A Covent Garden Mystery

Chapter Six

My knock was answered by Brandon's very correct butler, Matthews. I knew that the man had once been a corporal in the Thirty-Fifth Light, joining to escape a shady past, and had gotten himself into trouble in the army more than once. When he'd been about to desert, Louisa had rescued him, promising him protection if he reformed his ways. He'd become her devoted servant, taking the post of footman upon their return to London. Domestic service seemed to be his forte, as evidenced by his rapid rise from footman to butler.

He peered at me down his once-broken nose, his hauteur genuine but conflicting with his thick body and criminal-class stare. "Mrs. Brandon is not at home, sir."

"At eleven in the morning?" I asked skeptically. "Is she at Lady Aline's?"

"I beg your pardon, sir. I mean that she is not at home to you."

I blinked. Louisa Brandon had never before instructed her servants to send me away. "Is she all right?"

"Perfectly fine, sir."

I closed my mouth with a snap and looked him up and down. "Let me in, Matthews."

His eyes widened. One eye had been damaged in a fight long ago and was perpetually half-bloodshot. "And disobey the mistress? Never, sir."

"Tell her that I forced my way past you, which I will do if you do not stand aside."

Louisa would be furious with Matthews-and me-if he let me in, but at the same time, I was desperate and angry. Mathews had witnessed my famous temper on the Peninsula, and though he probably matched me in strength, he always watched me warily.

He deliberately took one step to the side. "Very well, sir. I will tell madam that I held out manfully."

"Good." I strode past him. As Matthews shut the door and reached for my hat and gloves, I asked, "Why does she not want to see me?"

"She does not want to speak to anyone in connection with the colonel's recent incarceration, sir. She is most sensitive about it."

"And where is the colonel?"

"At his club. He, I believe, has decided to bluff it out."

I could imagine. Brandon and I belonged to a fledgling club for cavalry officers in a tavern in St. James's. I pictured him sitting in the taproom with his newspapers, casting his chill blue gaze over anyone who tried to bring up the embarrassment of his brief stay in Newgate. Brandon had a fiery and compelling personality, and if he willed people not to talk about it, they would not.

I knew where Louisa would be at eleven in the morning. I trudged upstairs to her yellow sitting room, where she liked to take breakfast and go over her correspondence on mornings that her husband was out.

She sat on a low sofa, wearing her favorite yellow, a gown of soft muslin. She had not yet dressed her hair, and it hung down her back in a loose golden braid. I'd always thought her lovely, with her crooked nose, wide mouth, and light gray eyes. Those eyes flashed irritation, however, when she beheld me entering, unannounced.

"I believe I will have Matthews flogged," she said.

"I bested him in a fair fight." I sat down on a sofa next to hers, tossing my walking stick to the floor. "Do you deny me your door now?"

Her eyes held challenge. "Am I not allowed a few moments' solitude?"

"How long have we been friends, Louisa?"

"Above twenty years, I believe."

"Exactly. And have we not shared hardship as well as good times? Have we not helped one another over the worst in our lives?" I leaned forward. "Do not shut me out now, Louisa. I need you."

"I found Black Nancy for you. Was that not enough?"

"Carlotta is in London," I said abruptly. "I've just come from a meeting with her."

Louisa's irritation vanished in an instant. Her face lost color, and her gray eyes grew sharp and hard, like many-faceted diamonds. "In London? Where?"

"I spoke with her at James Denis's, but she is staying in a boardinghouse in King Street, Covent Garden. Denis brought her here, to facilitate a divorce."

"Oh." Louisa's voice was as hard as her eyes. "I would like to see her."

"She has changed," I said, trying to keep my voice neutral. "I believe life in the French countryside agrees with her."

Louisa's mouth flattened. "She had no right to leave you. I saw what it did to you. She had no right to do that."

Her vehemence startled me. Louisa had been very angry when Carlotta had deserted me, but I had no idea she still clung to the anger. "I forgave her, Louisa. The leaving of me, I mean. I made her terribly unhappy."

"Carlotta was a bloody fool. If she'd opened her eyes, she would have seen what a blessing she had in you, what a worthy man you are. But she was always selfish." Louisa broke off and held up her hand. "Do not worry, Gabriel, I will not beg you again to run off with me to Paris. When I asked you that, I was hurt and confused by Aloysius's betrayal. That must have been extremely awkward for you."

Her cheeks were red now. She, after learning of her husband's infidelity, had asked me to take her on a wild liaison to France. I would have been more flattered had I not known she had more wanted to punish her husband than be with me. I had reasoned her out of such a rash action.

