A Regimental Murder

by Jennifer Ashley

  Allandale led the way down a short hall to another room. I came behind him, my fists clenching. Before we'd gone halfway, Grenville stopped me. "Lacey," he said. "Let me just hold your walking stick."

  He eyed me steadily, his hand out. I frowned, but slapped the walking stick into his open palm.

  Allandale had already entered the little room. I quickened my pace and gained the threshold several steps ahead of Grenville. I turned, abruptly closed the door in his face, and locked it.

  "Lacey!" Grenville's alarmed cry came through the panels. Like Lydia had, he rattled the handle.

  Allandale faced me, puzzled. The room we stood in was quite small, containing only a table and chair, a small bookcase, and a window. Here a club member could pen a letter or read away from the noise and bustle of the billiards and card rooms.

  "I have some advice for you," I began. "Leave England. Today."

  Allandale's politeness wavered. "I beg your pardon?"

  "I said, leave England and do not return."

  He studied me uneasily. "And if I choose not to?"

  "Then I will certainly kill you."

  He stared for one more bewildered moment, then his oily smile slipped into place. "Please tell me what you are talking about, Captain Lacey."

  He ought to have been afraid. I had locked us in here, and no one was here to aid him against me. "You raping Lydia Westin." I took a step toward him.

  He gave a sharp laugh. "Is that what she told you? She is a termagant, have you not discovered this? She turned her daughter against me and bade her break the betrothal. I plan to bring suit against them for breach of promise."

  I lifted him by his coat and slammed him against the wall. I held him there, my face inches from his. "You touched her, you little worm. You deserve to die for that."

  His too-pretty face flushed. "She is a whore. You ought to know. She whored for you."

  The man was a fool. I banged his comely blond locks against the moire wallpaper. "You do not dare speak of her. Do not even speak her name. Pack your things and get out of England. And if ever I find that you have gone near her, or in any way made yourself known to her, I will kill you. You have my word on that."

  His polite mask vanished. The eyes that looked out at me were filled with disdain and scorn and a darkness even beyond what I had imagined. "You know nothing about Lydia Westin. She is a cold bitch who seduces gentlemen then turns them away. You poor fool, she did the same to you."

  I put my hand on his throat. "I believe I told you not to speak her name."

  "You are nothing, Captain. Even your association with the great Mr. Grenville does not make you important. If you try to fight me in court, you will lose, and then all will know what kind of woman Lydia Westin truly is."

  I kept my voice deadly quiet. "I have no intention of fighting you in court or anywhere else. And you have spoken her name twice since I told you not to."

  He sneered, unafraid. I saw now in his eyes a man who viewed all of humanity as fools to either use or step around. His politeness kept us at bay, but beneath that politeness, he looked upon us all with loathing. He took what he wanted, and his practiced courtesy and smooth handsomeness deluded others into thinking him kind.

  "You had better open the door for your Mr. Grenville," he said now. "He sounds quite anxious. Then we can finish this foolishness."

  "Yes," I said, not releasing him. "We will finish."

  Grenville had taken away my walking stick and its concealed sword, knowing what I might do. But I had not told him about the knife in the pocket of my coat. I removed it now. It was a small thing, a souvenir from Madrid, with which I cut open books and broke seals on letters and frightened away footpads. It fitted nicely into my palm, the thin, pointed blade only as long as my index finger.

  I touched it to Allandale's cheek. He focused nervously on the tip. "What are you doing, Lacey? Are we going to fight like drunkards in a rookery?"

  "No, we will not fight. I have no intention of letting you fight. I am going to reveal to everyone your true face, so that when they look upon you forever after, they will know you for what you are, and loathe you."

  He stared, his mouth a round O, uncomprehending.

  I pressed the blade into his skin and cut him. He screamed.

  Grenville's voice rose on the other side of the door. "Lacey! Bloody hell!"

  My knife worked. I sliced stroke after stroke across his alabaster cheeks, shallow cuts that would heal and close and leave a criss-cross of scars all over his face. Scars that would remind him, every time he looked in the mirror, of me. They would tell him that he could not merely smile in soft politeness and have what he wanted. He would never, ever be able to trick anyone with his handsome face again.

