the room to be a terrible place, a prison, but it felt more like a sanctuary. Peaches had had this one place of her own, in which she could lock out her husband, Kensington, and even her lover if she chose.
I stayed there for a time, listening to the faint sounds of traffic outside, then I rose and gathered up the letters. There was a fairly large bundle, but I took them all. I gave the room one last look, descended to the ground floor of the house, and bade the doorman run and fetch a hackney coach for me.
The doorman was ill disposed to help me at all, but Kensington appeared and told the man to do what I said.
Kensington eyed the bundle of letters while I waited. 'Finished prying, Captain?'
'For now.' I gave him a cold look. 'Tell me, what exactly were you to Peaches, all those years ago, when she was a girl just going on the stage?'
Kensington smiled. 'A friend, I hope.'
'What did you do for her? And what did you make her do for you?'
'I resent your implication, Captain. I managed to introduce Amelia to a company of players, to get her a part on a stage, to expose her to people with influence. That is all.'
'She did not like you.'
He waved that away. 'She was young, with a head full of romantic notions. The ladies, you know.'
'If I discover you murdered her,' I said, my voice steady, 'may God have mercy on you.'
Kensington's eyes flickered the slightest bit and his bravado faltered. He was not exactly afraid of me, but he was uncertain. I liked that.
A hackney coach rolled to a stop in front of the door just then, and I departed with my treasures.
It was a long, slow, cold ride back to Covent Garden. We wound through the City to Fleet Street, then through the Temple Bar and onto the Strand and so to Grimpen Lane. It was dark by the time I climbed the stairs to my rooms.
Bartholomew was there, tidying, brushing my regimentals again for my evening meal with Grenville and Lord Barbury. I bade him find me a box for the letters, and he returned from the attics with a small one of rough wood, into which the letters just fit. I would return them to Lord Barbury to do with what he liked.
When Bartholomew deemed the regimentals ready for me, he helped me into them. Before I'd finished fastening the cords on my coat, someone knocked at the door. Bartholomew went to answer, then returned to tell me that Mrs. Beltan, my landlady, was asking for me.
'It's Mrs. Brandon, sir,' Mrs. Beltan said when I reached the front room. 'She's downstairs and would like a word.'
I descended after Mrs. Beltan to the bakeshop in some disquiet. Louisa usually thought nothing of walking upstairs to my rooms, leaving her footman to gnaw bread in Mrs. Beltan's shop. That she'd chosen to send Mrs. Beltan upstairs for me worried me somewhat.
The shop was full of customers at this time of day, including Louisa's footman, who, as usual, was chewing on a pastry. Mrs. Beltan led me to the little parlor behind the shop, let me in, and closed the door, leaving me and Louisa alone.
Louisa awaited me in a room that reminded me of Mrs. Beltan herself: plump and cozy and old fashioned. Cushions covered nearly every flat surface, cushions that were fat and tasseled, thin and embroidered, plump and plush. They were piled on the Turkish couch, the two chairs, the window sill, and the shelves of a cupboard.
Louisa sat on the Turkish couch and did not rise when I entered. She looked tired, I thought. Very tired.
I went to her and raised her hands from her lap. She did not protest when I pressed a light kiss to each, but she kept her fingers loosely curled.
'Louisa, what is it? Are you all right?'
'I do beg your pardon, Gabriel,' Louisa said, voice weary. 'I did not mean to worry you. I've only come to ask you for a favor.'
'You know I would do anything for you.'
'Good. Then I will ask you to please cease baiting my husband.'
She looked up at me, and I stilled. In her eyes was something I had never seen before. She was not angry. She had gone beyond that.
'He is easy to bait, Louisa,' I said lightly. 'He has no imagination.'
'I know. He is as stubborn as you are.'
I released her hands. 'Thank you very much.'
'You can stop this, Gabriel. You simply will not.'
I took a step back and let out a bitter laugh. 'You would like me to pretend that things are well and mended, as we did all last autumn? That was not easy, as you must have known. I am pleased that Brandon and I have returned to normal.'
Louisa rose in a rustle of skirts, her cheeks red. 'I see. So you are happy to stand here and tell me how glad you are that you and Aloysius have returned to bickering like schoolboys? I am tired of it, Gabriel. Tired of your arguments and of being caught in the middle. I am tired of you.'
Her words struck me like pistol balls, but she rushed on. 'Do you think I enjoy knowing what you fight one another about? You are dear to me, Gabriel, dearer than almost anyone in the world, you always have been. You have told me I am dear to you.'
'You are,' I said, stricken.
'Then why do you force me to choose? I am loyal to my husband. I always will be. He deserves that.'
My temper broke. 'For God's sake, why? The man was ready to put you aside because you disappointed his selfish plans for fathering a dynasty. He deserves you spitting on him.'
She shook her head. 'I do not think that Aloysius ever meant to divorce me. Not truly.'
'No? He made a damn good pretense of it.'
'I misread him. I know that now. He hurt me, and I wanted to hurt him back.'
'So you came to me that night to hurt him?' I asked, a dull ache in my chest.
'I do not know why I did what I did that night. I ran to you because I was afraid and confused, and so angry, Gabriel, you do not know how angry.'
'I have some idea.'
Her eyes were clear gray, like rain-washed skies. 'No, you do not. He had wounded me at my weakest point, and I was furious at him for that. He had shattered my pride, and I wanted to strike back at him. You took me in and were so indignant on my behalf, and that pleased me.'
'It pleased me too,' I said, remembering.
I had hated Aloysius Brandon that night. When Louisa's tears had ceased enough that she could tell me her story, I had been ready to murder Brandon on the spot. Louisa had several times tried to give Brandon his hoped-for son, and she had failed each time. The enlightened Colonel Brandon blamed Louisa. I knew that Louisa secretly blamed herself, though she never voiced the thought.
I, on the other hand, put the blame squarely on Brandon. If he'd treasured Louisa as he ought, likely he would even now be surrounded by a horde of children.
'I believe that what angered him most is that you took my side against him,' Louisa said.
I smiled wryly, hurt tainting my words. 'Not finding you in my arms?'
Not in bed. I had held her close, letting her cry on my shoulder, while I had tumbled her hair and kissed her forehead. We'd been sitting on a camp chair, her cradled on my lap, the morning after she'd fled her husband, when Brandon had come looking for her.
I have never forgotten the look on his face. For all his bluster that he wanted to give her up, Brandon had damn well never meant for me to have her.
'We both stood against him, and he could not bear that,' Louisa said. 'He has always been much more worried about his pride than his love.'
She was wrong. Brandon had wanted to kill me that night. He had certainly tried to kill me later.
'He is proud,' I agreed. 'His pride will be the death of him.'
'I could say the same of you.'
I could not argue. I had asked Louisa, this past summer, why she stayed with the irritating man. She had replied that she remembered the man Brandon had been-the admirable, brave, and compelling captain who had
