Page 1 of Fatal By Design
ChapterOne
August 1820
The halls of Greenbriar buzzed with activity. Footmen and maids moved swiftly, unrolling recently cleaned carpets, arranging flowers in numerous vases, dusting and sweeping and polishing, and whatever else Mrs. Dorman, the housekeeper, ordered necessary for the coming house party and its guests. The flock was to begin arriving that afternoon. By then, however, Audrey would be gone.
She walked alongside her sister-in-law toward the manor’s front entrance, though she suspected Genie’s ambling gait was purposefully slowing their progress.
For at least the sixth time since breakfast, Genie said, “You are not obliged to leave,” and tightened her grasp on their linked arms until she was practically holding Audrey back from taking her next step. “I don’t give a fig what anyone might say about your presence. This is my home, my house party, and if I say you are welcome, then no one will contest me.”
She had been harping on this point for a few days now, ever since Audrey had announced that it was high time for her to remove to Fournier Downs. She ought not to have even been at her brother- and sister-in-law’s Kent estate to begin with, and she certainly should have departed well before the day the guests were to arrive. But Michael and Genie were difficult to argue with. They’d insisted she come stay with them for the summer at Greenbriar, a tract of five thousand acres of rolling fields and farms, woodland, hills, and ponds. The offer had been attractive. Much more so than spending the summer months in Hertfordshire at Fournier Downs, alone. And as the house party approached, with its dozen guests planning to stay a fortnight, Genie and Michael had kept finding reasons for her to remain. Their ultimate hope was that she would stay for the house party too, but it simply could not be done.
“I wish I could, truly.” Audrey squeezed Genie’s arm. “But you know my presence is impossible. I may be apt to break the rules now and again, but mourning customs are inflexible things.”
It had been just over four months since Philip followed through with his plan to “convalesce” in the south of France, accompanied only by his valet, Grayson. Four months since Audrey had clung to him in a final embrace in their London home on Curzon Street, her eyes filled with tears of both heartache and fury.
“I vow to you,” he’d whispered as he’d held her. “I will find a way to get word to you when things have settled. Whatever you choose to do from here, with your life, I will not interfere. Ever.”
Her throat had been so thick with emotion that she hadn’t been able to respond. He’d kissed her forehead, whispered that he loved her, and then departed in his carriage for Dover, where he’d take a packet across the Channel, to Calais. A little over three months ago, the letter she’d dreaded receiving had arrived.
She’d known to expect it but had hoped Philip would change his mind at the last minute. That he would decide to come home after all.
“It is absurd,” Genie sighed, though with a note of resignation. “I think it is cruel that we must shut ourselves away from the world during a time like this, when it is companionship and diversion that we most need.”
Audrey agreed wholeheartedly but, as she had for the last three months, bit her tongue. She was trapped, it seemed, in an unending miasma of mourning, guilt, and anger. And yet there was the silver lining of possibility, too. Because legally, and in the eyes of king and country, Philip Sinclair, the Duke of Fournier, was dead. She, Audrey Sinclair, the Duchess of Fournier, was a widow. A dowager duchess now, in fact.
But it was all a lie, and Audrey feared she would never be free from it.
“I need no entertainment, Genie. You, Michael, and little George, of course, have been an excellent diversion this summer,” she assured her sister-in-law, the new Duchess of Fournier.
Michael, as the second son and spare heir, had only recently been granted the title of duke. What could have taken the House of Lords months, even a year, to declare Philip dead and pass along the title, had taken a much shorter time than usual. The fact that there had been no body recovered had concerned some members of the House—perhaps the duke was only missing. Perhaps he had not drowned off the shores of Marseille when a storm had rushed in, churning the seas, and sweeping away the duke, as his valet Grayson and several witnesses on the beach had reported. For Philip was a strong swimmer, as Michael proclaimed when he was in denial that his brother was gone. He might have washed ashore elsewhere. Dashed his head and lost his memory.
A weeks’ long search was launched, but he was not found. After two months, a consensus among the House was reached: the duke was dead.
It was just as Philip had required: a death where his body would not and could not be returned to England for burial. He’d gone through with it—the proverbial nail in the coffin. There could be no coming back from this lie, and before he’d left, he had vowed more than once that he would never attempt it. That he would never endanger whatever future Audrey made for herself by returning and exposing himself as alive and well. Though there had been many times when Audrey had wished to fall asleep and wake up miraculously five months in the past. Once arrived, she would try again to change Philip’s mind.
Although, five months in the past would make it the month of March, and the events of that month had been wretched and heartbreaking. Audrey had helped to solve the murder of Miss Eloisa Neatham and prove Bow Street officer Hugh Marsden innocent of the crime, which had revolved around the illegitimacy of his half-siblings and an incestuous relationship that still made Audrey’s stomach clench with revulsion whenever she thought of it.
She and Genie stepped onto the crushed gravel circle in front of Greenbriar, and Audrey breathed in deeply. Surely, to Genie, she appeared to simply be taking in the fresh, mid-August air, heavy with the scent of freesia and rose from the garden beds trimming the exterior brick. But in truth, Audrey often found it difficult to breathe whenever she thought of Philip.
Or of Hugh, for that matter—though for entirely different reasons.
The itch to be on her way caused her waiting barouche-landau, her trunks loaded onto the back rack, to look like it was miles away rather than a few yards, and Genie’s pulling arm, like an anchor. Audrey wasn’t eager to be alone at Fournier Downs, but her spacious, empty home in Hertfordshire was vastly preferable to the one house party guest whom she would most like to avoid: the new Viscount Neatham. Better known to Audrey as Hugh Marsden.
“Cassie will be upset to have missed you,” Genie said.
Philip’s younger sister had spent all of June with them at Greenbriar but had been in Brighton for most of July with a party of friends. It was good for her to be out with other ladies and young gentlemen, though of course properly chaperoned by the mothers of two of her companions.
Cassie had been through much turmoil the last year, after finding herself compromised and with child after an earl’s son and heir had made sport of her. The cad promised her a betrothal, though he’d never had any intention of following through. Her child, born in secret in Sweden, had been adopted by a family in Stockholm, and Cassie had spent the last several months back in England attempting to regain her footing here, and her happiness.
“Don’t you dare allow her to come to Hertfordshire,” Audrey replied. It was exactly what Cassie would suggest. “She should stay for the house party. I’m sure she is longing to see William after being so long in Brighton.”
Genie’s youngest brother had been courting Cassie since the spring. Michael had yet to discuss formal betrothal matters with William, but Audrey was certain the discussion would unfold in the next fortnight, during the party. While not titled, William was a gentleman, and being Genie’s brother lent him firmer footing with Michael. He would not be marrying Cassie just for her substantial dowry, that was assured.
But now, Genie’s face fell. “He isn’t coming.”
“I thought he’d accepted the invitation.”
“He had. Unfortunately, he has business that will keep him in London.”
