Page 40 of Death at Fournier Downs
The duchess laughed, a bright and stirring chime that gave him the oddest sense of victory. But the mention of the baron also reminded him of what Bainbury revealed, about Lord Edgerton and the baroness trying to hush up some possible scandal regarding Audrey. Her two-year absence in which she had not been on the Continent or in Scotland. Where else could she have been? For all the dispassion he’d shown his dead wives, Bainbury had seemed to light up with fervor when speaking of the duchess. It unsettled Hugh.
“Speaking of the baron,” he began. Audrey’s smile slipped, as if she knew what he was going to say. “What did he mean at Haverfield, when he said they’d saved you?”
The baron had practically seethed the words. He’d made no attempt to hide his bitterness over his niece’s lofty title and her dismissal of them once she married the duke.
Audrey fidgeted with the delicate lace trimming of her gloves. “Just that they tried to better my circumstances with the betrothal to Bainbury, and I rejected it in favor of the duke. They were greatly ashamed.”
Hugh had interviewed plenty of men and women over the years. He knew when someone was skirting the question at hand.
“The betrothal to Bainbury was a way to save you? From what?”
The duchess stopped fidgeting and clasped her hands together in her lap.
“It has something to do with your ability,” he mused.
“Mr. Marsden, please.”
Pressing on with questions when someone did not wish to answer them was simply part of Hugh’s job. But he reminded himself that Audrey was not a suspect. She’d done nothing wrong. Her dark blue eyes turned glassy as she held his gaze, then drifted to her clasped hands.
“You’ve trusted me with the truth before.” He cocked his head to try to look her in the eye. “You can do so again.”
She shook her head. “I do trust you, but this… I’m sorry, I can’t. Not yet.”
Hugh straightened and sat back against the squab.Not yet?Those two simple words should not have pleased him as much as they did.
“I understand,” he said. Whatever it was, it had caused her pain. It might be best if he didn’t know just yet. He needed to focus on the murders and not who had hurt the duchess, or why.
They rode on in comfortable silence, broken only by topics not connected to the deaths. Audrey told him about Cassandra, whose summer at Fournier Downs was not going according to plan and how patient she had been at their lack of diversions. There was supposed to be a house party and they were to have attended one as well. But the duke’s illness had thwarted it all.
When Audrey described some of the duke’s symptoms, Hugh nodded and commented that he was glad to hear Fournier was recovered. However, it did not escape him that the symptoms sounded very much like those of a venereal disease. It wasn’t uncommon of course; Thornton had once told him more than half his patients had one disease or another. Husbands passed things on to their unsuspecting wives with little thought or guilt. Though perhaps Audrey and the duke’s marital arrangement protected her from such things. Hugh shifted his jaw. One could hope.
As they passed a signpost announcing that Low Heath was just a quarter mile ahead, Hugh reached back and knocked upon the wall of the carriage. The driver slowed, and Audrey frowned.
“I will walk from here,” he announced. Arriving at the posting-inn in the duke’s carriage was sure to draw attention, and if Hugh was going to investigate properly, he didn’t want to be seen as the duke or duchess’s lapdog.
Audrey nodded tightly. “Yes, of course.”
He opened the door, but paused, holding it there for a moment. “Thank you for your help with the marquess and marchioness.”
Her astonishment wiped away whatever feelings she’d had on his abandoning the coach. “Oh. You’re most welcome. I’m sure I didn’t do much more than listen to what they were so eager to tell us.”
It was partially true. Once overcoming their skepticism, Lord and Lady Finborough had seemed to exhale with long-held opinions and hurts. Still, he and the duchess had conducted the interview relatively smoothly. It had felt natural, even.
“Good afternoon, Your Grace,” he murmured before leaping to the dusty lane. He shut the door and from within, Audrey called to the driver to continue home. He watched the pale blue carriage disappear down the lane, and then he set out on foot.
By the time the first structures in town came into view, he was covered in road dust and sweat. He doffed his hat and wiped his brow with the kerchief Basil insisted he keep tucked into his breast pocket. Wasn’t the countryside supposed to be full of cool breezes? Unlike polite society, he was accustomed to spending the doldrums of summer in town, where the air turned practically toxic with heat, humidity, and vapors rising off the Thames and through sewer grates as the city slowly boiled. The air here was certainly fresher and better fragranced, but he couldn’t help but long for another quick storm to snap the humidity.
Ahead, a row of brick homes curved on a slight descending hill toward the village proper. Hung on a post outside one of these homes was a shingle for Dr. Joseph Ryder. Hugh slowed. The doctor would not be expecting him, and catching a suspect by surprise was usually the best method for extracting useful information. Though Hugh could not quite see the timid doctor shoving a woman to her death, or bashing in another’s skull, the fact that Bainbury’s household chattered about him visiting too often, and that it might have been a ruse for an ongoing assignation, was intriguing enough to want another talk with the doctor.
He stepped up to the front door and brought down the brass knocker. A moment later, an older woman wearing a pinafore, her white hair tucked up under a mob cap, opened the door. Doctor Ryder’s nurse.
“Is the doctor in?”
“Have you an appointment?” she returned. When he answered that he did not, she stepped aside and gestured to the foyer. “Wait here.”
Less than a minute later, she returned to lead him to Doctor Ryder’s office. Hugh entered as the man was tying his cravat. The doctor flinched, his hands falling from his neckcloth.
“Officer. Forgive me, I wasn’t expecting a call.”
