A Daring Liaison(12)
Common sense told her she should go back to Kent and await the outcome of the Foxworthy petition and the York suit, but how could she do that? She had to defend herself against these scurrilous charges. Her life and future were hanging in the balance! Any plans of hastening back to the countryside to avoid Mr. Hunter’s attentions were now out of the question. He’d advised her to stay out of trouble and now, through no fault of her own, trouble had found her.
The ladies had arrived at La Meilleure Robe. Georgiana left Clara in the waiting room and joined them in the back fitting room. They brushed her apology for being late aside with kind reassurances.
“These little lulls give us a chance to actually discuss the books our husbands think we are reading,” Sarah said.
“What book do they think you are reading?”
“The Pirate, by the Wizard of the North,” Lady Annica said.
“It would be a good idea for you to read the book, too, dear,” Grace Hawthorne said. “In the event someone should ask. I have an extra copy if you’d like.”
Georgiana nodded. “Thank you, Mrs. Hawthorne.”
“Grace,” the woman corrected. “I shall have a footman deliver it to your home.”
A handsome woman with the bearing of a queen entered through a side door and clapped her hands. “Ah! We are in pursuit, eh? Well, come. ’Oo is my client?”
Sarah nudged Georgiana toward the dressmaker’s platform. “Madame Marie, this is Mrs. Georgiana Huffington.”
The dressmaker circled Georgiana, her gaze sweeping up and down, assessing her figure. “Ah, yes. I know just the style for you, petite. And the correct color for you is violet. Any violet, but especially deep violet. Please say you never wear yellow.”
“Never again.” Georgiana vowed to go home and cull anything yellow from her wardrobe as she undressed to her corset and chemise.
Marie nodded and began taking Georgiana’s measurements with knotted string behind a short dressing screen. Barely a moment later, a pleasant-looking man entered the room and was introduced as Madame Marie’s husband, Mr. Francis Renquist. Gina explained that he had been a Bow Street Runner and was the group’s chief investigator. He’d been briefly informed of her dilemma.
He nodded acknowledgment to Georgiana and then chivalrously avoided looking at her. “I have a few questions before I can begin, Mrs. Huffington.”
“Ask anything, sir.”
He took a small pad of paper and a lead pencil from his waistcoat pocket and prepared to take notes. “Do you know of anyone, no matter how far-fetched, who might have any reason to kill your husbands?”
“None,” she answered quietly as Madame Marie continued to knot her string. “That is why these events are so bewildering.”
“Do you have any former suitors who might bear a grudge?”
“No. Between marriages and mourning, I have not been much in society.”
“Could it be possible that either of your husbands had enemies? Former lovers, mistresses, or rivals?”
“I...I do not believe so, sir, but I was not married to them long enough to become familiar with their personal affairs.”
“Had any of them been affianced before you?”
“I do not think so.”
“And you, Mrs. Huffington? Are there any men you jilted or who paid you court and who could be angry? Narrowing the field, so to speak, to have a second chance at you?”
Charles Hunter swept briefly though her mind, but he had snubbed her, not the other way around. She arched her eyebrow at the man. “I think I’d recall such a thing.”
He allowed a small smile to quirk the corners of his mouth. “Aye, you probably would. Well, then, shall we look at the money? Who, apart from you, stood to profit from your husbands’ deaths?”
“No one, I thought. My first husband made settlements for that possibility in the marriage contract, but I did not inherit the bulk of his wealth. Certainly not enough to murder for. And Mr. Huffington did not have any close relatives, though he did have a cousin twice removed who has made claims against his estate. He says that he was Mr. Huffington’s heir, but he did not come for the funeral or send condolences. Neither has he called in the year and a half since. Mr. Huffington’s friends, though, were all quite considerate.” A few had even offered to “ease her loneliness,” but none had paid her serious suit.
“Aside from that, I have just learned that my aunt’s second cousins have filed for conservatorship over me on the grounds that I am unstable due to the deaths of my husbands. I think they are simply making a grab for Aunt Caroline’s estate.”