Page 18 of Death at Fournier Downs
The lad gave a sharp nod, and Hugh headed for the stairs.
ChapterSeven
Audrey did not dare pace the small room above the tavern. Too close to the window and she might be seen by someone outside; too close to the door, and someone might spy her shadow at the gap between the floor and the foot of the door. What she was doing was absurd, of course. If someone were to find her in Hugh Marsden’s room, it would not just be herself to suffer the consequences. But she had to speak to him. Had to tell him all she knew, and Low Heath was too small to give the two of them any privacy at all.
Philip must have already been on his way to the village when Kinson had started back for Fournier House. Surely, he had directed the driver back to Low Heath, and had expected Audrey to wait in the carriage after she was all but tossed out of the inquest. When Philip did not find her there, he might search for her. Or he might assume she’d set out on foot for Fournier House; he knew she was self-sufficient in that regard. He’d take the carriage home, expecting to see her along the route, or find her when he arrived. Her absence would worry him; so, Audrey knew she only had a handful of minutes once the principal officer arrived.
The scrubby street boy that she recalled from the spring had come along with Hugh to Hertfordshire; the lad, Sir, had simply appeared at her side as she left the storeroom. “Got anything for me to do, duchess?” he’d asked by way of greeting.
The idea had come to her in a flash. Reckless. Stupid. And she’d berated herself for the next thirty minutes while she waited in Hugh’s room. The boy had likely read the note—if he could read—but Audrey did not think he was a threat at all. He seemed devoted to Hugh Marsden. Audrey had touched doorknobs down the narrow, twisting upstairs corridor until she’d found the one that gave up the image of Hugh closing it that very morning. Picking the lock had been easy; it was a skill she’d refined while at Shadewell Sanatorium, and she kept extra hair pins in her reticule at all times now, just in case. There was something about locked doors that made Audrey tense; she never wanted to find herself locked in somewhere again, without a tool to employ for an escape. Of course, it wasn’t lost on her that she had used her pins lately to break in to rooms, rather than out of them.
However, with circumstances so dire, she determined the risk was acceptable. Charlotte had been killed; Audrey could not sit back and trust that the men downstairs would do right by her. Well…mostof the men at least.
She had settled herself into a cane-back chair next to the slim bed, though her legs were restless to move. Her skin prickled with suppressed nerves. Hugh’s traveling case was tucked under the bed; his shaving kit lay on a bureau alongside some little jars. His bedding was meticulously made. As the floorboards in the corridor creaked and footsteps approached the door, Audrey tensed.
The doorknob twisted, and Hugh came inside, closing the door quickly behind him. Audrey sprang from the chair as his eyes clapped onto her.
She held up a hand. “I know what you’re going to say.”
He clenched his jaw. “Then you should listen to my imaginary voice in your head and leave.Immediately.”
His tone was soft, but Audrey didn’t know if it was out of caution or anger.
“You wanted to know what I found at the quarry,” she reminded him. “And what I saw.”
“You did not need to come to my room to inform me.”
“Then tell me, Mr. Marsden, where else could we go to discuss it without being seen?” she asked, getting annoyed. And a little hurt byhisannoyance.
He groaned. Then stepped further into the room and shrugged out of his jacket. “Very well. Tell me what you saw—both instances. I know you were in that storeroom downstairstouchingthings.”
She gaped at him. “You make it sound lewd!”
He hushed her with a pointed glare, then tossed his jacket onto the bed. It was overly warm in the room, what with one small window and a lack of any air currents. He stood in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, hands on his hips, waiting for her to speak.
Audrey averted her eyes and explained the vision she gleaned from the coat button, and then, the images that had come to her when she held Charlotte’s dress. One blurry-faced man in a coat and hat; one woman in a straw chip hat.
“The button isn’t much in itself,” she said, pulling it from her reticule and holding it out to Hugh. He hesitated, then stepped forward and took it from her palm. “But it belongs to the man who struggled with Charlotte at the quarry. I know my visions count for nothing with the law, but her bruised wrist, those scratches…they are evidence, are they not?”
Hugh inspected the button, turning it over in his hand. “The coroner agrees the death is suspicious in nature. He’s going to investigate further.”
Relief spiraled through her. Audrey let out a gust of air and even allowed a small smile. “Oh, thank goodness. That’s excellent.” When Hugh lifted his eyes from the button and he was still glowering, Audrey pulled back. “You aren’t happy? But now you can investigate, unhindered.”
“Happy?” He tossed the button onto the bed; it landed atop his jacket. “Not entirely, no. I want to find whoever this man was in your vision. I want justice for Lady Bainbury. But I don’t like that your witness testimony might agitate him.”
Audrey wasn’t particularly fond of that either. “But what more could this person possibly think I know? I’ve already given my account. I didn’t see anyone.” When Hugh gave her a withering look, she shrugged. “Well, no one,officially. And the woman in the hat was barely visible. I can try to sketch her, but I don’t know what good it will do.”
Hugh scrubbed a hand over his jaw and turned away. He walked across the room, farther away from her, and Audrey took a deeper breath of air. His masculine scent of musky oakmoss lingered.
“Lady Bainbury was inside a stone structure, you say?” he asked, repeating what she’d explained from her vision.
“Yes. It was in the woods, and it can’t be too far from where I first saw her, running. It looked like a shell of an old stone cottage.”
“On Fournier Downs parkland?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Perhaps. I could search for it—”
“No.” Hugh paced back toward her. His dark eyes were expressive enough; he needn’t have said anything more to make his opinion clear. But he went on after a calming breath. “You’ve promised to stay out of this investigation.”
