Chapter 8 #3
It wasn’t like him to be so careless. Then again, he’d never taken a peer into custody before.
Fournier was in no way tied to Viscount Neatham or to the debacle that had left Hugh loathed by the ton.
But if he were being honest, taking a peer into custody had felt inexplicably vengeful. And yes, it had felt damn good too.
Mr. Newton volunteered to fetch the stage manager, but a few moments later, stepped back inside with an apology. “He’s gone, sirs. Though, he’s left his hat behind in the grate.”
Perhaps it had only been humiliation that had convinced Mr. Bernadetto that he could not reenter the antechamber for the rest of the inquest, but Hugh still thought it odd. He’d bothered to come in first place. Why leave?
Though vexed, the coroner moved on, asking if there were any further questions or statements the jury or witnesses wished to make.
When no one spoke, Dr. Oppler pronounced the death as a murder, much to everyone’s expectation, and that he would send the inquest documents to the grand jury.
From there, Hugh had every reason to expect the case to be sent to the House of Lords for a trial by peers.
There was no telling how long it could take, but since Parliament was currently occupied with the new king’s attempt to divorce Queen Caroline, there very well could be a delay in proceedings.
“Dr. Oppler is a fine physician,” Thornton murmured as they left the antechamber a few minutes later, “but he has the tendency to presume and conclude more than scrutinize. I take it that is why you asked me to juror?”
Hugh cast a look toward the grate as they walked through the vestry, and indeed saw the stage manager’s felt green hat atop the ashes and charred logs.
“Not exactly,” he replied. “Though your question ended up proving that I am guilty of the same shortcoming.”
They stepped outside, into a chilling rainfall.
“One failure does not equal a shortcoming, Marsden. You arrested the man most likely to have killed that opera singer.”
“Most likely is not the qualifier I had in my mind when I placed him in custody.” Hugh searched the street for a hack.
“I have my carriage, come on,” Thornton said above a cracking bash of thunder.
His landau waited around the corner, the driver huddled in his oilskins.
A tiger leaped from the back rail and opened the door for them.
Once inside, Hugh welcomed the heat of a brazier near his shins.
He took off his hat and threw it onto the bench beside him.
“I was positive he’d done the murder,” he went on.
“And now?”
The driver peeled from the curb, and Hugh leaned back against the cushioned wall. “I’m less certain. There are some questions and inconsistencies I’ve uncovered.”
Thanks to Audrey Sinclair. He was reluctant, however, to mention the duchess’s name to his friend.
“What sort of inconsistencies?”
“The duke wasn’t her patron. Miss Lovejoy had an arrangement with Wimbly, and it was official enough for him to have ensconced her in a staffed townhouse on Yarrow Street.”
Thornton’s eyes narrowed with the new information. “Wimbly? It doesn’t shock me; the man probably has several mistresses ensconced in such townhouses. Perhaps she was stepping out on him then, with Fournier?”
“I don’t know Wimbly well. Is he the jealous sort?”
“We move in different circles, but his reputation is cemented. Loose morals, gambling, women, vice.”
Rain knocked on the cloth roof of the landau as they turned down another avenue.
Hugh suspected they were heading back to Thornton’s home in St. James’s Square, though he also kept an office in Wapping, near Whitechapel.
Only Hugh and a handful of his trusted servants knew of it.
Thornton visited a few times a week to see patients in that destitute area and offer free services.
Hardly any of them left without giving Thornton something in payment though, whether it be a chicken for slaughter, a few ha’pennies, or a half-bottle of cheap whisky.
“Would you like Merryton to drop you off at Wimbly Manor?” he asked Hugh with a knowing grin.
Hugh needed to determine the marquess’s role—if he held one at all. It wasn’t something he looked forward to, though. In fact, the palms of his hands were fairly sweating with the idea. Hugh groaned, and his friend laughed.
“Come now, maybe the man won’t remember you.”
“Piss off, Thornton.”
Wimbly had been friends with the late Viscount Neatham and was likely well acquainted with the current title holder. Bartholomew. Hugh’s fingers curled into his hat at the thought of his half-brother.
Thornton chuckled and sat back. “You’re a principal officer at Bow Street investigating the death of his mistress. Wimbly must expect someone to come knocking on his door soon. Just be sure to use the rear door, would you?”
“Wouldn’t want to blacken the man’s doorstep,” Hugh replied, playing along with his friend’s goading.
It was easier than admitting that his low social status would prevent him from being admitted through the front door to all high society homes. Not that he’d gone knocking on any lord or lady’s home in the last many years.
Thornton rapped on the roof and called to his driver with new directions. Hugh felt the carriage slow and begin to turn.
“What of the Duchess of Fournier?” Thornton said. “Have you questioned her?”
The mention of her churned up a strange toss of annoyance and reticence within him.
He wasn’t certain why, but he was reluctant to admit he’d dealt with the lady in question.
Hugh pulled at his starched collar and the knotted cravat his valet had insisted upon that morning for the inquest. Hugh often went without the cravat, opting instead for a stock, but Basil had all but blocked Hugh’s bedroom door until he’d relented.
“I have,” he answered. Thornton waited, one brow raised, for more of a reply. Hugh sighed. “Her Grace is adamant that her husband was not having an affair with Miss Lovejoy.”
He could tell what Thornton thought of that statement with one glance—that the duchess was either idealistic to a fault or lying to protect the duke. Just as Hugh had believed. However now, an inkling of doubt colored his certainty.