"You were much agitated," I said. "What happened that day is no reason to bar your door to me now."

She softened. "I do hope you did not hurt Matthews."

"I battered him only metaphorically. I needed to see you."

"About Carlotta." Louisa frowned. "I truly wish to tell her what I think. What of Gabriella? Where is she?"

"She is here with Carlotta." I paused. "I saw her. Louisa, she is so beautiful."

Tears welled in my eyes again, and I saw matching tears in Louisa's. She moved to me and took my hand, and we sat thusly, each of us thinking of Gabriella.

I loved Louisa, my dearest friend, who'd helped me through every heartache. I knew now that we never would have been happy as husband and wife, or even as lovers, but I thanked God for her friendship.

She kissed the top of my head and sat back down, drawing out her handkerchief and wiping her eyes. "We are a pair of boobies," she said, sniffling. "Nancy told me you'd said you knew Gabriella was safe, but I thought you referred to the information Mr. Denis had given you this spring."

"Gabriella is well and safe, and a father could not be more proud of a child." I retrieved my own handkerchief, mopped up the damage, and stuffed the cloth back into my pocket. "My task now is to decide what to do about Carlotta."

I outlined everything Denis had told me. "I dislike his hand in this. His solutions to problems are to cut ruthlessly to the quick, no matter who he harms in the process."

By the firm lines around Louisa's mouth, I knew she shared Denis's opinion. "Why be gentle with Carlotta?" she asked. "She certainly was not to you. Divorce her and be done."

"The scandal will taint me as well as her."

Louisa waved this away. "She will return to France and be Colette Auberge. No one in her French village will worry about the divorce of Captain and Mrs. Lacey in faraway London. You are protected by the reputation of Grenville-if he says you are in, you are in. You could stand on Piccadilly in your shirtsleeves and chuck bricks at passersby, and still society would fawn on you because you are Grenville's favorite. Likewise, Lady Breckenridge and her family are quite powerful. No one will dare shun her for favoring you."

"Possibly not," I said.

"Take Carlotta to court, Lacey. She deserves it."

"You have become vindictive."

"Well, when my innocent husband can be accused of murder, why should a woman guilty of adultery be let free?"

I thought I understood. This spring, a woman with whom Colonel Brandon had confessed to having an affair had dragged him firmly into the murder in Berkeley Square. Louisa had not forgiven the woman for that or for the affair, and she likely had not yet forgiven Brandon. Louisa was extending this anger to Carlotta, another woman who'd broken a marriage.

"I wish I were as vindictive," I said. "It would give me a plain path. As it is, I do not know which direction to take. I came here for your clearheaded thinking."

"About this, I cannot be clearheaded. I do not know what you will think of me, but I am afraid I wish Carlotta to suffer a little." Louisa paused, softening. "Might I see Gabriella?"

"Of course you may. I have an appointment this afternoon to interview a sailor from Wapping, but after that, I will be free. Come to Grimpen Lane this evening, and I will take you to Gabriella."

"Carlotta will not permit it," she predicted darkly.

"As I reminded Carlotta not an hour ago, I am Gabriella's legal guardian. She will permit what I say she will permit."

Louisa sent me an odd look. She opened her mouth then shook her head, as though she'd been prepared to say something and thought better of it. "I am sorry I cannot help you on the matter of Carlotta."

"There are no simple answers. That is not your fault." I squeezed her hand, then got to my feet. "Is Black Nancy here? She wants to meet the sailor and quiz him about his lost ladybird."

"She is downstairs." Louisa rose and rang a bell. "I quite enjoy having her here. She is an excellent conversationalist. Very diverting."

"She said the same about you. I do apologize for bursting in and burdening you with my problems. I seem to always be doing so."

"We are friends, Gabriel," she answered. "Naturally, we seek one another when we are troubled. I hope that it may always be so."

She smiled a little, and I was pleased that she'd decided to put her embarrassment over our encounters during the Berkeley Square matter behind us. Perhaps anger at Carlotta and joy at Gabriella's return would unite us again.

Louisa sent the footman who responded to the bell to fetch Nancy then accompanied me down the stairs, her hand tucked through my arm. We reached the ground floor to see Matthews pull open the front door as a carriage rolled to a stop before it. A footman sprang to open the coach, and Colonel Brandon descended and strode into the house.

