Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
Thursday
Two Days Earlier
Hugh thought he would never see her again.
Outside, the dense gray clouds broke apart and bright afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows of his study. The rays touched her shoulders and hair, the backlit glow almost making her appear as a heavenly apparition.
But, no, she was real. Basil had just announced her, and in she had walked…looking nearly the same as she had six years ago, when Hugh had last seen her.
“Eloisa.” Her name came out little more than a whisper.
Hugh’s half-sister, who was four years his junior, wore a simple maroon cloak, gloves, and a matching velvet bonnet. Her lips started to form a smile, but then it wobbled and fell flat.
“Hugh. It is good to see you again.” Her voice was strained, revealing her nervousness. She clasped her gloved hands in front of her, a reticule hanging from her wrist by silk strings.
He stood motionless in front of his desk, his whole body having gone numb when she appeared. Now, his blood started to pump again, giving him back his wits.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. Then, “Where have you been?”
Rumors had circulated, saying she’d gone to America, but considering his lack of contact with his two half-brothers, Bartholomew and Thomas, he’d never been sure.
All he knew for certain was that nearly six years ago, Eloisa had left London after a horrendous scandal erupted within the Neatham household.
Bartholomew, Hugh’s elder half-brother, had accused Hugh of ruining her.
It was utterly false, and Barty knew it.
But the young viscount, newly titled as Lord Neatham after the death of their father, had not cared.
The accusation was made, publicly, followed by a challenge to a duel.
Eloisa’s honor would be upheld. And Barty would get what he'd always wanted: Hugh gone, one way or another.
Even though he’d been the late viscount’s by-blow, Hugh had been raised within the Neatham household, given the same education, the same care as the viscount’s legitimate children.
Some might say Hugh had been given more care than the others.
He himself had often felt smug with the thought.
His father had loved him; he had also cared enough for Hugh’s mother to instate her as the children’s nanny.
When Thomas, the youngest and only one year apart from Eloisa, no longer needed a nanny, Hugh’s mother had been given a living and comfortable rooms right in town.
The viscount hadn’t shunted her off into the country to be forgotten.
The care he’d shown had inspired an undercurrent of envy and malcontent from Barty, the heir, but Hugh hadn’t seen the catastrophic accusation coming.
It had made shooting his half-brother in the arm during the duel, rendering it permanently useless, almost gratifying. Barty, of course, would have sent his bullet straight into Hugh’s heart, had he been a better shot.
Eloisa stepped forward and drew a visibly bracing breath. “I have come on an urgent matter. I hope this is not an inconvenient time?”
Hugh clenched his molars. What had been at first shock was now turning to low, simmering anger. “Inconvenient? How kind of you to inquire.”
She pursed her lips, as if accepting the barb.
Expecting it, even. She had not aged by much; her hair was still a glossy auburn, much like her mother’s, the late Lady Neatham, though it was styled less fashionably than Eloisa ever would have worn it before.
In fact, she appeared rather plain, like a member of the gentry or working class.
“Does Bartholomew know you are in town?” he asked, guessing that her intention with such simple clothing was to go unnoticed.
She quickly shook her head. “No. No, I haven’t spoken to him in years. Thomas, either.”
Hugh frowned, wondering if he should believe her. “How many years would that be?”
“Several.” Eloisa took a furtive look over her shoulder, toward the windows overlooking Bedford Street. The drapes were open, but it was unlikely anyone was standing outside, gawping through the glass. “Not since I returned from France, five years ago.”
“I thought you were in America,” Hugh said.
Her reputation had been destroyed, alongside Hugh’s.
He’d often wondered why Barty had not considered that before calling Hugh out in front of a crowd of men at the boxing club they’d both belonged to at the time.
There had been other avenues Barty could have taken, and yet he’d selected a glaringly public one.
By then, Hugh had already been gone from Neatham House for a year or so. His father had left him a generous living, allowing him a gentleman’s lifestyle, even if he wasn’t titled. Barty had wanted to destroy Hugh, certainly, but his own sister too? It had never made much sense.
Eloisa shook her head. “No. Barty chose France. He knew of a place where I could…” She seemed to wilt. “There was to be a baby.”
