Chapter 19 #2
“I can’t argue with that.” He paused at the door and met her surprised gaze. “I only hope he is as devoted to you as you are to him. I’ll take my leave. Good evening, Your Grace.”
He slipped from the room. Audrey’s lips gaped, her shoulders sagged.
Devoted? Of course Philip was devoted to her.
He’d made mistakes, had caused some pain, but had, for the most part, stayed committed to their marriage agreement—he would keep her secrets, and she would keep his; he would never require her to share his bed.
They’d also agreed that should either of them take a lover, they would be honest and upfront about it.
That had not happened, she knew now. He’d gone behind her back.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t devoted. Did it?
Audrey went to her room, but as she stripped out of her gown and sank into the hot bath Greer had prepared, Hugh Marsden’s parting comment clung. It settled into her pores and refused to be scrubbed out.
If it had been any crime other than murder, especially one so horrific as Miss Lovejoy’s, the Duke of Fournier would have been released from Bow Street almost immediately.
He would have been allowed back into the comfort of his home, free to leisure about with his daily routine while he awaited progress on the status of his legal case.
However, the magistrate had deemed His Grace too much of a risk, to himself and to others.
There was also the high probability that the duke would abscond to the Continent to avoid trial.
He had the means and the contacts to make it happen.
So, he’d been locked up for the past several days.
Still, the room above the Brown Bear tavern was a sight better than anything a commoner would have seen at Newgate.
Hugh climbed to the second level of the tavern, to where the duke was being held in his makeshift cell.
A maid was being sent over from Violet House each day with a basket of food, though most of it was left untouched.
The basket sat outside the locked door now, on the floor.
The constable guarding the room had a will of pure steel to not have dug in himself already.
Hugh lifted the parcel, heavy with biscuits, a small jar of honey, cured meat, and a hand pie.
He knocked on the door, unlocked it, and shoved it open.
The duke was sitting upright on his cot, reading a book. His own clothing had also been delivered to him from Violet House and so he at least appeared clean and put together, though he’d left his collar undone, his sleeves rolled to the elbow. He glared at Hugh.
“What is it?” he demanded, as if Hugh had trespassed onto his ducal property. He bit his tongue against an inflaming reply.
“We need to speak.” Without waiting for Fournier to agree, Hugh placed the basket on the otherwise bare table and pulled out a chair. He lowered himself into it.
“I have nothing to say to you,” Fournier announced.
“It concerns the duchess.”
As he’d hoped, the statement lured the duke to the table. His face tightened with concern. “What about her? Has something happened?”
Good. At least the man appeared to care for her wellbeing. Hugh gestured to the chair opposite his, and with a resigned sigh, the duke sat.
“What is this about?”
The man had no patience for preamble, and neither did Hugh.
“You should know that I’ve discovered what you were really using that apartment at Jewell House for.” Fournier sat rigid, expressionless. “Her Grace said nothing. In fact, she went to great lengths to conceal the truth. About her own secret as well.”
Now, the duke’s steely-eyed glare changed. His nostrils flared and he sat forward, as if about to speak. But then, he sat back again, holding his tongue.
“She displayed her ability and explained how she’s been using it to investigate Miss Lovejoy’s murder,” Hugh went on.
Fournier seethed. “She would never. Unless you forced her hand.”
Hugh shrugged. “I may have persuaded her to come forward with it.”
He slammed his fist on the table. “Leave her alone, Marsden. She has nothing to do with this.”
It was the most the duke had said to him to date. Hugh wasn’t about to relent now.
“Unfortunately, she has much to do with it now that she’s cast herself as your liberator. Her Grace is determined to see you redeemed.” He tossed aside the corner of the napkin covering the basket. “Biscuit?”
The duke ignored the blithe offer. “I don’t know what you did to force her hand, but Audrey has suffered enough for what she can do. If you dare use this against her—”
“I have no intention of revealing her secret. Or yours, for that matter.” Hugh removed a biscuit. “May I?”
The duke rolled his eyes to the ceiling and waved a hand. Hugh took a bite. Rosemary and salt exploded on his tongue.
“You really shouldn’t let these go to waste,” he said, mouth still full.
“I’m not sitting here to discuss biscuits with you, Marsden. Tell me what you want.”
He thumbed the corner of his mouth and a crumb there. “Are you involved with St. John?”
The duke’s fury vanished; his expression slackened, and he sat back in his chair, as if someone had shoved him square in the chest. He said nothing.
“St. John was there that night. I know because the duchess saw it in her unique way,” he went on.
“What does it matter now? You have your man.”
“The real murderer is still loose and has already killed again.” Hugh rolled his shoulders, trying to release some tension. It didn’t work. “Her Grace won’t relent until he is caught. She could find herself in a great deal of danger.”
He didn’t reveal that she had been with him the day Bernadetto was murdered, or that someone had been spotted following her. Diverting the duke’s attention and focus wouldn’t be wise.
“Don’t pretend to care for my wife’s welfare.”
