A Regimental Murder

by Jennifer Ashley

  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."

  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.

  She left the room with me and saw me to the front door. It was all I could do not to linger, not to hold her hand longer than was proper when I said good-bye.

  As I left, William nodded to me. "Good luck, sir," he wh
ispered. I would need it.

  *** *** ***

  In the morning, I composed a letter to Lydia to thank her. I had thought to pen it then dress and wait for Grenville, but two hours later, I had to hastily sign the seventh draft and shrug into my coat as a knock sounded at my door.

  It should have been simple to tell her that I appreciated her letting me look through her husband's correspondence and that I would keep her informed of my inquiries in Kent. Such a note should have taken ten minutes to write, and the ink should have long since dried.

  But I could not get the words right, no matter how often I tried. My hand would tremble over the paper, a drop of black ink would tumble from the nib onto the white, and I would just stop myself from writing, When may I see you again?

  The knock startled me and ink blotted the paper yet again. I muttered colorful curses as I swiftly scribbled my name, sanded the page, and rose to open the door.

  The large man who filled the doorway was not Grenville's footman. He was tall and wide and hard-eyed, and I'd seen him before, inside the subdued and richly appointed library of James Denis.

  "What do you want?" I asked unceremoniously.

  "Mr. Denis would like a word, sir."

  I had suspected the man had not come to invite me to dance. "Mr. Denis can go to the devil."

  His face darkened. I imagined Denis had given the man instructions to bring me, willing or no. Once upon a time, Denis's minions had lured me into a stupid trap, to teach me a lesson, to cow me, to show me my place. I had never been one for keeping to my place.

  "Mr. Denis wants only to speak to you. He gives his word."

  I had no idea what the word of James Denis was worth. Likely, he would keep it, at least when it suited him, but I was not moved.

  "He is too late. I am leaving London on the moment."

  The man glared at me. I knew he did not want to return to Denis empty-handed, but that was not my concern.

  "Sir?" A blond head looked over the beefy man's shoulder, not an easy feat, but one that Grenville's footman, Bartholomew, could perform. Grenville had the best in footmen, two very tall, very blond, Teutonic-looking brothers who possessed intelligence as well as strength. I suspected the two brothers lived a far more comfortable and civilized life than I did.