Page 3 of Silence of Deceit
Finally, footsteps approached. Locks turned. The door opened to reveal a disheveled footman, a livery coat thrown over his sleeping clothes and his powdered wig askew.
“Sir?” he blurted out wearily.
“Officer Hugh Marsden with Bow Street. I need to speak to the duke. Immediately.”
The footman began to stammer a reply about the time of night and the duke being indisposed, but Hugh cut him off. “Understand that this is an emergency. It involves the duchess.” His throat cinched around the words.
A light appeared at the top of the staircase. “Marsden? Is that you? At this hour. What the devil—?”
Robed and fresh from his bedchamber, the duke descended the carpeted steps holding a candle. The footman stepped aside, and Hugh entered the foyer.
“Your Grace, I—” Hugh faltered. Cleared his throat. “I’m afraid I must ask…when was the last you saw the duchess?”
Fournier came to a stop on the last step and scowled. “What kind of question is that? It is past midnight, Marsden. Are you drunk?”
“I am not drunk,” he bit off, barbs of irritation sharpening. “I am aware of the time. I’ve just come from Bow Street. There has been a…a body. Pulled from the Thames.”
“What does that have to do with me? Or my wife?” Fournier held the candle in its holder higher, as if to inspect Hugh for any sign of drunkenness.
He swallowed what felt like shards of broken glass. “I have reason to believe it could be—”
“Hugh?”
Her voice reached him before a second candle on the upstairs landing registered in his vision. Dismissing the duke and footman, and propriety altogether, Hugh went to the base of the stairs and gripped the carved wooden newel post. Audrey came down the steps, her hair draped over her shoulder in a thick blond plait, a banyan cinched around her waist. Her lips were parted, her cheeks rosy from sleep. She looked beautiful—and unequivocally alive.
“Mr. Marsden,” she said, correcting the familiar uttering of his name, which she had likely done out of surprise at seeing him in her foyer. “What is happening?”
He closed his eyes and exhaled, a hundred stone lifting from his chest. “It is not you.”
“What isn’t me?”
“A dead body, I presume,” the duke said tightly, his patience thinning rapidly. “You best explain yourself, Marsden.”
The duke could have launched into a vitriolic diatribe right then, and Hugh would not have cared. The body Stevens found was not Audrey’s. He nearly swayed on his feet with relief. She stood before him on the stairs, her eyes shining with concern in the dim candlelight.
He reached into his pocket and revealed the silver calling card case.
She took another few steps toward him, her eyes locked on the case, her hand reaching for it. “Where did you find that?”
“A patrolman fished a woman out of the Thames tonight. This was in the waist pocket ,” he answered.
She quickly retracted her hand, leaving the case in his palm. She didn’t wish to touch it, and Hugh thought he knew why. Objects held onto memories; memories that Audrey could see in her fascinating mind whenever she touched them. She would not wish to see whatever memories this object retained.
She frowned, her brows pinched together as if in confusion.
“I misplaced this case weeks ago,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t understand, how did it get into the pocket of a—”
Her brow smoothed, and her lips parted on a gust of air. She stared at the case in her hand with dawning recognition.
“Oh.Oh no. I think I know who the dead woman is.”
ChapterTwo
“You should have left this to me,” Philip grumbled as their carriage traveled the near-empty streets toward the dead house. “There is no reason for you to subject yourself to this.”
Audrey held her tongue, if only because of their guest. Principal Officer Hugh Marsden sat across from her and Philip in the brougham, and he too seemed to be biting his tongue. Hugh hadn’t said much since she realized whose body the Bow Street patrolman must have pulled from the waters of the Thames.
He’d listened to her explanation and then, when she asked to see the body, he’d given a firm nod of understanding. Unlike Philip.
