Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
The boudoir was a cloud of silk and satin, of white muslin and thin linen and all manner of lush, feminine possessions.
Shedding his waistcoat and shirt, Hugh approached the ironstone pitcher and bowl on a stand with the same wary hesitance a doe might possess upon entering an open field.
This was no place he’d ever anticipated being.
The scent of camellia and jasmine bath oils still lingered, and he could not resist the delectable image of Audrey submerged in the clawfoot copper tub.
Quickly, he picked up the delicate round of milled French soap on a dish next to the basin and lathered a cloth.
She would not take long to gather tea and a plate of food in the kitchen and return.
She was right; he was famished. He’d hunkered down in a corridor in Whitechapel most of the day, watching the secret location of Thornton’s community clinic.
As it was a Sunday, he’d anticipated his friend to turn out for his weekly hours there.
But he hadn’t come. Out searching for Hugh, no doubt.
The evening before, he’d been nursing his swollen and bruised eye with a cold compress and a stiff whisky when Sir had come storming inside the house, shouting.
Word on the street was that a lady had been killed at a fancy party in Mayfair and the Runners were coming—for Hugh.
He’d barely had time to throw on his coat and hat and stuff some money into his pockets before Basil shunted him out the back door.
Sir led him to a warehouse to lay low and had then left to scout out the ordeal. He’d returned with the news Hugh had already begun to suspect: the woman was Eloisa. And Hugh was wanted in connection.
It was preposterous, of course, but not if viewed at as an outsider.
Hugh, who’d been accused of ruining her years ago, and who had just gone a decent round of fisticuffs with Lord Neatham in his study, would certainly be the most likely suspect.
And since he left Neatham House shortly before Eloisa’s murder, the timing supported the accusations against him.
As did his lack of an alibi. He hadn’t gone back to Bedford Street via hired hack right after the altercation.
Instead, he’d cooled off by walking the few miles home and taking his time to do it.
He hadn’t even stopped into a tavern for a pint, which would have given him an alibi.
He’d spent the time alone, pondering the disastrous visit to his half-brother, the information he’d gleaned from his tour of the finishing school, and the unsettlingly swift way his past had caught up and closed around him like a vise since Eloisa’s visit.
And now, she was dead. It wasn’t exactly loss or sadness that he felt; perhaps that would come later.
What he felt instead were stabs of regret and anger and frustration.
They burned incessantly in his chest. If only Eloisa had been more forthcoming with her purpose here, her plans, then perhaps Hugh would have a suspect to corner and investigate.
Not an official Bow Street-endorsed investigation, no, but one that was vital.
The most vital he’d ever undertaken. The only person he could think of who stood something to gain from her death was Barty—just as Audrey had deduced.
But not only would he never kill his own sister, he also had not been at the ball.
Instead, he’d been busy reporting Hugh’s attack on him to Bow Street. His alibi was unassailable.
He scrubbed the dirt and sweat from his arms, chest, and neck and dressed, now smelling faintly of lavender. It was the first bit of lightness he’d felt in days. Ever since Eloisa stepped into his study and thrown his world into a tailspin.
The door to the main bedchamber opened. Hugh waited, still not entirely trusting that the duke would not return from his club or the maid, Greer, would not pop in for one last task before turning in for the night.
“Hugh?” It was Audrey’s tremulous voice. He exhaled.
“I’m here,” he replied, stepping from the boudoir.
The sight of her in her robe, though it covered her thoroughly from neck to ankle, still made him want to groan.
As did the single braid, tied off with a ribbon and draped over her shoulder.
She appeared soft and slumberous as she set the tray upon the chaise.
He swallowed the groan and focused on his cuffs, then his placket and high collar. He’d left off the neckcloth.
“You smell much better,” she commented as he approached the chaise.
“This room is a far cry from malodorous warrens of Whitechapel,” he said, sniffing his sleeve. It wasn’t all that offensive—yet. Give it another day and he’d be ripe.
She poured them tea, and when she lowered herself to the edge of the chaise, clasping her teacup with both palms, Hugh took the nearby chair. Best to keep at least a little distance.
“Did Lord Neatham give you that bruise?” she asked, sipping the brew.
