Page 40

“I see that I’m correct,” Audrey said when Mrs. Harwood did not instantly speak.

She cleared her throat. “Penelope had started feeling ill. At first, I thought she was simply unwell. But when the rags she used for her courses—forgive me for mentioning such things in polite company—remained untouched, I suspected…” She lifted a shoulder in a defeated shrug.

“Did your husband know?”

“I don’t believe he did.” Her eyes had shifted away from Audrey’s while answering, and Audrey sensed she wasn’t telling the truth. If Mr. Harwood had known, why keep that a secret? Unless he’d reacted poorly.

“Mrs. Harwood, who was the father?” Audrey asked next. She braced herself for the name she didn’t want to hear. But if it had been Tobias, why would Penelope reject his courtship, as both Mr. Harwood and Tobias had claimed?

Mrs. Harwood’s throat tensed as she swallowed. She inhaled deeply, as if preparing to say something that unnerved her. At the dainty chiming of a bell from upstairs, Mrs. Harwood leapt to her feet.

“Do excuse me a moment. My husband must need my assistance with the baron,” she said, then swiftly departed the room, as if grateful for a moment of reprieve.

Audrey stood as well. She wondered if the ill baron understood that his daughter had died, or if either his son or daughter-in-law had informed him at all. Audrey hoped he was unaware; it would be a kindness to spare him that grief.

It would also be a kindness for her to take her leave right then, too. Clearly, the house was in a state of turmoil. But the question of who the father of Penelope’s baby had been lingered. Audrey paced, and as she did, she again caught sight of the portmanteaus and hat boxes at the base of the stairs. If Mrs. Harwood hadn’t explained that they held Penelope’s belongings going to charity, it would almost appear as though the Harwoods were leaving on a trip.

That thought struck a chord in Audrey, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. It was absurd. They couldn’t possibly be leaving. Penelope’s inquest had not yet happened, and she still required a burial.

Unsettled, Audrey continued to walk the sitting room, hoping it would ease the ache in the small of her back. The room was just as empty as before, but now, there was something missing from the elegant writing desk that she’d noted on their first visit two days ago. The small oval portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Harwood was gone. Unlike furniture and paintings on the wall, they would not part with a portrait so personal.

Audrey came to stand next to the writing desk. Laid out on the blotter were an inkpot and quill, along with a penknife to trim and sharpen the nib. These items sat next to a letter Mrs. Harwood must have been writing when Audrey called at the front door. Reading someone else’s correspondence was a severe breach of decorum, and she’d had no plan to do so. Yet, as soon as her eyes saw to whom the letter was addressed, she could not look away.

To the admittance governor, St. Bartholomew Hospital,

It is with great need and desperation that we beg you to accept Sir Christopher Harwood, the Baron Harwood, for charitable hospice during these last weeks or months of his illness. His only son and heir, Mr. Morris Harwood, can no longer provide the necessary demands of Sir Christopher’s care. It is with regret that we send him to you in this fashion, without accompaniment, as we have been called away from London and do not know when we are to return.

Audrey stared at the unfinished letter, grasping for comprehension. The Harwoods were being called away from London? And they planned to send the baron, unattended, to the charitable hospital, St. Bartholomew’s, with just this letter?

“What are you doing?” Mrs. Harwood’s voice whipped like a lash. Audrey swiveled toward the sitting room entrance, nearly losing her balance in the process.

“That is private,” Mrs. Harwood said, cutting across the room in a few strides and snatching the letter from the desk. “How dare you read my correspondence? It is most unbecoming of a viscountess.”

Audrey didn’t feel the sting of the woman’s upbraiding. In fact, she was very glad she had read it.

“You are sending the baron to St. Bartholomew’s? Even though Mr. Harwood expressly told my husband and me that Sir Christopher was adamant that only family care for him?”

“That is none of your concern,” Mrs. Harwood replied, folding the letter and crumpling it at the same time.

Audrey’s eyes flicked toward the room’s entrance. Although she couldn’t see them from where she stood, she considered the belongings gathered at the bottom of the stairs.

“Those are your traveling cases,” she said, a realization beginning to creep through her. She took a step backward, putting a little space between herself and Mrs. Harwood. “You aren’t giving Penelope’s things to charity. You and your husband are leaving London. However, you haven’t been called away, as you wrote in your letter.”

“I will ask you to leave, Viscountess Neatham.”

Audrey ignored the other woman’s order. “You are fleeing. Before the funeral. Before the inquest, even. Why?”

Mrs. Harwood’s grieving expression had been wiped clean, like chalk from a slate. Now, she speared Audrey with a wrathful look, her nostrils flaring.

“You are afraid my husband will discover something,” Audrey continued. What would drive them to uproot and run, even going so far as to deliver the dying baron into the hands of a charity hospital?

“You’d suspected Penelope was with child. And from what Lady Susan Ritchson intimated, there may have been plans for an elopement. You would not have minded her being with child so much, if the father had been Tobias Sinclair, the brother of a duke and wealthy enough to see your family into solvency again. But Penelope told Lady Susan that she would only marry for love.”

Mrs. Harwood wide eyes were unblinking, and her breaths were coming faster. “Lady Susan is a foolish girl. You cannot trust what she says.”

“I find that I do,” Audrey replied. “She spoke of a mysterious man who approached Penelope a little over a month ago. The timing would suit your sister-in-law’s delicate condition.”

The only man, besides Tobias, in the young woman’s life had been Calvin Messinger. But he was on the Continent, taking his grand tour.