my thoughts were too full and the pen had long since dropped from my fingers.
She had smoothed her hair with the brush I had placed on the washstand and had washed her face with the warmed water I had fetched from Mrs. Beltan. Her gown was stained and torn from her adventures, but her eyes were clear, the frenzy of the night before gone.
She hesitated in the doorway, regarding me in some embarrassment. The laudanum had done its work and she looked rested, though her face was still too colorless.
I nodded a greeting, keeping my expression neutral. 'I have fetched breakfast for you.' I gestured to the small table that held a plate of brown-crusted rolls and a fat pot of coffee. I paused. 'Mrs. Westin.'
At the name, her face went dead white. Her fingers tightened on the door handle, and she stared at me with darkened eyes. 'How did you know?'
I lifted a small card from the writing table and held it up between my fingers. I had found, in a pocket sewn into her cloak, her reticule, which contained a card case. The small ivory-colored rectangles within had proclaimed her as Mrs. Colonel Roehampton Westin.
She looked angry, but whether at me for taking such a liberty, or herself for not thinking to remove her card case, I could not tell.
When I'd read the name early that morning, I had understood better why she'd not wanted to tell me who she was. She was Lydia Westin, the widow of the unhappy Colonel Westin, late of the Forty-Third Light Dragoons. Rumor put it that he had committed a murder during the Peninsular campaign, a murder that had only recently come to light.
From what I had learned from gossip in the coffeehouses that summer, and from my former sergeant, Pomeroy, now a Bow Street Runner, a young man called John Spencer and his brother were seeking to discover who had murdered their father during the rioting after the battle of Badajoz in Spain in 1812.
At first it had been assumed that Captain Algernon Spencer had simply been killed in the frenzy. But now it seemed that his true killer had a name, and that name might well have been Colonel Roehampton Westin.
The happenings after the victory at Badajoz were, in my opinion, a blot on the reputation of the King's army. After the French had fled the town, the English soldiers had gone mad, beginning a drunken revelry that had lasted days. They had stormed houses, dragged families into the streets and shot them for sport, and looted all within. They had bayoneted those too feeble to get out of their way, and forced themselves onto women right on the muddy cobbles, ripping jewelry from their ears and breasts.
Not until a gallows had been set up in the middle of the square did the violence cease. I had been among those sent in to try to restore order. One of my own sergeants had threatened to shoot me if I did not help him plunder a house of a woman and her sister. I had lost my temper and let him know with my fists what I thought of his threats. The sergeant had been carried back to camp.
The death of Captain Spencer had been originally attributed to the rioting-Spencer had simply gotten in the way of soldiers too drunk to tolerate an officer trying to stop their entertainment. His son, John Spencer, wanting to determine 'the actual man who pulled the trigger on my father,' had searched letters and papers of those who had been at Badajoz, and had questioned many eyewitnesses in search of the answer.
What he had discovered was that a group of officers from the Forty-Third Light Dragoons, Westin included, had gone in, like me, to help restore order. They had apparently gotten caught up in the madness themselves and had turned on Captain Spencer, who had tried to stop them. During the fiasco, Spencer and another officer of their party, one Colonel David Spinnet, had died.
Colonel Brandon, I'd learned, had been asked to lend his testimony; he had supped with Westin the evening before Westin had gone out and committed the deed, and Brandon was prepared to swear that Westin was already drunk before he even reached the town.
But now none of that would come to pass. I had recently read in the newspapers of Westin's death not a week before from a fall down a staircase.
Westin's wife stood now in my front room, head lifted, eyes glittering. Brandon had supposed her my lover.
'You have the advantage of me, sir,' she said. 'You know who I am and doubtless all that my name means. I still do not know who you are.'
I opened the writing table drawer and extracted one of my own cards from my careful hoard. I held it out to her, which forced her to leave the doorway and venture to me.
She took it from my outstretched fingers, turned it around, and read aloud: 'Captain Gabriel Lacey.' She lowered it, her eyes quiet. 'I thought you might be he.'
Chapter Three
I hired a hackney coach to take us through the hot and damp bustle of London to Mayfair. Haze shimmered in the air, rendering the classical lines of the Admiralty a distant white bulk as we passed through Charing Cross.
We followed Cockspur Street, then commenced up Haymarket to Piccadilly, and thence into Mayfair through Berkeley Street and Berkeley Square. Even at the early hour, young ladies and gentlemen in their carriages, properly chaperoned, of course, were eating ices from Gunter's in the shade of trees in the oval park. These ladies were not the most fashionable-the grande dames would still be abed from their evenings out, not rising until perhaps three in the afternoon.
The hackney turned out of Berkeley Square into Davies Street, and so on to Grosvenor Street. We stopped before a plain brown brick house adorned with Doric columns that flanked a red painted front door. The door was missing its knocker, which would usually indicate that the family had left London. I knew the house’s simple facade was deceiving-the houses on this street held sons of lords, wealthy members of Commons, and gentlemen of high standing. My acquaintance Lucius Grenville lived but ten doors down in large and elegant splendor.
A footman in maroon livery hastened from his post and pulled open the door of the hackney as soon as it halted. He stared at me in surprise, then his footman's demeanor slammed back into place and he reached in to help his lady. I guided her out to him. Her perfume, diminished with the night, mingled with the scent of summer rain.
I descended after her and bade the driver to wait.
The footman looked a bit bewildered. He was young and tall and strong, as a good footman ought to be, and I was relieved to see devotion in his eyes when he looked at his mistress. He took his cue from me and led her to the door with as much tenderness as he might his own mother.
Before we reached it, a man halted on the pavement beside us. It was none other than the irritating journalist, Billings.
'Good morning, Captain.' He tipped his hat. 'Madam.'
Mrs. Westin turned her face away. I gave her to the care of her footman, and approached Billings, walking stick firmly in my hand. 'Leave now,' I advised.
'Good morning, Captain Lacey,' the man said. 'Returning home with Mrs. Colonel Westin at such an interesting hour of the morning. Good gracious heavens. What will everyone think?'
'Now,' I repeated, 'before I call a constable to clear you out.'
He only gave me an insolent look and said to the air, 'He is as rude as they say.'
I advanced on him. His sneer turned to a look of alarm as I caught him by the elbows and tossed him into the street.
He landed on his feet, stumbled, then scrambled out of the way of a rapidly moving curricle. Before he could recover himself, I entered the Westin house and closed the door.
Lydia Westin's house was like her, elegant and understated. In a world of ornate gilding and faux Egyptian furnishings, the Westin household had retained a more classical feel. Ivory paneling framed delicate moire wallpaper hung with landscapes. Tapered-legged tables stood in niches along the black and white tile flooring, and fresh flowers filled vases hung on the walls flanking mirrors.
A straight staircase spilled down into the hall beyond the foyer, its dark polished rail ending in a graceful spiral. At the foot of these stairs, Lydia Westin waited, supported by a woman with iron gray hair. She was Lydia's lady's maid, I guessed, by her fine dress and mobcap. She eyed me severely.