  Such coherent thoughts would come much later when I reasoned out why I had done what I'd done. At the moment, I only shook with rage and hatred and deep hurt.

  This man had broken my beautiful Lydia, wounding her so deeply that she had gone deliberately into despair and shame. The Lydia Westin who had so resolutely stood by her wronged and innocent husband, in the face of all who opposed him, would never have dreamed of lowering herself to a courtesan's tricks, or to using a man who had showed her the slightest kindness. Allandale's actions had turned her into someone she herself had hated in the end.

  He had taken her from me before I'd even met her. I would never know that other Lydia, the one true and steadfast and honorable and beautiful. He had shamed her and hurt her, and I doubted she would ever recover from that.

  And so I cut him. My knife moved across his lips, his eyelids, his brows. All the while he screamed and wept and pleaded. He tried futilely to claw himself free, but a too soft life had made him weak. I pinned him firmly and sliced again and again into his ever so handsome face.

  Behind me, the door burst open. Strong hands seized me and hauled me away from Allandale.

  I went without fight, because I'd finished. Allandale's face streamed blood, cuts covering his face in a bizarre pattern. Tears mixed with the blood, smearing it, dripping to his cravat.

  "Good God, Lacey, are you mad?"

  Grenville was glaring at me. He seemed to have brought other gentlemen with him, but I could not see them through the haze of my rage.

  "Yes," I said. My hands were shaking as I slid the knife back into my pocket. I looked at Allandale. "The wilds of Canada will not be too far. Be gone by tomorrow."

  Grenville still held me. I jerked from his grasp and strode past him and the gibbering Allandale and out of the room. Outside, club members had gathered to peer into the room and discover the source of the fuss.

  I heard Grenville come behind me. He gained my side as we reached the foyer and plunged out into St. James's Street and the sweet September air.

  Grenville's efficient coachman had the carriage waiting for us. Matthias bundled the both of us in. The door slammed and I fell into the seat. I was shaking and sick, and my hands were sticky with Allandale's blood.

  "Are you insane?" Grenville asked incredulously. "He will bring you up before a magistrate."

  "Good. Then I can spread far and wide what kind of man he is. No one will ever trust him again. Even if I go to the gallows for it."

  I leaned against the cushions and passed a hand over my brow. My fingers were shaking so hard, I stopped and gazed at them in amazement.

  "Are you all right?" Grenville asked sharply.

  "Yes," I said. Then I found myself on my hands and knees on the floor of his opulent carriage, gasping for breath.

  *** *** ***

  Allandale did try to prosecute. He began a suit against me the next day, which Pomeroy called round to warn me about. But before the constables could make their way to Grimpen Lane to arrest me, Allandale and his suit suddenly vanished.

  I assumed that Grenville had influenced someone in high places, but Grenville wrote that he'd not had the chance to make any plans before Allandale had suddenly left London.

  The mystery was solved when I recei
ved a letter on thick, cream-colored paper, sealed with a blank wax seal. In it, a fine, slanting hand I did not recognize informed me that my recent trouble had been taken care of. The letter was not signed. I knew, however, in my heart, that James Denis had just made another entry in my debit column.

  Somehow, the story put round was that I had taken Allandale aside and bruised him for trying to cheat me at cards. Such a motive was understandable, and I am sorry to say it won me a bit more respect in Grenville's circle. The knife was never mentioned, not by the gossipers, not by me, and not by Grenville.

  Lydia Westin had also quietly departed London. When I passed along Grosvenor Street not a week after our final interview, I saw that her house had indeed been shut up, William gone, and the shutters closed. She had not said good-bye.

  The only other final note in the business was that I at last gave in to Grenville's insistence and let his tailor make me a coat to replace the one I'd lost in Kent. The new coat was black and made of finest wool, so light I barely was aware of wearing it but warm enough to keep out the London damp. The thing fitted, glovelike, over my somewhat wide shoulders, a change from the secondhand, pinching garments I usually wore.

