Page 12 of Silence of Deceit
“Of course,” he said without hesitation, even though he could not have known Mary, too, had been at the asylum. He masked his ignorance well, even as Mary and Mrs. Simpson whirled to stare at him, then Audrey.
“How dare you?” Mrs. Simpson hissed. “Your Grace, you have no right!”
“On the contrary, Mrs. Simpson, the duchess is only saving us from a prolonged and complicated conversation. Delia Montgomery also stayed at Shadewell, which answers how the duchess and your daughter are connected to her. However, it does not answer why your cards were amongst her things.”
Mrs. Simpson pinned her lips, her fury stifled for the moment. “Very well. I…I think she may have been the young woman who was blackmailing me.”
Audrey set down her tea, answers unspooling in her head. “Delia presentedmycard to your maid when she called on you. That’s what you meant when you said it had been used to gain entry to this home before.”
Mrs. Simpson arched her brow. It seemed her suspicion of Audrey had been well founded. She had likely believed Delia had come again—only to be met with the real Duchess of Fournier this time.
“She was threatening to reveal your daughter’s stay at Shadewell, I take it?” Hugh asked.
“Yes, unless I paid her a handsome sum.” The woman scoffed at the ultimatum. “She never told me her name, only that she was a collector for some anonymous person who knew Mary had gone to Shadewell for… Well, it doesn’t matter does it?”
Hugh assured her that no, it did not matter why Mary had been sent away. Audrey knew, of course. Doctor Warwick, the superintendent at Shadewell, had called Mary’s fits of temper symptoms of “hysteria.” Attempts to calm her had only made her worse. Laudanum was the only thing that had worked. After a handful of months of tranquility, Mary—no more than fourteen or so at the time—had been sent home. Audrey vividly recalled her own feelings of envy every time a patient would be released. She had started to doubt she would ever be one of them.
“With Mary still unwed, I could not risk ignoring the demands and possibly damaging her prospects. And now, with her upcoming betrothal announcement…” Mrs. Simpson fought what might have been a swoon. She sat back onto the sofa without much grace.
“My felicitations, Mary,” Audrey said to the young woman, whose distress partially lifted to be replaced with a smile of delight.
“The banns will be posted next week,” Mary said, her eyes bright. “Mr. Burrows is a clerk at the Home Office.”
“Mr. Simpson’s protégé,” Mrs. Simpson put in with obvious pride. But then her doughy chin trembled. “It is a very good match indeed.”
One she did not want to risk for her daughter, to be sure.
“No, it’s not possible, Mama. Delia would never blackmail you.” Mary’s shining eyes now filled with earnest tears. They slipped down her reddened cheeks. “She never even said a word about calling upon you.”
Mrs. Simpson gawked. “How—? When didyousee her?”
Mary swiped at her cheeks. “The last time was just a few weeks ago. I couldn’t tell you—I knew you would never allow it, but you don’t understand, Mama. Delia was not as fortunate as I. Or Her Grace,” she added with a wobbly grin in Audrey’s direction.
Before Mrs. Simpson could splutter more questions, Audrey jumped in. “How was it that you and Delia became reacquainted?”
As Mary haltingly explained that she and Delia had run into each other by chance in late August, Audrey began to form a suspicion, however tentative and flimsy.
“I admit, I did not recognize her at first,” Mary said. “She appeared so different from how she looked at Shade—”
Her mother hissed through her teeth, and Mary went silent, lips pinning together tightly.
“I ran into Delia a few months ago by chance as well,” Audrey said, catching Hugh’s eye. Wasn’t it a bit odd for Delia, after a handful of years, to have encountered two of her former acquaintances by chance?
“How often did you see her?” Hugh asked.
“Sporadically.” Mary glanced tentatively at her mother, as if preparing for censure. “We would meet for ices or tea usually. After that first time, she was always dressed so nicely…”
In the cast-offs Audrey had given her, most likely. But to have mentioned the state of her appearance twice now, as if it was in defense of Delia, made Audrey wonder if perhaps Mary knew the truth about Delia’s most recent circumstances. She had been living in a boarding house in Lambeth, but the few comments Delia made over the course of their meetings led Audrey to believe she was entertaining men for coin. Of course, Delia had not come out and confessed it—she claimed to work in a milliner shop off Oxford Street.
“The last time you saw her,” Hugh began. “Was there anything different about her? Did she say anything strange or unusual?”
Mary shook her head. “No. Nothing. She just spoke of her work as a milliner’s assistant and how she was about to move into a new set of rooms.”
“Mary, how could you?” her mother interjected, pacing away from the window and back toward the sofa, her fingers twisting together in dismay. “To be seen with someone who could connect you to that place—I had no idea. You should have told me!”
Mary shot to her feet. “And you should have told me about Delia’s calls. Does Papa know?”
Mrs. Simpson tucked her chin and blanched. “Gracious, no. He has no earthly idea, and I couldn’t say anything to him—or to you—even if I’d wanted to. I was warned against it.”
