“Then who was she to you?” she demanded, scarcely recognizing the woman she had become.
Elysande was already regretting casting herself headlong into the fires of matrimonial misery.
He sighed. “A former acquaintance.”
“Former,” she repeated. “And yet she found her way into your bed.”
“Ah, Christ. Barlowe had to bloody well tell you that.”
She resumed pacing. “Do you mean to suggest you intended to keep it a secret?”
He shook his head. “Of course not, merely that I wished to be the one to relay that bit of information because of the rather sensitive nature of it. I promise you that I neither invited her there nor knew she was venturing to my rooms.”
Elysande had possessed a great deal of time to torture herself over every detail she had gleaned from Mr. Barlowe. There were so many facets that did not make sense. The story was akin to the jagged shards of a crystal decanter which, once smashed to bits, could never be reassembled in whole once more. But she was determined to try. Her marriage depended upon it.
She reminded herself to remain as calm as possible. Investigations required clear, rational thoughts. Even when she tested her electrical frying pan, or any other project she worked upon with Papa, she did not dare become emotional over the outcome.
“How did she know where to find your rooms?” she asked her husband next.
A flush colored his chiseled cheekbones for the first time since her arrival. “I assure you, the knowledge was from before I had ever met you. Mrs. Ainsley has not been an intimate acquaintance of mine since well before I knew you.”
An intimate acquaintance. The phrase should not puncture her heart like an arrow, and yet, somehow, it did.
She paused in her pacing, her chin going up. “She was your mistress in the past, then.”
“Not my mistress,” he denied. “She was a widow eager for companionship, and I was the man who provided it to her for a short span of time, no more. I had not seen her in at least a year, prior to the dinner on the night she was killed.”
“She was your lover,” she said plainly.
He nodded. “In the past, yes. No longer.”
“Clearly.” Her lip curled. “Mrs. Ainsley is quite dead now, is she not?”
Her words were cutting and cruel, and she knew a moment of regret when their barbs caused him to flinch as if she had physically struck him. Callousness had not been her intention. Nor was it like her to be so flippant. He had brought her to this low, she thought with grim resentment.
If he had only stayed in Buckinghamshire…
But no. That was a stupid thought, and a moot point. If he had remained, what would have happened? Would he have continued charming her until she had been as formless as pudding, incapable of resisting his handsome face and his knowing hands and lips? And what then?
“She is indeed deceased,” he said quietly.
Sadly.
She refused to entertain a moment of pity for him. Not until she knew more. Not until she had the answers she so desperately sought.
“She was murdered, Mr. Barlowe said,” she pointed out quietly. “How do I know it was not you who killed her?”
All the color leached from his countenance once more. “You truly believe me capable of murder?”
She held his gaze, challenging him to prove to her why she should not. “I scarcely know you, Your Grace.”
“Goddamn it.” Viciously stabbing his hands into the already ruffled waves of his mahogany hair, he turned his back to her and strode to a sideboard she had failed to notice until that moment.
Her emotions churned, her convictions vacillating wildly. Guilt pierced her before she tamped it down, forcing it away. Why should she feel remorse for questioning him? He deserved to be questioned. He deserved far worse, in fact. What had he done other than marry her and leave her, only to draw her into this dangerous web of his own making?
She was meant to be working. Thus far, she had been devoting herself primarily to the cause of turning Brinton Manor back into the impressive country house it had once been. How would she ever complete her prototype in time for the exhibition if she was too preoccupied running her husband’s estate and following him to London? And not just following him to London for innocent reasons, but to determine what had happened concerning the former lover who had been found murdered in his bachelor’s apartments.
Caught in the swirling mayhem of her own thoughts, it took Elysande some time to realize her husband had poured himself a more-than-generous draught of whatever spirits were assembled on the sideboard and tossed it down his throat before seeking another. She had never seen him drink to excess before.
She rushed forward without thinking, catching his elbow. “What are you doing?”
“Getting soused,” he growled, shaking her hand from him. “What else is a man to do when his wife informs him that she believes him capable of murder?”
Did she truly believe it possible he had killed the mysterious Mrs. Ainsley? Elysande could admit to herself, if no one else, that she did not. Nothing in his demeanor had ever suggested he was inclined toward violence. He had been polite. Charming, even. Although their interactions had been limited, he had never given her cause to doubt his honor or to fear him. If he had, she never would have agreed to the match. Not even for Izzy’s sake, regardless of how much she loved her sister and wanted to see her happy.
“Tell me why I should not believe it,” she countered, voice trembling with the complexity of her feelings.
“Because I was not there when it happened, for one thing.” His tone was vehement, and as he took another drink of the succor he sought, she noted his hand shook ever so slightly. “I was with Barlowe and dozens of others at the Black Souls when Mrs. Ainsley must have gone to my rooms. She was not invited, and nor was she welcome, Elysande.”
She wanted to believe him. His expression was unguarded. He had never given her a reason to doubt him until Mr. Barlowe had arrived with the distressing news of Mrs. Ainsley’s murder.