Colonel Aloysius Brandon had black hair, graying at the temples, keen blue eyes, a trim physique, and a brusque manner. He had been a competent commander, earning respect as well as rank. He had gotten me my first commission, which I hadn't been able to afford to purchase, by knowing the right men and pulling in favors and possibly using outright bribery. He'd helped me up the ladder in the army, although I'd moved no further than captain. Beyond that I truly did need influence and wealth, and generals did not always appreciate my forthright manner and frank opinions. My own fault, but I'd never learned to scrape and bow.

Brandon stopped as Louisa and I came off the last stair, and he directed his words at me. "What are you doing here?"

I inclined my head. "I am well, thank you."

He transferred his blue glare to his wife. "I thought you said you were not allowing him the house."

"I pummeled my way past your butler," I said, not really in the mood to spar with Brandon. "But I am leaving."

I took my hat and gloves from the footman, noting that Matthews had made himself scarce. Black Nancy came from the back of the house just then.

"Ee, Captain, don't you look fine, all in your blue and silver." She took my arm. "Me pals will be pea green when they see me with you."

Brandon scowled at her. Despite his own indiscretions, he did not approve of Louisa's strays, especially not game girls. He said nothing, only turned his back on us all and ascended the stairs.

Louisa insisted that her own coach take us back to Covent Garden. Nancy rode in it like a queen, staring regally out the window, pretending to be a lady of fashion. She looked down her snub nose at me and drawled nonsense in a ridiculous parody of an upper-class accent. At least her antics made me laugh, and I felt a little better.

I decided to think over my choices concerning Carlotta and come to a decision about what best to do. I would consult Grenville-a true neutral party. He could put his fingertips together and narrow his eyes and examine the problem objectively. He also had solicitors at his beck and call who might find another solution than a public divorce. I did not necessarily have to use James Denis entirely in this matter.

I bade the coachman put us down in Maiden Lane, in front of the Rearing Pony. We'd arrived a little before time, and I saw no sailing man awaiting us. I recognized the regulars, who nodded at me. The rest of the room was filled with reedy clerks or drovers stopping for a nourishing pint of ale.

They all rather stared when I led Nancy to an inglenook and slid into its more private benches. The landlord's wife, Anne Tolliver, brought us overflowing glasses of ale, cast a curious look at Nancy, flashed a smile at me, and departed.

"She fancies yer," Nancy said. She took a deep, satisfying pull of ale and licked the foam from her lips.

"She fancies every gentleman who gives her a an extra coin."

"Naw. She don't give a smile like that to the others." Nancy grinned at my discomfiture and took another drink of ale. "What's your lady like?"

"Very posh," I said. "She's a viscountess."

"Oo-er," Nancy said, exaggerating the exclamation. "I know that. Mrs. Brandon told me. A widow, very handsome, very la-di-da, and quite taken with you. But I mean, what is she like? Is she all smiles and laughs and a good heart, or is she cold and snobby?"

"Neither. She speaks her mind, but she is kind, in her way."

Nancy looked doubtful. "Sounds peachy. What will she think of you sitting here slurping ale with a game girl?"

"Oh, I am certain she will have plenty to say about it. But she knows that you are helping me with an investigation. She wants to help as well."

Nancy grinned. "Well, then, perhaps I'll look her up, and we'll talk all about it."

I imagined an encounter between Lady Breckenridge and Black Nancy. "Perhaps you will not."

"Maybe not. But I like to tease yer." She glanced up. "I think that's your sailor, Captain."

A short, rather square man had come into the tavern and stood looking around uncertainly. I rose and beckoned, and he, seeing me, made his way to the inglenook. He was bowlegged and walked like a man expecting a ship to roll under him at any moment.

I realized when he neared us that he was not very old, perhaps in his midtwenties, although his weather-beaten face made him look older. His blue eyes held an air of worry, and he greeted me with an awkward bow.

"Mr. Thompson tol' me I should speak to yer, sir."

I signaled Anne to bring another ale. I bade the man sit down, then Nancy and I took the bench across from him. He watched us with a blank expression until Anne set a tankard in front of him. He lifted the tankard, set the rim to his lips, and poured at least a third of its contents down his throat.

"Thank ye," he said, wiping his mouth. "'Twas a thirsty journey from Wapping Stairs."

"I thank you for making it," I began. "Mr. Thompson said you were very worried about your young lady. Tell me why you should be so."

"Because it ain't like her." He shot me a belligerent look, as though daring me to disbelieve him. "She wouldn't walk out and not tell me or me landlady. She'd 'uv sent some word to me."

"When did anyone last see her?" I asked.

"Week ago come tomorrow. She were there when I woke up in the morning. Went out at four. Never seen her since."

