Page 25 of Silence of Deceit
“The letters promised that should I tell you, evidence of your time at Shadewell would land in the scandal sheets.” Philip batted the calling card away with a swipe of his finger then collapsed into the desk chair and rubbed his temple. “I cannot believe this. My god, Audrey, if anyone was to learn Delia was blackmailing me, and she ended up dead in the Thames—”
“You are not the only one she was blackmailing,” Audrey interjected. Hugh would not consider Philip a potential suspect either, especially now that she had seen the killer was, in fact, a woman.
The vision had been quick and stilted, the attack so swift Audrey had felt its brutal contempt. The woman’s choice of bonnet had hidden her face well, too.
“It began in September?” Audrey asked, calculating when she had crossed paths with Delia. He nodded. “How much did she ask for?”
He groaned and waved a hand through the air. “Ten pounds, then fifteen. I didn’t know if the author of the letters—who surely was not the woman I met, given her speech—was simply starting low and planning to increase demand, or if they did not quite realize how much a duke has in his coffers. I suspect the latter.”
Audrey swayed a little on her feet. All those afternoons sitting with Delia for tea, sneaking her into Violet House so as not to worry Philip, giving her expensive cast-offs… It was a huge betrayal. It certainly wasn’t as though Audrey had looked forward to their meetings, but she had seen them through, and now, to think Delia had been double-crossing her. It stung. It made her feel inexplicablystupid.
“I presume she did not wear my cast-offs when she called upon you,” she said as she stalked toward the sideboard. Oh no, Delia would have been too calculating for such a misstep.
“No, just common, workaday dresses,” he replied. “She presented Lady Rumsford’s cards.”
Audrey poured herself a brandy and considered what Delia could have done with Philip’s card. She couldn’t present it to a footman, as she was clearly no duke. Did that mean a man was involved in this scheme somehow? Someone whocouldput the card to use?
“Did you keep the letters?”
“No, of course not. They spoke of your time at an asylum. Should they have fallen into the wrong hands...” He didn’t finish. She understood his reasoning, though she did wish she could have held the paper and tried to glean something from it. Paper wasn’t usually an easy object to read; for whatever reason, it didn’t always hold energy or impart clear visions like other objects made of metal or wood or glass.
She tossed back the brandy. It cut a burning line down her throat, and she only wished it would also sear away the entire afternoon. Her disastrous forced meeting with Lady Rumsford, gone. Images of Mary Simpson’s slit throat, gone. Gone would be the memories of the ring, and her argument with Hugh as well.
The insult of being summoned because he’d wanted her ability, not her, had been a staggering offense, much worse than Delia’s betrayal. Lady Rumsford’s comments about the Bow Street officer tricking her into believing he found her useful had inconveniently surged forward, its maw wide, ready to devour. Instead of being useful, Audrey had just beenused.
“After what happened last April, I could not risk that the blackmailer was bluffing,” Philip said, cutting into her diverted thoughts.
With the spirits now warming her chest, she set the glass down. Though at the moment his name felt like ash on her tongue, she said, “We must tell Mr. Marsden.”
Philip tensed his brow and peered at her as though she had just quizzed him with arithmetic. “Are you mad? What do you think will happen if I admit that the dead woman is the very same who’d pinched me for nearly one hundred pounds? Who do you think he will look to as a suspect?”
His coloring drained then reddened in splotches. He’d been through hell in the spring. Audrey could understand why he’d panic. It did look bad for him. He had every reason to want Delia out of the picture. As did Mrs. Simpson and Lady Rumsford. The viscountess seemed spiteful and clever enough to concoct an idea to dispose of Delia, but Mrs. Simpson was far too fussy. Besides, neither Mrs. Simpson nor Lady Rumsford had any motive at all for killing Mary.
As briefly and unemotionally as possible, she informed Philip about the afternoon’s events, including the murder. He had risen from his desk and paced at the window, but soon swept across the room, to where she stood at the sideboard, with alarm. She poured him a brandy.
“I do not like this, Audrey. Not one bit.”
Hugh had not liked the connection either. And the suspicion that Lord Rumsford was somehow tied to Shadewell loomed over her. Had he been a patient? There had been men and women alike there, though they were separated at most times. No one would have addressed him as Lord Rumsford, to be sure, just as Audrey had not wanted her surname or relation to the Baron Edgerton known. She had been Audrey Smith there. Mary Simpson had been known as Miss Mary Wood. Delia, however, had maintained her true name, perhaps because she had no reputation back home to preserve. She had been a charity admission, she’d confessed, her placement paid for by her parish church.
“Mary likely knew something about the blackmailer,” Audrey said to Philip. “That could be why she was silenced. I know nothing about the killer—”
“And it is going to stay that way.”
She was accustomed to Philip’s commanding statements. Whenever he bellowed them, she simply drew a deep breath and continued doing whatever she was doing.
“However,” she said, as if he had not spoken, “I am worried for Lord Rumsford.”
“And I am worried for you,” Philip said.
“There is no need. I know nothing of import. Clearly—I did not even know you were being extorted for money.”
Then again, Mary had been as equally stunned by her mother’s admission.
She let go of a breath and shook her head. There was no use being angry with Philip for keeping silent about it all. He’d been following directions and doing so to protect her.
An errant thought struck her. “Is this why you’ve been so keen on adopting Cassie’s child?”
He poured himself another brandy and sent her a grin that was half-puzzled, half-amused. “What do you mean by that question?”