  Grenville persuaded me into the coat because he'd said I'd earned it. I had sacrificed the old coat in my quest to clear Lydia's husband, and cleared him I had. Bow Street Runners earned their rewards; I must earn mine.

  I also believe he regarded me in a new light after the incident with Allandale. I'd catch him looking at me sidelong for weeks after, and his conversation with me was more guarded, less impatient.

  Louisa Brandon was the only person that autumn who did not avoid me. I confessed to her what I had done, and why, and she understood. I read anger in her eyes, not at me, but at Allandale, and at Lydia Westin.

  I told her all as we walked together in Hyde Park on a day late in September. I'd spent intervening time staving off melancholia and not very successfully. The day was chilly, but I had needed to see her. She'd replied that she'd meet me, no doubt welcoming the chance to escape from her convalescing and somewhat irritable husband.

  "I was a bit sharp with Mrs. Westin," Louisa said now. She strolled at my side, her hand on my arm. She had admired the coat and told me it made me look fine, but even that had not warmed my heart. "I know it was not her fault," she continued, "but even so, I was most annoyed at her actions."

  "She could have done nothing else," I answered. "I would have given myself to her, you know, Louisa. Completely."

  "I know."

  We walked in silence for a time. I wondered if Brandon had raged at his wife when she'd confessed to him why she'd gone, or if he had wept. Both most likely.

  Louisa had not written to me since she'd returned home, nor come to my rooms to see me, though she must have known I'd been ill with the melancholia. But I did not admonish her. I simply enjoyed her presence, savoring this walk and the warm pressure of her hand on my arm.

  As we turned along the path toward the Serpentine, she spoke again. "Have you given up looking for Carlotta?"

  I thought a moment about James Denis and the paper he had held out to me.

  "Yes," I said. "I have given it up."

  We stopped to gaze at the gray surface of the water. A breeze rippled it.

  "I am sorry," she said softly.

  I faced her, studying the rust-colored bow beneath her chin. In the shadow of the bonnet, her gray eyes held sadness.

  I said, "I thought I had found something that I'd always wanted. Instead . . ." I paused and drew a burning breath. "I found something I can never have."

  Louisa touched her fingers briefly to my chest, then lifted her hand away. "Your heart will heal in time, Gabriel."

  I looked at her, at the ringlets of gold that touched her face. "Perhaps," I said. "But at the moment, I think it never will."

  END

  * * * * *

  Please continue reading for a preview of Captain Lacey's next adventure

  The Glass House

  By Ashley Gardner

  Book 3 of the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries

  * * * * *

  The Glass House

  by Ashley Gardner

  Chapter One

  The affair of The Glass House began quietly enough one evening in late January, 1817. I passed the afternoon drinking ale at The Rearing Pony, a tavern in Maiden Lane near Covent Garden, in a common room that was noisy, crowded, and overheated. Sweating men swapped stories and laughter, and a barmaid called Anne Tolliver filled glasses and winked at me as she passed.

  I first learned of anything amiss when I left the tavern to make my way home to prepare for a soiree at the house of Lucius Grenville. It was eight o'clock, the winter night outside was black and brutally cold, and rain came down. A hackney waited at a stand, white vapor streaming from the horse's nostrils while the coachman warmed himself with a nip from a flask.

  I walked as quickly as I could on the slick cobbles, trying to retain the warmth of ale and fire I’d left behind in the public house. My rooms in Grimpen Lane would be dark and lonely, and Bartholomew would not be there. Since Christmas, Bartholomew, the tall, blond, Teutonic-looking footman to Lucius Grenville, had become my makeshift manservant, but tonight he had returned to Grenville's house to help prepare for tonight’s gathering.

  At least my lodgings had become something less than dismal since Bartholomew's arrival. Grenville had lent him to me and paid for his keep, because the lad wanted to train to be a valet, the pinnacle of the servant class. Therefore, I now had someone to mix my shaving soap, brush my suits, keep my boots polished, and talk to me while we chewed through the beefsteak and boiled potatoes he fetched from the nearby public house.

