Hanover Square Affair, The (3 page)

Dueling had been punishable by death in the army, but I’d cheerfully risked my career and my very life meeting the colonel at dawn in the company of my seconds. The duel was never completed, because the colonel had turned coward and begged pardon at the last minute. Louisa had been furious with me. Brandon, who’d been absent at the time, had scolded me for my impetuousness, all the while giving me looks of mixed envy and admiration. I hadn’t known then about the anger smoldering deep within him. The fact that I, rather than he, had defended the honor of his wife had grated on him for a very long time. It still did.

The sitting room door opened and a maid rustled in. She stopped short and stared at me. Wisps of mouse brown hair stuck out from under her mobcap, and her eyes were small and dark.

“Who are you?” she blurted.

I found her rudeness irritating, but perhaps Mr. Horne had sent her down to query me, since I’d arrived without invitation, a similar act of rudeness.

“Captain Gabriel Lacey,” I said. “Here to see Mr. Horne.”

She moved close to me. “You’ve come from Mr. Denis, then?”

Before I could decide how to answer this, she stood on tiptoe and put her lips to my ear. “It’s all right. Safer this way, ain’t it? I know all about it. But I don’t say nothing.”

Her breath smelled of onions. She took a step back and looked at me expectantly.

Questions welled up inside me, beginning with who the devil was Mr. Denis, but the old retainer returned before I could speak.

“Grace,” he snapped. “Get off to the kitchens, girl.”

Grace flashed a look at me then scurried from the room.

The butler became correct again. “I beg your pardon, sir. Mr. Horne has said he will speak with you. Please follow me.”

I thanked him and obeyed, slightly surprised that Mr. Horne had agreed to see me at all.

When we emerged into the hall, Grace had disappeared. The retainer led me to the back of the house and up stairs that folded alongside the reception room. More dreary paintings adorned the garish wallpaper. I tried not to look at them as the butler led me to the first floor and down a short passage.

He opened a door into a study. The yellow carpet was the only cheerful note in this room; the furniture seemed haphazardly arranged, and was mismatched. A mahogany kneehole desk stood near a window, and a chaise longue had been placed before the fireplace. A wardrobe stood, incongruous and alone, against a wall, and a satinwood table with tapered legs reposed near the door. The wallpaper bore only one painting, this one of yet another wretched landscape.

Mr. Horne rose from behind the desk and came to me with hand extended. He was about six inches shorter than I was and possibly a decade past my own age. Gray streaked his black hair and lines creased the corners of his eyes. His nose was small and sharp, his mouth wide like a woman’s. Whatever muscle he’d ever possessed had gone to fat, though he was soft and fleshy rather than stout. He had a double chin just hidden by the stock that covered his neck.

He shook my hand, his palm slightly moist. “How do you do, Captain? I have heard of you. You are a friend of Mr. Grenville’s.”

He spoke the name with relish, and I realized now why he’d admitted me. Society had discovered this spring that Lucius Grenville had befriended me. Grenville was their darling. The man had traveled the world, he was the confidant of royalty, and he possessed exquisite taste in art, wine, food, horses, architecture, and women. He was much imitated; his acquaintance, much sought. A hostess had only to say “I’ve got Grenville,” and her gathering was certain to be a success.

Why Grenville had decided to take up my acquaintance, I did not yet understand. He was not much younger than I, but he exhibited an exuberance for life that twenty years of campaigning had drained from me. Because of him, I now received invitations to sought-after gatherings and had been placed on the guest lists of prominent hostesses. I knew the beau monde wanted only to assess me and wonder why Grenville had decided to so honor me, but I sometimes enjoyed the outings even so.

“I have his acquaintance, yes,” I answered neutrally.

“It must be all to your advantage, I imagine.”

I did not like Horne’s wispy voice, his taste in art, and his implication, but I said, “Indeed.”

His eyes almost twinkled. “Well, what can I do for you, sir, that your connection with Mr. Grenville cannot?”

