But no one else had called on Horne that day. I was back to nothing. Perhaps the wretched Bremer had murdered his master after all. Or the cook had, because Horne hadn't sufficiently appreciated her sweetmeats. Or Hetty had in a fit of zealous righteousness. Or the frail Aimee had, then tied herself up and locked herself in the cupboard from the outside, all the while managing not to get a drop of blood on herself.
I seized my notes from the writing table and flung them into the fire. All my efforts had produced nothing. Grenville was still pursuing the question of Charlotte Morrison in Somerset, while I blundered about London to no avail. My leg ached, I'd spent a fortune on hackney coaches, and I'd done nothing useful.
No, Janet had found me useful. She'd amused herself with me while waiting to run off to Surrey with her new protector.
I realized suddenly that Marianne, of all people, had been right. Janet had always latched herself on to those who could help her most. She'd fixed her hold on me when she'd been reduced to promising her favors to the winner of a card game. She'd fixed on her sister's neighbor, Mr. Clarke, after her sister had died. She had fixed on Foster now that he was in a position to make her comfortable once more.
My anger spun around and settled deep inside me. For the first time in my life, I contemplated killing a man in cold blood. James Denis would never be touched by conventional justice. He was too careful, and even the Bow Street Runners were afraid of him. Pomeroy had compared my bearding Denis in his den to charging a hill full of artillery. Perhaps he'd been right.
I'd charged that hill because if I hadn't, the battle would have been lost and many would have died. The French had gambled all on that battery of guns. My sergeants had almost refused to give the order, but I had bullied them down. And I'd been right. The guns were trained to blast the squares of infantrymen and rifles below; they'd not anticipated a cavalry charge on their flank. Straight up that hill we'd gone, and captured the guns before they'd been able to turn them around.
Would not killing James Denis be the same thing? I could make another appointment with him, take a primed pistol in my coat, and shoot him across that empty desk of his. Or I could wait until he was returning home from an outing, open the carriage door, and shoot him then and there. Jane Thornton would be avenged, and London rid of a cold-blooded menace.
I would no doubt lose my own life in the process. I had noted the alertness of Denis's bodyguards and knew they were well paid to stop hotheads like me. But what did I have to lose? The society I lived in viewed any physical blemish with horror, and here I was, a lame man half out of my mind with melancholia, trying to be accepted as a gentleman on that society's terms. I never would or could. I saw for myself days and nights spent in melancholia, or in trying to forget I had no life to speak of. Who would regret my leaving it?
Louisa might.
Louisa. I repeated her name silently, clinging to it to bring me back from black despair. Louisa cared. Her caring had been the only thing that had kept me alive after her husband had done his best to kill me. I needed to see her.
I'd received another letter from her today about her damned supper party with the admonition that I attend. I would have to disappoint her. I was in no mood to make inane small talk at a gathering that would include her husband. I contemplated rushing out and shooting Denis at once, so as to have an excuse to avoid Louisa's dinner.
The joke relieved neither black humor nor my need to speak to her. I left my rooms and walked to Covent Garden theatre on the chance Louisa had attended tonight, but I did not see the Brandon carriage among those milling nearby. I did not see Nance either. I cringed at the thought of journeying to the Brandon house in Mayfair and refused to dash about town looking for her.
In the end, I paid a visit to the Thorntons, and I found Louisa there.
'I thought you'd be deep in whist at Lady Aline's,' I said, sitting down in the Thorntons' bare front parlor. Alice returned to a footstool before Mrs. Thornton, pale and worn, who was nodding off over a skein of wool.
'I wasn't in the mood for cards tonight,' Louisa answered.
The red and blue and gold wool she was winding made bright splashes on her brown cotton gown. Her gray eyes and the thin bandeau winding through her hair were her only adornments tonight.
'How is Mr. Thornton?' I asked.
Alice glanced at me. 'The same, sir.'
I knew then I should not have come. Looking at them only made my heart harder. I caught Louisa's cool hand.
'Talk to me.'
She looked up, frowning, but what she saw in my face made her still. She'd known me for a long time, and she knew what I was capable of.
She gently pushed my hand away, and then she began to talk of things small and unimportant. I closed my eyes and let her voice trickle through my anger, dissolving my despair, loosening the knot in my heart. I remained there while she and Alice spoke of the small things that made up everyday life, until I was able to trust myself to return alone to my rooms and so to bed.
I felt slightly better the next morning. The post brought me a letter from Grenville saying he was starting home at once and that Somerset had proved interesting. He did not elaborate.
I tossed his letter aside and opened my reply from Master Philip Preston of number 23, Hanover Square. I'd written him the previous day before I'd set out for Denis's, asking formally for an appointment. He'd answered:
Dear Captain Lacey: I received your letter and thought it frightfully decent of you to write. I've been laid up since the end of Michaelmas term, and they let me see no one, but if you'd call at one o'clock today, I will ensure that you are admitted. I know you have been investigating the murder next door, because I've watched you out the window. You also faced the cavalrymen who quelled the rioters, by yourself, which I thought very brave. I'd much like to meet you and talk about the murder. Your respectful servant, Philip Preston.
The slanted juvenile handwriting and the scattered ink blots made me smile a little. I tucked the letter into my pocket.
At one, I emerged from a hackney in Hanover Square. The weather had turned, and a hint of May and warmer spring lay on the breeze that broke the clouds. May would also bring the wedding of the Prince Regent's daughter, Charlotte, to her Prince Leopold. The festivities were already the talk of London. After that, June would arrive with its long days of light. I looked forward to summer, though I knew it would be gone all too soon. The dreariness of most of the year did my melancholia little good.
I knocked at number 23, managing to avoid looking at number 22. A butler, who might have been cast from the same mold as that of number 21, answered the door. He began to tell me that Mr. Preston was out, but I handed him my card and told him my appointment was with the young master.
An indulgent look touched his face that made him almost human. 'Of course, sir. Please follow me.'
Chapter Nineteen
The butler led me through an echoing, elegantly furnished house with many pseudo-Greek pilasters and Doric columns and to the upper floors. At the end of one hall, he stopped, knocked, and opened the door when a young voice bade us enter.
The room behind the double doors was stifling. A fire roared high on the hearth and the windows were shut tight. Books littered the room, as did papers, broken pens, the remains of a microscope, and various other scientific-looking instruments.
Philip Preston himself hopped up from a divan. He was a tall, spindly lad of about fourteen, and his voice had already dropped from childish shrill to pre-manly baritone. I couldn't tell if his thinness came from his illness, or if he simply hadn't grown into the fullness of his body. He moved jerkily, as though someone controlled him with strings, and he executed an awkward bow.
'You aren't wearing your regimentals,' he said in a disappointed tone after the butler had gone. 'John next door, said you were in the cavalry. The Thirty-Fifth Light.'
'I was. I only wear my regimentals on formal occasions.'
