Page 9 of A Lady’s Guide to Murder
CHAPTER 8
In Pursuit Again
On his ninety-minute ride from London, Theo had thought over matters. By the time he’d spotted the duchess’s blue-and-silver carriage outside the inn in Wargrave, he’d determined the evidence was likely too damning for Henrietta Percy to be entirely innocent, if not wholly and completely guilty.
1. She was alone with the duke at his violent death.
2. His body bore evidence of strangulation.
3. Severn changed his will in her favour the day before his death.
4. He seemingly named her as his killer.
5. How could she be innocent?
And yet, perhaps because her angelic beauty always seemed to affect him so damnably, Theo couldn’t bring himself to believe she’d acted without an accomplice.
If so, who was her accomplice? The maid? He thought it unlikely, as the girl would have nothing to gain and everything to lose. A lover was much more plausible. Together, they perhaps intended to assume control of the dukedom – or, at least, the man hoped to marry her and take her newfound wealth into his possession. Perhaps the duchess was already with child, and she and her lover hoped for a boy. Perhaps they knew of desperate, pregnant women – easily found – and stood ready to take the first male baby born from amongst them.
The possibilities were endless and Theo intended to discover the answers. He believed that by frightening the duchess, she might run to her partner for assistance. Then, wherever she went, whatever she did, he would follow.
He watched her now, searching for any hint of her intentions, but she’d grown as still as a statue after his declaration that he would follow her. She merely gazed through the other window, towards the river, her face illuminated by the soft evening light. Theo settled back against the window frame, ready to watch her all night, if necessary.
In truth, watching her was no hardship. Today, she wore her hair loose and it fell in thick waves down her back. Endless shades of honey and flax and wheat mingled together to form an exquisite gold.
Theo wasn’t obsessed, no matter what anyone said, but one needn’t be obsessed with the Duchess of Severn to appreciate that she was lovely to look upon. Devilishly kissable lips. A bloody fine figure. Eyes that were large, finely shaped and as blue as forget-me-nots.
Which was an apt comparison, for Theo hadn’t forgotten them, not from the first moment of their locking with his across Hanover Square, when she’d been an ivory-lace bride emerging from the church to the roar of the crowds and the pealing of bells.
Beautiful beyond compare.
On that day, he’d decided the Duke of Severn was the world’s most fortunate man. Two months later, after seeing the duchess with Marlow, he’d reversed that opinion. But now, Theo was gutted. No one deserved Severn’s fate, but least of all a man as noble as the duke. A man who had once altered the course of Theo’s life, merely out of the goodness of his heart.
Theo folded his arms across his chest. Was the duchess physically capable of strangling her husband? She was certainly statuesque. And tall. Theo was considerably taller than most men and she wasn’t more than three inches shorter.
Yes, he decided. The duchess possessed the physical strength to kill a man. She was a strong, hearty woman; Theo recalled how her arms looked when bared in evening gowns – she possessed the lean, sculpted muscles of a woman who engaged in vigorous exercise regularly. And he’d seen her canter on magnificent beasts in Hyde Park, her body rising and falling with perfect control to the rhythm of her horse’s gait.
But the memory of that sight bothered Theo while he was near enough to smell her expensive perfume. Adjusting his seat, he turned his head towards the boats, where a fisherman had pulled up to a dock and was handing a basket of spotted pikes to two maids. It would be foolish to grow lax around a potential murderess, but if he stared more he might find himself under her spell.
A rustle of silk made him whip his head back towards the duchess.
She was staring directly at him.
Ice crept up his spine. She’d been watching him for a while, he realised, like a cat observing its prey before it pounced. Tense muscles; piercing cerulean gaze.
He flashed the arrogant grin he often employed around her, to show he wasn’t intimidated. ‘You wish to tell me the truth about what happened, Your Grace?’
‘I already have,’ she said calmly. ‘And as I have nothing to hide from the magistrate, I shall continue my journey to Grenham. You are not welcome at my estate, Mr Hawke.’
‘Ah, but sadly for you, even a duchess can’t keep a man off public roads and bridle paths. I’ll go where I must, in search of the truth.’
‘Please yourself, but I won’t make it easy for you.’
With a swish of her skirts, she walked out of the room.
He rose as she exited, intending to follow at once, but before he’d made his way to the door, the lock clicked from the outside. In and of itself, being locked in was only the mildest inconvenience, as he could leave the same way he’d entered, but the sound of the lock gave him a skin-prickling sense – his innate hunch, so invaluable in his line of work – that the duchess had no intention whatsoever of returning to Grenham.
He threw himself into the pursuit by leaping out of the window, his boots landing hard on the paving stones outside. Directly in front of him was the riverbank, the maids now returning with their basket held between them; to the right was the length of the inn and around the far corner was the court, where carriages were loaded and unloaded. There he ran at full speed.
Only to barge forcefully into the broad form of an ostler rounding the corner with a bucket of grain.
This man took great offence to the accidental assault, which had caused him to spill the feed, and many minutes passed before Theo succeeded in assuring the ostler that he wasn’t, in fact, begging for a beating, but instead in such urgent need of passing through the court that he’d foolishly not looked where he was going.
By the time he’d appeased the ostler and helped return the grain to the bucket, Theo reckoned the duchess’s carriage would be long gone. So he crossed the court to the stables, tossed a coin to the boy who’d taken charge of the fine mount Perceval Percy had supplied, hitched himself into the saddle and gave the horse the reins.
When he exited onto Wargrave’s high street, he looked both ways past the half-timber buildings, hoping for a sight of the duchess’s carriage.
And, indeed, a glimmer of blue and silver caught his eye, not upon the road, but behind him. Theo turned his head. Yes, there still stood the very thing that had alerted him to Henrietta Percy’s presence at this inn: her travelling carriage, with her coroneted arms emblazoned on the side and her footman and driver sitting upon a nearby bench, munching sandwiches and drinking from tankards.
No horses were hitched to the carriage and judging by the relaxed state of her servants, she hadn’t ordered her team. Which meant the duchess couldn’t have returned to her carriage.
He scanned the road in front of the inn for a black gown and golden waves of hair, but the duchess was nowhere to be seen, which meant she was either hiding inside or …
He spurred his horse and returned to the stables.
His ostler friend was tossing hay into a stall with a pitchfork. ‘Back for that beating after all, are you?’
Theo ignored him and peered into every stall until he found three perfectly matched, high-bred greys, clearly the horses to pull the elegant carriage outside.
But there were only three of them.
He located the boy who’d cared for his horse earlier. ‘Where did she go?’ he asked. ‘The beautiful lady dressed in black on one of her grey horses?’
The boy’s gaze darted about furtively. ‘My master wouldn’t like me telling on her. She’s a duchess .’
Theo reached into his pocket and extracted a half a crown.
Grubby fingers grasped the coin in a flash. ‘Back south, towards Twyford. Round right and out the back in front of your nose she went, while you was fighting with the ostler. Astride and saddleless like a farmer, but by gad, can she ride.’
Theo pulled his horse’s reins, turning the beast, and rode out the back of the inn. He rose in his stirrups, looking south along the riverbanks.
His remarkable eyesight didn’t fail him. Beside the silver Thames, he spotted a distant figure riding hellbent towards Twyford.
He spurred his horse, his sights set, his energy high, and the thrill of the successful chase coursing hot blood through his veins. ‘I have you now, Your Grace.’
He wouldn’t lose her again.