Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
Sir Gabriel Poston’s residence wasn’t far from Bow Street.
The work-obsessed knight and his wife lived a few blocks away, on Tavistock, which ran parallel to the Strand.
Several fashionable shops lined Tavistock Street, and during the daylight hours, carriages and their teams cluttered up the road in an equally maddening and impressive manner.
It made one think that to pass by Tavistock without popping in would be a mistake, and its shops rivaled those of Bond and Oxford Streets.
An icy crust had formed on Hugh’s greatcoat by the time he crossed into the city just before nightfall.
He’d spent the ride from Wanstead mulling over everything Miss Barlow had divulged.
Going over it again and again seemed to harden him to it, much like the crust of ice on his coat.
There was no room for emotions, not right now.
Later, he could wallow and rage, but now, he could only have one objective: prove his innocence by finding Eloisa’s murderer.
It was a risk, but as he neared the city, its skyline swelling with every stride of his borrowed horse, Hugh decided there was only one person who could assist him in an official capacity.
One person who stood between Hugh and the gallows.
He had taken a chance on Hugh before, when all polite society had shunned and maligned him.
He approached Tavistock Street from the far western end, away from Bow Street.
Since it was past dark, most shops had closed, and carriages were at a minimum.
Going to the magistrate’s offices was out of the question.
However, if Sir Gabriel was at home without company, Hugh might be able to get away with a surreptitious meeting.
Rebecca, Lady Poston and certainly Sir Gabriel’s better half, had always adored Hugh, and he could only hope she did not believe the rumors.
While it wasn’t proof, April Barlow’s confession offered strong motive for Bartholomew to silence his sister and stop her crusade to ruin him.
Eloisa had despised her brother for sending her away, for exiling her from London and treating her as if she was the one to blame for what happened.
She had no choice but to defer to Barty, who was the viscount and eldest brother.
Thomas had to defer to him too. But Thomas had not paid for his part in the debacle, had he?
He had merely been ordered to join the royal army and make something of himself.
Eloisa’s bitter fury was not unwarranted.
Hugh dismounted and left Fournier’s horse tied off at the curb. He hoped to hell no thief wandered by and scarpered off with it. The windows of Sir Gabriel’s home were lit, emitting a welcome glow. Hugh shivered. He would take his chances.
After a few raps of the knocker, a servant opened the door.
“Good evening, madam. Officer Tyne to see Sir Gabriel, if he is not already entertaining other guests.”
The lie would only work if Tyne had never come by the residence and made himself known to the maid, and the gamble paid off. She allowed Hugh into the foyer, her eyes taking in the state of his coat and hat, and then bustled off to announce him.
The foyer exuded understated elegance. A single vase of flowers centered a small round table underneath a silver framed beveled mirror.
Maroon carpet ran the stairs, an oil landscape in vivid golds, oranges, and blues displayed talent, and an alabaster bust of Themis, the goddess of justice, blindfolded and holding a balancing scale aloft, flaunted Sir Gabriel’s passion and purpose.
If he did not give Hugh aid tonight, he would at least give him a ten-minute advantage to disappear into London again.
The maid reappeared and on her heels was the barrel-chested chief magistrate, in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat.
His thunderous expression at the notion that Tyne had come to his residence changed first to surprise, then to exasperation when he saw Hugh standing in his front hall.
Sir Gabriel thinned his lips and spared the maid a furtive glance before clearing his throat. “Officer Tyne. My study. Now.”
Hopes lifting, Hugh followed his swift strides down the narrow hall off the foyer.
The magistrate had concealed Hugh’s identity to prevent his servant from rushing to the backrooms and telling the other staff.
That might mean he wanted to help. However, when Sir Gabriel closed the study door behind him and turned to face Hugh, the man was practically fulminating.
“God damn it, Marsden, where in Hades’s bollocks have you been? I have men turning this city inside out searching for you, and you waltz into my home looking like a drowned river rat? I want answers, and I want them right now.”
Had he been standing in Sir Gabriel’s office at Bow Street fielding the man’s ire, Hugh would have been gritting his molars and devising a way to extricate himself from the room. However now, after the last few hellish days, the magistrate’s booming voice was a familiar balm.
