A Regimental Murder (28 page)

He was wrong if he thought I would not shoot
an unarmed man. I would shoot him even if Grenville and Brandon
were too punctilious to; I'd shoot to bring him down until the
constable came to put him in chains.

Eggleston stepped into the light. His face
was white, his blue child's eyes protruding. "Lacey, you
interfering bastard, go away!"

Jack grinned. He turned and pattered along
the gallery to his lover and kissed him on the mouth. Then, his
manner still oozing friendliness, he turned back and started down
the stairs.

"Go away, all of you!" Eggleston shouted
desperately.

Jack kept plodding toward us. Brandon came
forward to meet him, pistol ready, despite my signaling for him to
stay back. If he got in my way, I could not fire at Sharp.

Behind me Grenville quivered with rage. "If
we rush the bastard-- "

"Eggleston will shoot us," I said. "And Sharp
probably has a knife up his sleeve."

Brandon reached him. "I am arresting you,
sir," he said to Sharp in stentorian tones. "For the deaths of
Colonel Roehampton Westin, Lord Breckenridge, and Mr. Kenneth
Spencer."

Brandon carried power in his voice. So he had
sounded in the days when he'd commanded an unruly band of cavalry
troops and kept them all alive. For a moment Jack Sharp gazed at
him in astonished apprehension, the face of a clever pickpocket
who'd at last been nicked. Then he moved.

Everything happened very fast. Ringing
footsteps sounded without, and a man burst through the door. John
Spencer.

Before I could be startled at his sudden
appearance, or wonder that he'd followed us here, he ran at Jack
Sharp, howling murder, his face a mask of rage and grief.

A blade flashed in Sharp's hand. Brandon
grabbed Spencer, stopping him just before he reached Sharp.
Eggleston aimed his pistol at the both of them.

I saw this in a split second before I was
racing up the stairs to Eggleston. Sharp pain flashed through my
leg, then went numb. I hurled myself at Eggleston, even as he
fired.

The shot went wide. The ball struck the chain
of the heavy iron chandelier, shattering the links. Below, Brandon
hurled Spencer out of the way, just as the iron wheel of the
chandelier crashed down.

Eggleston screamed. Grenville, swearing hard,
ran forward. John Spencer, panting, turned back in horror.

Brandon lay facedown beneath the chandelier,
the arc of iron pinning him. The legs of Jack Sharp protruded from
the other side of the massive thing, and he lay still beneath it,
his face a mass of blood.

Eggleston screamed again. He came at me,
fists waving. I ducked a blow and punched him full in the face. He
went down, crying and cursing. I hit him again, and he collapsed to
his hands and knees to the smooth floorboards.

I wrested the pistol from him, searched his
pockets for any other weapon, then seized him by the collar and
marched him down the stairs. The numbness in my leg wore off on a
sudden, and the pain returned with head-spinning fervor.

"Lacey," Grenville said. He was crouching by
the fallen chandelier, his hand on Brandon's shoulder.

I dropped Eggleston to the floor. He folded
up into a ball and wept.

"Sharp is dead," Grenville told me.

"Brandon," I said hoarsely.

"Still alive. But this damn thing is heavy. I
fear that . . ."

He did not finish the thought, and I did not
want him to. The iron wheel lay across Brandon's lower back. The
chandelier could have crushed his legs, or the organs in his body.
I might be facing Louisa tonight, explaining why I had killed her
husband.

John Spencer, still breathing hard, took hold
of one side of the chandelier. I, too, locked my grip around the
cold iron wheel, my hands shaking. Brandon lay utterly still.

Spencer and I strained to lift the thing.
While we held the chandelier raised, faces reddening, Grenville
grabbed Brandon under the arms and dragged him from beneath.

We rolled the chandelier away, exposing Jack
Sharp's crushed and dead body. Eggleston cried out and crawled to
him.

Grenville had turned Brandon over onto his
back. I sat down on the floor and gently lifted Brandon's head to
my lap.

His breathing was ragged and shallow. I
gently slapped his face, his beard stubble scraping my fingers.
"Brandon, old man," I said. "Wake up, damn you."

He did not move. His face was pasty white,
and gray lined his mouth.

