Before I departed, I pulled out a bank draft I'd made to Grenville for three hundred guineas. 'Give this to your master,' I said to Matthias. 'And do not let him tear it up or put it on the fire. He'll likely try.'
Matthias raised his brows, mystified, but he took it and promised.
I returned to Grimpen Lane, impatient and depressed. Thompson was busily investigating Peaches' murder, of course, but everything was moving too slowly for me. I preferred the Army method of spotting the enemy and charging him, rather than the slow process of asking questions and piecing together what had happened, while the killer had the opportunity to flee. Or strike again.
Inglethorpe's death worried me greatly. Peaches's death had seemed almost simple; she had likely been killed by one of three men: her husband, Lord Barbury, or Kensington. Inglethorpe's death opened more possibilities. Any of the three men already mentioned might have stabbed him, or any of the gentlemen at the magic gas gathering might have, or Mrs. Danbury, or even Lady Breckenridge. While I had some difficulty picturing the ladylike Mrs. Danbury wielding a the sword, I had less difficulty picturing Lady Breckenridge doing so. Lady Breckenridge was a woman of determination, who'd viewed the death of her husband with relief, who retained her independence of thought in a world in which a woman was not encouraged to do so.
I remembered her lying against me, her head on my shoulder, how comfortable that had been. Had her motive been comfort, or duplicity? She had been kind to me last evening, in her own way, but I still did not trust her.
I tried to sit still and write everything out, but I was too moody to concentrate and pushed away the feeble notes I'd begun when Mrs. Beltan brought up my post.
One letter was from the Derwents, reminding me of my dinner with them Sunday next and assuring me that young Jean was doing well. She was an orphan, they said, and Lady Derwent was looking into what sort of employment for which she might be trained.
I was pleased that at least the little girl would do well out of this tragedy. I knew the Derwents would be diligent in looking after Jean and make certain she came to no harm.
My second letter set my teeth on edge. It was from my former colonel and invited me to dine at his Brook Street home that very night.
Last summer, Colonel Brandon had gotten himself caught up in one of my adventures and had acquitted himself well, helping me catch a killer. After that, he'd pretended to thaw toward me. All through the autumn, he'd invited me to his house to dine or for cards, to talk of our campaigns in Spain, Portugal, and India. He would drink plenty of port and pretend that the uglier incidents between us had never happened.
As autumn waned, however, the air between us became more and more strained, and we had returned to stiffness and veiled insults. By December, Brandon had had enough of me. He'd taken Louisa with him to a shooting party in the north, without sending me his good-byes.
Now this invitation. I did not doubt it had something to do with the fact that I'd become involved with yet another Bow Street problem. Brandon still regarded me as his junior officer, the man he'd made.
But I was no longer his man. I was on half-pay, semi-retired. I could perhaps get myself transferred to another regiment, if another captain were ready for half-pay or wanted my place in the Thirty-Fifth Light Dragoons. But the long war was over, I had little to offer another regiment, and there were plenty of half-pay captains wandering about at loose ends. Also, cavalry nowadays was used to put down riots, a practice I disliked. Firing at enemy soldiers doing their best to kill me in battle was one thing, firing at women and children, no matter how unruly they might be, was something else.
Additionally, the regimental commander of the Thirty-Fifth Light had made it plain to Brandon and me on that last day in Spain that we had better take our feud away from the Army. I could have brought charges against Brandon for what he had done, but I had not wanted his wife to face that shame. Our commander had snarled at Brandon and me as though we'd been recalcitrant schoolboys and called us a disgrace to the regiment. Brandon had taken the reprimand hard.
So here we were in London, both of us fish out of water. We were alternately painfully polite and boiling furious with each other. Louisa bore the brunt of it. She tried her best to heal the breach, because she blamed herself for the breach in the first place.
I could have told her that the rift would have come anyway. Though I'd much admired Brandon when I was younger, we no longer saw eye to eye. On the night when Brandon had made clear his intention to divorce Louisa, the break had come with a vengeance.
With all this in mind, I descended at the Brandons' Brook Street house at eight o'clock that night, on time. My breath fogged white in the January air, and the cobbles were slick.
Brandon was in full lecturing mode. The death of Simon Inglethorpe, via my sword-stick, was already the talk of Mayfair. As the footman served the meal, Brandon related how he'd been accosted at his club today by men asking him what had his captain got up to now? Louisa said nothing, keeping her golden head bent while she toyed with a thin bracelet on her wrist.
I explained the Inglethorpe business over the stuffed pheasant, mushroom fricassee, onion soup, and sole. Brandon glowered his disapproval when I talked of the magic gas and leaving Inglethorpe's so abruptly. He berated me for my carelessness in leaving behind the walking stick, clearly blaming me for Inglethorpe's murder.
He'd dropped all pretense of civility and this autumn's strained politeness. Brandon's blue eyes glittered with suppressed anger, and after the footmen had cleared the last plates, he abruptly told Louisa that he wished to speak to me alone.
Louisa, who had been uncharacteristically silent throughout the meal, rose obediently. But her eyes, too, sparkled with anger. I stood when she did, and she came to me and kissed my cheek. Brandon's sharp gaze remained on me until Louisa said a quiet goodnight and left the room.
'Good God, Lacey,' he said the instant the door had closed. 'I have been hearing the most sordid stories about you.'
His color was high, his eyes fiery. Brandon had always been a very handsome man, tall and broad-shouldered, with crisp black hair and cold blue eyes, his face still square and strong.
'It is damned embarrassing,' he went on, 'to be approached at my club every day with some new tale of your exploits.'
'Stay home, then,' I said, my own anger rising.
'The latest offense I cannot even mention before my wife. I have heard gossip that you disported yourself wildly in a bawdy house, broke the furniture, and ran off with one of the women. For God's sake, Gabriel, what were you thinking?'
'Gossip has it wrong,' I said in clipped tones.
'How can you deny you were there? People saw you. They told me that even Mr. Grenville was shocked at your behavior.'
'I was at The Glass House, yes.'
'The Glass House.' Brandon spat the name. 'That you were even in such a place speaks ill of you.'
'Have you been there?'
He looked outraged. 'Of course not.'
I believed him. Brandon was stiffly moral. 'It is a place in which fine gentlemen think nothing of raping a twelve-year-old girl,' I said. 'She was the lady with whom I fled into the night. I took her away from that place and to the Derwents to care for her. I regret I had time to break only one of the windows.'
The tale of my heroics did not soften him. 'Why the devil did you go to such a place at all?'
'Because a woman might have died there,' I said.
His eyes narrowed. 'The woman from the river?'
'Yes.'
Brandon frowned. I could tell he did not like the brutal murder any more than I did, but he merely gave me another look of disapproval. 'You involve yourself unnecessarily.'
I knew that. I always had. Even in the Army, a puzzle or incongruity could intrigue me, even if it were none of my business. Maybe if I'd been a happy man with wife and children to take up my time, I'd have been less interfering.
'If you had seen the dead woman, you would understand,' I said. 'I want to find the man who did that to her.'
'That is Bow Street's business,' Brandon snapped. 'Let your sergeant investigate crime, and keep your hands
