A Regimental Murder

Chapter Five

Because I'd slept in my skin, I had to dress before I could limp to the door and open it.

Lucius Grenville stood on the threshold, with Bartholomew, his tall, bulky footman, behind him. Grenville was resplendent in buff breeches and boots and immaculate black coat, and wore an emerald stickpin in his snowy cravat.

He had dark brown hair, as I did, though his contained no threads of gray, possibly because he was a few years younger than I, or because his valet took care to remove or dye the offending hairs. His face was not handsome, being a little too plain and too sharp in the chin, but not one of his admirers seemed to note that. His eyes, as though to compensate for his plainness, were sparkling and lively. Grenville lived life to the fullest and took an interest in everything, great or small.

He seldom visited me in my rooms. Most of the time, he waited in his luxurious carriage at the end of the lane and sent his footman for me, or simply sent the empty carriage across London alone. Now he stood on my doorstep, his dark eyes alert with curiosity.

"Yes?" I snapped, not fully myself.

"Are you all right?"

I must have looked frightful, face unshaven, hair rumpled, eyes bloodshot. I raked my hand through my hair. "Sleeping. I beg your pardon. Please come in."

He stepped into my sitting room and looked about him as though I'd just invited him into a grand palace in Saint Petersburg. Across the lane the curtains of my opposite neighbor, Mrs. Carfax, stood open to catch the last of the daylight, allowing us to see right into her always painfully clean parlor.

A table stood in her window in the same position it had occupied for the year and a half I'd lived here. A book rested in the precise center of the table, edges in perfect alignment. I had witnessed both Mrs. Carfax and her faded companion carefully dust this book, but I had never observed either of them lift it, open it, read it. Mrs. Carfax liked to leave the curtains open as long as possible, she had confided to me one day in the bake shop, because she was forced to be very frugal with her candles. She would have hated living downstairs from Marianne.

Grenville peered through the dusty panes until Bartholomew had bowed and departed, then he pulled a newspaper out from under his arm and handed it to me. "You have become famous, my friend. I congratulate you."

I stared at him, nonplussed. "Famous?"

"Fresh this evening."

I took the paper from him and looked where he pointed. A caricature of myself, or at least a cavalry officer in dark regimentals brandishing a cavalry saber, accosted a frightened-looking man who was backing hastily away, dropping pencil and notebook. The head of the officer was overlarge, the saber too long. A ribbon of words from his mouth proclaimed: "A flogging! I flogging, I say, sir! Forty lashes will teach you to keep a foul Tongue in your Mouth, sir!"

In the background stood a man who could only be Grenville. The artist had given him an exaggerated athletic body, a huge cravat, and a high hat. He was smiling and nodding to an audience of anonymous but obviously upper-class ladies and gentlemen. His ribbon read: "Excellent, excellent, Cpt. We're to Drury Lane next then on to Gtlmn J-'s."

Beneath this ran the words. "A soldier of Honor, who took to shooting his Fellow Officers when he felt peevish-is dead and gone. His widow grieves-and another Gallant Dragoon leaps to the side of this most Fortunate of Women."

More of this drivel followed, but I flung it away. "Good God." If ever I saw that fellow Billings again, I would thrash him good and hard, making certain I rendered him unable to write. "I am sorry. They had no right to drag you into it."

Grenville waved it away. "I have appeared in far less flattering cartoons, believe me. But this coming hard after your letter made me wonder very much. As you intended me to."

In the dim light of the dying day, his dark eyes glistened like pieces of onyx. His curiosity upon receiving my letter must have been insatiable, because he'd not been willing to wait for his carriage to convey me to him. I did not like him here, which was why I never invited him. My lodgings were pitiful in contrast to his sumptuous mansion, where every luxury imaginable was at his disposal, including hot water pumped in for his baths.

But there was nothing for it now, and besides, I truly needed his help. I would have to swallow my pride and live with the bitter aftertaste.

I gestured him to my wing chair. "Sit, then. I will fetch some coffee."

"No need," he said quickly.

I opened the door again. "There is need. My need."

I left him alone and made my way downstairs to Mrs. Beltan's bake shop. She saw me and bustled to get my coffee. She did not normally sell coffee to her customers, but she'd started doing so for me, learning that I craved the stuff. She made a few extra coins by it, and she gave it to me cheaper than I could have obtained it at the coffeehouses or from street vendors.

Today I asked to borrow a second cup so Grenville could share if he chose. I'd drunk coffee at Grenville's mansion, and I'd drunk Mrs. Beltan's coffee, and I would be surprised if he chose.