“I cannot name one lord of the realm who has not entertained a mistress,” Thornton said, then shrugged. “Unless theirs is a love match, like Herrick’s. Or mine with Sarah,” he added softly with a glance out the window.
Hugh spared his friend a concerned glance at the mention of his late wife but knew better than to say anything more on the topic.
The duke’s younger brother was well rumored to be besotted with his wife.
Perhaps the brothers had that in common.
The duchess was driven to prove her husband’s innocence, that much was clear.
Why go to such bother, shoving aside what most women would do in her situation—decamp to the countryside in shame—unless she loved him?
He considered Fournier. Tall and trim, athletic but not muscular, not unattractive.
Some might even say handsome. The duchess herself stood at a shorter height, though she wasn’t petite.
She had a healthy flush, a generous figure, and a neck that reminded Hugh of a swan.
She was far more attractive than her husband, but Hugh had known many mismatched marriages.
“What is it you’re thinking?” Thornton asked.
He realized he had been staring at the floor, lost in his contemplations of the duchess’s features.
“What can you tell me about her? Their marriage?”
“You know I don’t socialize as much as I used to,” Thornton replied.
Hugh could barely get the man out for a drink once a month. His work tied him up at all hours of the day, every day of the week.
“You will still know a hell of a lot more than I do,” Hugh replied. He had shed that part of his life completely. Or at least, he had tried to. Still, rumors and memories, names and faces, hung about like ghosts.
Thornton contemplated him for a moment before briefly raising both brows—the facial tic Hugh knew preceded his friend’s acquiescence. “They were wed about three years ago now. The only reason I remember it is because of the minor scandal attached to their nuptials.”
Hugh’s attention had already been focused, though now it was sharp as the edge of a sword. “What scandal?”
At first glance, Audrey Sinclair had not seemed the sort of woman who would endure even one bout of scandal in her lifetime. However, now that he had witnessed her picking locks and investigating brashly, Hugh wasn’t surprised to hear of yet more gossip surrounding her.
“The duchess was first betrothed to another. Contracts were in the process of being drawn and banns had already been posted when Fournier swooped in and stole her away.”
“Who did she jilt?” Hugh asked.
“Bainbury.”
A gust of wind accompanied Thornton’s answer, whistling against the side of the carriage and masking Hugh’s soft huff of astonishment.
“Lord Bainbury, really?” He tamed his voice when he next spoke. “He’s got to be at least two decades older than the duchess.”
“Indeed,” Thornton said. “Her Grace’s father, Lord Edgerton, passed long ago, and it was the late baron’s younger brother, the new Lord Edgerton, who aligned her with Bainbury.
Thought it would be a beneficial match all around—Bainbury was well off and in need of a wife, and though it is only rumor and speculation, Edgerton did not leave his family with much by way of security. ”
Hugh hadn’t given Bainbury a thought in years.
The last time had been when news of his second wife’s death had rippled out over London, even to Bow Street.
Had the lady died in childbirth or after some illness, he likely never would have heard of her passing.
However, that she had died by her own choice, and that the truth of it had been made public, rather than covered up with lies, Hugh had spared her more than a moment’s consideration.
She’d been young, he recalled, and suffered from bouts of melancholy.
Perhaps it was the melancholy that had tugged at him, making him sympathetic.
His own mother had suffered as well in the final years of her life.
With well-oiled efficiency, Hugh turned his thoughts away from his mother.
Thinking of her would only lead him into his own surly mood.
“She got a better offer, then, and took it,” Hugh surmised.
Thornton shook his head as the carriage slowed and came around a corner. “Surely a better offer, coming from a duke, but if you take into account that Fournier had known her since childhood, one could reason he decided at the last moment that he couldn’t stand to have her marry another.”
That might explain the duke’s feelings, but the duchess very well may have seen a better future with someone closer to her own age, wealthier, and without the baggage of two previous wives.
Hugh couldn’t fault her for spurning Bainbury, but he also couldn’t quite eradicate the twist of his gut.
Instinct told him something about Thornton’s story was off.
His friend was only relating what had been presented to society as fact.
Hugh was well aware, however, that it would only be a version of the truth.
The carriage came to a halt in front of Lord Wimbly’s residence. The cramp in his stomach gave another twist.
“I’d offer to wait and drive you home, but I’ve a patient to visit,” Thornton said.
“I always knew you were a selfish prig,” Hugh replied without bothering to wink. Thornton laughed at his jest and murmured, “Good luck,” as Hugh exited the conveyance.
Rain lashed at him, though the wind was calmer here on Berkley Square.
He went around the back toward the servant entrance, despising the jump of his muscles and shallow breaths.
He’d happily avoided any kind of interaction with the ton for nigh on six years, and now here he was, about to interview a lord all too familiar with Hugh’s past life.
Come now, maybe the man won’t remember you.
He growled at Thornton’s sarcastic comment.
There wasn’t a peer in the realm that wouldn’t remember the scandal he dragged behind him, attached like anchors to his very feet.
Something struck him then: the duchess had made no mention of it.
Was it because she did not know? Or was she simply too polite to mention it?
He didn’t have time to consider it further. The back door opened after his initial knock, and he found a rosy-cheeked woman looking out at him.
“What can I do for you?” she asked.
“My name is Marsden. I’m an officer for Bow Street and need a moment of his lordship’s time.”