I thought about the maid I’d met downstairs. “Mr. Denis,” I hazarded.

He stopped twinkling. He hesitated a long time, as if deciding whether to admit recognizing the name, then he nodded. “Of course. Of course. I understand completely. Let us sit and discuss it.”

He led me to the two chairs near the fireplace. He rang for the butler, who eventually wandered in with a bowl of punch—warmed port, sugar, water, and lemon—filled glasses for us both, then departed.

I sipped from my glass and tried not to make a face. I didn’t like the sweet addition, and the sugar couldn’t hide the fact that the port was cheap. I reasoned that Horne must have money, because only a man of wealth could afford to reside in a house in Hanover Square, but whatever he spent his money on, it was not drink or art or interior decoration.

“So you are interested in Mr. Denis,” he said once we’d made the obligatory remarks about the weather, the state of London streets, and Princess Charlotte’s upcoming wedding to Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. “Why did you think to come to me?”

I shrugged. “I took a chance.”

He chuckled, his chins bouncing against his neckpiece. “Well, well. Excellent for you that you did. If you were not vouched for by Grenville, you know, I would not speak of it. But Grenville knows all about it, doesn’t he? He is, as are you and I, a connoisseur.”

I hid my distaste, amazed that this man put himself in the same sphere as the refined Grenville.

“What is your interest, eh, Lacey? Wine? artwork? or something, shall we say, softer?”

I swallowed bile. If Jane Thornton had spent five minutes with this man, I would throttle him.

I took another sip of the disgusting punch. “Young women, you mean?”

His eyes widened. “Devil a bit, but you’re blunt, Captain. I suppose it is the army in you. Do not be blunt with Denis. He will throw you out on your ear.”

I waited, letting him watch me. “But he can help me?”

“Oh, I believe he can. I believe he can.”

So who was this Denis, I wondered. A procurer? Was he responsible for abducting Jane Thornton? Any decent gentleman would have shown me the door had I asked the question I did. But Horne sat smirking and bridling, and my temper boiled to the breaking point. I toyed with the idea of removing my sword from my walking stick and running him through then and there. Perhaps that would erase his smirk.

I willed myself to cool. I had no proof that he had Jane Thornton, not yet. But if I found it, if I found Miss Thornton in his power, I would break him.

I cleared my throat. “When?”

“I will have to write him, make an appointment, convince him to see you. He does not see just anyone, you know. Mr. Grenville’s name should speed things along.”

I shook my head. “Do not mention Grenville. I do not want to presume.” I imagined myself having to explain to Grenville why I’d used his name to gain an appointment with a procurer. I had no right to presume upon his patronage, nor did I want to drag him into something without his knowledge.

Horne looked disappointed. “Very well, but it might take longer. Though my vouching for you will help. Give me your direction, and I will write to you.”

I told him to send missives to the bakery beneath my rooms in Covent Garden. It was definitely not a fashionable address, but he did not blink.

Horne took a sip of punch, which left a red line around his lips. “You were wise to come to me. If you’d gone to Mr. Denis with your blunt ways, you would have come away the loser. He wants a delicate touch, does Mr. Denis. Who directed you to me, anyway? Was it Grenville?”

I looked him in the eye. “Jane Thornton,” I said.

The words dropped into the room like bullets into a barrel.

Horne stared at me blankly. “Who?”

“You do not know her?”

“Never heard of her. Did she send you to me?”

I sat back, doubt creeping into my anger. “There was rioting today in the square. Your front windows were broken.”

“Indeed, yes. We were in much confusion here.”

“The riot was directed at you.”

Horne raised his brows. “Do you think so? Nonsense, it could not have been personal. My political opinions are far from radical. No, it was some lunatic escaped from Bedlam stirring the crowd. My life, alas, has not been very exciting.”

“You did not know the gentleman?”

“Should I have? What are you on about?”

