Page 56 of Silence of Deceit
“It was Mr. Starborough who killed her,” Audrey said as they descended the steps.
Hugh slowed his pace as alarmed glances met them across the entrance court. “I suspected. Though I expected to find him in Warwick’s office, not you, floundering on the floor like a fish.”
Audrey gaped at him, her lips chapped and her injured, possibly bloody, temple likely the true cause of the looks of shock meeting them. “I was not floundering!”
“Then what was all that thumping around I heard?” Hugh replied, taking a coy sideways glance at her.
She was scowling at him when she thought of it:thumping. Audrey stopped walking, the gated lodge just a few steps away. Hugh turned back to her.
“What is it?”
When she’d been at Mr. Starborough’s home, there had been a thumping sound from the upper level, as if something had fallen over. He’d blamed the sound on his new wife, and the maid’s eyes had widened as he then asked Audrey to leave. But what if the maid had not been reacting to his rude behavior toward a caller? What if she’d stared at him in that way because he’d beenlying?
“He doesn’t have a new wife.”
“Come again?” Hugh asked. Audrey shook her head, certain of it now.
“Delia. I know where she is.”
ChapterNineteen
The bruise on Audrey’s temple had started to turn a sickly bluish purple as Carrigan drove them back over the Lambeth Bridge and toward Kilburn. She appeared slightly bleary-eyed, like constables at the Brown Bear who imbibed one or two too many pints. Fussing over her injury would have only made her cross, so Hugh kept his comments limited to her heedless decision to sneak back into Warwick’s office and snoop through his private rooms.
“If I had not gone back to Warwick’s office and held Esther’s hairbrush, I wouldn’t have seen her wearing my cast-off gown and realizedshewas the body from the Thames.”
“Something I readily—andsafely—deduced when Sir woke and told me Delia was the one who’d attacked him.”
She’d ignored him and added, “And if I had not run into Mr. Starborough—”
“You mean if he had not held you at knifepoint in a darkened closet.”
“—then I would not have put together that Delia was at his home,” she continued.
“Mightbe at his home,” he corrected. “That was yesterday, was it not?”
The woman could have gone anywhere. If she’d been there at all.
Audrey sat back and gingerly touched her temple with her ungloved fingertips. She winced. “Yes, well, it is at least a place to begin.”
“Your Grace, if I may,” Greer said, and produced a kerchief for her mistress’s still weeping wound.
“I’m well, Greer, truly,” the duchess replied, though she accepted the square of linen and dabbed at the blood. The regard Audrey showed for her lady’s maid was evident in the way she thanked her with a small grin. There were too many members of the ton who treated their staff with indifference, but not Audrey. It was one of the first things he had reluctantly admired about the duchess.
“We will check the home, and if she and Starborough are not there, we are going directly to Bow Street to put out the hue and cry for them both.” Hugh tucked his chin and stared her down. “Are we in agreement?”
Audrey lowered the kerchief. “Did I hear you correctly, Officer Marsden? Did you saywe?”
The delighted lilt of her voice gave him momentary satisfaction. However, the prospect of walking into the magistrate’s building with the duchess did not give him the same feeling.
“I did, but do not grow attached to the idea, duchess.”
She pressed her lips against a grin but failed to mask it. They continued toward Watling Street and soon, Audrey announced they were close. She slid forward a little on the seat, as if in preparation for Carrigan to stop and let them out.
“You are staying in the carriage, Your Grace,” Hugh said, and before the mulish woman could so much as part her lips and make her argument, he held up a finger. “I am not asking. I am telling. This is dangerous. Delia killed Mary with hardly any effort, and she nearly killed Sir. If she is in there as you suspect, I cannot apprehend her while worrying for your safety. So please, Audrey, for once do as I ask andstay in the bloody carriage.”
Her mouth popped open and yet no sound emerged. She simply stared at him, unblinking. Her maid, to her right, wrinkled her forehead in surprise too. Silence filled the inside of the carriage as Carrigan whistled to the horses and brought them to a stop. Hugh had never seen the duchess speechless before; he rather liked it.
“Very well,” Audrey replied belatedly as the driver dismounted. The chassis shook. Hugh opened the door himself, one eye still on the duchess. He didn’t quite believe her, but she appeared surly rather than falsely sweet and placating.
