Page 22 of Death at Fournier Downs
However, he knew he’d gained entry at Bainbury Manor by the skin of his teeth and wouldn’t push his luck. The butler turned into a study. It held shelves of books, a leather couch, and a pair of club chairs before a hearth; an ornate desk, large windows, glass doors overlooking a terrace; and austere hunting portraits on the wood paneled walls. It was the sort of masculine room one found in all the homes of the peerage. Hugh’s own father, the Viscount Neatham, had possessed one just like it, both in London and in Sussex. Though on a smaller scale, even Hugh’s own study at his Bedford Street residence resembled it.
The Earl of Bainbury stood at the glass door, open to the terrace, his hands clasped behind his back. He was waiting for Hugh with a formidable scowl in place. The earl was well into his fiftieth decade, though there was a hard, almost preserved youth, about him. His strong jaw was currently clenched, his sharp blue eyes spearing Hugh without remorse.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
“My lord, thank you for seeing me.”
“I was not given much choice in the matter, was I?” He strode away from the window and cut his eyes from his unwanted visitor.
The earl stood an inch or two shorter than Hugh, but that in no way diminished him.
“As you already know, I have been engaged by Lady Prescott to investigate Lady Bainbury’s untimely death.”
Bainbury reached his desk and gripped the lip. “The woman had no right.”
“She is her ladyship’s mother,” Hugh reminded him gently.
“Charlotte was mywife,” he argued.
Hugh took the opening offered up to him. “Which leads me to question, my lord, why you would be so hasty in your determination on what happened at the quarry. Are you not curious as to how your wife came to be found on Fournier Downs land, at the bottom of an old, open pit quarry?”
The earl’s grip on the edge of his desk tightened, his knuckles turning first red, then white. “Your questions are impertinent.”
“That is the general nature of my work, my lord.” Hugh disregarded the earl’s answering glare. “Ask no questions, receive no answers. You’ve asked no questions, while Lady Prescott has.”
Bainbury released the desk and surged forward. “You dare suggest that I am somehow to blame? You, a man of such low birth and scandal that he is relegated to the laboring class, have no right to even speak to me.”
He’d gambled that riling the earl would prove useful, and so far, Bainbury had not let him down. Poking and prodding at an open wound almost always produced results. That the earl knew of Hugh’s “low birth” didn’t perturb him. Most of the ton did. After his duel with the current Lord Neatham, in which Hugh’s shot burrowed into the viscount’s arm and rendered it useless, he was written off as a blackguard. Not just because of the duel, of course, but the reason for it: Neatham had formally accused Hugh of ruining Miss Eloisa Neatham, Hugh’s own half-sister. It made his skin crawl and his stomach twist that so many believed the lies, even now, but he'd long since given up caring what the ton thought of him.
“You wanted Lady Bainbury’s death classified as misadventure to perhaps dampen the rumors that yet another one of your wives had committed suicide,” Hugh stated, deliberately brash. “However, the coroner has concluded that it is highly unlikely the manner of death is either misadventure or suicide. On the contrary, there is evidence she was pushed.”
Bainbury turned his back on Hugh in favor of a decanter on his desk. He poured himself a whisky, tossed it back, and slammed the glass onto the desk.
“Or perhaps you knew it was murder and decided suicide would surely be the lighter scandal to weather.”
The earl did something unexpected then: he laughed. The grating sound broke through the study like glass cracking.
“And you would suggest I chased my own wife through the wood and pushed her into Fournier’s quarry?Fool.”
The earl was far too arrogant and proud to have done the deed himself. The Earl of Bainbury, dashing between trees with murderous intent? He could have more easily poisoned the countess at dinner or smothered her in her sleep. Not to mention the ugly button Hugh kept in his trouser pocket, found by the duchess—the earl’s valet would have rather dug his own grave and buried himself alive than allow his master to leave the house wearing a coat adorned with such unfashionable and humble buttons.
“Where were you at the time of her death?” he asked anyway.
“Here, of course. And the rest of my household staff can verify that.”
“When did Lady Bainbury leave the house?”
“I don’t know,” he said impatiently. “One o’clock? Two? She often took jaunts into the parkland. I did not keep a record of her daily activities.”
“Indeed,” Hugh murmured. He didn’t act like a grieving widower at all. “I’d like to speak to her maid.”
Bainbury waved a hand in dismissive approval.
“Doctor Ryder revealed the countess was melancholy over not being able to carry to term twice this last year. Did you observe the same?”
The earl’s mask of fury slipped, if just for a moment, at the mention of Charlotte’s miscarriages. He poured himself another drink. “She was saddened, of course, but as I told her time and again, there was no need to bless the marriage with a child. My first wife gave me three children, all of them grown. I have my heir and spare. Anything more is extraneous.”
The earl’s heartless reply revealed the true depth of his regard for his wife. It was shallower than even Hugh had imagined. That Charlotte might have wanted a child for herself did not even seem to cross the man’s mind. It made Hugh wonder…why marry for a third time?
