Page 2 of Fatal By Design
Audrey frowned at the announcement. There was something more to the story. She could sense Genie holding back. But just then, Audrey’s driver bowed as they arrived at the carriage. “Your Graces,” Carrigan said, greeting them both.
As dowager duchess, the form of address still applied to Audrey, though sharing it with Genie did feel a little awkward. Her sister-in-law felt the strangeness of it too; though she was now duchess, she had not wanted to push Audrey out of her title or what was due to her. Fournier Downs, for instance. It was the country seat for the Duke of Fournier, but Genie had insisted to Michael that they not remove from Greenbriar until the following summer, after Audrey’s year of mourning. Genie’s gentle kindness was genuine and a rare thing among the women of theton. A rise in status was certainly something many lords and ladies coveted, though Michael and Genie had not shown even a sliver of happiness for their ascension. They would have much rather had Philip than a ducal title.
“We are ready to depart, Your Grace,” Carrigan announced, and then opened the carriage door.
“You know, we are expecting Lord Neatham,” Genie said, her wistful, easy tone, entirely put on. Genie was so naturally artless that Audrey knew when she was plotting.
“As I have heard,” Audrey replied, arching a brow at the new duchess. “Several times, in fact.”
Genie had been in raptures when Hugh accepted her invitation—the very first gathering the newly established viscount had accepted that summer. The whole of thetonwas utterly fascinated by the former principal Bow Street officer who, during the course of solving his half-sister’s murder, also unearthed the truth of his own birth—he was heir to the Neatham title, not his half-brother, Bartholomew. After being reviled by polite society for being the viscount’s illegitimate ward, then having baseless accusations of ruining Eloisa heaped onto him, only to then shoot and maim Bartholomew in a duel, Hugh was less than eager to take his title. He’d also been ousted from his post at Bow Street. Accepting society invitations had not been top of list when she’d last seen him, in March.
“Are you not curious as to how he is faring?” Genie asked as Carrigan waited.
Genie was somewhat aware of Audrey’s history with Hugh, though perhaps not of her attachment to him. He had helped to exonerate Philip in a murder case, and then he had helped solve a case at Fournier Downs the previous summer. Most recently, Genie and the rest of society learned that Hugh had saved Audrey’s life in Hyde Park when Thomas—Hugh’s other half-sibling—had intended to kill her. She’d discovered Thomas was Eloisa’s murderer, and he had wanted to silence Audrey too. But Genie couldn’t know the rest: that she and Hugh had been valiantly attempting to suppress what had begun as an attraction between them, and had since developed into deeper, more serious feelings.
The truth was, Audrey had fallen irrevocably in love with Hugh, and she was frightened that with his new title, everything had changed.
“I’m sure I will hear all there is to know about the viscount,” Audrey said, forcing a grin. “Cassie won’t be able to resist filling pages upon pages with gossip for me.”
Genie sighed. “Very well. I suppose you should be off. You’re fortunate in some ways, you know. The men will all be talking business and money-making ventures, and the ladies will require much entertainment.” She frowned. “Remind me again why I am hosting this party.”
Audrey laughed and embraced her sister-in-law. Genie lingered in her hold just long enough for Audrey to twitch with worry—Hugh could arrive any moment. But then, Audrey was being handed up into the carriage, the door was closing, and she and her maid, Greer, were swaying to the bounce of the chassis as they rolled down Greenbriar’s long lane toward the main road.
They sat on opposite benches in the four-person barouche-landau and rode in companionable silence for a quarter hour or so. Greer had been her lady’s maid for four years now, ever since Audrey married Philip. She was attentive and quiet, and steadfastly loyal, and she likely knew all her mistress’s many secrets: from Audrey and Philip’s marriage arrangement to Philip’s non-conformist attraction to men to the fact that Audrey had spent time in an insane asylum—though perhaps she did not know why Audrey’s mother and uncle had sent her there. Very few people knew that she could hold objects and see their memories playing out in her mind. Hugh was one of the few who did know. And on that note, Audrey also suspected that Greer was aware of her feelings toward the new viscount.
