Although the smooth running of a household was not a calling to which Elysande had ever aspired, she was more than familiar with all the requirements. Worn carpets had been replaced. The leaking roof was being repaired. Fading wallcoverings had been substituted for new. Rooms were dusted, floors cleaned, the fountain’s broken pipes were being fixed. Additional maids and footmen had been hired, and the new head gardener was joyously returning the grounds to their former splendor. She had converted the sitting room adjoining her bedchamber into her workshop. Life had progressed significantly.
“Frying pan,” Izzy repeated. “Forgive me.”
“You are forgiven, of course,” Elysande said. Her siblings had never understood her desire to create. “I am too much like Papa, forever toiling over a project.”
Her sister was frowning once more. “Are you happy?”
What a question. And how to answer it? Elysande struggled to find the right words to convey what she felt. “I am…content.”
But she would be more content if her frying pan was functioning properly.
And if Hudson returned. This last, she would not admit aloud.
“Contentment.” Izzy pursed her lips. “What a disappointing state to find one’s self in. Truly, Ellie. It is as if you have settled for just well enough, when you could have had something wondrous as I have with my Arthur.”
“Will you sit?” she asked, changing the subject, for they were standing awkwardly, almost as if they were two duelers about to meet each other at dawn with pistols. “Would you care for tea?”
Her sister raised an imperious dark brow. “I shall sit, but you are not going to distract me so easily. Your happiness is important to me, you know.”
Elysande skirted the desk, moving to the two chairs flanking the fireplace, so placed for just such a purpose. The weakest part of her had imagined sitting here with Hudson more than once, chatting about their days. But having her sister with her was every bit as lovely, she reminded herself sternly, vowing she would not think of her husband for at least the remainder of the hour.
“Your happiness is important to me as well,” she told Izzy as they made themselves comfortable in the chairs. “Tell me how your preparations for the wedding are coming along.”
“Arthur has suggested we marry in the new year sometime after Easter but before Whitsuntide,” Izzy said.
“That seems rather far away.” She studied her sister’s countenance for signs of disappointment. “I thought the two of you would wed soon.”
“I would prefer a hastier marriage, it is true, but Arthur wishes for everything to be perfect,” Izzy explained, smiling. “He has suggested I travel to Paris to be fitted for my gown, and we shall need time to arrange for so many details. There is hardly a rush.”
“I am hearing quite a bit about what Mr. Penhurst wants,” Elysande observed, “and scarcely anything at all about what you want.”
“I want whatever makes my Arthur happy,” Izzy said. “But I did not travel so long over such dreadful roads to speak to you about myself. I came to see how you are faring.”
“Quite well, as you can see.” Aside from my feverish longings for my husband.
“When is Wycombe expected to return?”
“Soon.” She plucked at the fall of her skirts.
“How soon?” Izzy pressed.
The truth was, she did not know. It was rather embarrassing to admit. His letters thus far had been concise. “I expect he will give me all the time I require to finish my prototype.”
“And you would rather spend your time toiling over a frying pan than with the man you have married?”
Of course not. She was greedy, and she wanted them both. But how to explain?
She bit her lip, considering her response with care. “You know I did not marry for love, Izzy.”
“Yes. You married for my sake.” Izzy was frowning once more. “I do wish you would not have been so selfless.”
“I am not entirely selfless. Marriage to Wycombe has hardly proven a hardship.” That, too, was the truth. But there she went, thinking of him again. Thinking of his persuasive kisses, the strength of his arms banded around her, his hot mouth at her breast and elsewhere…
Her cheeks flamed.
And her sister took note, of course.
“Ellie!” she exclaimed. “Do you mean to suggest you have enjoyed Wycombe’s attentions?”
Very much so.
She cleared her throat, then licked her suddenly dry lips. “You are being far too forward, Izzy.”
“You have,” her sister guessed, grinning. “Oh, Ellie. I never would have guessed. You need not look so Friday-faced. I am pleased to know you are not entirely fashioned of ice.”
“Alas, I am not.” And she was quite cross about this unwanted, unexpected development. “But enough talk of me. I shall ring for tea, and then I want to hear more about your plans with Mr. Penhurst.”
Without waiting for her sister’s response, she rose and crossed the chamber to ring the bellpull. Tea and chatting were what she needed. Some time with her dear sister. Anything to keep her mind from returning once more to—no!
She would not think his name.
Chapter 7
It was nearly midnight, and the day had been bleak with rain. His body ached, his mind was still gripped with the same restlessness that had been chasing him for the past few weeks, and he had possibly consumed too much brandy this evening at the Black Souls with his friends.
Hudson passed through the familiar door and crossed the chamber with the reassured ease of a man who had traversed this same path in darkness hundreds of times before. That was because he had. Tonight was no different from the others which had preceded it, and yet it very much was.
He could not stop thinking of Elysande.
The memory of her, unsmiling and painfully lovely as she had watched him go, had been plaguing him with alarming regularity ever since he had left her last in the great hall at Brinton Manor over a month ago. Along with it, the dizzying remembrance of what they had shared by the lake.
