Her eyes flashed. I could not tell if she had admired or despised her husband. Both, probably.
'He was prepared to admit to the murder,' I pointed out.
'Oh, yes. How could he stand by and let those with great names be sullied? They asked it of him. When they heard that John Spencer was near to discovering the truth, they visited him. Here. Upstairs in his chamber for hours and hours. They played upon his sense of honor, knowing he'd agree. And he did it. He was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. For them.'
'But if he were willing to do so,' I pointed out, 'why do you believe they murdered him? Surely they would want him to go on to be arrested and tried.'
'I thought of that.' Her brow puckered. 'It is one thing to agree to take the blame for a crime. But another when one actually stands in the dock. Who knows what he might have said? Would he have told the truth about what happened to Captain Spencer? Perhaps he would not have been believed, but then, some magistrates are quite canny. They might have asked awkward questions.' Her eyes dared me to tell her she was wrong.
I sat silently. Again I was struck by the incongruity of this woman traveling to the dark bridge in the rain. She believed her husband's innocence, would fight like a lion to preserve the honor he'd held so precious. This was a woman who would glare down her enemies and dare them to stop her.
So would she, in despair, decide to walk to an unfinished bridge and fling herself from it? Or had she gone for another purpose? Either action simply did not fit.
'Find these gentlemen,' she said. 'And make them admit that they murdered Captain Spencer.'
I began to grow exasperated. While I'd listened, I'd allowed my senses to bathe in her beauty, but her vehemence was becoming unreasonable. 'Not an easy thing to do. And you cannot tell me for certain that they did kill your husband.' I held up my hand as she drew a breath for angry protest. 'Think, Mrs. Westin. If they did not kill him, and you pursue them, the true murderer gets away with it.'
She stared at me, startled, and I saw she had not thought of that. 'But they must have done it.'
I tried another tack. 'What time did your husband go to bed that night? The usual?'
'Yes. Millar undressed him and left him in bed at half-past eleven, his usual time to retire.'
'And no one saw him until ten the next morning, when you entered his bedchamber, and no visitors came to the house and were shown up to see him.'
'No.' She said the word reluctantly.
'But that implies, does it not, that someone inside the house could have killed him. Such as one of your servants.'
'No!' The cry rang sharply against the portraits. 'They would not. They were devoted to him, and to me.'
Perhaps. But once upon a time, my acquaintance Lucius Grenville had hired a well-trained, efficient butler who had come with glowing recommendations from the Duke of Merton, to whom said butler had been most devoted. The butler had, three months later, organized a gang of thieves to rob Grenville blind. This had happened during a huge gathering at New Year's at his house, which I had happened to attend. Grenville and I had caught the robbers together, and thus we'd begun our odd friendship.
'What about this Mr. Allandale, your daughter's fiance?'
She shook her head, but with less fervor than she had when defending her servants. 'He was not staying in the house. He hired a house in Mount Street.'
A house in Mount Street must be ruinously expensive, I mused, even now that the Season was over. I wondered if the good Mr. Allandale had asked to marry the Westin daughter because of her parents' obvious wealth.
'Did it not occur to you,' I said, 'that the newspapers would remark upon the convenient timing of his accident? Sparing you the disgrace of an arrest, trial, and conviction? Please do not be offended, but did none of them speculate that it was your hand that pushed your husband to his death?'
She smiled a fey, feral smile. 'William and I thought of that. We contrived it so that Millar and William claimed to see him fall when I and Chloe were well out of the house. Chloe was on her way to Surrey, to her uncle, and I had dressed and gone out to attend a morning garden party given by Lady Featherstone in Kensington. Everyone who had not yet scattered to the countryside was there. They all saw me. While I was gone, William and Millar arranged my husband's body at the bottom of the stairs and ran for a constable. They also brought back a doctor, an elderly man. The wound was tiny and Millar cleaned it so it could barely be seen. No one else found it.'
Clever. No doubt she had chosen a garden party full of gossips who would all clamor that Mrs. Westin had been with them when news of her husband's accident was brought to her. I imagined them describing her emotion, her paling face, her tear-filled eyes.
I said, 'Does Mr. Allandale know the truth? Would he not ask why you had suddenly sent your daughter away?'
She shook her head. 'I explained to him that Chloe was ill and needed to take the country air. He asked no questions, and said it was a mercy she had not been here to witness her father's death.'
'This Mr. Allandale seems to be quite understanding,' I remarked. 'He stood by you and your family, even through the scandal of Captain Spencer?' A lesser man might have cried off, saved himself from being touched by the shame.
'Oh yes, he has stuck by us,' Lydia said. 'Like a cocklebur! He is most devoted.' The derision in her tone was unmistakable.
I puzzled on this, but went back to the main problem. 'But you believe that these three gentlemen, or at least someone hired by them to do the deed, entered your house sometime in the night and killed your husband.'
'I do.' She gave me a cold look, then relented. 'I am sorry, Captain. I know it sounds ridiculous. But equally I know they must be responsible. I ask you-I am begging you-to help me.'
I absently traced my forefinger. 'I wonder that you would trust me. My own colonel was ready to swear that your husband was drunk enough to have committed the crime at Badajoz. Why do you believe I do not agree with him?'
She gave me a tight smile. 'Because you would have already said so. And Mrs. Brandon told me that you had helped a young woman escape from her tormentor earlier this year. And that you brought a murderer to justice.'
I wondered what edited version of the tale Louisa had imparted. True, I had helped a girl return to her aunt after she had been used by her purchaser for his amusement, but Louisa and I were the only two who knew the entire truth of the matter.
'Mrs. Brandon is too quick to sing my praises.'
Again, the white smile. 'She did not praise you. She claims you are highly exasperating. But that you are honest, and more interested in truth than in pleasing lies.'
I was not certain whether to be flattered or annoyed.
'Make them tell the truth, Captain,' Lydia Westin said. She caught and held my gaze. 'Make them clear my husband's name and pay for all they have done.'
I found myself agreeing. The story stirred my hazardous curiosity. They had known, Louisa and Lydia between them, that I could not have refused.
Chapter Four
I asked Lydia leave to speak to her servants. I hoped that the valet, who had been with Colonel Westin throughout the war, might be able to impart something about the incident in Badajoz. Also, I wanted to know what the servants could tell me about the night of Colonel Westin's death. Lydia might be convinced of who murdered her husband, but I was not so sanguine. The quicker I ferreted out the truth, the better.
She agreed to let me ask questions, though limited me to the three servants already in on the secret. I also mentioned Grenville. If I were to investigate the gentlemen she'd named, I would need an introduction to them. Grenville, beloved of society, whose acquaintance was much sought after, could smooth my way in that