“I’ve been trying not to get arrested and hanged for a murder I didn’t commit,” Hugh replied as he peeled off his greatcoat, hat, and gloves. Sir Gabriel went to a table crammed with glass decanters and poured them both generous splashes of whisky.
“Hell, I know you didn’t do it,” he said, “but you made yourself look goddamn guilty disappearing like that. Not to mention your history with Neatham, your behavior at his home, and the past rumors regarding the lady. None of it is in your favor. In fact, you would have been wiser to hop a packet to Calais.”
He handed Hugh the cut crystal snifter. Hugh gripped its curved base, staring at the magistrate in disbelief. He didn’t know if Sir Gabriel’s suggestion amused or frightened him.
“Do you have no other suspects?” Hugh asked.
“Of course not,” he growled. “The viscount is determined to pin this on you, and your assault against him hours before his sister was killed hasn’t helped you, Marsden.
He is convinced it was an act of revenge.
Said you’d come to his home, spouting off about Eloisa being in London and coming to see you.
That you were frothing at the bit over some secret she was keeping from you.
He says you went mad, leapt across his bloody desk, and attacked him! ”
Hugh downed the whisky. “That last part is true. And Eloisa did come to see me a few days before her murder with a secret. You might want to sit down. It’s a long story.”
“No need.” Sir Gabriel was already pouring himself another whisky. “I’ve already heard it.”
Hugh’s grip on his empty glass slackened. “What? How?”
“Your duchess. She came to see me earlier this afternoon.”
Audrey. His pulse quickened as possible reasons why she would go to the chief magistrate streamed through his mind. What had happened since he’d left town that morning?
“I know about April Barlow and the theory that perhaps she and your father married, that you were born before Bartholomew, and that you could be heir, not him,” he summarized as he lowered himself into a chair adjacent the hearth. A fire warmed Hugh as he took the chair opposite.
“It’s no longer mere theory. I’ve just come from a meeting with Miss Barlow.
The marriage was done in Scotland, at the old parish church in Gretna Green.
My father’s father was hoping for an annulment, so he concealed the truth to stave off scandal.
But then he died, and my father was in dire straits.
He was in debt up to his ears, and Miss Barlow had run off with no word, no indication of where she’d gone.
My father thought all evidence of his elopement had vanished, and to save the estate, he married again, this time prosperously.
Only…he didn’t know Miss Barlow was with child. ”
“Bloody Christ.” The magistrate sank back into his chair. It seemed an appropriate reaction.
“She asked my father to care for me when she…decided that it was too much for her,” Hugh said succinctly, without the bitter tang of the truer words: abandoned him.
“And where did Miss Barlow go from there?”
“She started a finishing school for young ladies. In fact, Eloisa learned that Miss Barlow was missing from her finishing school—”
“How?” Sir Gabriel interjected.
“She’d gone there and been told that the headmistress had disappeared.”
The magistrate grumbled, a sound he made when skeptical. “How would Eloisa have known to go there? How did she find this April Barlow woman in the first place?”
Hugh had wondered that as well. How had she known? Eloisa had also said that until recently, she had not given thought to the name April Barlow. How then had she so recently come upon the name again?
The magistrate’s study seemed to disappear all around him as Hugh’s muddled mind cleared.
Eloisa had spent all these years hiding in the countryside, while Lady Cassandra, the duke’s sister, had returned after a handful of months away, having birthed her child in secret.
Cassie, devastated over having to give up her child and return.
Eloisa, whose baby had died. Why then stay away? Why not return?
“Miss Susan Smith,” Hugh whispered.
Sir Gabriel turned his ear. “Come again?”
Hugh got to his feet, blood beginning to pump hard. Christ, he’d been daft. “Eloisa gave Miss Carey, the assistant headmistress at the school, a pseudonym, claiming that she wanted to place her daughter at the school. I thought it was a ruse, a cover for Eloisa to gain access to April Barlow…”
He couldn’t stand still. Hugh paced to the magistrate’s desk and back again.
“It wasn’t a ruse. That’s how she heard Miss Barlow’s name again. When she’d looked into the school, in earnest. For her daughter.”