Chapter 1 #2
Her only link to Hugh was through Lord Thornton.
She would not have even that had she not grown so weary of daily monotony that she’d decided to attend a scientific lecture at the Lyceum.
It wasn’t entirely unheard of for ladies to sit in on such lectures, and when she saw an advertisement in the paper for an exhibition and address on fossils of prehistoric sea creatures, she’d been unable to stay away.
She’d taken her maid Greer as a formality and had chosen two seats in the back of the hall.
The male attendees had all noticed them, of course, and had whispered amongst themselves.
When one of them stood and came to greet her, Audrey’s heart had started racing.
Lord Thornton was Hugh’s closest friend, and as fourth son of a marquess, had decided to make his way in the world as a physician.
He’d welcomed Audrey to the Lyceum and offered to sit with her and Greer, then afterward, introduce her to a few of the more “accepting” men of his acquaintance there.
Audrey had since attended several lectures, and Lord Thornton had been at most of them.
He’d discreetly let her know that Hugh’s arm, which had been seriously injured in November when they had captured the murderous Miss Delia Montgomery, was recovering nicely.
That he was busy as ever at Bow Street, and that Sir, the young street urchin-turned-errand boy who was devoted to Hugh, was also doing well after his own stabbing, also at Delia’s hand.
“Come,” Philip said now, interrupting her thoughts. “Let us say our goodbyes to Lady Reed.”
He and Audrey rejoined with Cassie and then found their hostess near the springtime corner of the ballroom.
Garlands of faux green leaves cut from crepe wove through a trellis studded with bright yellow and red silk daffodils.
A mass of cottony clouds hung suspended from the ceiling. It was truly garish.
Lady Reed sipped a glass of punch, ignoring the chattering women on either side of her.
She stared into the crowd, her brow pinched.
In fact, it took the clearing of one of her companion’s throats before she noticed the duke and duchess had joined them.
With a start, Lady Reed turned to them, blinking.
“Oh, Your Graces, forgive my distraction.” She quickly set the punch glass on the tray of a nearby footman. Audrey noticed the slight tremor of her hand, causing the punch to nearly splash over the lip of the glass.
“Is all well, Lady Reed?” Audrey asked. The older marchioness, her steel gray hair stylishly upswept with framing curls, again seemed to startle.
“Yes, quite,” she answered shortly before falling awkwardly quiet.
“We wanted to thank you for your hospitality before we take our leave,” Audrey said after a moment.
“My wife feels a head ache coming on,” Philip said before the marchioness could ask why. Audrey, still holding Philip’s arm, covertly pinched him through his evening jacket. She wasn’t prone to head aches in the least; however, it was a reasonable excuse.
“Oh, how disappointing,” the lady said. If her attention had not roamed toward the crowd again, Audrey might have believed her. But she was clearly distracted. Concerned, even.
“Thank you for attending, Your Graces,” she said, her eyes flicking back to the duke, then toward Audrey. “Your Grace, I do hope you are feeling better—”
Lady Reed broke off just as a strange, foul smell wafted under Audrey’s nose. Behind them, voices raised with alarm. Audrey turned to find a grayish haze quickly filling the room. Men and women nearby covered their mouths and noses with their gloved hands, coughing.
“What in the world…?” Philip was cut off as he began to hack on a cough too. Audrey covered her own mouth and nose, but the sharp, sulfuric odor of the smoke slipped between her fingers and stung her nostrils.
“Cassie!” Audrey cried as her sister-in-law began to cough wildly.
Philip gave his sister his handkerchief and wrapped his arm around her.
The crush of guests, panicking now, began to surge toward the ballroom doors.
With watering eyes, Audrey pulled on Philip’s sleeve to stop him from joining the masses.
They would only get bottlenecked at the doors.
“This way!” she shouted above the sudden clamor. Philip redirected Cassie as he followed Audrey toward the back of the room. A pair of glass doors had been shut against the cold air, though during a stuffy spring soiree, they would have been thrown open to an airy veranda.
Audrey navigated through the thick smoke, her throat beginning to burn, her eyes streaming with tears. She felt a waft of cold air before reaching the veranda doors; they were already open. It seemed she wasn’t the only one who’d judged this as a better escape.
However, when she, Philip, and Cassie spilled out onto the veranda, their feet swallowed by an inch of slushy snow, they were entirely alone.
Audrey gasped for air, relieved to be free from the smoke, though her throat and eyes still stung.