Hugh locked eyes with the duke, his pulse picking up tempo. “I aim to keep her safe—something you, at this moment, are unable to do.” The duke seared him with a glare, but Hugh continued, “To do that, I need to know more about St. John’s visit to your rooms that night.”
The request hung in the air between them, as did the pointed insinuation that Hugh was better poised to protect the duchess. After a moment, Fournier’s provoked expression changed: a softening of the lines around his eyes.
“What does it matter?” he shifted in his chair and quickly added, “He had already left.”
Finally. The wall the duke had built around the events of that night had been breached. Hugh proceeded cautiously, aware of Fournier’s extreme discomfort.
“Had St. John arranged for Miss Lovejoy to meet you at your rooms?”
“Of course not.” The duke clenched his jaw. He lowered his voice. “We always met alone.”
Audrey had made it clear women didn’t tempt the duke, so a rendezvous between the threesome would not appeal.
“When did she arrive?”
Fournier rubbed his temple. “I don’t know. St. John had left already, and I’d…I’d taken a dram of laudanum. We’d fought, you see, and I was on edge.”
“What was the argument about?” Hugh leaned forward. “Miss Lovejoy?”
Fournier grimaced. “No, no. She had nothing to do with it. I knew, of course, that he was seeing her, but…it didn’t matter. The issue was about his mother.”
“The marchioness,” Hugh murmured, recalling the duchess’s report of an argument between Lady Wimbly and the footman.
“She’d grown suspicious of Auggie’s outings and had him followed. We were discovered, and Lady Wimbly demanded that he end things with me.”
“Did he?”
Fournier shook his head, eyes still hinged on the open door to his room.
“No. But he didn’t tell me about her demands; he kept me in the dark, and all the while Lady Wimbly was threatening to reveal what she knew.
Finally, that night, he did say something and…
I became angry. If I had known what she was threatening… ”
“You would have ended things yourself. To protect the truth,” Hugh guessed.
The duke gave a slight nod.
“Do you recall when Miss Lovejoy arrived?”
He sat back, less rigid than before. “I remember a knock on the door, and her asking what I wanted.”
Hugh frowned. “How do you mean?”
“She seemed to want to know what I wanted her there for, but…I hadn’t invited her.”
“Are you certain St. John didn’t?”
He glared. “I’ve already told you—he wouldn’t have.”
Hugh got up, restless to move. Now that he had the duke talking, he was less worried about another lapse of stubborn silence.
“Someone sent her to Jewell House. Or invited her,” Hugh said. “Do you remember anyone else arriving? Anything of the attack?”
Audrey’s vision of the attacker had lacked any defining details. Male. Tall. Broad. But her mention of Lady Wimbly’s new footman, straight from a workhouse, strummed a connective thread inside Hugh.
Exhaustion paled the duke’s face, the puffy skin under his eyes dark.
“No. Nothing. I’ve been trying to remember, I truly have, but…
but the laudanum. I don’t understand why it affected me as it did that night.
I couldn’t see, couldn’t stand. It felt like my head was on a whirligig, spinning, spinning.
” He closed his eyes and buried his face into his palms. After a few moments, when he lifted his face again, his eyes shone as he held Hugh’s stare.
“I was right there, in the same room with her, when she was attacked. I did nothing. I didn’t stop it.
I couldn’t. I might not have killed her, but I may as well have. ”
Fournier stood and pushed back the chair roughly, then paced away from the table. Hugh let him go. He wasn’t worried about the duke making a run for it—it was more than evident that he was intent on blaming himself, even though he was innocent.
“Where did you get the laudanum?” he asked when the duke looked to be calming.
He crossed his arms and started back for the table. “Why?”
“It sounds as if it was tampered with. Something could have been added to it.”
He shook his head fervently. “The bottle was in my coat pocket all evening. No one could have touched it.”
“Not even St. John?”
The duke lashed him with another glare. Hugh took note of his blue eyes, his handsome looks. He attempted to envision the duchess on this man’s arm and could not deny the odd satisfaction he felt in knowing that their marriage was not traditional.
“Are you suggesting he drugged me?”
“I think someone did,” Hugh answered. “As for the timing of its effects, you must have consumed it while you and St. John were together, or immediately after.”
The duke pulled out his chair again and sat, his gaze distant. His brow creased. “We each had a scotch.”
“Poured from your own decanter?”
Hollowing disbelief spread over the duke’s face. He rasped, “Auggie brought the bottle. It was from his uncle’s distillery, up north.”
“You are sure he drank from it as well?”
When the duke nodded, Hugh stood, restless to move.
“If he knew the scotch was laced, he wouldn’t have consumed it,” Fournier insisted.
“Or he might have and made sure to leave before the effects could strike him down.”
The duke shook his head, resisting. He didn’t want to consider the possibility that his lover had betrayed him.
“Someone sent Miss Lovejoy to your rooms, and I’m willing to bet it’s the same person who wanted to be sure you were inebriated.” Hugh took no comfort in what he was now realizing. “Your Grace, you were framed for this murder, and it looks like the Wimbly marquessate had a hand in it.”