night.'
'Not mad,' I said slowly. 'You must have some reason for believing they killed him.'
'No one else would have been wicked enough. And they feared him. He knew the truth, and who knows what he may have said in the dock or on the gallows? Safer to have him dead.'
'Do you have proof of this? What I mean is, did they visit him the day of his death, did anyone see them commit this act?'
She sighed. 'No. Millar and William say he had no visitors at all that morning, but that must be a mistake.'
'If they were not here,' I began.
She glared at me, a fine lady gazing with scorn upon a disobedient servant. 'I know they did this, Captain. I need no proof.'
But a magistrate might, I forbore to point out. 'Please tell me what happened that day-who discovered him, how you knew he'd been killed.'
She was silent a long moment, then her gaze went remote again. 'I found him. I wanted to speak to him. I wanted to tell him…' She paused, and I saw her rearrange her words. 'I had a topic of importance to discuss with him. I wanted to tell him everything, the entire truth. It was ten; Roe was usually awake then, and waiting for Millar to bring his breakfast tray. I went to his bedchamber. He was still in bed; I thought him asleep. But when I reached his bed, I saw that he was dead.'
'I am sorry,' I said.
'He looked so peaceful. I thought he had died in his sleep. And do you know, I was glad.' She looked up at me, her eyes glittering. 'Glad for him. I thought, now no one can ever hurt him again. Not me, nor anyone else. And then I…' She paused, spots of color appearing in her cheeks. 'I embraced him. I told him how sorry I was, how stupid I'd been.'
I wondered very much about what. 'Why did it occur to you that he'd been murdered?'
She pressed her palms together. 'When I straightened from the bed, I noticed that I had a stain on the sleeve of my gown. It was not very large, and it looked black. I knew the gown had been cleaned before my maid dressed me, so I must have come by the mark recently. I could not get it out of my head that it must be blood, my husband's blood. So I leaned down and embraced him again, and then I knew where I'd obtained the stain.
'I sent for William, my footman. He is a trusty lad, and I wanted to spare Millar as long as I could. William was shocked when he saw my husband, of course, but he is remarkably well trained and resourceful.' She smiled a little. 'If ever I asked him to move a pet elephant into my upstairs chamber, I believe he would only say, 'Yes, my lady,' and fall to it.'
I thought of the besotted look in William's eyes and agreed with her.
'He raised Roe's head,' she said. 'And I found it. A small mark on the back of his neck.' She touched a spot just below her own ear. 'Someone had stabbed him, Captain. Straight through the neck and up under the skull.'
Such a wound could kill a man outright. I imagined he'd died quite quickly, and the absence of much blood bore out that theory.
'What did you do then?' I asked.
'My first instinct was to have William run for the constable. But something stopped me. I realized that if he ran out like the house was on fire, the journalists who hung about waiting for my husband to emerge every day would latch themselves on to him. They would know everything, and write every word. I just could not bear for Roe to die in the flame of notoriety. I wanted his death to be given some respect. So I called Millar and Montague, my lady's maid, and told them what I wanted to do. They were as angry as I at his death, and they also hate the newspapers. They agreed to keep silent how he had died, even from my daughter and Mr. Allandale, her fiance.'
She subsided. Her lips trembled and she pulled the shawl closer about her.
'And now you have told me,' I said. 'Why?'
'Because I need help. Roe died in shame and disgrace, and he did not deserve that. I want that to change.'
'What do you want me to do?' I asked. 'Prove that these three men killed your husband?'
Her eyes held anger and determination. 'No. Prove that they murdered Captain Spencer at Badajoz. Make the world know my husband had nothing to do with it. And when they die on the gallows for that murder, they will equally pay for my husband's.'
I wondered briefly if she had loved her husband. Society marriages could be contracted with gain alone in mind-an heiress married an impoverished lord; a lady of a titled family married to lend connections to a wealthy nobody. My own marriage had been made for neither of these reasons, hence the complete rage of my father.
I shook my head slowly. 'What you ask is- '
She flung back the blanket and got to her feet. Her maid had dressed her in a dark gray gown, against which her white skin seemed even paler. She began pacing unsteadily through the blocks of sunlight that poured through the windows.
'He did not kill that captain, I know it. Those three spoiled aristocrats did not want an ounce of shame to touch them, so they forced my husband to confess to something he did not do. He was willing to go to trial, ready to admit that he'd killed that officer in Spain rather than let others in his regiment be disgraced. That was the kind of gentleman he was. But he was wronged. Utterly wronged.'
I thought again of the newspaper accounts, the stories, and Pomeroy's impartations on the affair. Westin, by all accounts, had been contrite and apologetic in the face of Spencer's sons’ accusations. Lydia was now insisting that he had bowed his head so that the honor of others would not be tarnished, that his fellow officers would not be stained.
I found it all a bit odd. Would a man truly give up his life for the honor of others? And were those others so lacking in honor that they would allow him to do it?
'He was ready to admit to it,' I said as gently as I could. 'And he was the ranking officer.'
She turned on me in fury. 'Those three gentlemen cared nothing for rank,' she snapped. 'It was they who murdered Captain Spencer, you can be certain of it.'
'Your husband told you this?'
'No. Nor would he. The honor of the regiment must be preserved at all costs, even when speaking of it to your own wife.' Her mouth turned down. 'But imagine it-three pampered, inebriated aristocrats let loose on the streets of a conquered town. They must have been delighted. Then when Captain Spencer tried to spoil their amusement, they killed him. I know it in my heart. My husband would have tried to prevent it, but they would not have listened.' Her eyes sparkled, defiant, bitter.
'But Colonel Westin never confided in you.'
She glared at me. I was a toad, waiting to be stepped on.
I did not tell her that I'd be honored to be trampled by her elegant foot.
'My husband was a moral man, Captain. Moral in the real sense of the word, not in the manner in which some preach morality while beating their servants black and blue with the other hand! He no more would have shot Captain Spencer than the Thames would flow backward. He abhorred violence and violent acts.'
I was puzzled. 'If he abhorred violence, why did he purchase a commission in the cavalry?'
One of the most violent professions I could think of. Cavalry charged, breakneck and reckless, down the throats of the enemy, chopping apart lines and boiling up dust and chaos while musket fire rained around them. Light Dragoons technically were not used to charge lines-that was the job of the heavy cavalry-but in practice, if any cavalry were at hand, they were thrown at everything. Some officers led their men so far through enemy lines that they were too winded to get back and were cut down one by one. At the beginning of the campaign, I had been just as reckless, but time had taught me the value of prudence.
Even so, after each battle, I had always been surprised to find myself still upright and walking.
Lydia Westin would not be cowed. 'My husband was a colonel because his father was a colonel. The honor of the regiment again. Following in his father's footsteps. Roe was like that. He would sacrifice his happiness, his peace of mind-everything-for honor.'
'Many do,' I said dryly. 'We live in honorable times.'
'My husband's honor was true. It was the most important thing in the world to him.'
