A Regimental Murder (8 page)

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.

* * * * *

Chapter Six

Grenville wrote to me the next morning that
he had succeeded in discovering a manner in which to slip me into
aristocratic society. Lady Mary Fortescue, sister of Lord
Fortescue, a minor baron, had invited Grenville to the house she
shared with her brother at Astley Close, in Kent, where both
Breckenridge and Eggleston were to stay. Grenville had had no
trouble persuading the lady to allow him to bring me down with
him.

I was not surprised. Any house party that
contained Grenville would likely be the most fashionable of the
summer. Other hostesses would gnash their teeth in envy. We would
leave on the morrow.

I replied that I would gladly accompany him.
In happier times as a lad--which meant whenever my father was away
or I visited a mate from school--I had reveled in the country. I
remembered long, rambling walks through orchards and over gentle
hills, fishing barefoot in the streams between grassy banks,
following a buxom maid who would entice me with her smile before
her father ran me off with a stout plank.

Retrospect made it more idyllic than it had
been, but even so, the English country evoked the happiest memories
of my life. I looked forward to sampling it again, even if I would
be cross-questioning two former army officers, and even if a buxom
maid's offerings would pale beside the cool, elegant beauty of
Lydia Westin.

I also received a reply to the letter I'd
penned to Lady Aline Carrington. In it she told me that she knew
perfectly well where Louisa was, but had no intention of telling
me. She said that Louisa was fine and well and that I should leave
her the devil alone.

I felt a little better upon reading this.
Lady Aline was a fifty-year-old spinster, a firm disciple of Mary
Wollstonecraft and who believed women should involve themselves in
politics and champion artists and writers. She had never married,
but she had many male friends--friends only; she preferred a good
gossip to any other activity. She had taken Louisa under her wing,
and I knew she would protect her like the fiercest mastiff. Though
it frustrated me not to know where Louisa was, at least I was
reassured that she was in no danger. If Lady Aline was looking
after her, all would be well. Probably.

I wrote a polite note back thanking her then
wrote to Lydia, asking leave to call and look through her husband's
papers. She granted permission by return messenger. I gathered
shillings to pay for a hackney and set off for Grosvenor
Street.

William the footman met me at the door.
Yesterday he'd watched me in cool suspicion; today, he readily
ushered me into the house and showed me into Colonel Westin's study
on the first floor.

I did not see Lydia at all, to my
disappointment, but William gave me the keys to Colonel Westin's
desk and left me to it.

I settled myself and for the next few hours
studied the recent life of Colonel Roehampton Westin. I learned two
things about him that day. First, the colonel had been a very
meticulous and careful man, noting in his diary the routines of a
cavalry officer, most of which were quite familiar to me. Second,
he had borne affection for his wife, but seemed to have regarded
her as a comfortable family partner, not as a lover. His letters
were warm, but never touched upon intimacy.

He spoke only once of the Badajoz event.

"I was sickened," he wrote, "as I have never
been before, even through the carnage I have seen since I began
soldiering. Spinnet was shot, poor fellow, in the face, by a
marauder in an English uniform. Breckenridge raised a toast to him,
which makes him a hypocrite; they had never liked one another."

After Badajoz, Westin's mood became black,
and the letters for the remainder of 1812 were depressed. "I find
home and peace so far from me in these times. Why have I traded
walks through the dusk over the farms for this slaughter of men
like cattle?"

He grew more hopeful later, as Wellesley and
the English army began to push the French from Spain, but his
letters still held formality: "Millar sends his respects. It is
hard for him, poor fellow, to be far from home--and he is French,
of course, which makes him the butt of many cruelties, though I try
to prevent them. You did right not to open the Berkshire house this
year. It is too much time and expense for only a few weeks. Give
dear Chloe my warmest regards and my letter for her enclosed."

I sat back when I'd finished and neatly piled
the letters together. From them I had seen that Westin had been an
ordinary man caught up in a war he did not like, in a profession he
had taken to satisfy the pride of his father and grandfather.
Nowhere did I a find a man who would dream of drinking himself into
a frenzy and gleefully rushing about a fallen city looting homes
and raping its inhabitants. Unless he had painted a very misleading
portrait in these letters to his wife, I had to agree with Lydia.
It was unlikely that Westin had murdered Captain Spencer in a fit
of drunken madness.

Lydia herself entered the room as I laid the
letters back in the desk where I'd found them. I sensed her
presence before I looked up, or perhaps her faint perfume had
alerted me.

Rest and food had erased the ravages of the
last few days, though she was still pale, and her eyes bore smudges
like bruises beneath them. She wore a black silk gown trimmed with
dark gray piping, and a white widow's cap fixed to her carefully
curled hair. Against this monotone, her blue eyes stood out like
patches of sky on a cloud-filled day.

"Have you found anything?" she asked.

I rose to my feet. She motioned me to sit
again, but I remained standing, manners beaten into me long ago
winning out.

"Only what you told me I would find. The
letters of a moral, conscientious man who abhorred violence. He
makes no mention of Captain Spencer, by name or otherwise."

She pressed her slim hands together. "I do
wish he had confided in me."

I mused. "Who
would
he have confided
in? A friend, a colleague? Millar, perhaps?"

She shook her head. "He was not one for
confidences. Or even for conversation, for that matter. At least
not with me." She laughed a little.

Not every man made a friend of his wife. I
had not, to my own shame. I had always found it easy and natural to
speak to Louisa Brandon on almost any subject, but speaking to my
own wife had been most awkward. I had tried, but Carlotta had only
regarded my speeches with glazed-eyed boredom if not
trepidation.

"I dislike to ask this," I began. "Do you
know if your husband had a mistress?"

I waited for the icy scorn that she did so
well, but she did not look offended. "Because he might have
confided in her?" She shook her head. "I have not seen any hint of
one. But then, Roe was not a man who enjoyed pleasures of the
flesh. He believed in moderation in all things."

I began to grow irritated with the man. He
had been married to one of the loveliest women I'd encountered in
my lifetime, and by all accounts had taken little interest in her.
He had been either mad or blind.

But Lydia championed him. Perhaps he'd had
some redeeming quality after all.