Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
Mildew and the stench of sour ale filled the interior of the hired hackney cab Audrey hailed on Bow Street after leaving Sir Gabriel Poston’s office.
Upon arriving at the offices, she had sent Carrigan back to Hyde Park, insisting that she would make her way home safely after her meeting with the magistrate.
She hadn’t anticipated departing the offices with her blood pumping, her pulse streaming in impatience and annoyance.
She hadn’t noticed the smell when she’d climbed in; nothing had mattered in that moment but leaving Bow Street and the intractable magistrate before she said something she regretted.
The man hadn’t taken her seriously. Why had she imagined he would?
Just because Hugh and Philip considered her intelligent enough to listen to did not mean any other man would feel the same.
She’d been spoiled by the duke and Hugh, and one frustrating conversation with Bow Street’s chief magistrate had put her firmly back in her place; a place reserved for silly, hysterical, and overly imaginative ladies.
Infuriating! She shifted on the worn bench seat, the stuffed cushion lumpy and hard.
At least Sir Gabriel had not been chomping at the bit to find and arrest Hugh.
If anything, he’d seemed worried about his principal officer.
He had closed the office door and lowered his baritone voice so as to avoid being overheard—at least that was her suspicion.
He’d looked relieved to hear that Hugh was working to find the true murderer and intrigued by the story of April Barlow and the possible Gretna Green elopement.
But nothing she’d had to say about Colonel Trenton had affected the magistrate’s opinion, which was that the man had no motive—unless Hugh could prove Eloisa’s intent had been to expose herself, Bartholomew, and Thomas as illegitimate.
If only she had not tossed aside that gold leaf charm!
She was certain the colonel’s had been missing from his sidearm when she’d seen him at Hyde Park.
Why else would he cover up the tassel with his hand and then so urgently leave the pavilion?
Briefly, she’d considered giving the driver instructions to take her to Hyde Park so she could seek him out.
But to what end? She couldn’t question him in the middle of a military review. It would be beyond the pale.
So instead, she’d instructed the driver to go to Curzon Street.
Perhaps Hugh would return with the borrowed mount, or more likely he’d send Sir on the task.
It was incredibly frustrating to be cut off from Hugh, to not be able to speak to him.
Shivers and jitters attacked her limbs whenever she thought about the possible changing circumstances of Hugh’s birth.
But it was too cumbersome a notion to even contemplate right then.
Whatever the outcome may be, the vital thing was clearing his name.
The hired hack slowed, and gratitude for arriving home nearly made her lightheaded.
Or perhaps it was the odor of the cab making her feel that way.
Though it was sleeting rain, she breathed in the fresh air as she stepped down onto the drive outside Violet House.
It was just in time, too, for she saw Lord Thornton taking up the reins of his covered curricle, parked just in front of the hackney.
“Your Grace!” He dropped the ribbons and hopped from the conveyance. “I was just about to try Hyde Park. I wondered if you might be at the review.”
The front door opened, and a footman sprang forward to pay the hired driver while Audrey invited the physician inside, out of the weather.
“You spoke to the Marcets?” she asked as Barton helped her from her pelisse.
Lord Thornton nodded but remained close-lipped until they were able to speak privately in the drawing room.
Clearly, he had learned something of interest. Audrey brimmed with agitated hope as the maid bobbed a curtsey and left to fetch tea.
“The Marcets explained the smoke bomb,” he said straightaway. “Potassium nitrate, sugar, sodium bicarbonate, and black powder, packed into a hollow tube and activated by a fuse. But that isn’t what I found most illuminating.”
“What did you, then?”
“The reason for the demonstration in the first place,” he replied, a sly grin bowing his lips.
Audrey sat and invited him to do the same.
“As soon as Mrs. Marcet began to explain, I remembered something from the lecture that I’d forgotten, what with all the commotion after the smoke began filling the hall.
The upcoming military review—the mock battles employ scores of smoke bombs to give a realistic effect.
The Marcets were engaging the audience on how such a device works and the simple chemistry behind them. ”
The military review. Audrey sat straighter, her lips parting. “Of course,” she whispered. “He would have had ready access to them.”