"Do not dare to die on me. Louisa will never
forgive me." I patted his face again. "You know what she will say.
'Could you not take care of my husband any better than that,
Gabriel?' And then she will
look
at me. You know how she
does."

I kept babbling. Stupid, stupid-- It had been
just like him, to try to save Spencer at the expense of himself.
Never risk yourself unnecessarily,
he had once told me.
But when it is necessary--by God, go out fighting, and make
every blow count. Make your sacrifice mean something.

He had brought down a killer and saved
Spencer's life and mine and Grenville's.

Grenville's muddy buff boots, buckles coated
with grime, stopped next to me. His leg bent, and his knee in fine
lawn breeches touched the board floor. He held a pewter cup of
strong-smelling spirits. "Help me make him drink."

I raised Brandon's limp head. His hair was
graying more than I'd noticed before, white strands mixing with the
black. He'd be completely gray in another few years.

Grenville guided the goblet to Brandon's lips
and poured a few drops of liquid inside. For a moment, Brandon lay
unmoving, then his body spasmed weakly, and he coughed. Ruthlessly,
Grenville poured more brandy into his mouth. Brandon coughed again,
harder, then his eyelids moved and he groaned.

His light blue eyes remained blank for a
moment, then his gaze fixed on me, and his pupils widened.

"Oh hell," he said. His voice was little more
than a croak. "It's you."

* * * * *

Chapter Twenty-one

I feared John Spencer would kill Eggleston
before the constable arrived. The young man was beside himself with
grief. I guessed correctly that he had followed Grenville's
carriage here to Hertfordshire, as he confirmed. When I had left
him earlier that day, excited about Spinnet's letter and my
conclusions, he had grown suspicious of me and followed.

Upon arriving at this house, he had heard the
noises inside, walked around the house to see if he could discover
another way in, and had found his brother lying dead in the
garden.

"You killed him, you dung-eating son of a
bitch," he said.

Eggleston shook his head hard. "No! I killed
no one. I swear to you. Jack did it. He said Mr. Spencer was spying
upon us. And he was."

We had removed Jack's bloody body to a shed
outside, and laid Kenneth Spencer more reverently on the grass.

Brandon lay on his back on the hearth rug in
the sitting room. One of his legs had broken. My own leg ached and
throbbed, but I had not broken it, as I'd feared. I'd simply
wrenched and strained the muscles. I often forgot I could no longer
run about with impunity. I sat now in a chair near Brandon, resting
my foot on a stool. It did not help.

We had bound Eggleston's hands with rope
found in the shed and sat him on a chair. Grenville held a loaded
pistol loosely in his hands. He, too, was angry enough to use
it.

"I for one will be happy to see you hang,"
Grenville said. "For my footman, if nothing else."

Eggleston's round eyes went rounder still. "I
did not shoot him! I swear to you. It was Jack."

"You'll hang for Westin's murder," I said.
"Or Spinnet's. Or Captain Spencer's. Which would you like?"

Grenville shot me a puzzled look.
"Westin?"

My feelings of loyalty to Lydia had dimmed,
and I decided it was time for truth. "He was murdered. Stabbed in
the neck. His wife pretended he'd died accidentally, because she
feared the savagery of the newspapers."

Grenville's eyes widened. "Good lord. You do
know how to keep secrets, Lacey."

"He is ever the champion of the ladies,"
Brandon said dryly from the floor.

"I do not understand this," John Spencer
barked. "He murdered Colonel Westin?"

"Yes," I said. I eased my leg to a slightly
less painful position, gritting my teeth as I did so. "He learned
that Colonel Westin had made an appointment with you and your
brother, and feared that Westin would tell you the entire
truth--how he and Breckenridge had conspired to murder Colonel
Spinnet back in 1812 and make it look as though he had died in the
rioting at Badajoz." I looked at Eggleston. "Captain Spencer saw
you shoot Spinnet deliberately, did he not? He was so horrified, he
ran to try to stop you. So he died as well."

Eggleston stared. "How do you know this?
Westin did not tell anyone! He swore to us."

