A Regimental Murder (6 page)

I did not, overall, learn much from them.
They concurred that Colonel Westin had gone to bed at half past
eleven on the night of the tenth of July and had been found dead in
his bed the next morning at ten o'clock. No one had entered the
house, as far as they knew, all night, though they admitted that
between the hours of one in the morning and five, they would have
all been asleep. No one had come in via the scullery early the next
morning, save the coal man, but they all knew him and he had not
lingered.

I thanked them for their time, a bit
depressed at their lack of information, and left the servants’
hall.

When I emerged onto the ground floor, I
collided with a spare, blond gentleman just hurrying in through the
front door.

He stopped short and stared at me. I waited
for him to beg my pardon, to explain what the devil he was doing
walking into the Westin house unannounced, but he merely raised his
well-groomed brows, and looked me over from head to foot. Annoyed
at his impudence, I did the same.

The gentleman was younger than I, but not by
much, possibly in his early thirties at the least. His blond hair
was pomaded into place, but so artfully that it appeared to wave
naturally. Women probably found him handsome. His face held the
sculpted perfection of a Greek statue, and was just as alabaster.
He could be described as beautiful; only a squarishness to his jaw
saved him from a womanly appearance.

Lydia emerged on the landing above. She
gripped the rail with a white hand.

"Captain," she said, "May I present Mr.
Allandale. Mr. Allandale, Captain Lacey."

The understanding fiance. He regarded me
coolly. "Who is he, mother-in-law?"

"He was in the army with Colonel Westin,"
Lydia replied, stretching the truth a little. "I have asked him to
look into the matter of Captain Spencer."

"I see," Mr. Allandale answered, still
looking at me.

"He is also a friend of Mr. Grenville," Lydia
continued.

Mr. Allandale’s lip suddenly uncurled, and
his expression changed to instant politeness. "Ah yes. Captain
Lacey. I have heard your name." He held out his hand. "You must
take supper with us one day soon. A week Monday?"

Lydia remained silent. I spoke some polite,
noncommittal words, and shook his offered hand.

Allandale nodded as though all were settled.
"We will stay quiet, because of the colonel’s death you know. But I
would be glad to make your acquaintance. Good morning,
Captain."

It was a dismissal. I bowed to Lydia, who
inclined her head and said nothing. Allandale saw me out the door,
smiling and friendly all the way, but his eyes were watchful.

*** *** ***

I returned to Grimpen Lane and wrote to
Grenville, telling him I had come upon something interesting. I
said nothing more than that, hoping to pique his curiosity. I had
not spoken to Grenville in at least a month, and I did not know if
he had even remained in town, nor if he would take offense at the
presumption that he would help me the instant I asked. But I had to
risk it.

I boldly wrote to Lady Aline Carrington,
asking whether she knew of Louisa's whereabouts. Brandon had told
me that Lady Aline had claimed to know nothing, but what Lady Aline
would tell Brandon and what she would tell me was bound to be
different. Lady Aline did not much like Colonel Brandon.

But it worried me that Louisa had not
contacted me, even with a brief letter to assure me she was well.
The most logical thing to assume was that Brandon had annoyed her
in some way, and she had simply gone away to think things over, as
he'd said, undisturbed. I could not discount, however, the
possibility that she had been spirited away and the note sent as a
blind. I knew the second speculation was not as far-fetched as it
sounded. London abounded with opportunists waiting to seize a lady
for a number of purposes. I'd heard of lone women robbed of all
they had, and then held for ransom. Even a lady of good standing
could be lured into a trap by someone pathetically requesting
assistance. Once the generous lady entered the house, she could be
seized, robbed, or worse.

I seriously doubted that Louisa would have
gone out alone to some dire part of London. She was brave, but not
foolish. All of which pointed toward the first scenario--she'd left
to think something over.

But though I tried to make myself believe
that the first speculation was more likely, the vision formed in my
mind of Louisa lost, beaten, robbed, insensible, her golden hair
lying in an arc beneath her limp, pale body. The vision would not
release me.

I toyed with the idea of persuading Milton
Pomeroy, the Bow Street Runner, to, as a favor to me, keep an eye
out for Louisa. Runners, in addition to solving crimes--often they
were hired by the victims of those crimes--also helped track
missing persons. Those hiring them offered a reward, and the
Runner, if he found the criminal and obtained a conviction or found
the missing person, reaped it.

I did not have the means to offer a reward,
but I might convince Pomeroy, who was not as thick as he pretended
to be, to help me. But I disliked revealing what might be Louisa's
personal quarrel with Brandon, did not like to set the tenacious
Pomeroy on her.

I posted my letters then went to Covent
Garden market to purchase the necessities of life, including more
candles, made easier because my half-pay packet had been recently
released to my bank. I had paid Mrs. Beltan for my rooms the
previous day, but I had to make what little was left last for
another quarter.

Many officers came from wealthy
families--even second or third sons might have a generous
allowance--and their army pay was a secondary income. Then there
were officers like me, gentlemen, but destitute. My father had been
furious with me when I'd run off with the army, following Brandon,
who was then a captain, to the 35th Light Dragoons. My father had
cut me off from whatever funds he possibly could.

Which was laughable to me, because my father
had already managed to squander away most of the Lacey money before
I even reached my majority. He had disgraced himself with debts and
spent his days scrambling to pay them. He'd sold off every scrap of
land that was not entailed, and allowed the house we lived in to
fall into rack and ruin. I'd gone to school only because my mother,
before her death, had put money in trust for my education, a trust
so firmly set with traps that my father had not been able to touch
the money, no matter how he'd tried.