For several moments, they stood by themselves, confused and overwhelmed and shivering.
But then, a handful of others found the open veranda doors and joined them.
By the looks of their red, teary eyes, everyone else was just as afflicted by the smoke.
“Philip,” Audrey gasped, when he doubled over, still coughing. Cassie had quickly recovered and now gripped her brother’s arm, rubbing his back as the convulsion passed.
The dozen or so others now shivered in distress, all of them speaking at once.
“Is the ballroom on fire?”
“What was that foul smoke?”
“I think my throat is bleeding!”
The smoke had certainly seared Audrey’s throat too, but she didn’t taste blood, thankfully. Inside, the smoke was so thick, it indeed looked like something had caught ablaze, but there were no flames, and the smell was not the familiar one of burning wood. It was chemical.
“What a predicament! Now we must walk through the snow, to get to the front of the house,” a woman bemoaned.
“I will go around,” Philip rasped. “Cassie, Audrey, stay here while I fetch Carrigan. We will carry the two of you—”
“Don’t be absurd, it is only snow. We do not need carrying,” Cassie said, and Audrey was happy to hear a bit of her high spirit again.
A short, grating scream from inside the ballroom split the air. Everyone on the veranda went quiet. It hadn’t been a scream of panic, but of pain and surprise.
No one moved. Audrey, however, could not remain where she stood. Someone had been hurt. Instinct drove her forward. She tore Philip’s handkerchief from Cassie’s fingers and, covering her nose and mouth, plunged back into the smoke.
“Audrey!” both Philip and Cassie shouted after her. She didn’t stop. The smoke engulfed her, but if she squinted, she could peer through it a bit better. It still burned her eyes, but as she hurried deeper into the ballroom, the brume lessened.
A sharp prick of pain in the center of her foot startled her to a stop.
She gasped and immediately lifted her foot to see what she had trod upon.
Attached to the sole of her slipper was a small metal object.
She plucked it out and saw it was a sort of charm—three golden leaves spread out like a fan—and that the sharp post backing it had pierced her foot.
Audrey tossed the offending thing aside and returned to searching the room for the person who had screamed. “Hello? Is someone injured?” she called.
She stopped abruptly again when a figure on the parquet flooring became visible through the smoke. It was a woman. She lay prone on the floor, face down, arms thrown out beside her. She wasn’t moving.
“Audrey!” Philip barked, and a moment later, he grabbed her arm. “What the devil are you doing?”
He then saw the woman and swore under his breath. She and Philip approached, but instantly, Audrey knew it was too late. A dark pool of blood had started to creep out from around her torso.
“Help!” Philip called between gasping coughs as Audrey stared at the dead woman in shocked horror. “Someone, quick! A woman is hurt, help!”
Audrey snapped out of her shock and quickly kneeled beside the woman. Her face was turned, her cheek to the floor. Her eyes were half open, but flat. She was certainly dead. Killed.
Within seconds of Philip’s shout, men came forward through the dispersing haze. Before the oncoming men could see her, Audrey reached for the woman’s hand. With her gloved hand, she slipped off the simple ring the woman wore on her right center finger.
“Audrey,” Philip warned under his breath, knowing exactly what she was doing.
With the ring, Audrey could apply her most unusual ability to read the memories of objects, to see into their recent past. Perhaps she could find out who had hurt this poor woman.
It had to have been someone at the soiree.
The smoke…had it been a trick to clear out the room and set upon her, unseen?
She closed her fingers around the ring and stood as several men, including Lord Reed, joined them. Philip pulled her close to his side.
“We heard a scream from the veranda,” he explained. “Her Grace and I found her like this.”
Lord Reed bent to peer at the dead woman. “Beckett,” he called sharply to another man with him. “Send for a constable at Bow Street.”
Audrey’s heart slowed, then streamed out a few extra beats. But then Philip spoke, stilling her pulse.
“It would be best if the officer you fetched was someone other than Officer Marsden,” he said to Lord Reed.
Audrey turned to gape at him. “Why would you say that?”
He couldn’t possibly want to restrict Hugh from this crime just to keep him from her presence.
“Quite right,” Lord Reed said gravely. “If I’m not mistaken, this is Miss Eloisa Neatham.”
Gooseflesh rode up Audrey’s arms and down her spine. She stared at the dead woman with new shock. Eloisa Neatham left London years ago after a salacious scandal, in which her half-brother was accused of ruining her.
And her half-brother was none other than Officer Hugh Marsden.