“Either him or his footman when he pulled me off Barty,” Hugh replied. “It was all a little hectic.”
The black tea loosened the bunched muscles along his shoulders and spine. He’d been tensed all day, waiting for Thornton to show, waiting for nightfall so he could see Audrey. Waiting to be found and arrested.
“Why did you go there?” she asked. “Why attack him?”
“I didn’t attack him,” he retorted, though much too aggressively. Defensively. He softened his voice as he set the small cup onto its saucer. “The visit was civil enough, at least at first.”
He downed the rest of his tea, hoping it would warm his insides. The weather had chilled him to the bone all day, and even here, in this warm, posh room, the cold wouldn’t abate.
Briefly, Hugh informed her of his visit and the pertinent details of what they’d discussed. He omitted the talk of Eloisa’s baby. It turned his stomach, and surely would Audrey’s too. Besides, it wasn’t relevant to the murder case.
“He hadn’t known she was in town?” Audrey asked afterward.
“And he hadn’t been pleased to hear it.” Hugh’s blood had started to boil as he’d sat across from Barty in the study, over the glossy expanse of the viscount’s desk, listening to his half-brother rattling off all the reasons why Eloisa’s return would be disastrous if made public. Disastrous for Barty, that was.
“He knew nothing of April Barlow?” Audrey asked, drawing him back into the bedchamber and away from the memory of Neatham House. Snug and cozy, the corners of her room were dark with shadows where the lamplight didn’t reach.
She poured more tea into his cup, and he sipped it more genteelly this time. Less like a rabid dog with a bottomless hunger.
“Nothing,” he confirmed. “Barty isn’t a convincing liar, either. He stammers when he’s telling a tall tale. Which leaves me to wonder who paid Miss Barlow a visit Monday night.”
She blew over the surface of her tea. “Did you take anything from her office? Something I could hold?”
He’d considered it, especially the trinkets lining her windowsill.
However, Miss Carey had been with him. He’d also recalled how, last autumn, Audrey had accused him of only calling on her for her ability.
She’d asked a pointed question, one he still heard in the recesses of his mind: If she did not possess such a useful gift, would he bother with her at all?
The truth was, while her gift was extraordinary, so was she.
He’d hoped they had made amends, and yet he hadn’t wanted to bring her anything now with the expectation that she would help him.
He explained the impossibility of filching anything from the office with the assistant headmistress watching, and then set his teacup down.
“But there is another way you can help,” he said, and then launched into one of the reasons he’d come to Violet House. “My father was a good and decent man, so it stands to reason that he would have supported my birth mother just as generously as he did Catherine Marsden.”
Audrey lowered her teacup as well, her brow furrowing as she met his expectant gaze. “You believe he financed her finishing school.”
“I do.”
“Of course. And there might be record of it with his solicitor. Along with more information on April Barlow.”
This was why he would come to her, even without her ability. Her quick and clever mind never failed to astonish.
“As you are acquainted with my father’s former solicitor, I hoped you might conjure a way to speak to him. Gain access to his files,” Hugh explained.
A grin tugged her lips. “Do you mean Mr. Potridge?”
Potridge was the duke’s solicitor, as Hugh had come to know last spring when he’d arrested Fournier.
“Barty cut him loose when he became viscount, but my father and Potridge got along well.”
With a small wriggle of excitement, Audrey sat forward. “I could call on him tomorrow. Though I’m not sure how to get my hands on his files.”
“I find a distraction always works wonders,” he said with a wink. “I’ll make sure Sir follows you there and provides one.”
Hugh was certain the duchess could find a valid reason for going to his office to begin with.
As he tucked into his plate of cold ham, cheese, and biscuits studded with currants, Audrey got to her feet and paced before the fire, likely devising her plan.
His eyes lifted toward her time and again, her state of dishabille settling into his body with more weight each time he glanced up.
The column of her neck was on display, the lace collar of her nightdress not high enough to obscure it.
Her feet, so small and dainty, padded over the carpet as she paced, lost in thought.
The picture of the two of them here, like this, could have been that of any man and his wife.
The comfort and ease of it tempted him. But it was a distraction he could ill afford.
He needed to stay sharp. The creature comforts of this room, of this food, and most formidably, Audrey herself, was muddling his mind.