A Regimental Murder

by Ashley Gardner

  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.

  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.

  Grenvil
le 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."