Page 34 of Death at Fournier Downs
“Fiend,” Basil muttered. “Is the door too puzzling for you?”
“Aw, come off it, Baz, a spy’s gotta be stealthy, ain’t that right Mister Hugh?” Sir said, coming to sit on the window embrasure. Hugh held up his tankard in salute. “We’re picking up the earl’s repaired saddle, but Joe wanted to wet his gullet downstairs ‘fore we shoved off.”
“What have you learned at Bainbury’s?” Hugh asked.
“Nothing much. The lady was sad all the time and wouldn’t eat. The servants all liked her well enough, but nobody’s sobbing rivers over her or anything, what with her being the third countess to cock up her toes.”
Before leaving London, Hugh had pulled the reference file on the previous countess’s death. Lady Mary Finborough had married Bainbury just two years prior to her suicide. Exited the world via a bullet to her brain. A maid found her in bed, muff pistol in hand. The file had not included much more than the particulars, but he recalled the lady’s family had an estate in Bower’s Grange, a half-day’s ride from Low Heath.
“Were the earl and countess on friendly terms?” Hugh asked.
Sir shrugged a bony shoulder. “The cook says they took their meals on their own. The toff is hardly ever here, but the lady stayed year-round.”
It was possible Bainbury would maintain his husbandly rights and bed his wife from time to time, but he thought it more likely the countess had taken a lover.
“Any scandal about an affair? Was there another man?”
Basiltsked. “Come now, the boy is hardly out of short pants.”
Sir scowled. “I just haven’t gotten meself a new pair yet, is all. And just so you know, I did hear a bit of rum juice: they think the doctor came ‘round a time too much.”
Doctor Ryder. Hugh recalled he’d claimed to have met with her often to provide her with her medicinal laudanum. Hugh despised the opiate tincture that was prescribed to so many women, and men as well, mostly as a way to reduce nerves. The stuff was nothing more than an acceptable narcotic, and damned addictive at that. Ryder had deemed Charlotte’s melancholy severe enough to require it, but perhaps there had been another reason for his visits. Without Bainbury—who had stayed in London for the Season to sit in Parliament while the countess was in Hertfordshire—she would have had no obstacles should she embark on a tryst with the local physician.
“They also don’t like the duchess none.” Sir’s eyes homed in on the half of the kidney pie Hugh hadn’t been able to stomach. He picked up the plate and extended it.
“Keep talking,” he ordered, “even with your mouth stuffed.”
Basil muttered about rapidly diminishing principles, but Sir dug in with gusto. Crumbs fell from his lips as he explained how most of the staff thought she might be “dicked in the nob” after what happened with the duke in the spring, and wished she’d let things alone.
“His heir’s about to get legshackled, and this business is causing problems,” he added.
“Lord Renfry?” Hugh asked. Bainbury had three children, though the heir was the only one for which Hugh had bothered to find out a name.
“Yup.” Sir wiped his mouth. “He’s gone up to London to escort the lady and her family here. Supposed to be an engagement bash or some such. Now, o’course, it’s all ruined.”
“Nothing like an inconvenient death and mourning customs to scupper a good party among the ton,” Basil said, his voice rich with sarcasm and condescension.
Hugh held up a hand. “Hold there, Sir—you said Renfry’s gonebackto London? Meaning he’d been here in Hertfordshire before?”
The lad shrugged. “Suppose so. One of the grooms—I don’t like him. He’s a nervous one. Got a secret, I bet—says Renfry’s got a temper and takes it out on the horses. Says he quarreled with him a few weeks back and nearly lost his post.”
The boy was good, and though Hugh sometimes had reservations about using him as a courier and informant, he compensated him well enough. Also, he wanted to keep Sir on the straight and narrow; honest work for Hugh left the lad less time to get up to no good with the gangs of the East End.
“All right, good work. Anything more?”
Sir patted his belly after polishing the plate with a few licks of his tongue. “Nope. But cor, I’ve never ate so good in me life. This country living ain’t for just the sheep after all.”
Basil plucked the plate from his lap. “The sheep have better manners, I suspect.”
Sir tipped his cap to them and scurried out the window, disappearing from view, as good as if he’d dropped straight to the ground below.
“What next?” Basil asked, though Hugh couldn’t be certain if it was a rhetorical question born of exasperation, or if it was sincere about his next move in the investigation.
“A visit to Lord Edgerton tomorrow,” he replied, settling on the latter. “I’d like to know whose body I transported earlier this afternoon.”
ChapterThirteen
Audrey couldn’t eat more than a slice of toast before setting out for Haverfield. Her stomach churned all night after Hugh and the coroner left. She’d gone to her bedchamber and paced while the autopsy had been underway.
