She gave me a startled look. 'You and he had a similar build, true. And hair the same color. But you are a completely different man, thank God.'
'I share the sentiment. I promise you, Donata, that I will never subject you to the humiliations he did. Ever.'
Lady Breckenridge gave me a half-smile. 'I know. You have too much damned honor.'
'Not only honor,' I corrected her. 'Affection.'
She stared at me. I do not know whom I surprised more with the word, Lady Breckenridge or myself. She looked at me for a long moment, then she laid her head on my shoulder and kept it there for the rest of our short journey.
The carriage stopped before the entrance to the Gillises' home in Berkeley Square. The double door was flanked with tall columns that led us into the rotunda of the front hall. Maids took our coats and hats, and a butler led us to a drawing room somewhere in the vast interior.
There, I met Lady Gillis for the first time. When she entered, I was struck by how much younger she was than Lord Gillis. Grenville had mentioned that Lord Gillis was older than his wife, but Lady Gillis looked little more than a girl. I put her age as barely into her twenties, the same as Mrs. Bennington.
'Violet.' Lady Breckenridge greeted Lady Gillis with kisses to her cheeks, French fashion. 'Captain Lacey wishes to poke about your house. Shall you allow him?'
Chapter Sixteen
Lady Gillis did allow it, although she was flustered. 'It is not a nice thing to have a murder in your home,' she said. 'We have been at sixes and sevens since the ball.'
'I am sorry it had to happen,' I said.
'It was dreadful. Absolutely dreadful. I have been abed for days.'
'Did you know Mr. Turner?'
Lady Gillis started, then flushed. 'No. Not well. He was an acquaintance of a friend, who suggested I invite him. Lord Gillis did not like Mr. Turner and told me vehemently not to let him come, but I owed my friend a favor. I'm sorry now that I did not listen to my husband.'
Before I could ask further questions about this friend and why Lord Gillis did not like Turner, Lady Gillis suddenly said she felt unwell and declared she'd retire to her rooms.
Lady Breckenridge offered to accompany her upstairs, but Lady Gillis said quickly that she would be fine in care of her maid. I rather think Lady Gillis wanted Lady Breckenridge to keep an eye on me.
The ballroom in daylight was a very different place from what it had been in the middle of the night. The arched windows at the end of the room let in gray light, and the chandeliers hung empty, devoid of candles.
A footman obligingly lit sconces for us then disappeared on noiseless feet.
'Lady Gillis's servants are well trained,' I observed as the tall man glided out, leaving us alone. 'They seem to take in stride even a sordid murder.'
'Lady Gillis is a duke's daughter,' Lady Breckenridge said. 'She brought many of her mother's servants with her after her marriage. They are an efficient lot, but rather cold.'
I thought of Lady Breckenridge's butler, Barnstable, ready with a pleasant smile and a cheerful inquiry into my health. I, too, would prefer a human being to a silent automaton.
'I am surprised they allowed the murder to occur,' I remarked.
Lady Breckenridge shrugged. 'Well, if their master will allow in the rabble… '
I smiled with her then moved off to examine the ballroom.
The longest wall held arched openings that led to the small alcoves. Each alcove housed a chair or two, and some included small tables. Dark green velvet curtains draped the openings.
I loosened a tied-back drape and let it fall. Both curtains would easily cover the alcove, rendering the inside a private, if rather stuffy, compartment.
'Do you remember to which Colonel Brandon took Mrs. Harper?' I asked Lady Breckenridge. 'After Colonel Brandon left Mr. Turner in the anteroom?'
Lady Breckenridge studied the alcoves a moment. 'That one,' she announced, pointing to the opening just to the left of me.
I entered it and seated myself on one of the chairs. Wainscoting covered the wall from the baseboard to a chair rail about three feet above the floor. I ran my hands around the chair rail, looking for openings into which a folded piece of paper could have been wedged behind the wainscoting. I did the same with the baseboards, then turned over the little table and both chairs to examine the undersides and upholstery.
I found no rents or gouges into which a paper had been pushed. I examined the chair's and table's legs in case one proved hollow-I did everything short of taking the furniture completely apart.
Lady Breckenridge watched me curiously. 'They say that women ask too many questions, but I must know what you are doing.'
'Looking for Colonel Brandon's letter.'
I had not told her the story Mrs. Harper had given me today. I could not. Brandon needed my silence. Let Lady Breckenridge continue to believe that the problem was a love letter about a simple affair.
I righted a chair and sat on it. 'Brandon led Mrs. Harper here after he paid Turner in the anteroom. Then he left Mrs. Harper to search for sherry. Where would he likely have gone?'
Lady Breckenridge beckoned me to follow her. She glided across the ballroom as silently as any of Lady Gillis's servants and led me out a double door to a wide hall.
Several rooms opened off this hall, dedicated to the comforts of guests or for displaying the Gillises' artwork. 'He might have come into any of these chambers,' Lady Breckenridge said. 'There would be decanters and so forth in them.'
'Brandon said he could not find any sherry.' I walked into one of the rooms and looked about at its gilded furniture and paneled walls.
Lady Breckenridge shrugged, following me. 'Shall I ring for a footman and ask him in which room they'd put it that night?'
'Not just yet.' I crossed the hall and entered another sitting chamber. This one had similar paneling, but everything was gilded in silver rather than gold. 'Lord Gillis's servants do not seem the sort to leave guests thirsty. So was Brandon's search for sherry a sham? And why?'
I hated this. Every bit of evidence I went over pointed more and more to Brandon having committed the crime. He'd been wandering this hall while Turner was being murdered, but none had seen Brandon except Basil Stokes, who'd only caught sight of him just before Mrs. Harper screamed.
Brandon had to have known, when Turner was found dead with Brandon's knife in his chest, that he might be arrested for murder. In the confusion between the discovery of Turner's body and the arrival of Pomeroy, Brandon would have striven to rid himself of the incriminating document.
He might have handed the paper to Mrs. Harper, but she'd claimed he did not, and I believed her. He might have given it to Louisa, but according to witnesses, Brandon had not gone much near Louisa until Pomeroy started taking him to task, and she'd come to stand by him. Or he might have hidden it in a place he'd spotted when he'd been roaming these rooms looking for sherry for Mrs. Harper.
I turned in a circle, taking in the room. Lord Gillis's servants would be certain to clean these chambers thoroughly every day. They were correct, well trained, and aloof, probably some of the most experienced in their class. Where could Brandon hide something where they would not find it?
Then again, this was Colonel Brandon. He had not made it through the ranks to colonel for nothing. He was a good and inspiring commander, and sometimes, uncannily perceptive. Only where his personal life was concerned was he lacking in wisdom.
The place he would hide his letter was in plain sight.
My gaze went to the books in the glass-doored bookcase, and my heart beat faster.
I saw in my mind, clear as day, Colonel Brandon striding into one of these rooms, snatching a book from a shelf, sliding the letter between pages, jamming the book back among its fellows, then striding out again before
