Page 2 of Silence of Deceit
One of the senior patrol officers stepped in, his clothing drenched from the waist down. His uniform’s blue tailcoat dripped a trail of water upon the floor.
Hugh frowned and guessed at the man’s plight. “Not the finest night for a wade into the Thames, is it, Stevens?”
“It is not,” he agreed.
“A body?”
“Yes, sir.”
Hugh waited for the officer to say more, but Stevens’s lips were twisted into a contemplative grimace. He had some sympathy for the young man. Hugh had pulled many a corpse from the river during his time on street patrol. The fresh ones were not always so bad, but the ones that had been left in the mud and water to age a bit were a trial to look upon. To smell, too. Often, the skin bloated to something grotesque, discolored to a putrid green, and at times would even split open. It was not uncommon for the little critters in the river to begin feasting either. It turned his stomach just thinking of it.
“Is there something I can help you with, Stevens?” Hugh pressed as the man stood there for a few more protracted moments. His skin appeared paler than usual, and a bit waxen.
He cleared his throat. “It’s, ah… Well, I was about to send someone to Bedford Street to fetch you, sir. But Davis said you were here.”
Davis, the beleaguered booking officer he had effectively dodged.
“Why send for me?” Hugh asked. And near midnight, at that. A dead body could surely wait in the bone house until morning.
“I don’t quite know how to… You see, it’s…” Stevens cleared his throat again, took something silver from his tailcoat’s pocket, and then crossed the room. He set the object on the desk.
“A calling card case?” Hugh eyed the silver filigree lid, centered with an enamel posy of violets. He picked it up and sprang the latch. Inside was a clump of damp cardstock.
Just as he was deducing that the object had been found with the drowned body, he read the engraved contents of the top card.
Hugh went still. He stared at the card, then snapped his eyes to Stevens. “What is the meaning of this?”
The patrolman swallowed visibly. “Sir, the item was found in the skirt pocket of the woman we pulled from the river.”
Hugh dropped the case onto the desk and pushed back his chair. The room spun around him, growing smaller. He heard the patrolman’s voice continuing to explain that as soon he found the calling cards he immediately thought of Principal Officer Marsden—and that it might be best if he be the one to inform His Grace, the Duke of Fournier.
Hugh shot to his feet. “It is not her. It cannot be. Bring me to the body.”
Stevens’s eyes rounded. “You don’t want to see it, sir. It’s bad off, and she’s…well, the face is…” He shook his head and suffered a bout of shivers. “You wouldn’t recognize it.”
Hugh stared at the card case. His ears began to chime. His whole body thrummed with the need to move, to run, to dosomething.
The body they’d fished out of the Thames was not Audrey’s.
Despite what the calling cards said, it could not be the Duchess of Fournier.
He had not seen her for two months, not since leaving Fournier Downs in Hertfordshire. He had no idea what she had been doing or whom she had interacted with. Other members of polite society to be sure, as there was no reason for her to socialize with anyone else. Especially someone from Hugh’s level of society, which really wasn’t considered society at all. But she had a habit of being reckless when she got a bee in her bonnet about something. Had she stumbled across another potential crime? Met someone unsavory? Hugh’s heart rate increased, and a cold sweat formed under his clothing as he pocketed the card case and dismissed Stevens.
“Will you visit the duke?” the patrolman inquired as Hugh grabbed his greatcoat and hat.
He might have replied, but he couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t completely aware of the next several moments, for the next thing Hugh knew, he was on the street, hailing a hack. Violet House, Fournier’s London home, was in Mayfair, an area of town he usually had no call to frequent. At this hour, just past midnight, the streets near Hyde Park would be nearly empty. The rain-slicked roads glimmered yellow by the light of the gas jets in the lampposts. It was well past proper calling hours, but there was no impropriety Hugh could possibly care enough about right then to stop him.
The weight of the silver case was an anchor in his pocket as the jarvey directed the hack along Curzon Street. All ladies and gentlemen presented their cards when calling upon another member of society whom they were not already familiar with. These cards were as much a form of identification as they were a social courtesy. The footman at the door would accept the card and present it to their employer, who would then decide whether they were in or out.
How could Audrey’s case have found its way into another woman’s reticule?
He closed his eyes and, for what could have been the hundredth or thousandth time, returned to the old citrine quarry at Fournier Downs. Hugh had just come to Audrey’s aid on the narrow jutting ledges of the open quarry pit. She’d fallen from the edge above and by pure luck had struck one of the craggy shelves instead of tumbling to her death some seventy feet below, onto rocky debris. He had been reeling with relief and gratitude that she was still alive, and in that moment of vulnerability, had nearly given in to the desire he’d been trying to bury since April. He’d come so close to kissing her that he’d felt her breath upon his lips. Thankfully, the duke had shouted from above, wrenching them apart.
As it should have been.
Kissing her would have been a gargantuan mistake, but try as he had, Hugh could not wipe the inane desire from where it had settled under his very skin.
The hack came to a stop out front of Violet House. An ill sweep of dread flooded his stomach as he tossed the jarvey his fare and then started toward the darkened front steps. He brought down the brass knocker three times and waited, knowing such a late-hour call would cause a ruckus. Arriving home past midnight would not be uncommon for the duke and duchess, if they had been attending the theatre or a ball. But had they been out, the exterior lamps would have been left burning and the front windows would have been bright with candlelight to welcome them home. A footman would also have been stationed near the front door to allow them in without delay. As Hugh stood waiting for a full minute, forced to employ the doorknocker once again, he concluded the house was simply asleep.