Lord Thornton’s handsome face clouded with mystification. “He?”
“Colonel Trenton,” she said, and then quickly conveyed what she had to Sir Gabriel, about the sidearm leaf charm, as well as Colonel Trenton’s appearance the morning at Lady Reed’s.
“They have been training for this review for at least a month,” she went on. “Colonel Trenton could have easily been able to procure one of these smoke devices, don’t you think?”
“Surely. And the state of his swollen eyes and hoarse throat the following day would indicate he exposed himself to the caustic smoke,” Lord Thornton added.
“Colonel Trenton was on the guest list for the soiree that night, but he didn’t attend,” Audrey said, her mind churning with possible explanations.
Her racing thoughts came to a standstill.
“The veranda door,” she whispered. “It was open when we reached it to escape the smoke, and yet there was no one on the veranda just yet. We were the first.”
“He entered through the veranda?”
“It would mean he wouldn’t be announced, and perhaps he was not wearing his uniform, only his sidearm,” she said, but then shook her head. “Why would Eloisa come into the ballroom?”
“To get away from him?” Lord Thornton shrugged one shoulder. “If he found her in another part of the house and she felt in danger, she might have hoped the other guests would provide safety.”
“But he had thought to bring the smoke device with him to provide a bit of panic and chaos, like what occurred at the lecture?” She frowned and felt ill that he had planned all this.
After a moment, Lord Thornton spoke again. “Hugh mentioned Joanna Neatham worried Barty wasn’t the true heir. I don’t know how that could be possible, but surely Trenton would not want Eloisa spreading such information.”
Audrey paused before she could say anything about the truth of Hugh’s birthdate; that he’d been born before Bartholomew. Her theory that Fitzgerald and April had eloped was only theory after all, and she did not want to gossip without evidence. Not even to Hugh’s closest friend.
Lord Thornton didn’t seem to realize she had bit her tongue. He sat forward, elbows upon his thighs, and rubbed his hands together, as if in thought. “It’s curious. Hugh never speaks of Trenton. I’m afraid I don’t know much about the man.”
Audrey hadn’t given it much thought, but he was correct. Hugh didn’t speak of Colonel Trenton—or Thomas, as he knew him—to her either.
“He despises Barty,” he went on.
Audrey met his eye and grinned. “Yes. Quite loquaciously.”
Lord Thornton laughed. “He makes no excuses there. But it’s almost as if Trenton doesn’t exist for Hugh.”
The maid arrived with the tea tray then. After their cups were poured and the maid left, Audrey theorized, “Perhaps he has a soft spot for him?”
Lord Thornton shook his head curtly. “No. I’ve witnessed Hugh and his soft spots. Take Sir and Basil, for example. He grumbles and complains about the pair of them to no end. For Hugh, that is the sign of true fondness.”
He sipped his tea while Audrey recalled Hugh’s grumbling and complaining about her.
Perhaps it wasn’t the same thing if it was done to her face, but she knew him well enough by now to know he did have a partiality to her.
Recalling the few kisses they had shared, she suspected it was more than that.
She was happy when Lord Thornton continued. “No, any mention of Trenton and Hugh is more likely to look like he’s swallowed a slimy eel.”
At that image, Audrey lowered her tea. Her guest cleared his throat. “My apologies. It’s been a long while since I’ve taken tea in Mayfair. No more talk of eels.”
She shook her head and set her saucer and cup on the table. “No, it’s not that. It’s his reaction. The mention of Colonel Trenton seemed to almost sicken him?”
“Yes, I suppose that is it. I’ve always shrugged it off as his distaste for his half-siblings. But perhaps there is more to the story when it comes to Trenton.”
However, after a few moments of quiet, it was clear that conjecture was the only thing they had left to work with.
Gossip mongering was the last thing Audrey wanted to partake in, and it seemed the same for Lord Thornton.
He thanked her for the tea, and she thanked him for the proof that Colonel Trenton would at least have been knowledgeable on smoke bombs.