Page 44 of Nature of the Crime
“She’s in trouble,” Hugh said, his mind racing toward the Grand Shaft and wishing it could take him there bodily just as quickly.
“Take my carriage.” Edmunds signaled a few soldiers and instructed them. “I’ll gather some men and follow straightaway.”
Hugh nodded. With his heart in his throat, he rushed toward the carriage. “Thornton, Sir, with me.”
Chapter
Seventeen
“Becky, what is this about?”
Audrey’s initial alarm had fallen a few notches as the chambermaid beckoned them off the path. Her heart still knocked hard from the arduous climb up the shaft, but not with fear. The young women meant them no harm, Audrey was certain of that. Her flustered expression and the way she darted glances around the area, as if to make sure they weren’t seen, spiked her curiosity though.
Still a good distance from the fortress, they stepped into some scrub brush, the thorns of which picked at their skirts.
“I’m so sorry, Your Grace, but I needed to speak to you, and not with Mrs. Plimpton nearby. I couldn’t chance her overhearing.”
“What do you need to say that she cannot hear?”
She’d seen the innkeeper snap at Becky harshly a few times, but nothing more overtly worrisome.
“It’s about the baron,” she answered, her voice pitched high even as she tried to keep it lowered.
Greer held up her hands. “Calm yourself. You can’t tell Her Grace anything if you cannot breathe.”
The chambermaid nodded, took a long breath, and then tried again, this time without the tone of panic.
“Lord Burton was one of Mrs. Plimpton’s…” Becky lowered her voice. “Lovers.”
Both Audrey and Greer let out small gasps of surprise but allowed Becky to continue. “He was at the inn many times, and once, I heard them talking about you, Your Grace.”
“When was this?” Audrey asked.
“A few months back. October, I think.”
Her hands, encased within a pair of kid gloves, began to dampen at her inkling of what the two of them had been discussing. Though she missed Cassie’s company, she was grateful to have her maid with her right then, especially now that Greer had admitted to knowing about Philip. Keeping secrets was more difficult than she would have ever imagined.
“What were they saying?” Audrey asked.
A frown tugged at the corners of Becky’s mouth. “I only caught words here and there, but the baron was going to use you in some way. To make money, you see. He said he knew a secret about you and the duke, and he promised Mrs. Plimpton nice things too if it worked out in his favor.”
Lord Burton had to have known about Philip. But how? She had never met the baron before, and she highly doubted Philip had either. However…if Grayson had come to Dover the previous June, and had gone out carousing, perhaps the valet hadn’t been careful. If he had for whatever reason let slip to the baron, Lord Burton may have immediately recognized a financial opportunity.
But no demands for money had been made, at least none that Audrey was aware of.
And who was the man from Philip’s past that Grayson had met with in France? Not Lord Burton, that was for certain.
“What more did you hear?” Greer asked when Audrey remained quiet and contemplative.
“Nothing much more than that. Just that it all had to do with a lie. But I didn’t like the sound of the baron’s scheming, and when he sent you to the inn, Mrs. Plimpton was eager. She was smiling, and I couldn’t understand it. A man was dead, and the baron said you’d done the murder. But then I remembered the things his lordship had said…” She drew another long breath to calm herself again. “And now his lordship is dead too, and what with the other man coming around for Mrs. Plimpton lately, I just didn’t know what to make of it.”
Audrey’s ears chimed. “Other man?”
The innkeeper was a widow, and though no longer young and fresh-faced, she was still attractive and possessed a generous figure. It wasn’t startling that she would have many interested men.
Becky nodded. “Her other lover. The one that stole your hair comb.”
Audrey stared at her as the trumpeting of a horn sounded from the barracks. Even if a battalion of soldiers started marching toward them right then, she didn’t think she would be able to move from her frozen position.
