A Regimental Murder

Chapter Fifteen

He wore a black evening suit of superfine, as though he'd just arrived from the theatre or opera. A sapphire ring glinted on his third finger, and a diamond sparkled coldly on his cravat. He or his toadies had lit every one of my candles. The light tinged the flaking ceiling plaster the delicate red-gold of rose petals.

"What do you want?" I asked unceremoniously.

"A moment of your time," Denis replied. "Since I could not convince you to visit me in my home, I have traveled to yours. Please come inside."

"I will when you leave."

He gave me a frosty look. "You will want to hear what I have to say, believe me, Captain."

"I did not ask for your help."

"Yet I give it. And this after my encounters with you last spring. You owe me much."

"There we differ. I say I owe you nothing." I unsheathed my sword. "Please get out. I have no interest in your information."

He paused, his eyes hooded. "Not even in the whereabouts of Mrs. Brandon?"

The words dropped into silence. My heart jumped, then stopped, then began pounding again.

"What the devil have you to do with Mrs. Brandon?"

"I know where she is. You do not. I offer the information in fair exchange."

My limbs unfroze and I went for him. The two brutes to either side of me seized my arms. I jerked free, and with two strides across the room, my hands locked around James Denis's throat.

His cold blue eyes flickered, but other than that he remained still. Beneath his cravat, his throat was surprisingly warm, and his pulse beat beneath my fingers.

"Tell me where she is," I said, "or by God, I will kill you where you stand."

"Then you would not learn anything."

In a swift, sudden movement, he brought up his hands between my wrists and snapped them apart.

His henchmen closed on me again as he looked me up and down. "I imagine you have heard the term 'loose cannon,' Captain. Aboard a frigate, I believe, a cannon that is not fastened down properly provides for much danger. You are that loose cannon for me. You do not heed counsel to stay out of my way, and wherever I turn these days, I nearly trip over you."

I remembered my encounter with him the day Lydia had asked me to help her. I had wondered what errand he'd been performing in Russel Street. "If I have met you by chance, that is hardly my fault."

"That may be. But I do not trust you not to interfere with my business. I have determined that the only way I can trust you-although "trust" is not quite the word I would use-is to tame you."

"Tame me?" I almost laughed. "Like one of your trained lackeys?"

"No," he said. "I want you obligated to me. I will appeal to your sense of duty, your sense of fair play. One gentleman does not cheat another."

"But I do not consider you a gentleman."

"I believe that." He gave me the faintest of smiles. "Mrs. Brandon speaks highly of you. She claims you have a good heart, though your judgment is often rash. I believe you a bit misguided myself."

Fury welled up so tight I could barely see. "Where is she?"

"We will come to that in a moment- "

"Where?"

"I will tell you when you meet my price."

I would not encourage him by asking what the price was. I remained stubbornly silent.

"It will be very simple," he continued. "I want you to promise me-your word as a gentleman-that when I call upon you to assist me, in any way or for any reason, you will do so at once, no matter what your situation."

His expression was utterly still, but I did not delude myself that everything he said was not precisely calculated, his thoughts running far ahead of the conversation. He had decided the outcome of this interview before he had even conducted it.

This man bought and sold favors and owned people outright, and he had an extensive network that stretched all over the continent, perhaps the world. He dressed like a gentleman, lived in a fine house, and drove a fine carriage, but he was as much an underworld figure as the blacklegs who fleeced gentlemen at the gaming hells of St. James’s.

I in no way wanted myself obligated to him. But I thought of Louisa, of her cool gray eyes and warm smile and slightly crooked nose. My blood chilled.

"Why did you come to me and not her husband?" I asked.

"She does not want to see her husband," he replied. "Or so she said."

"She is safe?"

Denis met my eye, cold clarity in his gaze. "That depends very much on you, Captain."

I hated him powerfully at that moment. He had me, and he knew it.

"I want your word," he said.

A candle sputtered in the silence, loud as a pistol shot.

I nodded, my neck sore with it. "I give you my word."

"I will hold you to the bargain. Know that." His voice went soft. "I believe Louisa Brandon is very dear to you, is she not?"

"Just tell me where she is."

He watched a bit of plaster float to the carpet. "She is a clever woman, your Mrs. Brandon. She has hidden herself well." And he told me.

I arrived at a respectable-looking boardinghouse down the Thames in Greenwich at two that afternoon. Denis had told me Louisa had moved into the house under the name "Mrs. Taylor," and had purported to be a widow who had recently lost her husband, found herself cut off by an indifferent son, and had nowhere to go. Her story was not far-fetched; by law, sons were not related to their mothers, and had no legal obligation to care for them. I wondered, on a sudden, what provisions Brandon had made, if any, for Louisa in case of his death.

The landlady who ran the household had a kind face and a softness about her eyes. She told me I'd been expected, and led me to the back of the house to a small, sunny parlor.

Louisa lay on a divan, a shawl over her knees. Her golden hair was loose about her, and a widow's cap similar to the one Lydia had worn rested on her head, verisimilitude for the part of the widowed Mrs. Taylor.

