Page 46 of Silence of Deceit
“To Bedford Street,” she told Carrigan.
The evening hour was late, and the lamps brightened the dark streets as they traveled east from Kilburn, but the urge to divulge what she’d discovered could not be overcome. Hugh would hopefully be at home by now, and once he got past his inevitable vexation at her visit to the Starborough home, he would certainly ponder with her over possible reasons behind the superintendent’s deceit. As unenthusiastic as she was to submit to Hugh’s displeasure, she was equally eager to share what she knew.
It was not until Carrigan had pulled alongside the curb out front of number nine and gone to summon Hugh to the carriage that Audrey considered that they might also need to trip over a discussion regarding their kiss at the posting inn. Her eagerness faded drastically and all but vanished when she saw Hugh coming toward the carriage. She slid back along the bench, further from the door as he opened it and climbed in.
The dim light from a lamppost’s gas jet exposed the twist of annoyance on his face. “Are you on your way to Esther Starborough’s home, or on your way from it?” he asked brusquely.
She was glad for the instant squabble, for it took away any chance they might discuss the kiss. “How did you know I would go?”
“You are not as furtive as you imagine, duchess.” He sighed and held up his hands, as if waiting. “Well?”
His short, impatient manner led her to think something had happened with Sir.
“Is the boy still in hospital?” she asked.
“Don’t avoid my question.”
“Don’t be an arse. I’m asking because I care, and you’re clearly upset.”
Hugh held her incensed stare as insult pricked at her. Did he really think so little of her that she would use false care for Sir as a shield?
Tension went out of his shoulders, and he sat back against the squabs. “I’m sorry. Yes, he’s still there. Basil is watching over him.”
She was glad to hear the boy had not taken a turn for the worse and waited until her pulse had slowed before speaking again. “Nearly five years ago, Mr. Starborough was told his wife wandered away from Shadewell and drowned in a moorland bog.”
Hugh went still. Then jacked forward. “That is how the other woman, Tabitha, died, is it not?”
She nodded, the truth finally seeping in. “Doctor Warwick lied to Mr. Starborough. He used the circumstances surrounding Tabitha’s death to weave a fiction about Esther’s misadventure.”
“Did the husband not care to collect her body?” Hugh asked, his focus razor sharp.
“There was no body, he was told. Just some evidence of her clothing stuck in the bog. Some of them are vast and deep.” She had heard stories of cows and sheep getting stuck in them, the mire too thick and binding for farmers to do anything more than watch them sink out of sight, to their deaths.
Hugh scraped his palm along his jaw. “So, it would stand to reason a body might never be found. Convenient.”
A sickening cramp in Audrey’s stomach would no longer be ignored. “I think I know why Doctor Warwick lied. And where Esther has been these last five years.”
ChapterFifteen
Hugh hadn’t trusted that the duchess would not set out for the asylum on her own the following morning, as soon as dawn crested the western horizon, so he had spent the night in the mews behind Violet House, bunking with Carrigan and the other stable hands. The entire way from Bedford Street to Curzon, she had accused him of being absurd, mistrustful, utterly infantile, and the entire ride, Hugh had simply sat across from her, allowing her to vent her spleen, without making a single remark.
“Why aren’t you speaking?” she had finally asked.
“And ruin the entertainment? You are quite diverting when incensed,” he’d replied, and it wasn’t entirely untrue. He’d been forced to subdue multiple grins as she cited all the reasons why he should trust her by now.
That she had just rushed to visit Esther Starborough’s home before he could return to London and do so himself, even though she had considered Esther a prime suspect, apparently did not count as untrustworthy. Audrey had not appreciated the comment when he’d voiced it and had not uttered another word for the rest of the short trip. Before she could depart from the carriage, Hugh had reached for her arm. She’d drawn back, as if burned. Discomfited by her reaction, he’d waited a few moments before speaking so he would not shout or say something stupid.
“You could have gone straight to Southwark tonight to visit Bedlam on your own. Instead, you came to me.” The next words had been as difficult as shaping cold metal. “Thank you.”
Her surprise had matched his own. She’d softened enough to bid him a good night, and as evidence of her forgiveness, a footman brought clean bedding and supper to him soon after. He’d slept surprisingly well in the bunk room above the mews, and he wondered more than once if it was due to the ease he felt at being so close to Violet House.
The following morning, he woke early and was not at all astonished when Carrigan informed him that the duchess had requested a carriage.
With Greer at Audrey’s side, the three of them had set out for Bethlem Royal Hospital just after breakfast. One of the oldest asylums in the country, the hospital had been located in Moorfields, north of the city for well over a century. The new location in St. George’s Fields was supposed to be a shining example of charity for the people of London, gifted to them by an act of Parliament, however Hugh’s occasional outings across the river the last few years, to deliver both men and women to the new wing for the criminally insane, had not convinced him that the place was a gift. Unlike Shadewell, the patients here truly were treated as prisoners—as animals, even—many of them chained and manacled and unclothed.
After crossing the Thames and traveling south toward St. George’s Fields, Hugh had informed Audrey that he would be going into the asylum alone.
Her pique had instantly flamed. “If you think I am going to sit in this carriage while you speak to Doctor Warwick—”
