Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
None of the conveyances parked along Kensington Square near Neatham House resembled any belonging to the Duchess of Fournier. Hugh looked for Carrigan and his broad shoulders in the various driver’s boxes but couldn’t see him either.
He’d allowed Sir Gabriel the hour he’d requested to clear out the two Bow Street constables who’d been assigned to Curzon Street.
The night before, he’d arrived within the duchess’s carriage, but they would have certainly seen him tonight, riding in on the borrowed mount.
However, before Hugh had even reached the mews behind Violet House, he’d met with Sir. The boy had been keeping his own watch.
The duchess had left Violet House abruptly, Sir reported.
She’d been gabbing on about Lady Neatham and her children and how she thought she’d figured something out.
With a stroke of alarm, Hugh had kept Fournier’s horse and ridden it to Neatham House as quickly as possible.
Sir, meanwhile, was to go to St James’s Square and fetch Thornton.
Audrey should have arrived at Kensington Square by now.
Hugh embraced the falling darkness as he dismounted and looped the reins over a post, his gaze hinged on the lit windows of Neatham House.
Given the time—just before six o’clock—Barty and his wife should be at home.
It was too early to be out for the evening, and it was unfashionable to still be out making calls or turning through Hyde Park.
Perhaps Carrigan had parked further around the square, away from Barty’s residence.
Looking upon it now gave Hugh the same adverse swirl, low in his gut, that the place always inspired.
Neatham House wasn’t a home of fond memories.
Hugh had always preferred the viscount’s Surrey estate, near Cranleigh.
There, at least, he could go off into the fields and woods; he could keep the company of the servants and stable hands more easily too.
Here, in London, Neatham House had felt like a prison.
One that might have swallowed up Audrey.
Again, he wondered what she could have possibly been thinking coming here, seeking out Lady Neatham. What about her children had she discovered? He stood there, next to his horse, stymied. He couldn’t very well go knocking on the front door again.
“Don’t move,” a gruff voice said from behind Hugh. At the same time, something hard pressed between his ribs. He knew the shape.
“Not the finest evening for a stroll around Kensington Square, is it?” the man said with a harsh laugh. “Keep your hands on the reins of your horse, still-like.”
“Who are you?” Hugh asked, but a waft of the man hit his nostrils, and Hugh knew. Horse and urine. Rasping voice. This was the man who took the folio from Audrey.
Answers stacked up, one after the other. Why Audrey had set out for Neatham House, why she’d mentioned the viscountess and her children. Why this man would have wanted the folio.
“You’re working for Lady Neatham,” Hugh said, gripping the leather reins, as instructed. The horse shifted uneasily, sensing his tension and the looming danger.
“She thought you might figure out what’s what after I swiped those papers. Said you’d probably come around the square, though I didn’t think you’d be that stupid.”
“I do love to surprise,” Hugh said. “Well? Aren’t you going to take me to her?”
The man guffawed. “Into the house? ‘Course not. I’m to dispose of you in private,” he explained, saying this last with an air of reverence, as if it was some great honor he’d been tasked with.
In private? Hugh gathered that no one else in Neatham House knew about this man. Lila, the viscountess, had hired him on her own, acting in secret. Without her husband’s knowledge.
Which meant Hugh had an opportunity. He had leverage over the viscountess.
“No, I suppose she wouldn’t want you stinking up her fine rooms,” Hugh said, and as the man started to grate out another rasp of laughter, he twisted to the side and spun, knocking the man’s arm out to the side.
He landed a facer and heard the crack of the man’s nose.
The man stumbled, and Hugh threw his weight, taking him firmly to the ground.
Two bashes of his wrist against the hard cobbles, and the pistol clattered free.
Hugh leaped to his feet and kicked the weapon, sending it skidding off into the darkness.
“Now,” Hugh panted, “perhaps we’ll go see the viscountess together.”
The man rolled to his knees to try and stand, but Hugh caught him around the neck and dragged him to his feet.
This sod wasn’t so different from the many criminals he’d arrested before, and as he towed him straight to Neatham House’s front door, then kicked the painted wood by way of knocking, Hugh almost felt a burst of nostalgia for his foot patrol days.
The man squirmed and swore, but Hugh had him locked under the chin, applying just enough pressure to cut off some of his air flow and make him compliant.
