Page 9 of Taken to the Grave
The steward frowned. “He wasn’t. What would lead you to ask that?”
“Do not question the viscount, Hammond. You may go.” Mr. Gye waved his hand, motioning for his steward to leave. Hammond did, but not before sending his employer another black glare.
Mr. Gye sighed. “The gardens are not enclosed by any walls or fencing, so I suppose one could trespass if one dared to.”
“Were the other bodies found in this same state?” Hugh asked.
Mr. Gye blinked. “You mean, here? At the Cascade? No, they were out in the open, easy to find.”
“I meant physically. Were they all killed in the same manner, with their throats cut, their ears taken?” he clarified, but before Mr. Gye could answer, Officers Tyne and Stevens approached. Stevens looked to Tyne to take the lead.
“We need to speak to Mr. Gye now,” Officer Tyne said, his tone mockingly submissive. “Of course, only if you’re done with your own questions, my lord.”
Hugh grinned. “That’s good of you, Tyne. I am finished. For now.”
Stevens’s own demeanor was less frosty than his superior’s. “Officer Mars—I mean, my lord, the men over there told us that guttersnipe of yours called the dead man ‘father’.”
Hugh nodded. “That’s correct.”
Tyne scoffed. “What’s it you call the boy again? Mister?”
“Sir,” Hugh replied, unamused. The boy had not won himself many friends at Bow Street over the few years he’d gone there, time and again, smelling of refuse and ordering about the constables. He suspected Tyne took some pleasure in belittling Sir, if only to irritate Hugh.
“Where is he now?” Tyne asked.
“I’m not sure.” Hugh paused, wondering at the question. “He saw his father’s body and ran off.”
“Why would he run?” Tyne pressed.
Hugh stared down the officer, who was unmistakably aiming to cast Sir in some guilty light. The utter fool.
“It was a shock, naturally,” Audrey answered when Hugh’s jaw remained locked tight. “He was upset.”
“Poor lad,” Stevens said. “Had to be a horrible thing to see.”
Tyne sent him a flat look of annoyance before saying, “We won’t keep you or the dowager duchess. Everything’s under control here.” Tyne then added, “My lord.”
The tacked-on address smacked of sarcasm. That Hugh had ascended into a viscountcy surely gave the men at Bow Street something to disparage him over. At least Tyne had not called Audrey “your duchess” as he’d been inclined to do after their first investigation into the murder of an opera singer. Hugh had been teased relentlessly about the titled lady taking an interest in him, especially after she’d summoned him to Fournier Downs to solve another murder a few months later.
“Good to see you, Stevens,” Hugh said, purposefully snubbing Tyne as he held out his arm to Audrey. She flexed her fingers around his forearm as they left the privacy of the large screen.
“Gracious, Officer Tyne was chilly. I had no idea he disliked you so deeply.” She spoke softly as they cut through the spectators, ignoring looks of interest, and refusing to stop to answer questions of what lay behind the screen.
“I imagine he disliked me even before I became viscount.” His title would have only bolstered the man’s feelings. Hugh partly understood; those with peerage titles were often nothing but trouble to Bow Street officers. In the beginning, he’d felt much the same about Audrey and her family. Now, however, he counted them as friends.
“I suspect he is envious.”
Audrey’s shrewd suggestion was most likely correct. When wealth, power, and influence were unavailable commodities, those who possessed them could easily appear as the enemy.
“As he should be,” Hugh replied, and at her stunned look, grinned. “He does not have you to tell him all the secrets Harlan Givens’s flask gave up to you.”
She rarely simpered as he’d come to notice many other ladies of the ton, young and old, doing. But the crafty expression inching across her lips right then was natural mischief, rather than practiced. She lowered her voice, brought herself closer on his arm, and told him what she’d seen.
“I was anxious at first, as all I could see was darkness. It makes sense, of course, because a flask would have been kept in his pocket most of the time.”
Hugh nodded, understanding that the visions she was given were often limited to what environment the object was in. The object would only hold so much energy too. Once depleted, the visions would cease.
“I had to push further back, so unfortunately when I did see something, it was quite grainy.”