When I entered my rooms again, balancing pot, tray, two cups, and half a loaf of bread, Marianne and Grenville were facing each other across the space of my hearth rug.

Neither noticed me. Grenville was very red in the face, and Marianne was smiling at him.

I clanked the tray to my writing table. Grenville nearly jumped out of his skin. Marianne gave me a languid look, as though she'd known I'd been there all along. "Afternoon, Lacey. I came to ask if you'd share your dinner. I'm hungry and I already owe Ma Beltan for the last two days."

I motioned to the bread. "Take it." I was hungry too, but I had a pay packet, and Marianne's irregular income was far more meager than mine.

Grenville scowled at her. "I gave you twenty guineas."

"You did. Right gentleman you are." She reached for the bread.

Grenville seized her outstretched wrist. "She will not tell me what has become of it."

I poured coffee. What influence he thought I had with Marianne, I could not imagine.

"Was it drink?" Grenville asked, his voice strained.

I answered for her. "Not likely." I breathed in the welcome aroma of coffee, and the world brightened a bit. "She does not like it."

"Thank God for that."

"Gave it to my sick mum," Marianne said. "What do you think I did with it?"

Grenville's eyes were wary. "Did you give it to a man?"

She looked offended. "None of your business what I did with it. You're plenty rich enough to spare a girl twenty guineas without worrying about where it goes."

I took a sip of coffee. The rich bitterness rolled across my tongue, and suddenly, even Marianne's insolence became easier to bear. "It was an enormous amount of money, Marianne," I remarked. "A maidservant does not even make that much in a year."

She gave me a lofty glance. "I am not a maidservant."

Grenville released her. "No, Lacey, she is right." He drew a silken purse from his waistcoat. "I can spare it." He fished out a handful of gold coins.

Marianne shot me a look of triumph. She held out her hand, taking care to hold her fingers daintily-a woman receiving her dues, not a beggar desperate for coin.

Grenville dropped at least ten gold guineas into that slim palm. She smiled in a satisfied way and closed her fingers around them. "Mr. Grenville is a gentleman," she informed me. Her look told me I was not.

She reached again for the bread, her thin gown sliding across her hips. Grenville could not look away from her, though I saw him try.

I lifted the tray away. "Buy your own."

A final glare and curl of her lip, and she waltzed out. Downstairs, not up. Off to spend her newfound wealth.

Grenville stood looking at the door long after I'd closed it. "I cannot help it. She was hungry, Lacey, she trembled with it. I felt her trembling. But she would never have admitted it."

I sipped more coffee, my nerves finally settling. "She will trample you."

Grenville gave a little shrug, still staring at the door.

I offered him coffee and refrained from pointing out the folly of pinning his hopes on Marianne. She would use him until he refused to hand her money, and then dismiss him. I could not condemn her for being a parasite, because she had to survive, but I had the feeling that Grenville, though he'd traveled the world, had finally met his match.

He drank his coffee absently, and I began to tell him the tale. He listened, his eyes growing sharper as I told him everything, omitting only the fact that Westin had been murdered. I disliked lying to him, and I think he sensed I did not tell him the entire truth, but he did not remark upon it.

As I talked, my feeling of futility grew. Lydia Westin had compelled me to help her, but as I explained the situation, I realized that proving her husband's innocence might be nearly impossible.

Grenville was quick to point this out. "How can she be so certain he did not kill Captain Spencer? She was not with him on the Peninsula. He must have done a number of things that she knows nothing about, and even a moral man can falter in the heat of battle." He leaned to me, seemingly relieved to have something to occupy his thoughts other than Marianne. "When I spent time in America, I witnessed a few of the native uprisings, both massacres of natives by the colonials and massacres of the colonials by natives. I saw upright, honest, and moral men commit depraved acts, and then be horrified afterward. Perhaps Westin was simply so amazed at what he'd done that he believed in his own innocence."

I shook my head. "She believes it as well." I remembered the conviction in her eyes, her utter belief in him.

"Is a wife ever truly certain of her husband?" Grenville mused. "I have no idea; I have never been married. The married women of my acquaintance rarely speak of their husbands at all, except as a nuisance to be borne."

"Hmm," I said. "Nuisance" at least sounded affectionate. My wife had been alternately terrified of or furious with me. My clumsy attempts at affection had been abject failures.