"She came to Covent Garden, to meet someone, Thompson tells me," I said.

The man nodded. "Said she had something special. Said she'd make a few guineas from it. Said she'd bring them back to me." He swallowed. "But she ain't come back."

Nancy leaned forward, her bosom resting on the table. "What do you do with the money she usually brings you?"

The sailor glanced at me, blue eyes troubled. He had a blue-black tattoo on the inside of his arm, an intricate pattern that looked oriental. I nodded at him to answer the question.

"Goes to housekeeping, don't it? Me wages and hers, we buy the bread and our bed. Our landlady ain't much, but she leaves us be."

"But she's a game girl, you know that," Nancy went on. "Means she goes with blokes what fancy her for an hour."

"Only thing my Mary knows how to do," the sailor said reasonably. "But she always comes home to me."

Nancy nodded as though satisfied. "I don't think he did her in, Captain. And maybe she liked him well enough."

Chester scowled at her. "'Course she did. My Mary, she's always waiting for me when I sail in, and there to send me off again."

I held up my hand. "We believe you, sir. What is her name? Mary-"

"Chester, sir. I'm Sam Chester."

"She is married to you?"

"In a manner of speaking. That's the name we give the landlady, and I don't know no other. She were with another sailor when I came home three year ago, and she didn't like him. But he wouldn't let her go. So I said, if I win at dice, she's mine. And I won. She been with me since. I only ever knew her as Mary."

"Very well. What does she look like?"

Hope sparkled in his eyes. "You'll look for her?"

I nodded. "I will try. She is not the only girl who's gone missing."

"That's what Mr. Thompson said. Magistrate didn't believe there were anything wrong in Mary's going, but Mr. Thompson said he knew a chap what could find her if anyone could."

I pushed my ale glass aside. "I am pleased he has such faith in me."

"Mary's a bit of a thing, on the plump side," Sam said. "Has yellow hair, but she dyes it and it don't look very good. I like it brown, like natural, but she says it has to be yellow." He thought a moment. "Brown eyes, big smile." He stopped, his voice faltering. "Such a pretty thing."

I glanced at Nancy to let the man recover himself. She shook her head. "I don't know her, but I never get to Wapping. But one of the girls at Covent Garden might 'a seen her. I can ask."

"Why should you want to help?" Chester looked at me in sudden worry. "You ain't the Watch, are you? Wanting to haul Mary off for trying to make a bit o' coin?"

"I am not the Watch, Mr. Chester. I simply don't like to see girls hurt."

Nancy ran her hand up my blue-coated biceps. "He looks after us."

I slanted her a look, and she grinned back at me. Chester obviously didn't know what to make of this teasing, and he sagged against the bench. "Thank ye, sir. I've been so worried."

I asked for another ale for Chester, which he drank gratefully. I pressed him with questions, but he did not have much more to tell us. Mary Chester's habit was to leave the house at five or six in the evening, prowl around Wapping getting what customers she could, and return home around midnight to share a meal and a bed with Sam.

The only thing Mary had done differently the day she'd disappeared was to leave earlier than usual to make her way to Covent Garden. Sam did not know the name of the man she'd gone there to meet, or what he looked like, or when she'd met him. Sam had questioned her friends in Wapping but found no answers. The girls had not known; Mary had not told them much except that she'd met a gentleman who could give her a pile of money.

I asked Sam where I could send word to him, and he gave me a direction of a boardinghouse near Wapping Stairs, not far from the magistrate's house where Thompson did his work. Sam said he would be staying in London for now, though he might be shipping out on a merchantman in two weeks' time. I told him I hoped I would know something by then.

The three of us left the tavern together. I sent Sam off a good deal more hopeful than when he'd come, though I was not sanguine myself. Finding a lost girl in London was like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. I did have several ideas about where to start looking, however, and having Black Nancy here would be a help, as well.

"Poor gent," Nancy said as we watched him weave his way along Maiden Lane toward Southampton Street, which would take him to the Strand. "I did meet up with a girl last night who might can help us. The hackney driver didn't want to stop, but I made him. You take your time walking home, and I'll run fetch her."

Before I could object, Nancy ran away down Maiden Lane toward Bedford Street, the opposite direction from Chester. I saw her black head bobbing along through the crowd, and then she was gone.

I made my way after her slowly, turning north when I reached Bedford Street and then walked the length of Henrietta Street back toward Covent Garden. I was very much aware that on the other side of the church lay the house in King Street where Gabriella stayed. I made my feet continue to Covent Garden to find Black Nancy.

