Page 18 of Fatal By Design
As Audrey was known here, the footman allowed them into the front hall and the butler greeted them. However, when Audrey’s mother joined them in the drawing room, the baroness’s cantankerous expression wasn’t warranted in the least.
“I wasn’t aware you were in Hertfordshire,” she said sharply before settling herself into a chair. “Nor did you send word that you planned to visit. I should have been more prepared had you thought to do so.”
Audrey, who had lowered herself to perch upon the edge of a chair, ignored her mother’s rude greeting.
“Is Millie expected at Haverfield today?” she asked, not mincing a single word.
The baroness startled. Though she was still handsome for her age, her grimace of annoyance was as ugly an expression as Hugh had ever seen.
“What? Today? No. Why, what is this about?”
“Lady Redding left her home yesterday morning, telling her staff that she was coming here,” Hugh said, noting that the baroness had not so much as looked his way. She jutted her chin and took a deep breath, prolonging her stare straight ahead, at her daughter rather than at him.
“I have no notion as to why she would do such a thing. She already visited me last month for a fortnight.”
“I did not realize we were expecting guests.” Lord Edgerton entered the room, his baleful glare lingering on Hugh, where he stood next to Audrey’s chair. It then shifted to his niece. “Your Grace,” he greeted her, treating the title like a piece of gristle caught in his teeth. Then, without looking at Hugh directly, “Lord Neatham. Why have the pair of you descended upon Haverfield this time?”
The last had been a year ago, when Lady Bainbury had been killed in the Fournier Downs parkland, and a Haverfield kitchen maid had met with the same fate. Their deaths had been at the hand of another Haverfield maid. That they had been connected to a murder scandal had surely inconvenienced the baron and Lady Edgerton. Selfish snobs, the pair of them.
“Do you know a man by the name of Lord Reginald Cartwright?” Hugh asked.
He had learned to pay attention to physical reactions whenever he questioned people during an inquiry. There were always small tells to indicate whether they planned to deflect the question, lie, or freeze with indecision. The stiffening of the baron’s posture, the slowing of his gait as he cut a path to the baroness’s side, gave Hugh his answer: The name meant something to Edgerton.
“Why do you ask?” the baron said.
It was to be deflection, then. Hugh swallowed his impatience. “If you will answer the question.”
The baron sneered. “May I remind you,Neatham, that you are no longer a Runner. Bow Street ousted you.”
The emphasis placed on his title crystalized his derision. The baron had been friendly with Barty and no doubt held Hugh in contempt for his ruination.
“And may I remind you, Edgerton, that I now outrank you. Answer the question.”
The scowl etching itself into the man’s face and twisting his lips was almost as satisfying as breaking his nose would have been. For several long moments, the baron grappled with his pride and anger, and the dowager baroness bristled on his behalf.
Not quite dowager, though, was she? Edgerton had never married after inheriting his late brother’s title, and so another woman had not claimed the title of baroness. Instead, the two of them lived together outside marriage. While marrying her dead husband’s brother would have been theoretically valid, it was highly frowned upon by ecclesiastical law and easily voidable if the marriage was challenged by anyone. And it was rumored Edgerton had a cousin in line to inherit who would readily do so. It also would be rife with scandal. That was something the two of them avoided at all costs. So instead, they lived here, in Hertfordshire, year-round. Far from the probing eyes of London society.
The baron, practically fulminating, replied, “Yes, I knew Cartwright.”
“When were you acquainted?”
Edgerton turned on his heel and made his way to a sideboard of decanters. “When Millie was just out. Cartwright wanted to marry her.”
“You refused the match?” Audrey’s surprise lifted her voice to a breathy pitch.
“Without question!” her mother chimed in. “We could not allow her to marry someone of his…” She creased her forehead as she thought of the next word. “Circumstance.”
“What circumstance would that be?” Hugh asked.
“The man is half Indian,” Edgerton barked as he finished pouring himself a brandy. “The Marquess of Montague’s heir was with the East India Company, and he fell in with some provincial princess or some such; there are countless numbers of them there, I am told. Married her, against Montague’s wishes. Then the pair of them went off and died of some fever.”
The barbs under Hugh’s skin began to lengthen and sharpen. The baron was an odious man, speaking as though Montague’s son and wife had elected to die.
“And I presume they had a child. Cartwright,” Hugh said.
“Yes. And he turned out very pigmented indeed,” the baroness said with a sigh and shake of her head.
Audrey made a noise in her throat before standing from her chair. She caught Hugh’s eye, her exasperation high. The blatant distaste the baron and baroness felt for Lord Cartwright’s skin color clearly appalled her, as it did Hugh.
