Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Not her typical viscount, indeed.
She supposed that was one of the reasons she had avoided writing him or paying a call the last month and a half.
Audrey had told herself that she was simply giving him time to adjust, for things to settle a bit.
The tumult of solving Eloisa’s murder, of killing his younger brother, and then, of being named rightful heir to the Neatham title, had to have been overwhelming.
There was nothing Audrey could have done to help him acclimate, so she’d left him alone.
But in the quiet of the nights, when she lay in bed, unable to sleep, she would allow the real reason to gain a small foothold. Worry and doubt chased good sense straight out of her head when she thought of Hugh, which was far too often.
He was now viscount. Wealthy and powerful, his world was about to expand and fill with droves of eligible young ladies. And Audrey…well, she was slightly older and very much off the market.
For now.
The narrow hall to the back of the house terminated at a door, and when Hugh pushed it wide, the savory scents of herbs and roasted meat enveloped them.
“Oh! I wasn’t expecting ye back here, my lord,” the cook, Mrs. Peets, said as she jumped to attention at the cookstove.
Hugh pulled up short, and Audrey suspected that it was the form of address.
My lord. He wouldn’t be accustomed to hearing it.
Strangely enough, as irregular as it felt to picture him mingling among the ton, hearing him called my lord seemed entirely natural.
He had the weighty presence of a man of the peerage. He always had.
“Really, Mrs. Peets, I come to the kitchen on a regular basis. You’ve never been surprised to see me here before.”
Just then, his valet, Basil, rushed in on their heels. “My lord, it is not customary for his lordship to enter the servants’ rooms—”
“Out!” Hugh barked. The cook and valet startled with small leaps, and Audrey joined them.
“But my lord,” Basil pleaded.
“Out!” he shouted again, though louder.
“My stew…” the cook started to say but when met with Hugh’s glare, she dropped her protest and summarily fled the kitchen with Basil.
Hugh growled under his breath and pulled at his cravat as if he were suffocating.
“Why is this house so bloody hot? It’s like a Turkish bath in here,” he grumbled as he went to the back door and threw it open. The April sun washed the tiles at his feet.
Audrey crossed her arms before her and approached him. “What has happened?”
It wasn’t like him to fuss and complain, and it wasn’t overly warm in the house either. Hugh leaned a broad shoulder against the door frame, staring out into the small plot of lawn, bordered by a narrow lane. “I’ve been relieved of my post at Bow Street.”
Audrey’s stomach dove. Compassion for him, and a glint of outrage, brought her to his side. She stopped short of laying a hand on his shirtsleeve. “I’m sorry. I know how much you love your work.”
He’d told her how much he’d valued it before, and why.
Having been exiled from his own family after the death of his father, ostracized as a villainous, good-for-nothing ward, he’d thrown himself into a new world, one of hard work, of seeking justice and punishing those who deserved it.
Now, after she’d at last learned the truth about Eloisa’s ruination, Audrey could understand Hugh’s deeper longing, his truer motivation to lock up criminals.
It wasn’t too difficult to parse why she had come to love working alongside him, solving the riddles of a handful of crimes this past year.
It gave her a sense of purpose, of consequence.
Audrey had always felt apart from her peers, and not just due to her ability to read the memories of objects.
She had always longed for something more, something of significance.
She had longed for something that made her feel alive.
And she had come to realize that she never felt more alive than when she was working to solve an inquiry.
Or when she was with Hugh.
Before, she might have felt a tickle of guilt for thinking such a thing.
But it didn’t come this time. Philip had been closed off to her, ever since confessing his plan to disappear into the Continent; to leave her, his title, his duties, his whole life behind.
She’d tried to broach the subject a few times over the last few weeks, but he had not wanted to discuss it.
Audrey was hopeful he wouldn’t go through with it; maybe he’d seen reason and changed his mind.
But, even if he did choose to stay, things had altered between them.
Gone a bit sour on the vine. Audrey simply didn’t trust him as much as she used to, and it left her feeling bereft.
Hugh glanced at her. “I haven’t the first idea how to be viscount.”
“That’s not true,” she said. “You were raised by one.”
“Always believing I was a cheaper version of him,” he bit off, his jaw tight.
She’d had enough. Impetuously, she reached for his forearm and pinched it. He pushed off the door frame, glaring at her and rubbing his arm. “What the devil was that for?”
“For being stupid,” she answered. Hugh turned to face her fully, arms crossing as though ready to meet her in a verbal sparring.
“You are infinitely wiser than Bartholomew, not to mention honest and principled. You might not take pleasure in being a peer or for needing to change the direction your life was traveling before, but you have a duty. People are depending upon you, whether you like it or not. Bow Street officer or viscount, it doesn’t matter.
You are needed. Now, I won’t hear another word about how you are inferior or second-rate, do you hear me? ”
Audrey drew a long breath, and only then realized the extent of her diatribe. Warmth flooded up her neck, to her cheeks and the tips of her ears while Hugh continued to stare down at her, his lips parted. Then, the corner of his mouth quirked. “You are lovely when you blush.”
“Don’t compliment me, I was trying to be harsh.”
Hugh fought to hold back his grin, but it was a losing battle.
Audrey swatted his arm but retreated quickly.
Touching him could be dangerous. He was sinfully handsome.
There was no getting around that fact. Thick dark hair, a strong nose and chin, full mouth, and fathomless sable eyes that always seemed to hold some shadowy sadness.
Audrey was not immune to these things, and neither would any other young lady be.
The taint of his laborer status would take some time to come off, but he was now titled, wealthy, and single. He’d be expected to take a wife.
She edged her heels back along the tiles, away from the open kitchen door.
