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.
Grenville 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.'