I meant to greet her with a jest about it, but I was struck with how thin she'd grown since I'd last seen her. Her fingers were white and frail, and her gray eyes were enormous in her nearly bloodless face.

My heart tightened. She had been ill, damned ill, if I were any judge. Life could be brutally short in these times, and to be sure, I had already seen a number of childhood acquaintance lost to disease and war, but Louisa had always seemed indomitable, strong, everlasting. The thought that she could be taken from me so easily made my pulse quicken with dread.

But her smile was welcoming. She held out her hands to me. I clasped them in mine and bent to kiss her cheek.

"Gabriel. I am so glad you've come." She squeezed my fingers hard, to the bone.

I went down on one knee beside her. "Louisa, what is it? Are you ill?"

She shook her head. "Not any longer."

"What has happened? Tell me."

She smiled and released my hands. "Oh, do take a chair, Gabriel. The floor must be devilish uncomfortable."

I rose and dragged a rather shabby armchair with ball and claw feet to her side. When I seated myself, I took one of her hands in mine again. Her fingers curled against my palm, but she did not pull away.

"Please tell me what has happened," I repeated.

"Nothing that has not happened before," she said tiredly. "I will weather it."

I looked into her eyes, and I realized that what I read there was not illness, but great sorrow. Her eyelids were rimmed with red, and I saw a woman who had relinquished her last hope.

"Oh God," I whispered.

"I wish I knew why I cannot do what every maid in the street can in a trice," she said. "They even pay to give up what I'd pay a thousandfold to have. It baffles one, does it not?"

"Louisa." I caressed her cold fingers. Three times before, Louisa Brandon had been with child, and three times before, she had lost that child. The first had been born, a tiny little boy. But all too soon, he had began gasping for breath, and then he had died. The others had been born far too early, too weak to live. This one could not have been inside her for more than several weeks. "I am sorry."

Her gray eyes filled as her fingers tightened on mine.

"Does Brandon know?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I said nothing to him. How could I have? It seemed little short of cruel. He would have hoped so much. I decided I'd go away. I'd met the woman who runs this boarding house during the Peninsular campaign before her husband was killed and she returned to England. She is a midwife now. We corresponded still, and I thought this would be an ideal place. I could wait here until I was certain all would be well." She smiled shakily. "But all was not well, was it? I do not know why I supposed it would be. I have always failed before."

"It is hardly your fault." My mouth hardened as I remembered a long-ago heated argument with Brandon. "No matter what others might say."

Brandon had once dared complain in my presence that Louisa had sorely disappointed him in the matter of children. He had said bitterly that she could not come up to scratch, and a childless wife was no wife at all. I understood later that he had been as hurt as Louisa by her latest miscarriage, but at the time, all I had seen was the misery in her eyes and the blatant blame in Brandon's. I'd lost my temper and said that perhaps it was not the receptacle that was to blame, but the seed.

That moment, I believe had begun the end of our friendship. Our feud had later taken a darker, grimmer twist, but my words that day had never been quite forgiven.

Louisa toyed with the fringe of her shawl. "I went to Aline," she said. "She advised I go away, somewhere quiet, where I could be alone. I should have nothing that would upset me, she said, and Aloysius was certainly upsetting me." She looked up, a ghost of a defiant glint in her eye. "Agreeing to testify that Colonel Westin had been inebriated and committed murder. Rot and nonsense. I told him no good would come of such lies, but he can be so stubborn!"

She did not need to tell me of Brandon's stubbornness.

"I wondered how you had responded to his promise. I ought to have known you would see the thing for what it was."

"Of course I did," she said firmly. "But he would preach to me about preserving the honor of the regiment. The Forty-Third should not be shamed. Colonel Westin had agreed to take the blame alone so that he could be singled out and punished. Of course Westin did not murder that captain."

"I know."

"I know you know. I have read the newspapers. You are in this up to your neck. I hope you came prepared to tell me everything."

I raised a brow. "If you have read the newspapers, then you already know."

She gave me a deprecating look. "Do not tease me. I am not in the humor for it. The newspapers print what they like, and you know it. I want the truth, Gabriel." She slid her hand from mine and folded her arms. "And I do mean all of it. I read that man Billings's salacious hints about you and Mrs. Westin. Well?"

A day ago, they would still have been lies. Today, I felt my cheeks grow warm.

"So," she said softly. "Not all lies."

"But the truth is not what he makes out," I said. "Fortunately, Billings's stories are so outrageous they can be laughed off as improbable."

She would not let me off so easy. "What is the truth, Gabriel? Stop prevaricating and tell me at once."

I hid a smile. I was pleased that I had sparked her interest. I was willing to let her scold me if doing so would soothe her.

