing robes and expressions of alarm.
A message had arrived. “From Bow Street,” Barton added in a whisper.
As Audrey took the sealed note, she could only think of Philip, and how he had not been at home when she had turned in for the evening.
The moments after reading the brief message were now mere pulses of memory, overwhelmed quickly by her orders for Barton to ready a carriage, to send a footman to Lord Herrick’s on Grosvenor Square, and for Greer to help her dress.
This had to be a terrible misunderstanding. Surely, she would leave Bow Street with Philip at her side.
Michael, or Lord Herrick to those not welcome to address him so informally, signaled the first man he and Audrey spotted within the narrow house’s foyer.
Though first a residence, number 4 was now a place of efficient business.
Audrey spied a sitting room and a large desk directly before the front windows, its top piled with stacks of papers, bound texts, and news sheets.
Guttering lamps lined the walls along with street maps of London, each a spidery network of ink veining out from a tight center cluster.
Despite being quarter to two in the morning, there was a hum of activity in the room.
Audrey avoided looking directly at any of the men and women who were milling about the place, some sitting forlornly upon a bench, one rubbing a bloodied eye and crying, and another arguing loudly with a foot patrolman.
The air smelled of burning oil, tallow, sweat, and unwashed clothes.
Michael’s stern voice brought her attention back to an officer approaching them.
He had the clean, starched look of a man of some import, and the stern eyes of a man who was greatly vexed.
“Your business, my lord?” the man requested.
“We demand to see His Grace, the Duke of Fournier. I am Lord Herrick, His Grace’s brother, and this is Her Grace, the Duchess of Fournier. Take us to him at once.” Michael’s tone brooked no argument.
But argue the official did. He pursed his lips and flared his nostrils. “His Grace is awaiting legal counsel in gaol.”
The sarcastic emphasis placed on Grace landed like a slap to the cheek. How dare this man disrespect Philip? Audrey narrowed her eyes.
“Our solicitor, Mr. Potridge, is en route,” she said, forcing the man to take notice of her. “Lord Herrick is His Grace’s counsel at this time.”
She’d tasked Barton with sending a second footman to the family’s longtime solicitor before she’d set out from Violet House, where she and Philip had lived since their wedding nearly three years ago.
The neoclassical monstrosity had been built by the fourth Duke of Fournier, Philip’s grandfather, and it was their London residence, whether Audrey liked it or not. And she roundly did not.
She’d simply never found an appreciation for the cold and austere lines of Violet House.
The name, so soft and dainty, suited it as well as a dowager wearing pink.
The home had been christened ‘Violet’ after the fourth Duchess of Fournier, though Audrey had always thought the then duke should have considered the duchess’s middle name, Griselda, and named it accordingly.
“This way then,” the Bow Street official said, his bitter dislike apparent.
Michael waited until Audrey had stepped forward to follow, and then fell into step behind her. She barely kept pace with the disgruntled official, her Indian silk cape heavy around her shoulders, and her legs still clumsy and wooden from shock.
Murder. Bow Street had placed her husband under arrest for murder. She still hadn’t a clue who they believed Philip had killed. It was absurd. He would never kill anyone. Never.
When the officer opened the front door to number 4 and took the steps into the street, she faltered. Surely the man was being facetious, tricking his unwanted visitors into leaving. Curious and skeptical, she followed, but when he reached the doors of a tavern across the street, she balked.
“Exactly where are you taking us, sir?”
Lamps had been extinguished inside, leaving the windows dark. The officer flipped through a brass ring of keys.
“We hold prisoners in the cellar of the Brown Bear, Your Grace.” He grumbled his reply, the keys on the brass ring clanging together. As his pale white fingers touched each one in search, Audrey shivered.
She could only imagine what those keys would whisper to her should she have the chance to hold them.
She made a fist underneath the rippled silk of her cloak, her kid gloves creaking in the damp and chilly April night air.
She would touch nothing. It was awful enough having to be here in the first place—she certainly didn’t want to subject herself to any visions of past arrests, or whatever unpleasantries those keys, and her curious ability, would surely show her.
Michael drew to a stop beside her as the officer unlocked the tavern door. It swung wide, and the stale odor of cigar smoke, ale, and grease made its way up her nose. Audrey started forward, only to be barred entrance by the officer’s outstretched arm.
“The holding cells aren’t no place for a lady,” the officer said. Audrey bristled.
“I shall decide that for myself.” She moved around his outstretched arm and entered the tavern.
It was shadowy and quiet, with only one lantern in the back for light. The officer closed and locked the door behind Michael, and then led them forward again, to another door near the single lantern. He led them through it and down a twisting set of bare board steps, into a raw, dank cellar.
“I’ve got Lord Herrick and the Duchess of Fournier here to see the duke,” he told the guard standing at the bottom of the stairs.
“No women, Ruthers, you know that. Take her back to the offices.”
Audrey was still trapped on the step behind the officer when she heard that deep-throated reply. She swept past Ruthers and the other Bow Street man and entered the cellar before either could dare reach for her arm. “I will not be taken anywhere.”
She saw Philip and drew to a sudden stop.
He was seated on the edge of a cot on the opposite side of the cellar.
He had his head in his hands, his eyes pinned to the floor.
The clothing he wore did not belong to him—worn trousers hung like canvas sails and a white shirt was stained with yellow patches beneath the arms. Philip wasn’t a dandy in the least, but he appreciated fine clothing and spared no expense for quality.
Sitting there, hunched over, elbows upon his knees, he looked as gritty as a sailor just come to port.
It was his mop of fair hair she recognized, and his long-fingered hands gripping the sides of his head. Only they, too, were grimy.
“Philip—” She moved forward, and a shadow peeled off the cellar wall. A man, tall and wiry, entered her path.
“Your Grace, I insist you return to the offices.”
It was the man who’d spoken to Officer Ruthers a moment ago. He wore a waistcoat but no jacket. Audrey’s eyes skipped to his forearms, exposed by shirtsleeves rolled sloppily to his elbows. His hair appeared dark and unkempt in the dreary light of a few lanterns.
“Step aside. I would see my husband,” she replied, teeth clenched.
“As I am in the middle of questioning him, that will not be possible,” he replied, sounding as though his own teeth were clenched.
Michael entered her light of sight. “You will cease your questions until our solicitor is present—which should have come about hours ago. Why was Potridge not sent for?”
The man barely acknowledged Michael. Instead, he rolled down each of his sleeves with measured ease.
“Philip?” Audrey called, watching him for some reaction. But her husband only rocked forward and back, his head still cradled in his palms.
The man finally finished covering his forearms and said, “His Grace has not been the most cooperative of men.”