He seemed puzzled, in truth. My fury abated enough for me to assess my position. I realized I had only the word of the maid, Alice, as to Horne’s involvement in Jane’s abduction. Though Horne had already irritated me in every way possible, I knew I must go carefully. A man who lived in Hanover Square would have the wherewithal to bring suit against me for slander, which could ruin me completely and not help the Thorntons one bit.

“I am on about nothing,” I said. “Merely making conversation. As you observed, I am not skilled at it.”

Horne laughed again. “Indeed, you are not. Perhaps you should cultivate Mr. Grenville’s acquaintance more thoroughly, Captain. He sets an excellent example in manners.”

*** *** ***

I went home by way of another hackney. To a captain on half-pay, the shilling-a-mile fare was dear, but rain had begun to pelt down in earnest again, and I knew I’d never make it on foot without much pain.

The driver dropped me at the top of Grimpen Lane, a tiny cul-de-sac that opened from Russel Street near Covent Garden square and paralleled Bow Street. My landlady, Mrs. Beltan, who let rooms in the narrow house to me and another tenant, kept a bake shop on the ground floor. Passersby willingly made the trip to the tiny court for her yeasty breads, which went down well with a jar of ale.

At this hour, the bake shop was shut, and the windows above it were dark. The second floor was let to an actress, the pretty Marianne Simmons, who, between roles, sometimes paraded about the Covent Garden or Drury Lane theatres, looking for a protector for a fortnight or two. But she was discreet, and I rarely saw the gentlemen who took her up.

The house had been grand a century ago, with a high-ceilinged staircase that ascended one side of the house. The staircase walls had been painted with a mural of a lush landscape that rose to a soft sweep of blue overhead. Painted clouds and slightly out-of-proportion birds dotted it. Years and grime had faded the painting, and only bits of the landscape protruded through the haze, so that candlelight fell on the branch of a tree here, a shepherdess in charming yellow there.

Tonight, I did not bother to light a candle. I groped my way up in the dark, one hand on the cool wall, the other on my walking stick. I lived on the first floor, one story above the ground floor. The rooms, one in front and one behind, had once been the house’s drawing room and grand bedchamber, and the ceilings were high, a drawback in the cold of winter. Plaster arches, once carved to resemble vines twisting around pillars, crumbled a little more each day. Bits of plaster were apt to float down and land in my coffee.

When I opened the door to the front room, I found a single candle glowing there, and to my surprise, Louisa Brandon sat in my armchair.

Chapter Four

We stared at each other for the space of a moment, then I closed the door and stripped off my gloves.

“Did you not receive my message?” I asked.

She rose to her feet in a rustle of silk. “I did. But I wanted to see you.”

I came to her, and she raised her cheek for a kiss. Her light perfume touched me as I pressed my lips to her smooth skin.

I wanted to grow angry at her for presuming to seek me out, but I could not. I always felt a lightening of the heart in the presence of Louisa Brandon, despite what was between her husband and myself, and after the events of this day, my heart needed soothing.

I released her hands. She’d stirred the fire, but it burned feebly, so I knelt and shoveled more precious coal into the grate. “Does your husband know you’re here?” I asked as I worked.

“He knows I have gone to the opera.”

I gave the fire a cynical poke. “In other words, he knows you are here.”

Louisa resumed her seat with a graceful sweep of skirt. “Aloysius does not keep me, Gabriel.”

I rose from the fireplace and tried to speak lightly. “I will send for coffee if you want it, but I do not guarantee you will like it. I suspect the landlady at the Gull brews it from old boots.”

“I did not come for coffee,” she said. “I came to talk to you.”

I did not answer. I knew why she’d come.

Nineteen years before, my mentor and greatest friend, Aloysius Brandon, then a captain, had introduced me to his bride. She’d been a fresh-faced girl of twenty-one, with white blond hair and eyes of gray. Her hair was still as yellow and her eyes still as clear, but her face bore lines of grief, etched there by the loss of her three children, none of whom had lived past their first year.