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“Yes. Grant came by to check on me earlier and told me what you’d discovered,” she replied, settling her arms on the shelf of her abdomen. “Mrs. Harwood admitted that she knew about the baby. Surely, she would have been happy to learn it was Tobias Sinclair’s. A marriage to him would have benefited the family greatly.”

“But Penelope planned to marry Calvin Messinger, ensuring the Harwood family’s financial downfall,” Hugh said as he poured. He returned to the sofa and sat, drawing his wife down beside him.

She leaned against his shoulder. “Mrs. Harwood confessed properly?”

“She did. Apparently, after Tobias left their home, utterly rejected, she confronted Penelope. They argued. Penelope didn’t care that they would be impoverished. She loved Calvin and would not marry another.” Hugh sipped his brandy. “Mrs. Harwood claims she lost control of her temper and didn’t realize what she was doing until it was over.”

She’d chased Penelope down in the glasshouse, much like she had Audrey, and run her through with the long, ornamental garden stake. Penelope’s heart was pierced, and Mrs. Harwood told Hugh—no longer tearful, only dazed from her confession—that she had died almost instantly.

He took another, deeper sip of his drink. It was such a waste of a life. The goal of his work as a Bow Street principal agent had always been to catch criminals and send them to the courts to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. However, doing that didn’t repair the devastation the criminals left behind.

“Sir explained how Mr. Harwood had been transporting household belongings to sell to a pawnshop near Chancery Lane,” Audrey said. “It was his hired dray that was seen in the mews lane behind the Messingers’ home.”

“He gave a few servers at Marsham’s a handsome tip to say he was at the club that evening, but he wasn’t. He was out making another delivery to the pawnbroker,” Hugh said, recalling the man’s pathetic sniveling while he and Sir Gabriel had questioned him. “Mrs. Harwood had left the house on an errand but had come back to help her husband with the delivery. When he arrived home, coming in through the back, it was to find his wife in a panic and his sister dead in the glasshouse. He said he had no choice but to help conceal what had happened to Penelope.”

Turning his back on his wife, exposing her as a killer, would have caused overwhelming scandal. He was already facing insolvency, though they may have weathered it in relative ease if they moved to the country and adopted a humbler standard of living. But his wife’s murder of his own sister had been catastrophic.

“He transported Penelope to the Messingers’ carriage house with the full knowledge that Calvin was in London,” Hugh said. “His wife had told him everything Penelope had confessed to her.”

“And by leaving his sister there, he hoped suspicion would be thrown onto the Messingers,” Audrey inferred. She’d been resting her head against his shoulder, and Hugh began to feel the warm, honey-like sensation of exhaustion slowly loosening his tensed muscles.

“He even went so far as to place the betrothal ring Calvin had given Penelope underneath her,” Hugh said.

“But why point us toward Tobias?” Audrey asked.

On its surface, Mr. Harwood’s insistence that Tobias Sinclair had been responsible for Penelope’s death seemed counterintuitive to his goal of implicating Calvin. But it appeared he’d expected Tobias to deny any wrongdoing by explaining that it was Calvin whom Penelope had been courting secretly. And ultimately, when it was discovered that Calvin was in London after all, he would be accused of killing her in a jealous rage after he’d learned about her perfidy with Tobias. At no point would Morris Harwood have had to show his hand and reveal that he knew of her relationship with Calvin Messinger. As Hugh explained this to Audrey, he felt her head moving side to side as she shook it.

“I cannot fathom how Mr. Harwood has lived with himself after going to such devious lengths to cover up his own sister’s murder,” she said.

“I know what you mean,” Hugh replied. He had some personal experience in that area, what with his half-brother, Thomas, having killed Hugh’s half-sister, Eloisa. In the end, Hugh had shot and killed Thomas, to stop the crazed man from harming Audrey. But even if it had been for all the right and just reasons, the fact remained that he had ended his half-brother’s life.

It was a decision he would need to live with forever.

“Sir explained how you came to be at the Harwoods’ home after his discovery about the death of Mrs. Harwood’s mother and the livery where Mr. Harwood had been hiring a cart. He was rather modest about his hand in solving this case,” Audrey said after a few quiet moments. “But it appears without Sir, you wouldn’t have had reason to come to Shepherd Street.”

Hugh had considered that many times over the last several hours. Had Sir not struck out on his own to investigate an angle so far overlooked, he would not have arrived at the Harwoods’ address in time to help Audrey. He shuddered to think what might have happened.

“He is remarkable,” Hugh said.

“I think he has a bright future as an inquiry agent,” Audrey added, turning her face up to look at him.

“That is without a doubt. I am indebted to him,” he replied, gazing at her. He set his glass of whisky on the table next to the arm of the sofa and settled his hand on the firm swell of her belly. He wanted to feel the baby nudge against his palm, reassuring him that all was well.

Audrey seemed to guess as much. “Our little one has been restless all afternoon,” she said. “I think the excitement woke her up.”

“Or him,” he replied, gratified when he felt movement beneath his hand.

“The baby is fine, Hugh.”

“Of course he is. He has a fierce mother,” he murmured, thinking of Audrey brandishing that garden spade like a sword. She would have fought tooth and nail to protect the baby, had it come down to it.

“You have something on your mind,” she whispered.

He did, and it was best to be out with it. “I love you, Audrey. I don’t ever want to stifle you, or set you high on a shelf like some breakable treasure, but…” He looked up from her belly and met her tender stare. “I’ve seen too much tragedy, too much death to ignore how capricious Fate is. I don’t think I’ve ever been as frightened of anything in my life as I am of losing you. You and the baby,” he amended.

Audrey covered his hand with hers. “I understand. I’m a little frightened too. But right here, right now, we are safe. And together.”

Hugh knew she was right, and a shade of worry subsided. For now, at least. He doubted he would ever be completely free of any fear, especially once their child was born. But with Audrey in his arms, relaxing against him, he chose not to think of all the things that could happen. Instead, he would cherish this moment, right now.