alone.'
'I'd rather go. I am damned curious. Or do you think they'd be intimidated to have Lucius Grenville pay them a visit?'
I snorted. 'They have probably never heard of you.'
Grenville looked affronted, then he smiled. 'Touche. You pay the call, and I'll follow along as an anonymous gentleman.'
I studied the fire, not answering. Grenville waited, and I sensed his impatience. I looked up to find his dark eyes upon me and something in them that had lost friendliness.
'Very well,' I said. 'Let us journey to Hampstead.'
After Grenville left me, I let the fire die down. He'd stoked it with at least a week's supply of coal, with the zeal of a man who never had to think about the cost of fuel.
I sat in the wing chair he'd vacated and let my hands fall limply over the sides. I sensed melancholia, black, menacing, and watching, start to creep over me. I closed my eyes and willed it away. When it struck me, it often laid me abed for days, rendering me unable to move or eat. But I needed all my faculties at the moment. Jane Thornton was still missing, perhaps in danger, and I wanted to find her. I could give in to despair after that.
The murderer had cheated me out of throttling the whereabouts of Jane from Horne's throat. But the butler, Bremer, must know, or Grace, the maid. They were the only ones allowed to wait on the two girls, and a man could hardly spirit away one young woman and hide another without the help of his butler, valet, or coachman.
Pomeroy would bully most of the information out of Bremer, but I still wanted a go at the spindly butler. Pomeroy would not know the right questions to ask. I'd lost my temper today, but I'd get Bremer in my hands again and interrogate him coldly. He had to know something.
The valet was another matter. I would wait until Pomeroy tracked down the valet-which he would-then ask the man pointed questions. Grenville was right when he'd commented that the valet could very well have let himself into the house, slain his master, then let himself out again, without the other servants seeing him. He'd know who was likely to be where in the house, and perhaps he had been disgusted by Horne's proclivities. Or perhaps he'd been jealous and wanted Jane or Aimee for himself. Or perhaps the murder had nothing to do with Jane and Aimee whatsoever.
Someone knocked on my door, making my head throb with each rap. Only one person would think to pound on my door so late.
I called out, 'Go away, Marianne. I don't have any candles to spare.'
This was met with silence. Usually Marianne would make foul remarks about my stinginess and enter anyway.
The knock did not sound again. I supposed I should rise and see whether anyone stood on the stairs beyond the door, but I did not have the strength.
The handle moved, and the door swung open. Janet Clarke stood on my threshold.
The strength returned to my limbs in a rush. I was out of the chair and halfway across the room before she could step inside.
She smiled at me. 'Hello, my dear old lad.'
Chapter Ten
I caught Janet's hands and more or less dragged her inside. She drew a breath to speak, but I gathered her against me and held her in a crushing embrace. I had no idea whether she'd come to speak to me, or to say good- bye, or to talk over old times, but for that instant I needed her as she was, needed her to take me to the past where I'd been, for a brief moment, happy.
Janet raised her face from my shoulder. Her hair was mussed and her cheeks were flushed, but she still smiled. 'That happy to see me, are you?'
I said hoarsely, 'Yes.'
She straightened the lapels of my coat. 'Then I am glad I asked Mrs. Brandon for your direction. She was very gracious.'
I smoothed Janet's hair. I had no right at all to hold her like this, to touch her, but I somehow could not let go. 'Mrs. Brandon is always gracious.'
'She told me about your injury. It hurts you, does it not?'
'The break never healed properly, but if I take care, it doesn't pain me too much.'
Janet slid from my grasp and took a step back, looking at me with a critical eye. 'I don't mean that. I was remembering the night I took ill and nothing would comfort me but coffee. You searched all over camp for some, and it was raining so hard I thought the sky would come down. You sprinted through the rain, holding that packet of coffee under your coat as though it were the most precious gold. I've never seen a man run so fast in all my life. But you did it, and you laughed. Someone took that liveliness away from you.' She touched the hair at my temple. 'Nor was this gray here when we parted.'
'I was not an old man then.'
Janet sat down on one of my straight-backed chairs, lacing her fingers. 'You'd had better start telling me that story, if it's so long.'
I sat in the chair facing hers. I stared at the flames on my hearth for a few moments, while I decided what to tell her.
In the end, most of it came out of me. I told her of the cold morning that Brandon and I had met one another with pistols drawn, until Louisa and several other officers from our regiment had persuaded us to settle our differences and shake hands. I'd thought the matter finished with, even if the topic of our falling out remained uncomfortable, and then had come Brandon's betrayal. I told her of the mission he'd sent me on, never meaning for me to return, glossing over our decision to leave the army behind to avoid disgracing ourselves, Louisa, or the regiment.
When I'd finished, I sat silently, as bereft as I'd been the day I'd left Spain to return to England. I made to smooth my damp hair and saw that my fingers trembled.
Janet reached across the space between us and caught my hand. 'And what do you do now?'
I smiled. 'Very little.'
'Colonel Brandon ought to help you. He ought to find you a proper job.'
I shrugged. 'He tries hard to pretend nothing ever happened.'
Her eyes glowed with anger. 'You always told me how he was like a father to you, or a brother. Your years together should count for something.'
'It is difficult for some to acknowledge a mistake.'
Her face softened. 'Oh, Gabriel. And you love him enough to let him do it.'
She was wrong. I hated him. He had taken things from me, and I would not easily forgive him.
My anger must have shown on my face, because Janet squeezed my hand. 'I'll not press you. You were always one for not knowing your own heart.'
'You don't think so?'
Her brown eyes twinkled. 'No, my lad, I do not. You have honor and duty and love all mixed up in that head of yours. That's why I'm so fond of you.'
I leaned forward and touched her face. 'And I am fond of you, because you are not afraid of the truth.'
'I am sometimes. Everyone is.'
We shared a look. A thump sounded upstairs, as though Marianne had dropped something to the floor. A few flakes of plaster wisped down and settled on Janet's hair.
'You have not told me your story,' I said. 'What happened to you after I sent you off with my smitten lieutenant?'
She smiled. 'Your smitten lieutenant was a perfect gentleman. He only made three or four propositions and took it well when I turned him down.'
'Poor fellow.'