The front door began to open slowly, but just one glimpse at Hugh and the man tussling on the front step, and the footman made to shut the door and lock it again. Hugh gave it a helpful shove with his foot, knocking the footman back into a table and sending him to the floor.
Hugh dragged the footpad toward the stairs, directly ahead. The man’s feet stumbled and slipped, but Hugh wrenched onward, his destination the first level, where the private rooms of the viscount and viscountess were located.
Several voices shouted from below, followed by pounding feet.
He couldn’t move fast enough, not with the hired man weighing him down.
With seconds to spare before a pair of footmen could lunge at him from behind, Hugh reached the landing and tossed the man to the pale green carpet, creating an obstacle for the servants, who stopped short before they might trip over the man.
“What the devil is going on here!” Barty shouted as he entered the landing. He spotted Hugh, and at the same moment, Hugh made out the weapon held in his brother’s hand. It was a muff pistol; he’d likely grabbed for it at the resounding commotion in the front hall.
“You!” He aimed the pistol at him. “Parker, summon the police! You are going to swing from a rope on Tower Hill, Marsden.”
One of the footmen descended the stairs, presumably to flag down the closest foot patrol.
Hugh heaved for breath and gestured to the man who’d finally staggered to his feet.
Blood streamed from his nose, and he’d lost his hat.
“This man attacked the Duchess of Fournier in her home; she will attest to this. I am placing him under arrest for that crime—and for the murders of Eloisa and Lady Reed.”
The desired effect came through.
“I didn’t kill no one!” the man barked.
With golden timing, Lady Neatham exited a room, onto the narrow first level landing. Her wide eyes jumped from Hugh to the man she’d hired, then to her husband. She made to retreat into her room.
“Going so soon, my lady?” Hugh called. “Please, stay. This is your handiwork, after all.”
She hitched her chin, her fists curled into the skirts of her dress. “I don’t take your meaning. Barty, what is happening here?”
“Lila’s handiwork? My god, Marsden, what madness consumes you? My dear, leave us.”
Barty’s useless arm was tucked up into a sling, resting upon his paunch. His wife’s stare lingered on the hired man a moment too long as she hesitated in the doorway to her room.
“You’re wondering if you paid him well enough to keep his mouth shut,” Hugh said to her, ignoring his half-brother and the pistol. Muff pistols were known for their inaccuracy; one needed to practically press the barrel to its target if they wanted to hit their mark.
“Don’t be absurd,” she hissed. “Whatever could I want with the likes of him?”
She glared at the crass footpad in revulsion. What would the viscountess want with him?
“Of course,” Hugh said as what Sir mentioned the previous day, about another solicitor’s office being turned over, came clear.
“It was Tipper and Sons. That’s the office you had this footpad turn over, not realizing that the solicitor your husband employs is not the same as our father’s solicitor, Mr. Potridge.
You were searching for the documents in the wrong place. ”
More servants crowded up on the stairs to see what the commotion was, but none of them grabbed for Hugh. With Barty’s pistol aimed at him, no one wished to be in the potential line of fire. He scowled at Hugh. Then his wife. “What documents? Lila, what is he on about?”
“Don’t listen to him,” she said sharply. “He is insane. He killed Eloisa.”
“How did you know she was in London?” Hugh asked her, his heavy breaths evening out, his heartrate dropping. He needed to think clearly if he wanted to get out of this without irons first being clapped onto his wrists.
The viscountess sneered but didn’t answer.
“Lady Reed is your aunt,” Hugh went on, piecing it together. Realizing what Audrey must have grasped. “She warned you, didn’t she? Told you what the late viscountess confessed to her on her deathbed.”
Lila Neatham’s coloring drained.
“What is all this claptrap?” Barty asked, his attention darting frantically between his wife and Hugh.
The hired man used the distraction to break for the stairs. He pushed a footman aside and then a maid as he fled, leaping three or four steps at a time. Hugh watched him go, unconcerned.
“Where is that man going?” Barty demanded. “Who in the blazes is he anyhow?”
Hugh warmed to the opening. “He’s the man your wife hired to kill Eloisa.”
She gargled on air and a half scream. “No! I did no such thing! I gave him no orders for that.”
“You cur!” Barty re-leveled the pistol at him, after having let it slip as he became addled.