The inconvenient lust which had been his constant companion since his departure from Buckinghamshire, like thoughts of his wife, could not be shaken. Their exchanges had been polite, nothing more than a handful of sentences strung together to reassure each other they existed. That their marriage day—which often seemed more like a dream from which he had been rudely awakened—had indeed been a reality.
On a sigh, he turned up a lamp, light flaring to life in the modest front room he had once called home. It was cool tonight, and he had neglected to set a fire for the evening. But never mind. Perhaps the change in weather was a reminder for him that he needed to return to the country. He could not avoid his wife forever. Sooner or later, he would have to see her and confront what had happened between them the morning he had left.
He shrugged out of his coat, catching the faint odor of cigars—regardless of how many times his friends smoked in his presence, he did not think he would ever grow accustomed to the scent—and settled it on a peg. As was his ritual, he removed his shoes and then rolled up his sleeves.
Performing his ablutions in the chill autumnal air was to be his penance. He poured clean water into a basin and then scrubbed his face, wishing he could so easily scrub his mind in the same fashion, and that he could cleanse the guilt which had been following him like a shadow since earlier that night. Hours had passed, and yet he could not shake it.
Guilt because he had been gone far longer than he had supposed he would be.
Guilt because he had wedded, almost bedded, and then abandoned Elysande.
Guilt because he was here and she was not. And because he had spent some of the evening at a dinner party—the first frivolity in which he had engaged for as long as he could recall—where Mrs. Maude Ainsley had been present. In his defense, he had not known she was a fellow guest when he had accepted the invitation his old friend, Zachary Barlowe, had issued for dinner.
But none of that had matte
red when she had touched his thigh beneath the table and later invited him back into her bed. He had done his damnedest to swat her hand away without drawing notice to their fellow diners, but Maude had been undeterred by both his subtle refusal of her offer and his pointed mentioning of his wife.
Wife.
Elysande.
He splashed more water on his face, hating himself for what felt like a betrayal. He had denied Maude, of course. Their affair of two years ago had been brief but passionate. She had been a widow who knew what she wanted and was not afraid to seize it in both dainty hands. He had been a brash detective who loosely traveled in the same circles on account of the friendships he had forged.
But he was married now, and although he admired Maude’s keen intellect and the bold impunity with which she charged through life, he intended to remain faithful to the woman he had married. Moreover, it was not Maude he woke each morning thinking of, nor Maude he wanted.
He needed to return to Elysande and Buckinghamshire. And soon, he knew.
A few days had turned into a few weeks. Hudson had settled into a comfortable routine since his return to London, aside from his reason for being here. For Reginald Croydon was somewhere within London as well, and Hudson was determined to hunt him down and see him back to prison where he belonged. He was getting closer to discovering him than ever, new clues appearing each day. One interview, one day at a time.
Croydon was a manipulative mastermind who had been responsible, either directly or indirectly, for more murders and other assorted crimes than any other man Hudson had sent to justice in his entire career. That he remained free, having somehow bribed his way out of the cell which had been holding him, was a constant source of fury for Hudson.
He dried his face and hands with care before turning toward the small room where his bed dwelled. He would sleep like the dead tonight, that much was certain. He did not think he had ever felt more weighted down with despair. Everything was in a tumult. His marriage, his ability to aid Scotland Yard, finding that bastard Reginald Croydon alive and making him pay…every part of it.
Something made Hudson stop. An instinct, perhaps. One honed over the course of so many years. He had never truly ceased being Chief Inspector Stone, and his return to London had taught him that, if precious little else.
There was something different about the room. He searched the shadows as he frantically lit the lamp he kept on a small table near the door. Light flared, bathing the chamber in a golden glow. Illuminating the spare contents of the room: table, rug, chair, small wardrobe, and…bed.
Bed.
An oath fled him, one that was so vicious and crude he would have blushed in shame were it not for the shock washing over him.
There was a woman in his bed. Unmoving. Lying face down.
His feet propelled him forward, legs possessing a mind of their own as dread clamped on him tight. He had seen corpses before, and there was always a surreal stillness to them, frozen in the violence which had last been visited upon them.
No doubt about it, the woman in his bed was dead. As he neared her, he took in the light-blue silk, the icy-blonde hair pulled free of its pins. One hand, stained with blood, was outstretched.
The dead woman in his bed was Mrs. Maude Ainsley.
“Maude,” he said, praying she was not dead.
Foolish, he knew. There was blood on her hand, a pool of blood on the bedclothes blossoming from beneath her. Forming a puddle on the floor.
“Maude,” he tried again.
No answer.
He reached out, gently rolling her to her back, needing to know for certain. If there was any way he could get her help, it was his duty. But as she landed on her back, the vicious stab wounds she had suffered were visible. The elegant bodice of her gown had been pierced with a knife. Her face was lifeless and pale, blood trickling from her mouth.
His gut heaved. Hudson was no stranger to death, but he had never seen someone he personally knew in such a state. In the peaceful stillness of death, yes. But the victim of a crime? Murdered? Never. And she was in his bed.
Questions hit him.
How?
Why?
Who?
Hudson promptly casted up his accounts all over the goddamn floor.