I began my tale with the moment I'd caught sight of Lydia Westin making her way through the rain to the half-constructed bridge. I told of Westin's death, and Lydia's wish that I clear his name. I told her of Pomeroy's investigation, and how Grenville and I had journeyed to Astley Close and met Lord Richard Eggleston and Lord Breckenridge. I told her about all the events there, not leaving anything out, including the card game. I told her of Breckenridge's death, Brandon’s sudden appearance, the inquest, and my speculations there.

"Lady Breckenridge seemed not in the least upset by her husband's death," I concluded. "Almost as though she'd been waiting for it."

"Some women do spend their marriages waiting for their husbands to die. Seems a rather uncomfortable existence."

"I doubt she would have had the strength to break his neck," I mused. "Though she could have caused him to fall. Or an accomplice might have killed him for her." I sighed. "I see too many accomplices in this. Lydia Westin could have stabbed her husband, but she could not have carried him to bed, were he not already there. Lady Breckenridge never would have been able to fling her husband over the back of a horse and drag him to the edge of the rise and pitch him over. No, a man, every time, has done the brute work of it."

Louisa touched my hand. "But that man was not my husband."

I ought to have known she would have guessed my fears. "I am afraid I cannot put the suspicion from my mind."

She shook her head. "No, Gabriel. Aloysius would not have killed him, even accidentally." She gave me a quiet look. "You know he would have made certain it was you, first."

"Hmm. That is comforting."

"But nonetheless true."

"You might be right. That still leaves us with an appalling number of suspects."

Her eyes narrowed. "Yes, Mr. Spencer and his brother, to name two."

"And Eggleston. And this Major Connaught, whom I have not yet met."

She levered herself up on the divan, as if determined to leave her sagging posture behind. "Aloysius is acquainted with him. Ask him to introduce you."

I smiled mirthlessly. "Your husband is more likely to give me a punch in the jaw than help me. If he discovers that Denis told me where you were instead of him, he will have apoplexy." I sobered. "Why did you ask Denis not to tell him?"

Two spots of color appeared on her cheeks. "Because I am not yet ready to face him. My return will be stormy, I know that. I am not yet strong enough for it."

I took her hand in mine again. She rested it there limply. "When you do return, would you like me to go with you?"

"No," she answered quietly. "It must be between me and him."

I nodded. I hated to let her face him alone, but I knew she was right. She would win, but it would take much strength to do it. The last time I'd seen her face him down had been the day I'd lain before them both, drunk with opium, my leg shattered, and she had discovered what he had done. I had laughed, far gone on the drug and pain when she had turned on him, furious and shocked. I had laughed, unable to stop, until I'd wept.

She abruptly withdrew her hand and tried to sound bright. "I was quite pleased to meet your Mr. Denis. An interesting man. I was at last able to tell him what I thought of his treatment of you last spring."

I raised my brows. "Good lord. I would dearly have loved to have heard that conversation."

"We were quite civil, do not worry. I found that we agreed that you were often not as prudent as you might me."

"I will not forgive him for dragging you into this," I said.

"I, on the other hand, am pleased he called. I had not realized how much I missed you, my friend, until he offered to send you to me. And then I knew I missed you sorely! To speak to you, to advise you on your latest conundrum, I knew I must do that."

"Thank you for letting me come."

Her fingers were cool on mine. "You comfort me. You cannot know how much."

We shared a look. Her eyes were gray as winter skies.

"You have comforted me so often," I said softly. "How could I not return the favor?"

The clock on the mantel struck the hour. I caressed the backs of her fingers. She looked swiftly away and withdrew her hand.

"About Aloysius," she said.

I sat back. "Please do not lecture to me about reconciling with him, Louisa. His actions this past week have put reconciliation further away, if anything."

"If he did not care for you so deeply, you could not hurt him so much."

I folded my arms. I was not ready to feel great depths of sympathy for Aloysius Brandon. My last encounter with him had all but unraveled our tense politeness. The next time we met, the gloves would be off, much like they'd been when I'd boxed Breckenridge.

"I think you misread him," I said.

"No, I think you do. I still remember what he was like when I first met him. He was a great man, full of fire and able to inspire that fire in others. You felt it."

"Yes," I had to say.

"The fire has dimmed a little, and disappointment has tarnished him. But it is still there, Gabriel, deep inside. He is a man others will live for. That is the man I stand by."

I could not argue with her. When I'd first met Aloysius Brandon, I had been rather dazed by him. I had just reconciled myself to go on living with my martinet father until he died, bearing his tantrums and his beatings, my life bleak and predictable. And then this man, this astonishing man, had told me I could have a life, a career, honors if I wanted them. All I had to do was follow him.

He had compelled me to return to my father, tell him I had volunteered in the King's army, and that I, his only son, was leaving him. That interview had become eight hours of stormy shouting, violent threats, and broken furniture. In the end, I'd flung myself from the house, vowing never to enter it again.

I'd joined Brandon, who had listened with sympathy to my woes. Later, just before we embarked on the ship that would take us to India, he had introduced me to his bride, Louisa.

Life had not been kind to her. I clasped her hand again. As she chatted to me of the boardinghouse and the people she had met here, I wished with all my heart I could change that for her.