"Even if she is right," Grenville continued, "I cannot understand his actions. I am acquainted with Lord Richard Eggleston and Lord Breckenridge, and I would not cover up a grass stain for either of them, let alone a murder. So either he is guilty, or-"

"Or they offered him something," I finished. "Something so important he was willing to go to the gallows to obtain it." I thought a moment. "Or they threatened him, had some hold over him. Threatened his family, perhaps." I did not like that idea at all.

Grenville gestured with his cup. "Perhaps Westin had ruined himself, with gambling debts or bad investments. Perhaps he was afraid to tell his wife. His three friends promised him they would pay his debt, and Mrs. Westin would never need know."

"But could he trust them to do it?"

Grenville shrugged. "Suppose they made a contract. No, perhaps they would not risk anything written. But if Westin was as fond of honor as his wife believes, perhaps he took their solemn words as binding."

"Now he is dead," I said slowly. "So all bargains are off?"

"Possibly. I can easily discover if he had been in too deep." He smiled a little. "It is supposed to be bad form to talk about money, or the lack of it, but the clubs are full of gossip. Everyone knows how much everyone else is into the money lenders for. We are all hypocrites." He chuckled. "What will you do?"

"What I did in the affair in Hanover Square. Apply to you for introduction to the upper classes."

He grinned. "Always happy to help."

"Only because you have an insatiable curiosity and thirst for adventure," I remarked. Life in upper-class London with unlimited funds at his disposal often grated on him, the unfortunate man.

His grin increased. He'd once told me he admired me because I faced what was real, and was not misled by what others perceived to be important. On days when my rooms permeated with chill and I had spent the last of my pennies on bread, I would have traded my reality with the trappings of his artificial world in a trice.

"I am not acquainted with Connaught," Grenville was saying, "but I do know the other two. Not the most genial of companions, I must warn you."

"Nevertheless an introduction would be a great help," I said. "I will also ask Mrs. Westin if I can look through her husband's letters and journals. They might shed some light on what really happened that night at Badajoz. John Spencer searched the papers of his father and Colonel Spinnet; it might be worth my while to try to look at those as well. I do not know John Spencer, but perhaps I can convince him we are both on the side of truth."

"I am not acquainted with him, either," Grenville said. "Eggleston I see often enough. He is rude and sulks when he loses at cards, though he pays up like a gentleman. I have heard whispers that he is a sodomite, but if so, he is very discreet. He boasts loudly of affairs with actresses and courtesans, on the other hand." He drained his cup. "He and Viscount Breckenridge are the oldest of friends, but it is an odd friendship. They disparage each other behind each other's backs-and face to face, for that matter. I once saw them nearly come to blows right in the middle of the card room at White's. And yet, they have been constant companions for years."

I looked a question, but Grenville shook his head. "No, I do not believe they are lovers. Where Eggleston boasts of his female conquests, Breckenridge is dead silent. But I once attended a house party with them, and in one weekend, Breckenridge had quietly fornicated with every woman in the house from the scullery maid to the hostess."

I grimaced. "I believe I understand why Mrs. Westin wishes to lay the blame at his door."

"Yes, he is vulgar." Grenville set down his empty cup. "I will cultivate my acquaintance with them both in the interest of justice." He rose and looked at me seriously. "Take care with the newspapermen, Lacey. They can destroy your character so quickly. And Mrs. Westin's."

"Yes," I answered, thinking longingly of my next meeting with Billings.

He seemed to read my thoughts. "Ignoring them utterly is best. If you confront them, they only write with more glee."

I nodded. I supposed he was right, and the famous Grenville had far more experience with prying journalists than I ever would. I still wanted to break Billings in half.

He left me then, summoning Bartholomew from downstairs. The two of them walked off down Grimpen Lane. The street was far too narrow for Grenville's opulent conveyance, so he always left it around the corner in Russel Street. Blond Bartholomew towered over his master, but they chatted amicably as they ambled along.

I never knew quite what to make of Grenville. I had heard tales of him reducing a gentleman to quivering tears simply by raising his brows. And yet he'd come to my barren and run-down rooms and behaved as though I'd received him at Carlton House.

I thought, however, that I'd have far better luck discovering the murderers of Captain Spencer and Colonel Westin than I would unraveling the mystery that was Lucius Grenville.

I decided to begin my investigation with a chat with the man who had dined with Westin on the fatal night in Spain. I shaved and washed and brushed down my clothes, then departed for Brook Street to visit Colonel Brandon.

