Page 6 of Death at Fournier Downs
Her shoulder tingled with the reminder of being shot. She knew she had been lucky—and incredibly rash. She’d gone aboard a houseboat, suspecting she would find proof of her husband’s innocence there, and the man who’d murdered Miss Lovejoy had caught her. She’d had a narrow escape and had been shot in the shoulder before falling into the Thames. Out of pure providence, Mr. Marsden had been there to leap into the river and save her life.
The muddled memories of being wretchedly cold, in pain, and bundled into Hugh’s arms as he rushed her to his doctor friend’s home for treatment flashed into her mind, then out again.
“I did what I had to do.” She gritted her teeth. “However, if you will take on the post, I will…stay out of your way.”
He cocked his head and peered at her curiously. As if he didn’t quite believe it. Audrey continued to clench her jaw. Finding the truth about Charlotte’s death was more important to her than proving Hugh Marsden wrong.
He slapped his gloves into his palm once, twice, as if in thought. “Very well. I would like to see the quarry.”
She brightened, though was also slightly confused. “You would like my help then?”
“In this, yes. But that will be the extent of your involvement.”
Lord, she hated that tone. Hated being told what to do or not do. Especially since he knew full well that her ability to read objects had played a critical role in solving the opera singer’s murder. But this was at least an opening. She would take it. And with any luck, widen it enough to step through fully.
She pasted on a forced grin. “When would you like to set out?”
* * *
Fournier House had always beena place of respite for Audrey.
Five miles east of Haverfield, the country estate in which she had spent summers and Christmas holidays as a child, Fournier House was a bright and cheery Elizabethan design, with clean lines, tall windows, and a pale limestone exterior. It was much friendlier in appearance than Violet House, their ducal home in London, which was a blocky and imposing monolith type design that Audrey had never truly liked. And while Haverfield was a fine home in the Grand Baroque style, memories of it left her feeling cold and lonely.
Some of Audrey’s worst memories had been formed there. When she’d been just seven years old, her father and brother had died at Haverfield. To avoid catching the fever that gripped her brother, she’d been shuttered up in the nursery, a hot and stuffy prison, for over a week. When she’d finally been allowed out, she’d learned that not only had James succumbed, but her father, Lord Edgerton, had as well. She hadn’t even known her papa had fallen ill. She’d never gotten the chance to say goodbye.
After that, Haverfield was a desolate place. Her neighbors at Fournier Downs were happy to see her whenever she ambled through their parkland with her governess or maid. It was how she and Philip, eight years her senior, had grown to be acquaintances, then friends.
Now, as she returned home after her encounter with Hugh Marsden at Greely Park, she felt an odd twist in the pit of her stomach. As much as it calmed her, Fournier House, the crowning jewel of the duke’s grand estate, did not feel any more like home than Violet House or Haverfield. It didn’t matter that she was duchess, and that this was her household to run. It did not truly feel like she had any real claim over it. Because she wasn’t, in truth, married to the duke.
Oh, they had taken all the correct steps to convince the ton that she had cried off from her betrothal to the Earl of Bainbury due to a love match with Philip, and he had applied and received a special license from the archbishop, allowing them to marry within days. They had taken vows at St. George’s and entertained at the wedding breakfast after, at Violet House. They had then traveled across France and Italy and Greece for four months before returning to London to enter society as duke and duchess. It had been expected that Audrey would return from their tourenceinte. However, not only had she not been with child, she and Philip had not even consummated their marriage. By mutual agreement, of course. And so, she couldn’t help but feel as though she wasn’t truly the Duchess of Fournier.
Verly, their butler at Fournier Downs, met her in the foyer. He took a short bow. “Your Grace. His Grace has asked that you join him in his study upon your return. Shall I announce you will be in shortly?”
He must have shrewdly taken in the state of her hem. The skies had split open while she’d been taking a turn around Lady Prescott’s garden after Mr. Marsden’s departure. She’d needed a few minutes to think and clear the jitters from her arms and legs. Her muslin gown had dried on the ride home in her post-chaise, but her hem was still trimmed in mud.
“No need, I will join him now.” Philip did not care about the state of her hem any more than she did.
Audrey set off for the wide, oak stairwell, carpeted in gold and sapphire carpet. Calming shades of blue and elegant touches of gold could be found throughout all the common areas in the manor house, though Audrey’s bedchamber leaned toward silvery gray.
“Verly, have Greer meet me in my chamber. I need to change.”
He promptly darted away. Hugh Marsden would arrive shortly. He’d said he needed to find lodgings at the posting-inn in the village of Low Heath before meeting her for a tour of the parkland, where she had last seen Charlotte. As Audrey approached Philip’s study door, a shiver of dread turned her stomach yet again.
These last two days, she had not been able to stop thinking about Charlotte, sprinting through the wood. The cawing of the crows, the terrified scream that had startled them into flight. She should have known Mr. Marsden would want to see where she’d died.Hadknown it, deep down. But she wasn’t sure she was ready to return there just yet.
She rapped upon the door before pushing it open and popping in her head. Philip sat at his desk, a large, scrolled hunk of dark wood that would have been at home in the captain’s quarters of a sailing vessel. It had belonged to the fourth Duke of Fournier, then the fifth, and now, the sixth. He looked up from his ledgers and the papers strewn around his elbows, his eyes heavy with disinterest and burden. His fair hair was tousled, his cravat loosely tied.
“There you are,” he said. Audrey couldn’t tell if the statement was neutral or if he was still perturbed.
“I was with Lady Prescott,” she reminded him.
He’d still been abed when she’d left earlier, though the previous evening, when a messenger delivered a note from Bow Street’s magistrate, saying Officer Marsden would be arriving at Greely Park on the morrow, Philip had been livid.
She had not shared with him that she’d written to Bow Street, or that she had requested Mr. Marsden’s help. She and Philip had exchanged tense words at dinner, which his sister, Cassandra, had watched as she ate her sponge cake, eyes wide with entertainment. It wasn’t that Philip did not appreciate all that Hugh Marsden had done to exonerate him; however, the officer dragged a past scandal of his own behind him, like a shadow, and Philip was of the firm belief that from here on out, he and Audrey had to divorce themselves from any scandal whatsoever.
Easier said than done.
She stepped more fully into the study. “You wished to see me?”
