Page 18 of Silence of Deceit
Hugh nodded, appreciating the offer, and yet also hating that he needed such a favor. Not for the first time, he wondered what life might have held in store for him had he not been called out by Viscount Neatham, the younger. Five years later, hatred for his half-brother continued to simmer. Not just for Bartholomew either. Thomas and Eloisa had been complicit in Hugh’s ruination. Even thinking about them turned his stomach. At least he had left Barty with a physical reminder of just how much he despised him.
“My lord.” Goodwin, the butler at Thornton House, slipped up beside them like a whisper. “Mr. Marsden’s malodorous wretch is in the kitchen, demanding to see him.”
Hugh stifled a grin and asked Goodwin to bring his coat and hat. He would not be returning to the festivities. He bid Thornton a goodnight before going to the kitchen, where he found Sir sitting on a tall stool next to a wash basin, gnawing on a leg of roasted chicken.
“I thought I told you to meet me at Bedford Street,” Hugh said.
With his mouth full, a speck of chicken meat on his upper lip, and grease shining on his chin, the boy replied, “But Mrs. Dort cooks here, and her cooking’s worlds better than anything Mrs. Peets makes.”
“That isn’t polite now, young man,” Thornton’s cook chided, but Hugh also caught a sparkle of pride in her eyes at the compliment. She was soft on the boy, just like every other motherly type, including his own cook Mrs. Peets. Hugh supposed it was his skinny legs and arms, and his emaciated torso that made every cook want to heap food onto him.
“Sir—”
“I kept my blinkers on the duchess, just as you asked,” he said before Hugh could chastise him. “Went to that address, like you said she would.”
Hugh had expected nothing less after he’d asked Audrey not to call on Lady Rumford.
“And?” he pressed.
“Got snubbed,” Sir replied.
He should not have relished the strike of victory as much as he did. Of course, no doubt Audrey would attempt to call on the viscountess again tomorrow. Hopefully, Thornton’s recommendation would allow Hugh in first.
“You’re also snooping around that boarding house like I’ve asked?”
Sir made an assenting sort of nod and grunt as he chewed off more meat. Hugh anticipated having to wait for the lad to lick the bone clean before he got any answers.
“A bunch of blokes come and go from that place,” he said after another hefty swallow. “The drowned lady met with some regulars.”
From where she stood at the stove, Mrs. Dort gasped and glared at them. Hugh sent her an apologetic grin and stepped closer to Sir before lowering his voice. “Any names?”
“Teddy, Ivan, and Beaver.”
“Beaver?”
“On account as he always wore a top hat,” Sir answered readily, finally finishing off all but the gristle. “But the landlady isn’t up to much more than shouting at her boarders most of the time.”
The names of Delia’s regulars might not prove useful, but Hugh had wanted to have a pair of eyes on the place, on the off-chance Mrs. Roy had been holding back anything at all about her dealings with Delia Montgomery, or if anyone had come around asking about her. But Sir shook his head and said it was all just business. Nothing had caught Sir’s attention, and the boy was astute.
“All right then, you can quit boarding house duty.”
Sir tossed the chicken leg bone into the kitchen sink basin, and from Mrs. Dort’s look of exasperation, Hugh figured it was not supposed to go there.
“You sure, guv? It ain’t so bad, you know. Those ladies’ve taken a real shine to me. Winnie especially.”
Goodwin appeared with Hugh’s coat and hat, and Hugh bit back a laugh as he accepted them. He could easily imagine the women at the boarding house cooing over the lad, and Sir soaking up the adoration.
Hugh tossed him a shilling. “Of that, Sir, I have no doubt.”
ChapterSix
Audrey knew someone would eventually snub her for the scandal involving Philip last spring, but she had not expected it to sting so fiercely.
She had been sitting within the brougham outside the Viscountess Rumsford’s home while her footman presented one of Philip’s cards at the door. Her own card had caused distress and suspicion at Mrs. Simpson’s home, and Audrey did not want to take the chance that it would be received the same way here. If Delia was in possession of the viscountess’s card, there was a strong chance she had been blackmailing her the same way she had been Mary’s mother. So, she’d stealthily taken one of Philip’s, which he kept in the top left desk drawer in his study.
However, after a few impatient minutes of waiting, her slippered foot tapping the floor of the carriage, the viscountess’s solemn-faced footman reappeared in the doorway and handed the card back to Audrey’s servant. The door then closed again, and the footman returned to the carriage.
“It seems her ladyship is out, Your Grace,” he said shortly before climbing back up onto the driver’s seat next to Carrigan.