Elysande found Hudson awaiting her in the salon of the Belgravia residence she had yet to visit. How strange for the occasion of her first stay as the Duchess of Wycombe to have been forced by the news that another woman had been found murdered.
In her husband’s bed.
The hours since the terrible news reached her had been a blur of alternating disbelief, despair, and outrage. The facts she had been given had been sparse. Because of the investigation, Hudson had deemed it prudent not to return to Buckinghamshire. Instead, he had sent a trusted friend, Zachary Barlowe, to her with the news. She had been toiling in her sitting room workshop when Mr. Barlowe had called. Stained and wearing an old gown, looking as shabby and tattered as Brinton Manor had when she had first become its mistress.
She had not been expecting a caller. But when the butler had alerted her to Mr. Barlowe’s unexpected and urgent business concerning Wycombe, she had rushed to greet him. His grim tidings had robbed the breath from her lungs. For a moment, she had stood there in the formal drawing room, with its fresh wall coverings and the cheerful Axminster she had chosen, and felt as if someone had slammed a fist into her middle.
Mr. Barlowe had taken pity on her. Or perhaps her legs had begun to buckle. She could not be certain now. All she did know was that he had slid a solid arm around her waist, keeping her from falling.
“Steady, Your Grace,” Mr. Barlowe had urged, holding her upright. “All is not what it seems, I can assure you. Stone—er, Wycombe—is not to blame for the murder or Mrs. Ainsley’s presence at his rooms. I assure you.”
Words swarmed together like angry bees.
Murder.
Mrs. Ainsley.
His rooms.
Rooms? He had rooms? Foolishly enough, and in the midst of her hysteria at Mr. Barlowe’s revelations, all Elysande’s thoughts had been centered upon the private bachelor quarters he had apparently continued to use upon his return to London. All the time he had been away, she had been sending her letters to the Belgravia house. She had assumed he had been beneath that roof, and instead, he had been living the life of a bachelor.
Complete with a Mrs. Ainsley.
A woman who was now dead.
Mr. Barlowe had told her Mrs. Ainsley was not her husband’s paramour. But Elysande was not particularly inclined to believe or trust Hudson’s friend. There were too many questions. Too many reasons not to.
They teemed within her now as the man she had married—the man who had introduced her to passion and then dashed from the countryside—strode toward her. She crossed the threshold to the salon, taking him in, furious with him and some foolish part of her longing for him at once.
His countenance all hard angles and planes. “Elysande.”
When he reached for her, she flinched away, refusing his hands and his greeting both. “You have much to explain.”
And she very much did not wish for him to touch her. Not when there had been another woman in his bed. Another woman who was dead.
And not just dead.
Murdered.
Her every interaction with Hudson had led her to believe he was gentle, a man of distinct honor. She wanted to believe his friend’s many protestations of her husband’s innocence. But she needed answers first.
“Will you sit with me?” he asked softly.
How she hated that softness, for it reminded her of the morning by the lake. The sweet words of seduction he had offered. What if she had married a scoundrel? Or worse?
She hugged her arms about her waist, chilled. The day was cool, and she had retained her wrap from traveling, but there was a bone-deep numbness which had been afflicting her from the moment Mr. Barlowe had uttered those insidious words.
There has been a murder.<
br />
“I have no wish to sit,” she bit out, pinning Hudson with her frostiest glare and wishing that his friend, who had been a tremendous support during her journey to London, had not chosen to part ways with her at the salon door.
“Of course.” He raked a hand through his hair, his face pale, his jaw on edge. “I cannot fathom how this news must have fallen upon you.”
“A terrible shock,” she agreed crisply, amazed at her own sangfroid. Perhaps it was the wine she had consumed during the trip from Buckinghamshire.
“If you prefer to stand, then that is how we shall commence.”
“It is,” she said, quite as if they were speaking of no greater concern than the weather.
Or how he preferred to take his tea.
Or the repairs which were needed in the Brinton Manor orangery.
Instead of the dead woman who had been found in his bed.
“I must apologize, Elysande.”
She could not contain the bitter laugh that bubbled up at his words. “For what, do you suppose? For the lengthy duration of your absence during the beginning of our marriage? For choosing to return to London and play the role of Scotland Yard detective instead of husband? For telling me you expected to be gone for a few days and then remaining here for weeks?”
He winced. “For all that, yes. But also, for…the rest.”
She was warming to her cause now, traveling away from him, clutching her wrap around her as if it were a shield as she paced the length of the salon. “The rest? What do you mean by that, Wycombe? The fact that you were living as a bachelor, in your bachelor rooms? Or that you had taken a mistress while leaving me alone at your country estate to restore it on my own, with only your steward for aid?” She swung about to face him, so livid her hands were trembling with the violence of her emotion now. “Or that you may have murdered her?”
He pressed his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes for a moment, his expression pained. “I was not living as a bachelor, Elysande. This home was in shambles, which Greene took the last month to rectify, and I found my old quarters, which are leased for the year and still mine, of far greater comfort than these lodgings. I can also assure you that Mrs. Ainsley was not my mistress.”
The Detective Duke (Unexpected Lords Book 1) Page 10
