Page 34 of Murder at the Seven Dials
Thornton rapped on the roof and called to his driver with new directions. Hugh felt the carriage slow and begin to turn.
“What of the Duchess of Fournier?” Thornton said. “Have you questioned her?”
The mention of her churned up a strange toss of annoyance and reticence within him. He wasn’t certain why, but he was reluctant to admit he’d dealt with the lady in question. Hugh pulled at his starched collar and the knotted cravat his valet had insisted upon that morning for the inquest. Hugh often went without the cravat, opting instead for a stock, but Basil had all but blocked Hugh’s bedroom door until he’d relented.
“I have,” he answered. Thornton waited, one brow raised, for more of a reply. Hugh sighed. “Her Grace is adamant that her husband was not having an affair with Miss Lovejoy.”
He could tell what Thornton thought of that statement with one glance—that the duchess was either idealistic to a fault or lying to protect the duke. Just as Hugh had believed. However now, an inkling of doubt colored his certainty.
“I cannot name one lord of the realm who has not entertained a mistress,” Thornton said, then shrugged. “Unless theirs is a love match, like Herrick’s. Or mine with Sarah,” he added softly with a glance out the window.
Hugh spared his friend a concerned glance at the mention of his late wife but knew better than to say anything more on the topic.
The duke’s younger brother was well rumored to be besotted with his wife. Perhaps the brothers had that in common. The duchess was driven to prove her husband’s innocence, that much was clear. Why go to such bother, shoving aside what most women would do in her situation—decamp to the countryside in shame—unless she loved him?
He considered Fournier. Tall and trim, athletic but not muscular, not unattractive. Some might even say handsome. The duchess herself stood at a shorter height, though she wasn’t petite. She had a healthy flush, a generous figure, and a neck that reminded Hugh of a swan. She was far more attractive than her husband, but Hugh had known many mismatched marriages.
“What is it you’re thinking?” Thornton asked.
He realized he had been staring at the floor, lost in his contemplations of the duchess’s features.
“What can you tell me about her? Their marriage?”
“You know I don’t socialize as much as I used to,” Thornton replied.
Hugh could barely get the man out for a drink once a month. His work tied him up at all hours of the day, every day of the week.
“You will still know a hell of a lot more than I do,” Hugh replied. He had shed that part of his life completely. Or at least, he had tried to. Still, rumors and memories, names and faces, hung about like ghosts.
Thornton contemplated him for a moment before briefly raising both brows—the facial tic Hugh knew preceded his friend’s acquiescence. “They were wed about three years ago now. The only reason I remember it is because of the minor scandal attached to their nuptials.”
Hugh’s attention had already been focused, though now it was sharp as the edge of a sword. “What scandal?”
At first glance, Audrey Sinclair had not seemed the sort of woman who would endure even one bout of scandal in her lifetime. However, now that he had witnessed her picking locks and investigating brashly, Hugh wasn’t surprised to hear of yet more gossip surrounding her.
“The duchess was first betrothed to another. Contracts were in the process of being drawn and banns had already been posted when Fournier swooped in and stole her away.”
“Who did she jilt?” Hugh asked.
“Bainbury.”
A gust of wind accompanied Thornton’s answer, whistling against the side of the carriage and masking Hugh’s soft huff of astonishment.
“Lord Bainbury, really?” He tamed his voice when he next spoke. “He’s got to be at least two decades older than the duchess.”
“Indeed,” Thornton said. “Her Grace’s father, Lord Edgerton, passed long ago, and it was the late baron’s younger brother, the new Lord Edgerton, who aligned her with Bainbury. Thought it would be a beneficial match all around—Bainbury was well off and in need of a wife, and though it is only rumor and speculation, Edgerton did not leave his family with much by way of security.”
Hugh hadn’t given Bainbury a thought in years. The last time had been when news of his second wife’s death had rippled out over London, even to Bow Street. Had the lady died in childbirth or after some illness, he likely never would have heard of her passing. However, that she had died by her own choice, and that the truth of it had been made public, rather than covered up with lies, Hugh had spared her more than a moment’s consideration.
She’d been young, he recalled, and suffered from bouts of melancholy. Perhaps it was the melancholy that had tugged at him, making him sympathetic. His own mother had suffered as well in the final years of her life. With well-oiled efficiency, Hugh turned his thoughts away from his mother. Thinking of her would only lead him into his own surly mood.
“She got a better offer, then, and took it,” Hugh surmised.
Thornton shook his head as the carriage slowed and came around a corner. “Surely a better offer, coming from a duke, but if you take into account that Fournier had known her since childhood, one could reason he decided at the last moment that he couldn’t stand to have her marry another.”
That might explain the duke’s feelings, but the duchess very well may have seen a better future with someone closer to her own age, wealthier, and without the baggage of two previous wives. Hugh couldn’t fault her for spurning Bainbury, but he also couldn’t quite eradicate the twist of his gut. Instinct told him something about Thornton’s story was off. His friend was only relating what had been presented to society as fact. Hugh was well aware, however, that it would only be a version of the truth.
The carriage came to a halt in front of Lord Wimbly’s residence. The cramp in his stomach gave another twist.