Just thinking of him asviscountunsettled her, though she couldn’t entirely explain why. She was far more comfortable thinking of him as Officer Marsden. Or just Hugh. And she thought of him too often.
As much as she missed him, and as much as the opportunity to see him at Greenbriar had been a magnetic temptation, she knew that if she stood face to face with him, she would not be able to lie about Philip. It had been different in their written correspondence in May. Hugh had sent his condolences, offering kind words about Philip, but had not come to Violet House where Audrey had, as required, closed herself off. He could not have come, of course, though she had wondered nearly a dozen nights in a row if he would scale the broad limbs of the tree outside her bedroom window and slip in, undetected, as he had once before, when he’d been evading arrest.
Her brief reply to his letter had been properly distant. Setting anything down in ink about Philip’s true whereabouts would have been categorically stupid. Everyone believed the reports from the Marseille authorities and Philip’s valet Grayson, about the sudden storm at sea. Grayson’s knowledge of the truth and his complicity in Philip’s ultimate plan was almost a given, considering the valet had written to Barton, the butler at Violet House, shortly after, resigning his post. He had not returned to England, as far as she was aware.
“Will you miss Greenbriar?” Audrey asked Greer after the silence began to wear on her. Too often now, silences bothered her. They allowed her mind to reel and spin with things she would rather not think of.
Her maid’s lips stretched into a constrained smile. Greer was not one to show emotion; she was reserved and thoughtful, and Audrey had often thought that had she been born into a family of wealth and influence, she would have made a better lady than half the women in the peerage.
“I will, Your Grace. I enjoy the staff, and it is such a beautiful residence.”
“More beautiful than Fournier Downs, certainly,” Audrey said. When Greer began to deny it, Audrey only shook her head. “It is the truth, and I promise that you won’t insult me by agreeing. If I were Their Graces, I would deign Greenbriar the new—”
A shout and a sharp whistle from the box cut off Audrey’s statement. Carrigan was at the reins, and a footman was riding along, mostly for protection. The drive from Kent to Hertfordshire would take them north of London, then along post roads, and they would not reach home until after nightfall. Truly, they should have left much earlier. Having a footman along with Carrigan would be safer. Audrey couldn’t help but think that Hugh would heartily approve the choice.
The carriage slowed.
“Is there a problem?” she called.
“A coach ahead on the road, Your Grace.”
Audrey’s pulse increased. In March, she and Carrigan had been driving through Hyde Park when he’d stopped to assist another carriage stuck in mud—or at least that is what Thomas, Colonel Trenton, had said to gain Audrey’s driver’s attention and aid. It had been a ruse. He’d ended up knocking Carrigan unconscious and chasing Audrey through the darkened park.
“A man is hurt,” Carrigan now said. Then, as the chassis shook with his and the footman’s descent from the box, he added, “If you will stay in the carriage, Your Grace.”
She shifted to peer out the open window. The barouche-landau’s collapsible roof had been raised for the long drive to Hertfordshire, as the road dust would have coated them crown to foot otherwise. The coach that Carrigan had spotted—a stately deep maroon conveyance hitched to a pair of fine black horses with white stockings—had stopped along the country lane, parallel to a grassy field, and beyond that, a stretch of woodland. It was likely still Greenbriar property, as they had not driven far from Michael and Genie’s manor.
A gasp lodged in her throat at the sight of a man slumped over in the driver’s box. Dismissing Carrigan’s request to stay within the carriage, she opened the door.
“Hand me down, Greer.” She turned to lower her foot onto the carriage step, and with her maid’s firm hand, nimbly descended to the road. Audrey helped her maid down next.
Together, they rushed across the dusty dirt road. Carrigan tried to hold them back, his face starker than its usual ruddy appearance.
