Page 24 of Taken to the Grave
“Where did she meet Mr. Comstock?” Hugh asked. When she did not reply or even look his way, he pressed on. “The sooner you answer our questions, the sooner we may be able to find your friend. A friend who has been missing for nearly one week in part due to your silence.”
Contrition undermined her stony expression. “They met at Vauxhall.”
“He doesn’t reside at The Chesterfield at Portman Square. Where does he live?”
“I don’t know. Truly, I do not. I wasn’t with Bethie when she met him for the first time at the pleasure gardens. But she told me that he next invited her to a gambling hell. One where the women needed to wear dominos. For anonymity.”
“And she went?” Audrey asked.
Gwendolyn nodded, pallid again. Worried. As if this conversation had awoken her to the true danger her friend was in.
There were many gambling hells in London, and many that permitted women wearing masks to conceal their identities. Not that the concealment worked half the time. Audrey herself had once worn a domino to the Seven Sins, when she’d been on her quest to prove Philip innocent of murder. Hugh easily recalled seeing her across the gaming floor, her body encased in a form-revealing gown, her domino unable to trick him into confusion. His reaction then had been a heady cross between wrath and desire.
However, the mention of Vauxhall and then of a gambling hell had put him in mind of something else. Ofsomeoneelse. His pulse quickened. He’d been puzzling over what Harlan Givens had been doing at the pleasure gardens, or how his body had come to be there. His flask had given Audrey a vision of him with two threatening men, and behind them, their conveyance—the door stamped with an inverted white cross.
“Sanctuary,” Hugh murmured. Churches were often treated as sanctuaries. The universal emblem of a church was the Cross of Christ, and though the one on the carriage door had been flipped upside down, perhaps it was a commentary on the sinful behavior taking place in thissanctuary.
“Pardon, my lord?” Gwendolyn said, peering at him. Audrey was as well, but with a clever spark in her eye. She understood where his mind had led him.
He shook his head. “It’s nothing. This gaming hell you mentioned. It wouldn’t happen to have been the Seven Sins?”
Gwendolyn’s quizzical brow smoothed. “Why, yes. How did you know?”
Chapter
Eight
Philippa closed her fingers into a fist and gummed it, her saucer-like blue eyes gazing up at Audrey. The baby lay upon the carpet in the nursery, leftover tears from her earlier fit still sparkling on her long, thick lashes. Genie and Michael’s little girl now babbled happily, all past distress forgotten. How easily that was achieved when one was only four months old. The most arduous thing little Pippa needed to work on was rolling from her back onto her front.
“You nearly have it,” Audrey encouraged as Pippa kicked her tiny feet and wriggled. Philippa had completely stolen her heart. Little George had too, of course, but Audrey had spent more time with the new baby, considering that she was living under the same roof.
Though, not for much longer.
She grasped Pippa’s bare foot and lifted it to her lips, giving it a kiss. The baby gurgled some more. Spending time with Genie and Michael’s children was nearly the only thing Audrey enjoyed about living at Violet House, and she would be sorry to be parted from them. But the thrill she felt when she pictured the front of 37 Berkeley Square and how Hugh had dropped to one knee, obliterated any possible regret.
She’d been honest when she’d said Violet House had never felt like home. Not when Philip had been here and certainly not now. It was time to move on. And there it was again: the small twinge in her chest that had grown in size and strength over the last few months whenever she thought of Philip. She’d noticed it shortly after returning to London after the events in Dover, but it had taken a little while for her to understand the cause.
Lord St. John had designed his murderous plot with the intent of luring Philip out from wherever he’d gone on the Continent. With the Dowager Duchess of Fournier accused of murder at first, and then ultimately, going missing, the news was bound to reach into the country where Philip and Freddie Walker had absconded. St. John had been willing to wait months if necessary for Philip to return to England, perhaps under some disguise and with a new name.
But he hadn’t. It had been four months since Audrey had sent St. John into the depths of the Dover harbor, never to resurface, while defending her own life. Four months since newspapers in France had printed the lurid story of the duchess accused of poisoning a fellow traveler on her packet ship, and then being involved in yet another murder in Dover, this time of a Baron of the Cinque Ports. She’d stewed with worry that he would hear about the trouble and try to return home, but now, she had started to hope he would at least write. He’d promised to send word once he and Freddie had settled. It had been a full year now. Wasn’t that time enough?
There were moments when it struck her like a slap across the cheek that perhaps he had been placating her with that promise. That he’d never planned to write. That he was out of her life forever. And with his syphilis fevers, she worried some more. What if one had overtaken him? What if he could not get medical help?
Philippa grew blurry as her eyes stung and watered, the little girl utterly oblivious to the turmoil coiling inside her aunt. Everyone else had already spent a full year mourning Philip. Yet now that her official mourning was over, she had the oddest sensation that it was truly just beginning.
She thumbed away a tear that had slipped free from her lashes and rolled down her cheek. “Gracious, now I’m like you,” she murmured to the baby, who only cooed in response.
With Michael and Genie attending a dinner party soon, it would be a quiet evening at Violet House. The time alone to sort out the last few days was much needed. A tenuous link had started to form between Vauxhall, Mr. Givens, and the disturbing new information in Bethany Silas’s case. She’d been at the pleasure gardens with Mr. Comstock, who had then taken her to the Seven Sins, Mr. Givens’s place of employment. Then, the strange carriage in Audrey’s vision with the inverted cross…could it be linked to this patentlyunvirtuous Sanctuary society?
Murder and a missing young lady weren’t the only things that had sent her mind spinning off in all directions that day. Hugh’s proposal continued to reduce her into a puddle of pleasure whenever it crossed her mind—and it did, often. He’d procured a special license. He’d searched for and found a home for them. This time next year, it was entirely possible they would have their own baby. As she reclined on one elbow on her side next to Pippa, she felt her heart squeeze with wonder. The idea of seeing Hugh holding a child…their child…it was overwhelming. What she needed to do was simply focus on right now, on finding Bethany Silas, especially if she wanted to enjoy her wedding night and the days following without any concerns niggling at the back of her mind.
“You are far away.”
Audrey sat up, startled to see Genie standing within the entrance to the nursery. Her sister-in-law smiled at her as she continued into the room.
“How long have you been standing there?” Audrey asked.
“Long enough to suspect that infatuated grin of yours wasn’t directed solely at my precious Philippa,” she replied, giving Audrey a playful wink. Naming the little girl after Philip had been a sweet gesture, one that Michael had suggested.