She stared at him, wishing she could read his heart and his mind. “Does Scotland Yard believe you killed her?”
A bitter smile curved his lips. “I have yet to be arrested.”
It was hardly testament to his innocence.
She shook her head, more confused than ever, on the verge of helpless tears. “What am I meant to think?”
“You are meant to think whatever you like.” He raised his glass to her in a mock salute. “If you choose to believe the worst of me, I cannot stop you. Nor can I fault you for it. If I had possessed an inkling anything like this would happen upon my return to London, I would have stayed in Buckinghamshire.” He paused, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Hell. Who am I fooling? I still would have come. Reginald Croydon needs to be recaptured so he can spend the rest of his life rotting in prison.”
Through the terse letters Hudson had sent to her from London over the course of the last month, Elysande knew Croydon continued to evade capture. She also knew it was a source of continued frustration for her husband. The reminder of his single-minded determination to help find the man and bring him to justice was timely.
Everything she knew about him suggested her husband was a good man.
Instinctively, she understood that.
But still…a woman. In his bed. A former lover. And murdered, at that.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm her wildly flitting thoughts and emotions, before opening them once more. “Why was she in your rooms, in your bed?”
“Damned if I know.” He sighed, the sound weary. “She was a guest at Barlowe’s dinner, and she made it clear she would be amenable to…resuming our acquaintance. I told her I was not interested and that I am a married man. After dinner, a group of gentlemen departed, myself amongst them, for the Black Souls club. I had no notion Mrs. Ainsley intended to go to my rooms. She was certainly not welcome there.”
There was something about his demeanor.
A rawness in his voice. His stare clung to hers, unwavering. She wanted to believe him. Heaven help her, she did.
“How was she able to find her way into your rooms?” she asked next, still trying to remain objective.
To thoroughly examine all the evidence before she made her decision, one way or the other.
He tossed the remainder of his drink down his throat. “The landlord allowed her to go inside and wait for me. She had been there before and apparently recalled where to go. Over dinner, we had been chatting about how much more comfortable I found my old lodgings than this town house. I had no notion she would seek me out there. I have been faithful to our marriage vows, Elysande. This, I promise you.”
She was surprised by how much his words mattered. By how strong the emotions were surging through her. “I believe you.”
His broad shoulders relaxed slightly. “Thank you. I can well understand how great of a shock all this must have been. I would have come to you myself, but I was being questioned. Barlowe was a polite enough emissary, I trust?”
“He was the perfect gentleman,” she reassured her husband, for his friend had been a calming, comforting presence at her side from the moment of his unexpected arrival until the second he had left her at the door to the salon.
“I am not certain Barlowe and gentleman belong in the same sentence, but I am grateful to him just the same.” Hudson’s voice was wry.
For the first time since the news had fallen upon her in the fashion of an avalanche careening down a mountainside, she forgot about her own anger, fears, and doubts. Instead, she thought about her husband. How shocking it must have been for him as well.
“What do you think truly happened that night?” she asked, some of her ire waning.
“I have no notion. I have suspicions, of course.”
“Suspicions,” she repeated, wanting to know more.
He was being so vague, and she needed specifics. Details and facts. Something which would point her in the right direction.
He poured another measure of liquid into his glass. “It is possible someone—even the hack who drove her there—saw a woman alone in the night and chose to take advantage. If she resisted or attempted to otherwise raise the alarm by calling for help, it is possible her murderer attacked her to keep her silent.”
What a grim and terrible business this was. Elysande found herself deeply grateful for the life she had led thus far. She had known nothing of the evil dangers lurking beneath the surface of the polished world around her.
“You must not return to those rooms,” she said, shivering as a chill came over her that had nothing to do with the autumnal weather overtaking town and everything to do with the very real specter of danger haunting them both.
He took a long pull from his drink, leaving his lips shiny with the liquid. For a moment, her foolish heart recalled how those lips had felt against hers, coaxing her to respond to his kiss. And then she sternly chastised herself for even daring to think of something so reckless and inane. Kisses! How could she, when a woman had lost her life and her husband of little more than one month was perhaps a suspect in her murder?
“I have no wish to see them ever again,” he said, his expression tormented.
What he must have witnessed…
He had once told her he was nothing like the men in her acquaintance, and he had not been wrong. Still, she could not help but to suspect that his previous acquaintance with Mrs. Ainsley would have rendered the sight even more shocking and horrible. There was no feigning the raw pain in his voice, in his gaze. He made such a solitary figure, tortured by his gruesome discovery.
Realization struck her, then and there. She had a choice to make. She could either believe him or leave him. Either take the sum of what she had come to know about this man and determine whether or not she dared trust him, or decide he was guilty of a deadly sin. That those hands that had touched her with such exquisite tenderness and brought her to the heights of passion had also inflicted pain.
It was the last thought that broke the dam within her. Elysande went to him, closing the distance between herself and her husband.
“I believe you,” she said.
