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“I would like to speak with your daughter about some details Mr. and Mrs. Harwood provided this morning.”

It only caused Lady Tenney to gasp. “You cannot mean to say you are assisting the viscount in his investigation?”

“I am assisting where I can, yes. Now, Lady Tenney, there are two young men who had been paying calls on Penelope Harwood⁠—”

But again, the countess interrupted her.

“Gracious, a woman in your condition should be at home, Lady Neatham. It is quite indecent to be out at all, let alone making inquiries into the business of a murder.”

The stringent opinion was not altogether unexpected. However, Audrey had not anticipated Lady Susan or her mother to address it so forwardly.

“Thank you, Lady Tenney, but I do not believe my condition has any bearing on my visit. I’m simply here to ask your daughter about her friendship with Miss Harwood. If they were close, perhaps she knows something that could help the Viscount in his inquiry.”

Lady Tenney’s maid arrived bearing a tea tray. When the countess waved the maid off after the tray had been set on the table between them, Audrey was certain no tea would be poured.

“My daughter knows nothing about this spectacle. I am quite certain she will not be of any assistance to your husband. Or to you, Viscountess.” She held Audrey’s eyes with the ferocity of a woman who would not be persuaded.

“That is a shame, Lady Tenney.” Audrey stood, wishing there was some way to speak to Lady Susan without her mother present. Would she be as obstinate and unhelpful as her mother? It was almost as though the countess was trying to hide something. Or, Audrey supposed, she was merely being waspish out of intense repugnance for people she did not believe deserved to be members of the ton.

“I appreciate your time,” Audrey said with a forced smile. Lady Tenney did not respond, nor did she rise as Audrey saw herself out.

She wondered why the countess had bothered to accept her calling card in the first place, unless she’d wished for an opportunity to meet and insult the Viscountess Neatham in person. It would, after all, provide Lady Tenney with a bit of gossip to share with her friends later.

The footman was waiting for Audrey in the foyer, her cloak and gloves ready. It was as if he’d known the conversation would not last longer than five minutes.

“My lady,” he intoned with a solemn nod of his head after he’d helped her into her cloak. Then, whispering, he added, “Check your cloak pocket in the carriage, my lady.”

Audrey held still as he whisked the door open wide for her, his eyes not meeting hers as he waited for her to cross the threshold. Check my pocket? Peering over her shoulder, Audrey noticed Lady Tenney coming to stand within the drawing room entrance, her brow raised in disdain, and with a touch of triumph at having snubbed the viscountess, to be sure.

Audrey faced forward and left, thanking the footman with a barely perceptible dip of her chin. So great was her intrigue over what she would find in her pocket that she did not care that the countess had been unspeakably rude and dismissive.

Carrigan helped her into the carriage, something that took a bit more effort these days. Once she was seated, she could resist no longer. Audrey reached into both of her cloak’s pockets and, in the right, felt a piece of paper. It was a small square of writing paper, the edges roughly torn. The penmanship was refined and slanted; the hand of a woman, she presumed. And though the brief message wasn’t signed, Audrey believed she knew who the author was.

Please meet me tomorrow at one o’clock in Hyde Park, by the Reservoir.

Audrey smiled as she folded the note and returned it to her pocket. It seemed Lady Susan might have something to share about Penelope Harwood after all.

Chapter

Eight

Number 7 Cumberland Place wasn’t any more welcoming than it had been the previous night, when Hugh arrived during the storm. After a barely suppressed sigh of annoyance, Victor Messinger’s footman led Hugh and Sir Gabriel to a sitting room and then, without so much as a word, departed. The chief magistrate scowled.

“I’m starting to think Messinger’s servants are worse snobs than some of the toffs I know,” Sir Gabriel said.

Hugh chuckled. His own valet, Basil, was one such snobbish servant. Prideful was another word Hugh would have used for it.

“I understand Messinger is your friend, sir,” he said, once again wishing the chief magistrate had not insisted upon joining him for this outing. “But I have questions to put to him now that I know of a link between his son and the murder victim.”

Sir Gabriel waved his hand. “Ask your questions, Marsden. As I’ve said, my presence is meant to encourage Victor to trust you with the truth. He’s a prickly fellow at times, as I’m sure you deduced last night.”

It was true the MP had been irritable, though he had just come upon a dead body in his carriage house. Hugh might have also been irritable in that situation.

After sending Basil and Sir off earlier with their instructions—Basil to the gentlemen’s clubs to verify alibis, and Sir to Shepherd Street to speak to the Harwoods’ neighbors—he’d gone to Number 4 Bow Street, where he’d waited for Sir Gabriel to conclude the morning session at the magistrate’s court and return to his office. There, Hugh laid out what he’d discovered so far, including the fact that the victim, Penelope Harwood, had allegedly been courting Calvin Messinger in secret.

That she had also been carrying on a dalliance with Tobias Sinclair, however brief, had intrigued the chief magistrate as well. When Hugh reluctantly divulged this information and that Tobias had admitted to being present at the location where she was murdered around the estimated time of her death, it was all Hugh could do to allay Sir Gabriel’s immediate desire to make an arrest.

“Do you recall the last time a lord of the peerage was arrested for murder?” Hugh reminded him, referring to his own arrest of Philip Sinclair for the gruesome murder of an opera singer.