When I reached the square, it was at the height of its activity. A mass of humanity thronged the market stalls to buy fruit or flowers, hens or milk, gewgaws or whatever else the vendors were selling. The shops ringing the square were likewise full: middleclass young ladies and their mothers shopping shoulder-to-shoulder with unwashed working-class women with coarse hands and weathered faces. Young male servants swarmed about trying to purchase their masters' dinners, hucksters sidled to passersby trying to entice coins from them, and vendors called out, desperately trying to pitch their voices above those of their rivals.

The sun shone hot and sweat dripped freely from faces young and old, thin and round, ruddy and pale. A water seller did a fair business letting passersby refresh themselves with a dipper of well water from his bucket. A man selling cool ale in the shade of a brick building also plied a good trade.

I searched the crowd for Nancy, wishing she'd waited for me. She was nimble and young and I had no wish to tramp all over Covent Garden searching for her. I smiled a gentle refusal at an orange seller, then made my way across the south side of the square, heading for Russel Street.

I spied Nancy in the shadows of the back of a stall halfway along the square. She waved when I saw her, and I made my way to her, dodging a maid carrying two squawking ducks by their feet.

Another girl stood with Nancy. Her skin was the color of cream-laden coffee, and her hair, shiny black, cascaded from under a broad-brimmed hat in a riot of fantastic curls. She'd dressed herself in an emerald green, high-waisted gown, and wore a hat with a long green feather.

As I neared, both of them grinned at me, the black-skinned girl with a gap in her teeth that was very fetching. She had chocolate-colored eyes that skimmed up and down my body, a narrow face, high cheekbones, and arched brows. Her smile widened when I bowed to her, and she dropped into the perfect imitation of a fashionable lady's curtsy.

"This is Felicity," Nancy said. "A fine lady and a fair friend. This is him, Felicity."

Felicity looked me up and down, again with a bold gaze that made me want to blush. "I've seen him about," she said. "You are right, Nance. He is a fine one."

I was used to the game girls and their teasing banter, but Felicity's gaze seemed to burn. She was a little older than Nancy, perhaps twenty, and her greater experience showed in her eyes. She knew about men's desires and how to stir them.

Black-skinned girls were common in London. Some came to England from Jamaica as slaves, freed when they arrives; or they worked their way over as free women; or they were the daughters of former Jamaican slaves. They became servants if they were lucky, and if they were unlucky, they plied Felicity's trade. Black mistresses were quite sought after, and a clever girl could become a rich man's paramour.

Grenville had once had such a mistress-Cleopatra, she was called-whose origins had been obscure. I'd never met her, she and Grenville having parted ways before he'd befriended me, but apparently, she'd taken London by storm. She'd gone from Grenville to the Prince Regent and then married a country squire with whom she'd fallen in love. Grenville apparently had assisted in pulling off that wedding, and he claimed she now lived in wedded bliss surrounded by fat children.

Felicity, on the other hand, would likely remain on the streets unless she happened to catch a wealthy man's eye. That is, if she were not unfortunate enough to be abducted and transported to the West Indies. It happened from time to time that a person wanting to make quick money kidnapped free black women and boys to sell to plantation holders in Jamaica and Antigua. This was highly illegal, but it still went on. My reforming friend, Sir Gideon Derwent, wanted to stop this deplorable practice, and it had slowed, but they still had much to fight.

"At your service, madam," I said to Felicity.

"Don't I wish," Felicity answered, her smile brash.

"Felicity never saw the yellow-haired wench," Nancy said. "But she might a' seen the other one. Name of Black Bess."

Felicity folded her hands across the sash that hugged her bosom, a fair imitation of a debutante at her first ball. "Black Bess is rather a friend of mine. Haven't seen her in a while, and her lad's been around looking for her. I thought maybe she'd taken up with a protector, but Nance says maybe not."

Felicity spoke with a more cultured accent than Nancy's, as though someone had taught her middleclass English, or she'd carefully learned it herself. There was nothing to say, however, that Felicity was not a middleclass girl in truth. White fathers bore children with their black servants, sometimes raising the sons and daughters alongside their legitimate children. Felicity's father could have come from any background from small farmer to royalty.

"No," I said. "Pomeroy thinks she might have been kidnapped."

"Pomeroy the Runner?" Felicity asked, suddenly alert. "That's interesting, Captain. Last time I saw Black Bess, she was in the company of Pomeroy of Bow Street. And they weren't simply having a chat, if you know what I mean."