After I'd arrived on the Peninsula, my
father, who had celebrated my desertion by going into yet more
debt, went into a decline, and died the day I was promoted from
lieutenant to captain, the morning after the bloody battle at
Talavera.

The creditors had stripped the house of
everything before they'd at last declared the debts satisfied.
Nothing was left of the estate now except the house, which was
entailed to the son I doubted I would ever have. I could let the
house, but either I or a zealous tenant would have to spend an
enormous amount of money to repair it and make it livable. So far,
I had not found that zealous tenant. So it sat, forlorn in its
corner of England, waiting for the last Lacey male to come
home.

Absorbed in these thoughts, I wandered
through Covent Garden market. Golden peaches like pieces of
sunshine mounded on stalls, and carts overflowed with bright greens
from fields beyond London. The sky held clouds, some of them still
gray with last night's rain, but Covent Garden shimmered with an
air of festivity. The summer day was warm, riots of blue, red, and
gold flowers overflowed baskets, women in cool linen haggled prices
like the best of fishwives, game girls in bright reds and blues and
greens sashayed about, darting into dark corners with gentlemen or
hiding behind carts when a watchman strolled by.

I touched a peach, letting my fingers find
joy in its downy softness. I paid the seller with a coin as bright
as the fruit and bit into the peach's delight.

As I savored the fruit, sweet as a summer
day, I thought again of Lydia Westin.

Her husband, who had been headed for disgrace
and notoriety, was now conveniently dead. Lydia's foremost thought
was to clear his name and save her daughter and herself from the
stain of it, and to punish those she held responsible. She claimed
she wanted justice, but I'd seen the look in her eyes, heard the
note of fury in her voice. What she wanted was revenge.

I wondered anew if she had loved her husband.
I did not believe I had witnessed a widow's grief at losing her
heart mate; rather, I had seen wounded pride and great
determination. She wanted her husband's name respected, but the
relief she had exhibited when she spoke of his death had been
true.

I also realized I felt more than mere
curiosity, even my form of curiosity, which liked to pick apart
events to find their cause or their source. Lydia Westin was deeply
beautiful, and that beauty, even marred with dirt and blood and
fear, struck a responsive chord within me. I recognized that, and I
recognized the danger.

Behind her agitation lay a woman of profound
serenity, as calm and clear as an unruffled lake. A man could close
his eyes and lose himself in that beauty.

Wrapped in these thoughts, I emerged into
crowded Russel Street and halted when a carriage door was nearly
flung open in my face. The stopped carriage was opulent, with
varnished wood inlay outlining the doors and windows. The wheels
were picked out in gold, which matched the trim of the horses'
harness. The coachman wore red livery with a brush in his hat; the
footman who leapt from his perch and reached in for the passenger
was dressed in blue satin.

I had seen the carriage before. Had ridden in
it--once. And I was acquainted with the man who descended from it
not a foot in front of me.

He saw me, and stopped. A fairly young man,
he was lean of build, though as tall as I. His face might have been
called handsome, but his blue eyes were cold as the depths of the
Thames.

His name was James Denis. I had met him in
the spring, and I loathed him. What he thought of me, I had no
idea, for his habitually cool eyes betrayed nothing. They were
soulless eyes, eyes of a man who cared for nothing, and no one.

James Denis procured things for people, for
wealthy men who wanted something unobtainable through ordinary
means. They made an appointment with Denis at his elegant Curzon
Street house, and the item was made available to them for a high
fee. Once, Lucius Grenville had hired him to help a French
aristocrat recover a family painting that Napoleon had
commandeered. Denis and his associates had managed to purloin that
painting from under the emperor's nose. How, Grenville had declined
to ask, and had advised me to do the same. Grenville thought it
likely that much of the Prince of Wales's lavish collections of art
had been obtained by James Denis.

Denis had not been guilty of the human
trafficking I'd first suspected him of, but that fact did not
relieve my qualms about him. The last time we'd met, he'd coolly
dispatched a servant who'd had a hand in the murder of a young
girl--not because of the heinous crime, but because the servant had
acted without Denis's permission.

I had been enraged with the servant in
question, and I had not tried to stop Denis meting out his own
style of justice. Denis had afterward claimed that I owed him a
favor. I had no intention of ever letting him call it in.

Now the two of us stared at one another in
tense silence. His eyes glittered, cold and dispassionate. I did
not bother to hide my dislike.

We regarded one another for a long moment,
then he ever so slightly tilted his head in the ghost of a nod.

I cut him dead. Turning my back, I marched
back across the street, my stick ringing on the pavement. A cart
swerved to miss me, but I made it to the opposite side without
mishap.

I longed to look back to see how he took my
insult, but that would have ruined the impact of the cut direct. I
strode on toward Grimpen Lane, the remains of the peach dangling
from my nerveless fingers.

*** *** ***

I returned to my rooms, tired and churning
with emotions. I had not slept at all the night before, so I locked
my door, stripped off my clothes, and lay on the sheets Lydia
Westin had occupied. Her perfume lingered on them.

The day was sweltering, and I thought to lie
awake contemplating all Lydia had told me. I scrubbed at my face,
feeling prickly beard beneath my palms. Lydia had great faith in
me. One did not lightly accuse a lordship of a crime. They could
stand trial and be hanged, just like the rest of us, but one would
have a hard fight on one's hands to get them to trial at all. These
gentlemen and their families would never allow me, a nobody, to
topple them, and well I knew it.

I did not lie awake as I'd expected. A few
moments after I stretched upon the bed, I sank into slumber, my
lack of sleep finally punishing me. I woke to the sun low in the
west and someone banging on my outer door.

* * * * *

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.