Away from Hugh. Distance always helped to ease the unrelenting weaving of her stomach and chest, her very blood it seemed.
Audrey approached the stew pot on the cookstove and peered inside, to the bubbling concoction of vegetables and beef.
Behind her, the door closed. “That was the closest thing to an apology I’ve ever heard Sir Gabriel make, you know.” Grateful for the change of subject, Audrey picked up the wooden spoon Mrs. Peets had abandoned and stirred the stew. “He was impressed by you.”
“Reluctantly impressed, you mean,” she said with a small shake of her head. “He hated admitting I was right about Colonel Trenton.”
“He certainly did hate to admit it, but trust me,” Hugh joined her at the stove. “If he was unhappy with your meddling, he would have blistered your ears.”
She paused the spoon’s rotation and balked at him. “Meddling? Might I remind you that I helped prove you innocent?” She began to stir again, splashing the contents against the side of the pot. “I was aiding, not meddling.”
Hugh placed his hand on hers, stilling the spoon. “My supper isn’t arguing against that fact,” he said, “and neither am I. Audrey—”
She slipped her hand out from underneath his and stepped back, away from the stove.
“The truth is,” he said, his eyes following her skittering motion. “I am indebted to you.”
“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “You are never in my debt. I helped because I…” Goodness, it was warm in here after all. She licked her lips and finished. “Care.”
During the several moments of silence that followed, Audrey questioned if she should have been so honest. But under Hugh’s softening stare, she couldn’t bring herself to regret it.
Still, it was time to get to the point of her visit.
“I’ve come for a reason. To welcome you into society and to give you this.
” She withdrew the square of heavy cardstock from her skirt’s pocket.
It was an invitation to her upcoming spring soiree, and it would be the only event held at Violet House before she and Philip quit London for the summer months.
Or perhaps before Philip quit England altogether.
She didn’t want to think on that just now though.
“I’m not sure I will be able to attend,” Hugh said after a mere glance at the invitation. He set it on the scarred wood of the kitchen table, treating it as he might a drowned rodent found in Mrs. Peets’s pot of cream.
Audrey was not surprised at his reluctance. “You must have received a dozen or more like it by now. You’ve turned them all down, I imagine.”
“I’m rather busy.”
He wouldn’t look at her, and instead began to fill a well-charred kettle on the stove with water. A viscount, making his own tea. Audrey bit her lower lip. This would certainly take some time.
“You will continue to be besieged,” she warned. “I don’t think you quite comprehend just how manipulative and commanding the mothers of young ladies who are of marriageable age can be.”
It had been meant as a joke, and perhaps a way to untangle her own discomfort over the thoughts that had plagued her since news of his ascension. But Hugh did not smirk at her. Instead, he held her gaze and said, “I have no interest in finding a viscountess, Audrey.”
She wished the pronouncement didn’t make her so happy. It was wrong, wanting him to stay a bachelor. She had no right. And yet when he reached for her hand, this time, she didn’t move away.
“This is becoming more complicated,” he said, his attention on her hand, on running his ungloved fingers along hers, encased in silk. They traveled forward and back, over and across her knuckles with gentle reverence.
“It is,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have come.”
She tried to pull her hand back, but he held firm.
“The problem isn’t your coming.” His meandering fingers ascended to the lip of her glove. He breached it, and the coarse pads of his fingers brushed her skin. Heat sparked everywhere. “The problem is your leaving. I want you to stay with me.”
Her heart paced faster as Hugh, almost absentmindedly, freed the two pearl buttons on her glove.
He peeled the silk from her hand, from her fingertips, and then, Audrey watched in breathless wonder as he lifted her bare hand to his lips.
He laid her inner wrist to his mouth, kissing her delicate skin.
“I want that too,” she said. “If we are discreet…”
But he shook his head, short and abrupt as if it gave him pain.
“I want you more than I’ve ever thought possible, but not as my secret.
It was how my father treated my mother, how he in a way, treated me.
It isn’t right. Or honorable, and if I’m not mistaken, you think I’m rather honest and principled. ”
His lips stretched in a sly grin as his next kiss burrowed into the center of her palm. An answering fire kindled in the center of her chest, consuming the oxygen in her lungs.
“I also said you were stupid,” she nearly gasped.
He laughed, nuzzled her hand once more, then lowered it. But he did not release her. “I am that. Undoubtedly, for I would rather have you in my life and not be able to touch you, than not have you in it at all.”
“Hugh—” She stopped. Swallowed hard. Then shook her head. “I feel like I’m going to burst into flames.”
He gripped her hand tighter at her whispered confession, and his glinting eyes became banked embers. “So do I.”
“What are we to do?” Audrey thought of Philip and his plan. Hugh was too principled to conduct an affair, but if he believed she were widowed… But no. She couldn’t lie to him. With Hugh, she was almost compulsively honest.
“I don’t have an answer yet,” he said, beginning to slip her glove back onto her hand. “Perhaps the next time we meet, I will.”
Hugh finished clasping the pearl buttons on her glove, then lifted her hand to his mouth again.
He kissed the ridge of her knuckles, his gaze steady on hers.
With a rush of clarity, Audrey knew her feelings.
She loved him. It wasn’t only desire or attraction, or the thrill of the few dangerous incidents they’d been involved in together.
This man—whether he was a Bow Street officer or viscount, a by-blow or an heir—had captured her whole heart.
And she was more fearful than ever that she was destined to lose him.
Thank you for reading Penance for the Dead and for continuing the Bow Street Duchess Mystery series! Please consider leaving a rating and review on to help other readers discover the series!
The fifth book in the series, FATAL BY DESIGN, is now available.