He received me with ill grace. The servant left us in the downstairs reception room; Brandon was not even allowing me in the more comfortable rooms upstairs.

He looked terrible. He had obviously not slept. The skin beneath his eyes was bruised and puffy, and the corner of his mouth twitched uncontrollably.

I was reminded of Brandon's temper tantrums of old, of an irritability that only Louisa could soothe. I had the feeling he restrained himself from bodily flinging me from the house only because his servants would report his behavior to Louisa.

"I am quite busy, Lacey, what is it?"

I began without preliminary. "I have come to ask you a question or two about Colonel Westin."

His lip curled. "Why ask me? You had his wife in your bed."

I bristled. "I told you that you dishonored her with your speculations. You continue to at your peril."

"Do not insult me by threatening to call me out, Gabriel, even if you have the great Mr. Grenville to second you."

We faced each other, the tall former commander and the captain he had made and ruined. I had difficulty remembering that once upon a time I had admired this man. I had wanted to emulate him in all things. Now he stared at me with open belligerence, his handsome face mottled.

It struck me on a sudden that if Louisa truly did leave forever, there would be no more buffer between Brandon and me. Nothing to keep our hatred from coming to the fore. We would destroy each other.

I fixed him with a cold stare. "May we keep to the point? I want to know what happened the night that Colonel Westin took supper with you at Badajoz."

"Why? He already admitted he killed Spencer. Besides, he was the ranking officer."

"You were ready enough to accuse Westin of drunkenness," I said. "Was he truly?"

"Good lord, it was four years ago. How am I to remember how much a man drank on one certain night that long ago?"

"Yet you were prepared to say he had been so excessively drunk that he joined in the raping and pillaging."

Brandon flushed. "Please, Lacey. You do have a bald way of putting things."

"And you are excellent at evasion. Were you asked to tell the world that? To lead the blame to Westin?"

Brandon's flush deepened. "You go too far, Lacey. Westin is dead. He killed the man, drunk or no. Let it lie."

"I made a promise to Mrs. Westin to discover the truth," I said. "I intend to keep it."

"You are a bloody fool. If his widow has any sense, she will go into mourning and quietly withdraw from society. It would be the decent thing to do. You stirring it all up again is in poor taste, I must say."

"Does she not have a right to clear her husband's name?"

"Leave it be, Lacey. The thing's done. What is your interest, by the by? She certainly did not waste any time transferring her clutches to you, did she?"

I took a step forward.

He went on recklessly. "She was in your bed, plain as day. If you had the least amount of shame, you would at least not try to deny it. Good God, he has only been dead a week."

I stood carefully, keeping myself from lunging at him. "I am not Lydia Westin's lover. She is an unfortunate woman, and I am trying to help her. That is all."

His hands curled to fists. "Where is Louisa?"

"I told you, I have no idea."

"You are so anxious to help the wives of other gentlemen. Perhaps you helped her to run away from me."

I took another step forward. "Damn you…"

"No, Gabriel. Damn you. I offered to reconcile, and you were pleased to throw it in my face."

He spoke the truth. I had rejected his attempts at forgiveness, because I knew it was not absolution he offered, but penance. He would take on the role as the wronged party and would forgive me and forgive me and forgive me until I ground my teeth with it.

I tapped my left boot with my walking stick. "I do believe you already had your vengeance."

As usual, when I made any reference to my injury, he grew furious. "God damn you, Lacey. Get out of my house."

"I am pleased to."

If Louisa did not return soon, we certainly would murder each other.

As I turned away, I nearly stumbled into the little cabinet house, called a "baby house," that Brandon had commissioned a cabinetmaker to construct for Louisa. It was a miniature replica of a fine mansion and opened at the front in two doors. The interior was bisected by a hall with a tiny, elegant staircase that led to a tiny, elegant drawing room and bedchamber. Cabinetmakers had fashioned the small furniture, perfect replicas of full-sized chairs and tables, in exact detail.

The thing had always fascinated me. Louisa delighted in showing me any new piece she had obtained for it. Her eyes would light as she demonstrated a miniature highboy's working drawers or the cunning sliding panels in the tiny secretary.

Nearly smashing the house now brought me up with a cold start. Louisa had gone. Forever? If she abandoned her husband, he could divorce her, disgrace and leave her. He had contemplated such a step once before, and I knew it was not beyond him.

My heart chilled as I thought of the possibility of my life without her cool presence. That event would be much like the breaking of this precise little house; something precious and unique destroyed.

I swallowed hard, avoided looking at Brandon, and went away.