Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
The weak light from a glass chimney on the mantel barely touched the corners of Hugh’s bedroom, let alone the lines of the woman seated on the edge of his bed.
Gloria reached for his dressing gown on the post of his bedstead and wrapped herself in it.
It was too large for her, and though Hugh had gone to the trouble to purchase one for her, and even kept it hanging in his closet, she ignored the silken wrapper in favor of his.
He reclined on the bed, the sheets at his hips, and indulged in the languid sensation a meeting with Gloria usually provided.
Only tonight, that sensation wasn’t as keen as usual. He reached for the glass of scotch he’d set on the bedside table, prior to removing Gloria’s gown and then his own clothes, and tossed the liquid back. It burned his throat, but after a moment, the tension in his shoulders remained.
“You are distracted tonight,” she said as she crawled back onto the pillows beside him and curled her legs beneath her.
He supposed after a year of keeping a standing weekly appointment with Gloria, she would begin to take note of his moods.
She wasn’t a prostitute, nor was she his official mistress.
Gloria was a seamstress with Madame Gascoigne, one of the most popular modistes in town.
They had met the previous year during an inquiry.
A robbery at the shop, which had been resolved easily enough once Hugh questioned another of Madame Gascoigne’s seamstresses.
The girl dissolved into tears and confessed to helping arrange the burglary.
Dire circumstances at home and her father’s many unpaid debts had been her motivation.
Gloria had taken Hugh aside and advised him to take a deeper look into the father’s debts.
When he had, he’d discovered an underground betting racket.
He’d sought Gloria out to thank her. Their mutual interest had been clear from the beginning, as had the terms. Nothing permanent, nothing with ties.
A bank note arrived at her residence once a month via messenger, so there need not be a physical exchange of money between them.
She visited him, and him alone, or their arrangement was at an end.
And vice versa, she let it be known. Hugh had assented, unbothered by the constriction.
He barely had time to entertain Gloria once a week; he couldn’t imagine dealing with more than one woman at a time.
He took another sip of his scotch, wishing it would relax the tight clench of his shoulders and back.
Neither spirits, nor the interlude with Gloria, had managed to erase the thoughts that plagued him since that afternoon at Wimbly Manor.
It didn’t matter that Hugh had been given a living—a generous one—in the late Viscount Neatham’s will, and that with it, he could afford the residence on Bedford Street and a gentleman’s lifestyle.
To the rest of society, Hugh was nothing but a blue-collar by-blow—and a reprobate too.
He’d been turned away from Wimbly Manor that afternoon, the housekeeper and butler insisting that the marquess was out.
Hugh didn’t believe the excuse and had kept pressing, until the butler had lost his temper and reminded him that the marquess was under no obligation to speak with a Bow Street officer unless he was placed under arrest. He was above the law, until such a time passed.
Lord Wimbly would not see him, and that was that.
“I’m sorry,” he sighed to Gloria. “I don’t mean to be inattentive.”
She curled one of her fingers around a lock of his hair and settled in next to him, companionably. “You were hardly inattentive.” She laughed huskily. “But I felt something…missing from you tonight.”
Hugh frowned and turned his head to the side to peer at her. “There is no need for insults,” he said, a slow grin working its way across his lips. Gloria nipped at his earlobe playfully.
“You know what I mean,” she said, laughing again.
She was always so companionable; Hugh wouldn’t have admitted it to her, but he enjoyed their meetings for more than just the sharing of pleasure.
As a Romany from Wales, Gloria had come to London with a few of her brothers.
They had wanted to put down roots, unlike their nomadic family, and she had found a place to showcase her talent with Madame Gascoigne.
One of the qualities Hugh admired most about her was her direct and honest tongue.
Another was her purely rational way of thinking.
“My apologies,” he said again. “The case I’m investigating has seemed to demand all my energy and attention lately.”
Gloria hummed understanding. “The opera singer’s murder.”
He shouldn’t have been surprised she knew of it. There had been a number of articles in the news sheets the last two days, along with vulgar caricatures and illustrations depicting the scene. But he still furrowed his brow. “What have you heard?”
“That the duke has always been a bit uncanny,” she said.
“How so?”
Gloria shrugged as she rose onto her elbow, one of her delectable legs inching over to rest atop his thigh. She swirled her fingertip in the golden hair sprinkling his chest.
“Just that he’s secretive. Bland, really. No one knows much about him or his duchess. They don’t stand out.”
As a duke and duchess, they most certainly should have stood out among the rest of their fellow aristocrats. Hugh looked to the ceiling again, in thought.
After the inquest, Hugh had returned to the Brown Bear and questioned Fournier for a few minutes, repeating questions that the duke had already ignored before, while taking a furtive inspection of the duke’s hands and arms; his neck and face. His memory stood correct: there were no defense wounds.