  I suspected Grenville's purpose in sending Bartholomew to me was twofold--first, because Grenville felt sorry for me, and second, because he wanted to keep an eye on me. With Bartholomew reporting to him, Grenville would be certain not to miss any intriguing situation into which I might land myself.

  Bad fortune for him that Grenville had chosen to call Bartholomew home to help him tonight.

  My rooms lay above a bake shop in the in the tiny cul-de-sac of Grimpen Lane, which ran behind Bow Street. The bake shop was a jovial place of warm, yeasty breads, coffee, and banter when it was open. Mrs. Beltan let the rooms above it cheap, and I'd found her to be a fair landlady. The shop was closed now, Mrs. Beltan home with her sister, the windows dark and empty.

  As I reached to unlock the outer door that led to the stairs, a voice boomed at me out of the darkness.

  "Happily met, Captain."

  I recognized the strident tones of Milton Pomeroy, once my sergeant, now one of the famous Bow Street Runners. The light from windows in the house opposite shone on his pale blond hair and battered hat, the dark suit on his broad shoulders, and his round and healthy face.

  In the Thirty-Fifth Light Dragoons during the Peninsular War, Pomeroy had been my sergeant. In civilian life, he'd retained his booming sergeant's voice, his brisk sergeant's attitude, and his utter ruthlessness in pursuit of the enemy. The enemy now were not the French, but the pickpockets, house-breakers, murderers, prostitutes, and other denizens of London.

  "A piss of an evening," he said jovially. "Not like the Peninsula, eh?"

  Weather in Iberia had been both hot and cold, but usually dry, and the summers could be fine. Tonight especially, I longed for those summer days under the sweltering sun. "Indeed, Sergeant," I said.

  "Well, I've not come to jaw about the weather. I've come to ask you about that little actress what lives upstairs from you."

  I regarded him in surprise. "Miss Simmons?"

  "Aye, that's the one. Seen her about?"

  "Not for a week or so."

  Marianne Simmons, a blond young woman with a deceptively childlike face and large blue eyes, eked out a living playing small parts at Drury Lane theatre. She lived in the rooms above mine and stretched her meager income by helping herself to my candles, coal, snuff, and other commo
dities. I let her, knowing she might go without otherwise.

  Marianne often disappeared for long stretches at a time. I had once tried to inquire where she went on her sojourns, but she only fixed me with a cold stare and told me it was none of my business. I assumed Marianne found a protector during these absences, temporarily at least. In the past, she'd always returned within a month, proclaiming her general disgust at men and asking whether she could share my supper.

  "Well, then, sir," Pomeroy went on cheerfully. "Can you come along with me and look at a corpse from the river? It might very well be hers."

  I stopped in shock. "What? Good God."

  "Pulled out of the Thames not half hour ago by a waterman," Pomeroy said. "She looked like your actress, so I thought I'd fetch you to make sure."

  My blood went cold. Marianne and I had our differences, but I counted her among my friends. I certainly didn’t wish so terrible a death on her. "There's nothing to tell you who she is?"

  "Not a thing, so the Thames River gent says. She's not been dead long. A few hours or more, I should say. Officer of the Thames River Patrol sent for the magistrate, who sent for me."

  So explaining, Pomeroy led me out of Grimpen Lane and Russel Street and down to the Strand. My walking stick rang on the cobbles as I strove to match Pomeroy's long stride and tried to stem my rising worry.

  I doubted Marianne would try to do away with herself; she had a brisk attitude toward life, no matter that it had not dealt her very high cards. She was not a brilliant actress, but she did well enough and was always popular with the gentlemen of the audience.

  But accidents happened, and people fell into the river and drowned all too often. I wondered, if the dead woman proved to be Marianne, how on earth I would break the news to Grenville.

  We walked east on the Strand and entered Fleet Street through one of the pedestrian arches of Temple Bar. The road curved with the river that flowed a few streets away, though the high buildings hid any aspect of it.