The horse's hooves threw sparks in the darkness as the coach skidded around the corner. Black Nancy's laughter floated back at me, more merriment than I'd heard on this street in a long time.
I awoke early next morning after a bad night. Bartholomew drew a bath for me and shaved me while I lay in the cooling water and reviewed my dreams. I'd dreamed of small Gabriella running about camp, her golden hair tangled and her little feet filthy with mud. I'd carried her about on my shoulders, proudly displaying her to all and sundry, until my men had started calling me Lieutenant Nursemaid. I never minded.
Speaking with Gabriella yesterday had proved one thing: I still loved her desperately.
My morning correspondence included a note from Thompson, who fixed the appointment with the sailor he wanted me to interview for one o'clock. No doubt the man would expect me to buy him dinner.
James Denis's coach called for me at nine. The carriage, with its parquetry and velvet cushions, was as opulent as anything Grenville owned, except that no coat of arms reposed on its polished black door.
I sat in the splendor alone, in my regimentals, which had been brushed and carefully cleaned by Bartholomew. I could have chosen to wear my best frock coat, but for some reason, I'd wanted to remind Carlotta exactly who I was and what I had been most of my life.
London traffic, always thick, seemed particularly difficult this morning. We traveled slowly through Pall Mall to St. James's and waited for a long time while a broken coach in St. James's Street was hauled out of the way, the horses cut from their tangled traces.
The tall houses on this street were the abodes of bachelor gentlemen, all likely snoring hard in their bedchambers above. They would not rise until late morning and then saunter to their clubs in early afternoon. The traffic at this moment consisted of servants and workmen and all the people who earned their living catering to the wealthy of St. James's and Mayfair.
Once we started again, we rolled past White's, its bow window empty this early, and turned to Piccadilly. The coach rattled past Burlington House and its columned entrance, near which the young man that Brandon had supposedly
killed had taken rooms. We turned up Half Moon Street, then to Curzon Street, and traversed its length to number 45.
My throat tightened as Denis's footman helped me from the carriage. Denis's house was plain on the outside, its facade betraying nothing of the vast wealth within. The hall inside was like the carriage, unadorned, but obviously costly. He'd left the house in the airy Adams style-white paneling, black accents, marble tile, straight- legged satinwood furniture, the walls hung with expensive and masterful paintings.
I followed the footman, a former pugilist by the bulk of him, up the stairs and to Denis's study.
I'd entered this room many times in the last year and a half since I'd had my first appointment with James Denis. As with the floor below, he'd furnished it sparsely, but with elegant furniture-a mahogany desk, bare but for a few sheets of carefully placed paper, a bookcase between the windows, a half-round table holding brandy and cups, two Louis XV chairs in front of the desk for visitors.
Today, he'd brought in a Turkish sofa as extra seating. As usual, another former pugilist stood near the window.
My wife was seated on the sofa, dressed in a well-tailored dress, holding a cup of tea and a saucer. Major Auberge sat next to her, minus the teacup. He'd chosen civilian dress, a plain frock coat and trousers and shoes, nothing of the army about him at all.
Denis rose from behind his desk. He was nearly as tall as I was, dark-haired and long-faced. Denis was barely in his thirties, but the chill in his blue eyes was that of a much older man. I wondered, not for the first time, what his life had been before this, and what had made him into the ruler of the underworld that he was. He had most of the London magistrates in his pocket with few exceptions. Any criminal who tried to cross him found himself quickly and mercilessly dealt with.
Denis and I had an uneasy truce, forged after he'd had me trussed up and beaten as a warning not to interfere with him. Since then he'd helped me solve murders, but with the understanding that he wanted me beholden to him for his help. He'd decided to tame me not with violence but with obligation. For this reason, he'd hunted up my wife in France and had her brought over to face me.
'Captain,' he greeted me with a neutral expression. I bowed just as neutrally.
My daughter was nowhere in evidence. 'Where is Gabriella?' I asked Carlotta.
She gave me a shocked look. 'We left her behind. We certainly would not bring her here, to discuss this. '
'You left her in a boardinghouse in King Street, alone?'
Carlotta shifted. Auberge said in English, his accent thick, 'She is being looked after. Madame Seaton, the landlady, said she would look.'
I shot a glance at Denis. He gave me an almost imperceptible nod. 'One of my men is watching the house.'
I exhaled, somewhat more relieved. I knew he had a man who watched me and reported my activities, and I knew that his pugilists could keep Gabriella as safe as could be. With girls going missing from Covent Garden, I disliked my daughter being near the place alone. 'Why could you not find them better accommodation?' I asked Denis.
'I did offer to put them in a hotel in Mayfair. They declined, preferring to pay their own way.'
'It is better, I think,' Auberge put in.
Carlotta said nothing. She bent her head to drink tea, then halted with the cup at her lips, as though she could not make herself swallow. She ran her tongue across her lower lip and set the teacup aside.
Denis gestured me to sit. 'Shall we begin?' He took his chair behind the desk and shifted the papers in front of him.
I sat down and rested my hands on my walking stick. I noticed Carlotta glance at the stick and then the leg on which I limped. She had been gone long before I received my injury, which was a souvenir of my feud with Aloysius Brandon.
'I have consulted with a solicitor at length on this matter,' Denis began without preamble. 'Separation- divorce a mensa et thoro — is possible, given that there has been, in this case, abandonment and adultery on the part of Mrs. Lacey. But a mensa et thoro is not a dissolving of the marriage. Neither of you could marry again legally with only this sort of separation. And I take it that marrying again is what all parties have in mind?'
'It is,' Auberge replied stiffly. I said nothing. What I chose to do afterward was not Carlotta's business.
'Annulment is the easiest route,' Denis went on, directing his words at me. 'But unless you can prove that either of you has insanity or that you are too closely related or were married to other parties when you contracted your marriage, there are no grounds. Impotence, another cause for annulment, is also out of the question?'
He looked at me without embarrassment, waiting for me to answer, as though I should not be uncomfortable discussing whether I could perform a man's function.
I suppose I could make a pretense that Carlotta had left me because I'd become impotent after we'd produced Gabriella, but the fact of impotence would have to be proved. I scarcely wanted to know how I'd produce such proofs, or how I could make certain parts of my anatomy behave, or not behave, in front of a witness.
I shook my head. 'Out of the question.'
'That leaves a Parliamentary divorce,' Denis said on. 'You, Lacey, would go through the process of the a mensa et thoro separation, then sue for adultery-bringing to court a case of criminal conversation between your wife and Major Auberge-and then you would request a private Act of Parliament for the complete divorce. This would allow both of you to marry elsewhere.' He folded his hands. 'A long and, needless to say, expensive process.'
'How expensive?' Auberge asked worriedly.
'Several thousand pounds.'
Auberge waited while he translated to French francs, then his ruddy complexion paled. 'I think I have not this money.'
Denis minutely straightened a paper. 'I will be happy to furnish the cost of the procedures.'
Auberge looked surprised. 'Why would you?'
Denis did not answer. 'Are you agreed?'
Auberge glanced at me. It seemed unreal, after so many years, to have Carlotta in the same room with me,