Hugh cringed. Thought he might be ill. A baby. Christ. He turned from her and snatched the whisky decanter from his desk.
“And Barty wanted you out of sight,” he murmured as he poured himself a larger than usual amount.
Lady Cassandra, the Duke of Fournier’s sister, had been in the same sticky situation last summer and fall. She’d gone to live with the duke’s friends. Hugh doubted his half-brother had been as kind to Eloisa.
“What sort of place was it?” he asked, thinking of Shadewell, an institution in Northumberland where those of “quality” could send their dirty little secrets.
“Does it matter?” Eloisa asked.
“No, I suppose not.”
He’d visited Shadewell in the fall with Audrey Sinclair, the Duchess of Fournier, while investigating a blackmailing and murder case.
The asylum was where she had been sent for two years by her mother and uncle for possessing the incredible, if intolerable, ability to read the memories of individual objects.
Over the winter, Hugh had caught himself countless times looking at something like a paperweight or pocket watch, a necklace or a doorknob, and wondering what they might show Audrey if she were to hold them in her hand. He thought of her far too often.
Ending his arrangement with Miss Gloria Hanson had been the right thing to do; though she did not love Hugh, she deserved better than simply being a vessel for Hugh to slake his lust while he harbored a growing affection for the duchess.
His arrangement with Gloria ended amicably and since then, he’d mostly been alone.
Grant Thornton’s sister’s friend had been a willing distraction a few times, though only after acknowledging and agreeing that it would be nothing more than that.
Still, the few encounters had left him unsatisfied.
He was beginning to think any woman who was not Audrey would.
“Where is the child now?” he asked Eloisa.
In a flat tone, she answered, “There is no child. She was stillborn.”
His first thought was cruel—that it was probably for the best. Hugh didn’t offer condolences.
Even though he had always liked Eloisa the most out of his three half-siblings, resentment toward her lingered.
She had left him to ruination, turning her back on him and the lies Barty perpetuated.
Certainly, she could not have stayed in London with an increasing middle.
In truth, Hugh wasn’t sure what more she could have possibly done to help him.
At the time, it surely had not been her priority.
“Tell me why you are here,” Hugh said, his patience and the novelty of seeing her again after so long wearing thin.
“I want to hire you,” she answered. “Privately.”
He sipped from his glass, peering at her from over the rim. He let a moment pass while he tried to comprehend the statement. “You know I work for Bow Street?”
“Yes.”
She’d been in contact with someone here in London, then. A friend? She’d had many, but after the scandal, they’d have cut her completely. At the time, Barty had not been married, so it wouldn’t be his wife, Lila.
“I have a full case load already.” He set down his glass and avoided her eyes. “I can refer you to another officer.”
“No. That won’t work. It needs to be you.”
“I can’t help you.” He’d already tried once.
Look where that had got him: painted by all and sundry as a villain of the worst ilk.
He’d worked these last six years to build a life where the duel with Barty and the lurid accusations weren’t the first things people would think of when they heard his name.
“If you won’t help me, then at least help yourself!” Eloisa said, her voice rising but not in strength. There was panic there, desperation. He peered at her, growing curious.
“What do you mean by that?”
Soft lines around her dark brown eyes tensed. She attempted to calm herself. “You aren’t the only one who despises Barty. Whatever you may think of me, however you may hate me—”
“I don’t hate you.”
“I was a coward.”
“You were scared.” The resentment he’d held onto for so long now flagged. In a rush, he admitted that Eloisa didn’t deserve it. She was as much a victim as he was. “Barty is the coward. As is Thomas.”
“Don’t. Please.” She shook her head as if to dislodge the names from her ears. With another furtive look over her shoulders, through the front windows, she came back to her reason for being here. “I want you to find someone.”
“I’m not a private inquiry agent.”
“You’ll want to find her,” she insisted, looking and sounding more confident than she’d been since walking through his front door.
Hugh relented, though not without a vexed sigh. “Who?”
“Miss April Barlow.”
He had never heard of her before. Hugh crossed his arms and stopped himself from saying no again. For whatever reason, Eloisa was here, after many years, and she looked afraid of being caught by their brother. That alone interested him enough to ask, “And who is this Miss April Barlow?”
She held his eyes and answered, “Your mother.”