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“What time did you leave her home?” Hugh asked.

“I wasn’t there but ten minutes before she asked me to leave. Which I did, without argument,” he added emphatically.

“So, before half past six?” Audrey calculated.

“I believe so. I didn’t check my pocket watch, but I walked for a while.”

“In the stormy weather?” she asked.

“I was upset,” he said with a shrug. “I eventually hailed a cab and went to the Seven Sins for a drink. I then made my way to Berkeley Square.”

“You arrived just past eight thirty,” she recalled. That was when Hugh had been drawn away to Victor Messinger’s home.

Hugh would check in at the gambling hell and see if the doorman remembered Tobias’s arrival and departure times.

“Tell us about the confusion you mentioned,” Audrey said. “Regarding Miss Harwood?”

Tobias crossed his arms and swore under his breath. With the shock that he was considered a suspect in a murder, his face was no longer reddened, but pale.

“Pen was courting another man. A friend of mine. They were doing so in secret, but there was talk of an engagement.”

Hugh’s sinking stomach buoyed. Another man in Miss Harwood’s life meant there could be another suspect. Especially if the young woman had been dallying with Tobias behind this fellow’s back. It gave whoever the man was motive.

“What is his name?” Audrey asked. “And why were they courting secretly?”

“His father didn’t approve of their attachment,” he answered. “Pen’s brother, Morris, is practically insolvent. It has to do with Sir Christopher. The Baron had amassed a large amount of debt, and now that he’s nearing the end, those debts are being called in. Calvin didn’t care about her family’s lack of money, but his father did. He had plans for Calvin to marry someone with better connections. Not to mention, a dowry.”

“Calvin?” The name sparked at the back of Hugh’s mind. He’d heard it recently.

“Messinger,” Tobias replied. “Calvin Messinger.”

Chapter

Seven

“Victor Messinger’s son?” Audrey sat back against the squabs in the carriage, her arms wrapped around her middle. She found herself doing that more often lately, especially when her abdomen felt tight and tense.

Hugh tapped his foot impatiently as Carrigan started them for home. “Calvin is on the Continent, so it can’t have been him.”

“Could Victor himself have killed her?” Audrey asked, though it made little sense. “But no. Why then deliver the body to his own carriage house?”

“I don’t know,” Hugh grumbled. “But I’d like to know how Messinger did not know the dead young woman was his son’s intended. Was he lying, or was he truly in the dark?”

“Tobias said Penelope and Calvin were courting secretly,” Audrey pointed out.

Before they’d left, Tobias confirmed that in the nearly three months since Calvin had been away, Tobias and Penelope had become closer. They hadn’t intended for anything romantic to develop between them, but late in October, it had just happened.

Hugh had told Tobias to dress and take himself to Violet House straightaway. He was to explain everything that had taken place to Michael, and their solicitor, Mr. Potridge, was to be summoned. Tobias was still a suspect—the primary suspect, in fact—and it would be best to begin planning his defense in case an arrest had to be made.

Audrey’s midriff tensed some more as the baby prodded her with a foot or elbow.

“Are you unwell?” Hugh asked. He turned to her and placed his palm on her belly.

“No. I just know that Tobias didn’t do this. He was shocked, Hugh. And saddened. You saw it in his face.”

Her husband grimaced as he removed his hand. “I did. But I also know he was inebriated, he’d been rejected by her, and he was in the home during the projected hour of her murder. The courts will not overlook those facts, Audrey.”

She nodded, a knot forming in her throat. “Then, we must find the person who did kill her.”