Page 4 of Death at Fournier Downs
“Marry who? Miss Hanson?” A spate of cold sweat rushed the back of his neck. Gloria Hanson was his longtime mistress, and while they had a comfortable arrangement, there was absolutely no desire rampaging through him to make her his wife. He was quite certain Gloria felt the same way.
Sir shrugged. “Why not?”
The question hung in the carriage like a miasma. Hugh met Basil’s eye, but after arching a brow, the valet looked away, apparently uninterested in weighing in.
“Men do not marry their mistresses,” Hugh replied, hoping it was enough.
“Your lot don’t make much sense,” Sir muttered.
Hugh wasn’t sure he did not agree with him. Thankfully, at that moment, they turned into the drive for Greely Park.
He’d left Bow Street the day before with the beginnings of a searing headache, the stabbing pains beginning the moment he’d gritted his teeth and ripped the letter from the magistrate’s desk. In the last few months, he’d been all too happy to pretend London’s polite society did not exist. After the close of the Duke of Fournier’s case, and he and the duchess’s departure from London, Hugh had found himself parsing his investigation with the duchess, and in turn, thinking of theton. And thinking of the ton only led to reflecting on his own past, which only ever put him into a foul mood. It was in that irritable, foul mood he’d stayed for a few weeks, until he'd quit thinking so much about the duchess and the case. Exhausting himself at work and increasing his meetings with Gloria from one night per week to two had helped.
However, with that letter and this assignment, the barbs of irritation had immediately set in again. She was here, in Hertfordshire. The duke’s expansive estate of Fournier Downs was only ten miles or so from Greely Park. A subtle thrum of expectation had lived under his skin since he’d barked at Basil to begin packing his things.
Lady Prescott’s estate was a somewhat modest neoclassical home, ivy and roses creeping up the sides of its pale sandstone exterior. The hired coach’s wheels rolled over the half-moon drive of crushed gravel, which was centered by a fountain topped by a winged angel clutching a harp. Hugh rolled his eyes at it as he pulled on his deerskin gloves. Basil had insisted he wear them while presenting himself to her ladyship, the dowager Viscountess Prescott. That it was a hot, humid afternoon with a rainstorm on the horizon and his palms would be sweating buckets did not matter. Appearances and formalities were everything, at least among the Quality.
The coach came to a stop. Sir sat forward to peer out the window, his jaw loose, showing off two crooked front teeth.
“I’ll return shortly,” Hugh said, then descended. The front door to the manor opened and a man who appeared to be butler came out onto the front step.
“Officer Marsden, I presume,” he said. “Her ladyship was expecting you, however she has since become indisposed. If you’ll follow me, Her Grace, the Duchess of Fournier will receive you.”
Without waiting for a reply, the man turned and entered the foyer. Hugh’s feet weren’t swift to follow. Instead, a stone of weight dropped into each of his hessians. He shouldn’t have been surprised that she was here. She’d written the letter on Lady Prescott’s behalf, after all. A footman at the door stood patiently, waiting for him to enter. Hugh doffed his hat and kept after the butler, who moved with the elegant efficiency that all proud head servants possessed. He paused within the entrance to a room, announced the principal officer, and then stood aside to allow Hugh entry.
As if he’d been carried in on a dizzying wind, Hugh swept into a grand sitting room—and came to an abrupt halt. Audrey Sinclair, the Duchess of Fournier, slowly rose from a chair to her feet.
“Officer Marsden.” Her voice was soft, her gloved hands clasping together in front of her waist. It was a nervous motion, as was the hesitant smile to touch her lips.
Warmth pooled in his stomach, and his shoulders stiffened. Momentarily, he lost his train of thought. He’d forgotten the deep cerulean blue of her eyes. The fullness of her mouth.
“Your Grace,” he replied, then cleared his throat and remembered to make a short bow.
The duchess gestured him toward a chair before retaking her seat. She nodded toward a maid, who left, presumably to fetch tea.
“Lady Prescott wished to meet with you, but she isn’t faring well. I hope you don’t mind speaking to me on the matter?”
“No, not at all.” He eyed the chair warily. He’d already been sitting for several hours in that rattling coach and his backside ached like the devil. He also didn’t feel like relaxing just yet. Instead, he set his hat on the cushion and clasped his hands behind his straight back. “How may I be of service?”
As if realizing he wouldn’t be sitting to converse, the duchess got to her feet again. She crossed the room, toward a pair of open French doors that led to a terrace. Her upswept hair had been styled to leave artful blond ringlets to trail down the nape of her neck and over her shoulder. Hugh took a breath before averting his eyes.
“Lady Bainbury, Charlotte, was a good friend of mine,” she began, her fingers still twisting together as she looked out onto the terrace.
“My condolences.” He didn’t know what more to say. He’d always found the lengthier an expression of sympathy became, the cheaper it sounded.
Audrey turned toward him, her cheeks pink with a new flush. “The earl is saying it was an accident, and already the rumors are spreading that it was suicide, like the previous countess. But I know it was neither of those things.”
Hugh hitched his chin, struck by the glittering intensity of her stare, at the set lines of her jaw. Last spring, she’d been just as adamant that her husband had not been having an affair with Miss Lovejoy and was innocent of the gruesome murder. At first, Hugh had dismissed her as naïve; it was a well-established tradition that married men of the ton took mistresses. However, he’d soon come to understand she was correct. The duke had been having an affair with a male lover, not a mistress, and he was indeed innocent of the murder.
Hugh stepped around the chair, toward her. “Tell me what you know.”
ChapterThree
Audrey hadn’t been ready for this.
She’d known writing to Bow Street and requesting Mr. Marsden specifically would cause upheaval to what had been, so far, a placid summer in the countryside, and she thought she had prepared herself for his arrival, but the reality of it had walloped her the moment Newman had shown Hugh Marsden into the sitting room.
Lady Prescott’s butler had flared his nostrils when Audrey insisted on staying at Greely Park to welcome the principal officer after the dowager viscountess took to her bed in a fit of melancholy. The butler had not wanted to permit him through the front door, but have him enter around the back, at the servant’s entrance. Audrey’s insistence that he be welcomed as a guest had put a sour glint in the old man’s eyes. Ever since they’d been children, Charlotte and Audrey had stuck out their tongues and pulled faces whenever Newman turned his back. He was a snob, through and through—worse than some of the titled people Audrey knew.