"He kept his word," I said. "Of course, you
and Breckenridge made certain of that to the last. You and he
together went to see Westin the day he died, early in the morning,
probably, say when you would be returning from a gaming hell and
Breckenridge would be up for his early ride. You either made an
appointment with Westin, or he saw you approach, but he must have
let you in himself, in his dressing gown, and taken you quietly
upstairs."

I gave him an inquiring look. Eggleston only
stared.

"You must have argued with him long," I
continued. "Perhaps he agreed to keep silent, perhaps he did not.
You must have known some secret Westin desperately did not want
revealed, but perhaps Westin had decided he would rather humiliate
himself then let you get away with murder. I imagine Breckenridge
was not satisfied, in any event. I think it was he who actually
murdered Colonel Westin. Just as he murdered Spinnet at Badajoz,
and shot Captain Spencer."

Eggleston nodded readily. "He did. He killed
Spinnet because he knew Spinnet would forever block his way to
promotion."

I gave him a hard look. "The plan was yours.
It smacks of the kind of sneaking subterfuge you would dream of.
You advised him not to challenge Spinnet directly, oh no. Instead,
take away a good man's life and hide it in the chaos of the
destruction around you. What was one more death in the Peninsula
campaign, after all?"

Eggleston put his hands to his face. "It was
not like that. We saw an opportunity. That is all."

"Which you urged Breckenridge to take. Did
you urge him on to kill Westin?"

"No, no. Breckenridge decided that himself.
Westin refused to listen to us. He vowed he would reveal all. When
he turned away, Breckenridge took out a stiletto and pressed it
right into Westin's neck. He died at once. Went down in a
heap."

"So," I continued. "You tucked him up in bed,
rejoicing that so little blood had been shed to give things away,
and let yourself out of the house."

Eggleston's throat worked. "Yes. That was
it."

I wanted to rise from the chair and kick him,
but I was too tired. My melancholia danced just beyond my
vision.

"The death of Westin must have upset you
greatly," I said. "Soldiers dying at Badajoz was one thing, but I
think you realized after Westin's death that Breckenridge was a
cold-blooded killer. You were a witness; who knew when he might
turn on you? So you sought the comfort of your lover. Jack probably
advised you to leave everything to him." I paused. "He killed
Breckenridge, did he not?"

"He did," Eggleston whispered. "To protect
me."

The knowledge that I had been right all along
comforted me little. "Sharp must have killed Breckenridge somewhere
in the garden. Perhaps you had not known he would do it right then.
You decided it best to make his death seem an accident, a riding
accident--Breckenridge was so fond of rides at ungodly hours of the
morning. I doubt you were prepared to handle the body, so Sharp did
it all, am I right? He must have, because you would not have made
the mistakes he did. He saddled Breckenridge's horse, using the
saddle I'd left, not realizing that a cavalryman who took the
trouble to travel with his own saddle would certainly use it. He
put my coat on Breckenridge's body . . ." I paused. "I confess, I
do not know why he should, or why Breckenridge was in shirtsleeves
at all."

Eggleston flinched. "They were boxing. In the
garden. Sharp offered to show Breckenridge exactly how he'd been
felled by that farmer's lad. Breckenridge took off his coat." He
swallowed. "I could not find it in the dark."

Grenville sucked in a breath. "Good lord. So
Sharp must have found Lacey's coat and put it on him. He reasoned
one gentleman's coat was as good as another."

"I thought it so amusing," Eggleston said.
"Breckenridge was so careful about his clothes. And to be caught
dead in a shabby coat several years out of date . . . " He wheezed
a little and tears leaked from his eyes. "I laughed so."

I did not find it in the least amusing. The
sniveling little twit deserved to have John Spencer lay him
out.

Grenville still looked puzzled. "But Major
Connaught," he said. "He died peacefully. Or seemed to."

Eggleston shook his head fervently. "We had
nothing to do with that. He really did die in his sleep. That was a
bit of luck." He eyed us with the smugness of one who was at least
innocent of
something
.

"No," I corrected softly. "Your luck changed
when he died. His death renewed my interest in deciphering the
truth. And I found it. Colonel Spinnet was the key."

John Spencer cleared his throat. His eyes
were red with grief, his hair tangled where he'd raked it. "What
about my brother? Why did you kill him?"

Eggleston met his gaze with something like
defiance. "He was spying on us," he repeated.