The stable lad shrugged again, and moved off to care for the horse. Grenville was watching me curiously, Brandon impatiently. I sensed I would learn no more here, and the three of us left the stable and trudged toward the house.
'I will inform Lady Mary,' Grenville said as we walked. 'And tell her to send for the magistrate.' He slanted me a glance. 'I think for now you should keep your murder theory to yourself, Lacey. You would have difficulty convincing a magistrate without more proof.'
'We have proof,' I said. 'He would not have used that saddle, and he was dragged down the road to a convenient place to be tossed over the hill.'
'What about my idea of the robber?' Grenville asked.
I shook my head. 'He still had his watch. I saw it in his waistcoat. A robber would have taken the watch, not to mention the horse.'
Grenville deflated. 'That is true.'
'For God's sake, Lacey,' Brandon broke in. He had been striding along Grenville's other side in silent anger. 'A man has just died, and his wife waits in the house to learn of it. She will not want to hear you going on about murder. Leave it be.'
I stopped. We stood halfway between the house and the stables. The stable and yard lay beneath the curve of a hill, the roof just visible from our position. The house sat a good fifty yards ahead of us, rising like a sphinx from the green lawns, arms extended.
'If he were murdered,' I said doggedly, 'it was not done up on that road. He was killed in such a place as this, where they would not be heard from house or stable. The killer fetched the horse, saddling it with the tack I'd left, and led it back to Breckenridge. He laid Breckenridge across the saddle and led him up to the woods until he found a likely spot to dispose of him. Then he slapped the horse on the rump and sent it on its way. When the horse was found, the assumption would be that Breckenridge had fallen from it.'
'He did fall,' Brandon said. 'Why make things complicated? If a man could know which horse was Breckenridge's, why would he not know which saddle belonged to him?'
'Perhaps the murderer was not staying at the house. Breckenridge rode out at an early hour every morning by habit. Anyone staying at the village would have grown used to seeing him on the chestnut, and assume the horse was his, or at least the one he liked always to ride. But they might not have noted the saddle.'
Brandon still looked annoyed, but Grenville nodded. 'You may be right. I admit, if Westin were not dead, I would not be as quick to agree with you. But two of the four gentlemen involved in the incident on the Peninsula are dead, seemingly by accident. Strange, is it not?'
He was closer to the truth than he knew. Brandon did not stop scowling, but a worried light entered his eyes.
Grenville nodded to us. 'I will go break the news to Lady Mary.'
'Do you want me to come with you?' I offered.
Grenville considered. 'No. Best I do this alone. I dislike Lady Mary, but Breckenridge was her friend. She will doubtless take it hard.'
He pivoted on his heel and marched away, shoulders squared.
When he was out of earshot, I turned on Brandon, other questions troubling me. Brandon had mistaken the fallen Breckenridge for me; Breckenridge was dead. I feared, I very much feared, that the idiot had done something irreversible.
'What brings you to Kent?' I asked him sharply.
He met my gaze, his eyes chilling. 'I like the country.'
My anger rose. 'Balls. You followed me down here. It was you skulking about the inn and the gardens, watching me, and then again this morning, was it not?'
He did not answer, but his ice blue stare told me I'd guessed right.
'Good God,' I exploded. 'Why?'
'Why the devil do you think?'
I balled my hands. To think I'd fretted about the tracker, wondering if it were Westin's killer. All this time it had been Brandon. It fit. He knew better than most how to follow someone about without being seen. Hell, he had taught me.
My hands tightened. 'You thought I knew where Louisa was. You thought I'd come down here to see her.'
'Can you blame me? Why else would you gallivant down to the country? You do not even know these people.'
'They were at Badajoz,' I said. 'Did it not occur to you that I was still poking into the question of Captain Spencer's death?'
'Of course it occurred to me. You can never let well enough alone. But one conclusion does not preclude the other.'
I stared at him. 'Did you think I'd brought her with me? How damned stupid do you think I am?'
We faced each other, fists clenched. The sun shone down on us, the bright, soft morning belying the storm that ever roiled between us.
Brandon was speaking again, rapidly. 'I would have thought you'd had enough of scandal. If you have her hidden somewhere, I swear I will have you arrested.'
'You are an idiot. I do not know where she is.'
'Damn it, Gabriel, do not lie to me. I am surprised it is not all over the scandal sheets along with all your other adventures.'
I leaned to him. 'It will be if you do not stop making such a pig's breakfast of it. You can follow me all over England and make scenes and look overjoyed when you think me dead, but I still do not know where your wife is.'
I watched him lose strength. A warm breeze stirred his hair, brushed a loose brown lock across his cheek. 'Then where did she go? If she did not go to you, then tell me where she went.'
That question still troubled me as well. Lady Aline's letter had only told me she was safe, and I trusted Lady Aline to know that. But I wanted to know myself. I wanted to see her, to hold her hand, to reassure myself that all was well.
'Louisa's note said she needed time alone,' I reminded him.
'Alone, where? Do you think she has gone to the continent?' He paused and would not look at me. 'Or to a lover?'
'She would not disgrace you like that. If she wanted to abandon you for another, no doubt she would look you in the face and tell you so.'
He did not appear convinced. But I knew that Louisa had no slyness in her, no deceit. She would rather face her husband with the truth than resort to trickery. She had left him for some other reason, a reason he could not see beyond his fear and jealousy.
A dart of pain laced my heart. On the Peninsula, when Brandon had cast her out, Louisa had come to me. I had been dreaming of that hot night when I'd walked down to the bridge in the night I'd saved Lydia Westin. Louisa had come to me, ill with weeping, and had thrown her arms about me. Her golden hair had tangled on my shoulder, and for the first time since I'd met her, I dared furrow it with my fingers.
This time, she had not turned to me. Whatever Louisa had needed or wanted, she had known I could not give it to her. This time, she had left me as well.
I ended the futile quarrel by turning from him and walking back to the house in silence.
The inquest of Viscount Breckenridge was held the next day at the public house, the Crow and Cross, in the village. The local magistrate had called in a magistrate from London, Sir Montague Harris, a rotund man obviously fond of his beefsteak and port, but one with a shrewd eye.
Colonel Brandon stood up and described how he had found the body. He had been staying in the village, he said, in fact, here at the Crow and Cross. He had decided the morning in question to walk along Linden Hill Lane. He had wanted a brisk walk and thought it would be just the thing.
This caused the coroner to ask why he was in their corner of Kent at all? To take the country air after the hot closeness of London, he replied. The Londoners in the crowd nodded in commiseration.