Hugh left Bow Street in a foul mood and had arrived at his home ill prepared for a meeting with Gloria.
“He isn’t speaking,” he said now. “The duke. He says he doesn’t remember that night.”
He didn’t usually discuss his cases with Gloria, but whenever he did, he found her to be blunt and level-headed.
“Was he foxed?”
“It certainly seemed as if he was,” Hugh answered, though the absence of any liquor fumes on his breath had been noted. “But I think he was just severely stunned.”
“You found nothing in the room that indicated another vice? Opium? Hashish?”
“No.”
“What does the wife know?”
Audrey, Audrey, Audrey. Fournier’s incessant moaning of his wife’s name crawled under Hugh’s skin for a reason he could not quite understand.
“She is insistent that he did not have a mistress.”
Gloria chuffed laughter, her lips touching down on his shoulder. “Insistent?”
“Utterly resolute,” he replied, his jaw clenching again.
“What is she like? Madam Gascoigne has made a few gowns for her, but I’ve never spoken to her myself.”
Hugh went still. “I’ve only just met her.”
Gloria again scoffed. “You can size a person up within seconds, Hugh Marsden.”
He relented. “She is stubborn and single-minded. She detests me. The woman looks at me as though she’d like to light me on fire with her glare alone.”
Gloria laughed and shifted her leg up his thigh.
“She is impulsive and petulant, and there is something…” He hesitated over his words. “Secretive. She is keeping a secret. Information that might apply to the investigation. My investigation, not hers.”
Gloria pushed up higher onto her elbow. “She has her own investigation?”
A frisson of tension warmed the muscles in his legs, and he could no longer lie still. Hugh sat up, dislodging Gloria from his side, and swung his legs out from the bed. Sweat crawled along his back and temples as he raked his fingers through his hair.
“She insists she will prove her husband’s innocence.”
Gloria was quiet. After a few seconds spent waiting for her reply, Hugh looked over his shoulder at her. He propped a brow, as if to say “Well?”
She smoothed down the panels of the dressing gown and cinched the waist rope as she stood from the bed. “You are doubting yourself.”
“I’m not.”
“I know you,” she rejoined with a sympathetic smile. It only served to stab at him. “What is it that gives you pause?”
He launched himself from the bed and grabbed up his linen smalls, then his trousers. “Nothing gives me pause. I made my arrest.”
Why didn’t the duke have any goddamned scratches or defense injuries? Hugh pulled on his clothes with jerky movements. And then there was Wimbly and the house on Yarrow.
“You are lying to yourself,” Gloria said, shedding his robe.
Hugh paused as she let him take in the whole of her naked body before picking up her dress.
The memory of the duchess and the musk of her skin when he’d blocked her from leaving Miss Lovejoy’s bedroom assailed him.
A hard knot formed in the pit of Hugh’s stomach, and he looked away from Gloria.
Hugh left his shirt untucked, his collar undone. His feet were bare as he reached for another glass of scotch.
A pert knock on his bedroom door caught him by surprise. Basil didn’t usually interrupt him during Gloria’s visits. When Hugh peered into the hall, his valet held his hands behind his back and gave a short bow.
“Forgive me, sir, but a message has arrived for you.” Basil’s tone was clipped and brimming with annoyance.
“From Sir?” Hugh knew well the expression his valet wore whenever the lad showed his dirty face and shoes around Bedford Street.
Hugh had given Sir a job to do that morning: watch Violet House and report back with the lady’s movements. With no message from him so far, he’d started to hope Her Grace was settling down.
Basil’s grimace drew longer. “Quite. Delivered by a young man who calls himself Petey. An accomplice of your odiferous informant.”
Hugh had given up reprimanding Basil for his intolerance of Sir long ago.
“What is the message?”
Sir couldn’t write and so he must have sent this Petey fellow to deliver the message verbally.
Basil cleared his throat before reciting, “You were right, guv, the lady’s bloody cracked. She’s at Montagu Place.”
A twin storm of irritation and concern spiraled through Hugh as he gripped the edge of his door. He swore under his breath.
Of all the stupid, impulsive, idiotic things to do…he wanted to throttle the duchess and then lock her up in her own attic, if only for her own protection.
“Hail two cabs—fast, Basil. One for me, and one to take Miss Hanson home.” He moved to shut the door.
“You need a cravat, sir, if you are going out.”
Hugh scowled. “I could wear nothing at all and still be admitted to where I am going.”
“But, sir, if I might just—”
“Two cabs. Now, Basil.” Hugh groaned. “The insufferable woman and her bloody investigation!”
He slammed the door and hurried to finish dressing.