Page 30 of Silence of Deceit
“The duchess donates much of her old clothing to charity,” Hugh replied, keeping his expression blasé. “She believes her maid must have overlooked the card case before sending off her things.”
The dining room of the Brown Bear was a den of raucous activity. All around them, patrons—many of them constables and foot patrolmen—supped and drank and laughed boisterously. The place did a good amount of business, thanks to the magistrate’s court and offices across the street. The previous April, Fournier had been kept in one of the rooms upstairs while awaiting a Grand Jury trial—with his vast resources, the magistrate had not wanted to release him. The duke would have disappeared into the Continent in a blink. The makeshift holding cells at the Brown Bear were still a world better than anything he’d have found at Newgate, but to the duke, it must have been the equal of squalor.
“How did you track down the dead cyprian’s boarding house in the first place?” the magistrate asked. Hugh filled his lungs, mind tumbling in search of a believable answer.
The truth would not suffice here either: That the Duchess of Fournier had led him to Delia’s address.
“Mrs. Roy, the boarding house landlady, reported her tenant as missing. I made the connection.” It was a risk. If Sir Gabriel went looking for the missing person report, he would not find it.
“Coincidence, that,” the magistrate grumbled, clearly unconvinced. “Fine. You may investigate, but Marsden, I warn you—keep the duchess out of this business. That hassle in the spring brought too much scrutiny upon Bow Street.”
“Yes, sir. She will not be involved, I assure you.”
At least not from this point on. Audrey had all but given him the toss the night before. Her pride and feelings were injured over the fact that he could not openly work a Bow Street investigation with a duchess as his partner, but what could he do about that? Nothing. She was being unreasonable. If he did not already know her, he would have marked it down to her being a spoiled peer. But that wasn’t it. The real cause of her hurt was something buried deeper within her. He was certain it had to do with her mother and uncle’s betrayal and neglect. And Shadewell.
The place loomed like a malignant black mass in Hugh’s imagination. It was a place for those who did not conform to society’s rigid rules to be shut away and hidden, it seemed. Audrey for her spectacular gift; Lord Rumsford for his nonconformist feelings of love. But Delia Montgomery had been sent there for no wrongdoing on her part. She had been a victim of abuse and of despicable lies. How many more residents were there for the same false reasons?
Sir Gabriel finished his ale like a man stumbling out of a desert; the whole tankard went down in one prolonged guzzle.
“The wife is waiting. She’ll have my hide if I’m late again,” he said as he stood, then belched loudly. He might have been a knight and a gentleman, but he was blue-blooded through and through.
Hugh saluted him with his own half-drained tankard of ale. Sir Gabriel stood next to their shared table, a quizzical squint of his eye. “You know, my Rebecca isn’t much of a gossip herself, but she hears plenty of it, and she brought back an interesting story the other day. About a certain duchess and viscountess exchanging tense words on Rotten Row.”
Lead ballast poured into Hugh’s stomach. He sipped his ale, pretending at disinterest. “Is that right?”
“Don’t think for one minute you can pull the fleece over my eyes, Marsden.” He lowered his voice, but even through the ruckus of the tavern, Hugh could hear him perfectly. “My officers must be above reproach, and you are one of my best. Don’t let this fancy for the duchess go any further.” He tapped the table for emphasis and then strode away, through the crowd, to the door.
The magistrate’s subtle warning slid under his skin as he sipped his ale. The brew soured his stomach and so he set the tankard down and stood to take his leave as well.
Above reproachechoed in his head as he walked the few blocks back to his home on Bedford Street. This was two nights in a row now that he’d returned in a high dudgeon. He’d felt like a lump of shite the night before, after leaving Violet House. But it was for the best to be done with the duchess. A partnership between them was utterly impossible. Impractical. And the more time he spent with Audrey, the more his mind seemed to conjure her as he went about his day. And hell, it was worse at night when his traitorous mind would conjure her while he lay in bed.
Damn. Gloria had been spot-on. Hehadbeen making love to someone else.
Above reproach.He had been, for years. Being anything but honorable and honest and hardworking would have played right along with the preconceived notions about him—from his birth to his exile from the Viscount Neatham’s household. He had come too far to lose his footing now.
Basil met him at the door, and for the hundredth time, Hugh wondered how his valet always seemed to perfectly time his passing through the entrance foyer with Hugh’s arrival. Basil was far too high in the instep to be valet for a bachelor with a gentleman’s living. He belonged in a home of more consequence with a larger staff underneath him to direct to his high expectations. But for some reason, Basil had not yet given his notice.
“Ah, there you are—” Basil said, and because Hugh could not curb his irritation over the conversation with the magistrate, he interrupted.
“Prepare my things for a few days and hire a phaeton,” he said, shrugging out of his coat and hat and letting Basil whisk them away for instant brushing and spot treatment.
“Are we leaving town?” Basil asked.
“Iam,” he replied, then held up a finger to stay his valet’s argument, which was already forming on his lips. “As I will not be presenting myself to any lords or ladies of quality, my attire and neck cloth will not need a perfecting hand.”
Basil had insisted on joining him in August for the investigation in Hertfordshire, as Lady Prescott had hired him and the Duke and Duchess of Fournier were sure to receive him, and heaven help Basil if he was going to allow Hugh to wander into their grand homes without a properly knotted cravat and perfectly buffed hessians.
His valet frowned. “Where are you going?”
Only the most impertinent of servants would have asked such a question of his employer. Basil was shameless, but Hugh was far too used to his cheek to reprimand him any longer.
“An insane asylum,” he answered, purposefully frank in hopes of shocking him. Of course, it didn’t work.
“Well in that case, I’ll pack last season’s trousers and that shirt of cambric I’ve been meaning to cast off.”
“I’m not beingconfined, Basil. This is for an investigation.”
He sniffed, and Hugh half wondered if he was disappointed. “Very well. You have a visitor.”
