A Regimental Murder (7 page)

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."