He wrapped her in a tight embrace then, as if he had no intention of ever letting her go. She inhaled deeply of the familiar scent of soap and Hudson, of musk and man. The warmth of his big body radiated into hers. In her heart, she felt safe here, with him. It felt…strangely right. Her mind, however, still whirled with the madness of the day’s revelations. And with the uncertainty of the future, looming.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice brimming with gratitude as he buried his face in her hair and inhaled. “I have missed you, Elysande.”
For some reason, tears pricked her eyes, and she blinked to send them away. “I missed you too,” she confessed.
More startling than the tears?
Just how much she meant those words.
Chapter 8
Fortunately, Barlowe had accepted their invitation to stay for dinner, providing an essential element of distraction for Hudson’s first meal with his wife since her arrival in London. It was a rather unassuming affair, offered in what he had learned was termed service à la française, which simply meant the dishes were presented at once and the diners served themselves. A much preferable means of dining, in Hudson’s opinion. He could not abide by formality.
He reminded himself to sip his wine with care before lifting a spoonful of partridge soup to his lips. The pleasant flavor of celery and onion combined with the rich meat, but he scarcely tasted it. His mind was still whirling with the events of the last two days. Everything that had happened between his first sighting of Maude in his bed until now seemed as if it were a lifetime rather than a mere fragment of one.
“The newspapers are carving you up like a damned Michaelmas goose,” Barlowe announced, cutting the silence of the table, which had heretofore been marked by only the gentle clink of cutlery.
Had he thought himself fortunate his friend had remained? Strike that bloody thought. Unfortunately was clearly the word he had been in want of. He lowered his spoon.
“Let them.” He reached for his wine, sending a healthy portion down his gullet.
Not enough. Never enough. Not since two nights ago.
But then, hell. If he were honest with himself, he would admit he had been in his cups far too often since his return to town. Reginald Croydon’s escape continued to haunt him, his own inability to track down the bastard and return him to within prison walls making a mockery of his every day. The only escape had been seeking out his friends or finding the bottom of a bottle of wine. Few cases of his had ever gone unsolved for this long.
“What are they saying, Mr. Barlowe?” Elysande asked quietly.
“Nothing you need concern yourself with, Ellie,” Barlowe said, giving Hudson’s wife a charming grin and an accompanying wink. “Leave the papers and their scandal mongering ways to Stone and myself.”
Ellie? What the bloody hell?
He had sent a trusted friend to fetch his wife because he had not been able to leave London thanks to his uncomfortable involvement in Maude’s murder. Although Barlowe was an unabashed scoundrel as it pertained to ladies—he was a pretty-faced, golden-haired rake—he had been the most trustworthy friend Hudson possessed who was near enough to seek out Elysande and bring her to London. His good friend, the Duke of Northwich, was in the country with his family. The Marquess of Greymoor had been occupied with a problem at his new hotel.
He pinned Barlowe with a meaningful glare. “What is it you propose I do about the papers, Barry?”
His friend barked out an unrepentant laugh and raised his glass of wine to Hudson. “Well done, my friend. I have been called a great many names before, but never before Barry.”
“It has a certain delightful sound to it,” he returned, equally pleasant.
“You need not fear that I was attempting to seduce your lovely duchess whilst fetching her and escorting her to London,” Barl
owe said calmly, as if Elysande were not sitting there with them at the dining room table, before turning to her. “I can be a gentleman when the occasion merits it. Can I not, Ellie?”
There he went again, abbreviating Elysande’s name as if it were his right.
Hudson set his teeth on edge and wondered how much damage he would cause to his knuckles if his fist were to connect with Barlowe’s jaw.
“Ellie is what my family calls me,” Elysande explained quietly, her gaze seeking his, searching. “Since Mr. Barlowe is a close friend of yours and we were traveling together, standing on ceremony seemed quite silly.”
Traveling together.
Yes. He supposed they had done that. He had been too buried in questions—being interrogated had been the devil of a thing. He knew it was necessary. He knew, too, that as a duke and a former Scotland Yard detective, that he was not being treated nearly as harshly as he otherwise would have been. Perhaps being a duke mattered after all.
Still. Ellie. He could not like this familiarity between Barlowe and his wife. Even if he was grateful to his friend for having brought her to London so that Hudson could face the grim prospect of explaining to her how a former lover had been found murdered in his own bed.
“You never asked me to call you Ellie,” he pointed out, trying to keep the edge of irritation from his voice and failing miserably.
It was beastly of him to be so nettled. He had no right, considering the hellacious mess in which he currently found himself embroiled.
“Perhaps I would have, had I been given the time,” she countered, before taking a delicate sip of her own soup.
Her stare was settled upon the bowl before her, but the crispness in her dulcet tones contained a reprimand. A reminder that he had left her in haste just after their wedding day.
He smiled, feeling as if his face were about to crack. “You requested that time, if I recall correctly.”
The Detective Duke (Unexpected Lords Book 1) Page 11