Page 4 of Murder at the Seven Dials
The lack of justice, the favoritism, the elitist mindset that decreed that certain people with certain blood were fundamentally better than others, had been a thorn in his side for a very long time.
There were many constables and foot patrolmen who would have chosen to handle the duke swaying at Hugh’s side with kid gloves. They would have rather trundled him back to his fine home located on whatever stately square it sat upon rather than face the public blow back that would come with arresting him.
Hugh Marsden was not one of them.
“He’ll come with me to Bow Street,” he replied, and then jerked his chin toward the dead woman behind them. “And for her sake, I’m going to do everything I can to see he gets a rope at Tower Hill.”
ChapterTwo
Lamps threw guttering flickers of light over the stone steps to number 4 Bow Street. Audrey Sinclair peered out the carriage window, restless. Carrigan had drawn along the curb more than ten minutes ago, and though she’d wanted to immediately leap from the conveyance and storm inside the magistrate’s offices, sheer willpower and respect for her brother-in-law’s sensibilities had kept her planted to the bench seat.
Michael would arrive any moment, she was certain of it, and then the pair of them would descend upon Bow Street together. She shivered beneath her cloak.
This was not happening.
This could notbehappening.
A clattering of wheels and tack announced another carriage’s arrival, and her driver leaped down from the box, shaking the chassis. The fringe of beaded tassels clinked against the window’s glass as Carrigan pulled open the door and extended his gloved hand. Audrey’s heart squeezed, almost painfully, and her knees went a bit soft as she came down onto the pavements. Michael descended from his carriage and immediately saw her.
“You should not be here,” he said, his deep voice as gruff as usual. Tonight, however, it held an additional snap. “This is no place for you, Audrey.”
His comment was not unexpected. She’d spent the entire ride from Curzon Street preparing for it.
“He is my husband,” she said. “I refuse to sit at home and wait.”
Patience and grace were virtues that duchesses of the realm were supposed to exude. However, when one’s husband had just been arrested for murder, one didn’t cling to such stiff-necked rules.
Her brother-in-law knew her well enough to forgo arguing, and simply made a growl of discontent before ascending the front steps, his great coat flapping behind him like the dark wings of an avenging angel.
The second son of a duke, Michael was a titled noble, and Audrey prayed the magistrate would kneel to his power. If anyone could exonerate her husband and secure his release from this wretched place, it was him. He was a persuasive man, and Audrey had every faith he would sway the fools who had arrested Philip in the first place.
Then again, Michael had not been successful in persuading Audrey to remain at Violet House.
Well past midnight, she’d been awoken by the sounds of a commotion just outside her bedchamber. She’d opened the door, revealing their butler, Barton, and her sleepy maid, Greer, both wearing dressing robes and expressions of alarm. A message had arrived. “From Bow Street,” Barton added in a whisper.
As Audrey took the sealed note, she could only think of Philip, and how he had not been at home when she had turned in for the evening. The moments after reading the brief message were now mere pulses of memory, overwhelmed quickly by her orders for Barton to ready a carriage, to send a footman to Lord Herrick’s on Grosvenor Square, and for Greer to help her dress.
This had to be a terrible misunderstanding. Surely, she would leave Bow Street with Philip at her side.
Michael, or Lord Herrick to those not welcome to address him so informally, signaled the first man he and Audrey spotted within the narrow house’s foyer. Though first a residence, number 4 was now a place of efficient business. Audrey spied a sitting room and a large desk directly before the front windows, its top piled with stacks of papers, bound texts, and news sheets. Guttering lamps lined the walls along with street maps of London, each a spidery network of ink veining out from a tight center cluster.
Despite being quarter to two in the morning, there was a hum of activity in the room. Audrey avoided looking directly at any of the men and women who were milling about the place, some sitting forlornly upon a bench, one rubbing a bloodied eye and crying, and another arguing loudly with a foot patrolman. The air smelled of burning oil, tallow, sweat, and unwashed clothes. Michael’s stern voice brought her attention back to an officer approaching them. He had the clean, starched look of a man of some import, and the stern eyes of a man who was greatly vexed.
“Your business, my lord?” the man requested.
“We demand to see His Grace, the Duke of Fournier. I am Lord Herrick, His Grace’s brother, and this is Her Grace, the Duchess of Fournier. Take us to him at once.” Michael’s tone brooked no argument.
But argue the official did. He pursed his lips and flared his nostrils. “HisGraceis awaiting legal counsel in goal.”
The sarcastic emphasis placed onGracelanded like a slap to the cheek. How dare this man disrespect Philip? Audrey narrowed her eyes.
“Our solicitor, Mr. Potridge, is en route,” she said, forcing the man to take notice of her. “Lord Herrick is His Grace’s counsel at this time.”
She’d tasked Barton with sending a second footman to the family’s longtime solicitor before she’d set out from Violet House, where she and Philip had lived since their wedding nearly three years ago. The neoclassical monstrosity had been built by the fourth Duke of Fournier, Philip’s grandfather, and it was their London residence, whether Audrey liked it or not. And she roundly didnot.
She’d simply never found an appreciation for the cold and austere lines of Violet House. The name, so soft and dainty, suited it as well as a dowager wearing pink. The home had been christened ‘Violet’ after the fourth Duchess of Fournier, though Audrey had always thought the then duke should have considered the duchess’s middle name, Griselda, and named it accordingly.
“This way then,” the Bow Street official said, his bitter dislike apparent.
