“I wake in the night, afraid. Perhaps some step jars my sleep, or perhaps it is fancy, but my heart beats hard, and it is a long time before I drift off again. No, please do not worry, and do not write of it; my cousin would think it odd if I did not share your letters.”
She said nothing more on the subject. The January letter was the last.
I read them through again, wondering whether I’d missed something, but I found nothing else. I folded the letters into the lacquer box and laid them on the bedside table.
I wondered what had frightened Charlotte and if it had anything to do with Jane Thornton. Had Charlotte met someone she suspected had sinister designs on her? Or was she only unused to living so near London?
I wanted to speak to the friend she’d written the letters to. I’d write to her, though I did not like the prospect of a journey to Somerset. It would be long and expensive and my leg already ached from the short excursion to Hampstead. It would also take time from my searching for Jane Thornton, and I feared that every day might be her last.
I put out my candles, lay back, and tried to sleep. But the pain in my leg kept me awake, as did my thoughts. I went over the publican’s wife’s tale of the murder of the girl in the woods. Why had she been killed? A quarrel with a lover? Or had she seen something—the abduction of Charlotte Morrison perhaps?
Sleep would not come. I tried to still my thoughts by thinking of Janet and loving her. She had turned up exactly when I’d needed her, and I greatly looked forward to seeing her again.
But visions of her face flitted from me and I could only remember Horne in the pool of dried blood and Aimee locked inside the cupboard with dark bruises on her face.
The quiet of the room irritated me. I was used to city dwelling now, and even in the depths of Portugal and Spain, I had lived with the army, in noise and chaos and without privacy. I tossed for a time under the blankets, then I gave in to my restlessness.
I rose, took up my candle, and padded to the sitting room. The door to Grenville’s bedchamber stood open. I crossed to close it, not wanting to wake him with my restlessness.
I stopped. Grenville’s bed was empty. The sheets lay smooth and undisturbed, turned down for the night by the chambermaid who had scuttled in as we finished our repast. Grenville had not slept there, and he was nowhere in sight.
*** *** ***
I returned to bed, and despite my disquiet about where Grenville had disappeared to and why, I slept again.
In the morning, he turned up for breakfast as though he had been there all along. I nearly asked him where he had gone, but decided I would not pry. I would pretend, as he did, that he had gone nowhere until he chose to tell me otherwise.
We decided that I would return the letters to the Beauchamps myself, and Grenville would ride to visit with Lord Sommerville before we departed for London. Grenville was acquainted with the elderly viscount and said he would drop a few questions about Sommerville’s kitchen maid the publican’s wife had reported to us was found dead in the woods.
After breakfast the hostler’s boy hoisted me onto a mare Grenville had hired. I could still ride a horse, if it were an even-tempered beast and someone boosted me onto the bloody thing. She was about seventeen hands, a bit larger than the horses I’d charged about on in the cavalry. For a country nag, her conformation was surprisingly fine, her gaits smooth. Her hocks bent and lifted with precision, and her eye was alert, her going, sound.
I had ridden fine horses in Portugal and Spain, but I’d forced in myself a certain detachment to them. Horses died at three or four times the rate of men, and though I took care, I lost more than my heart cared to. I’d seen cavalry officers weep as their horses, wounded, thrashed furrows into the bloody ground, the stench of death and fear covering them. More than once, I’d shot the poor beasts for them, as the officers stood, helpless, rocking in grief and sorrow. Dead horses, mounded with crows, had littered the battlefields. Detachment, I’d found, was best.
I turned the mare to the road that led to Beauchamp’s modest house. The clouds lowered and threatened rain again. I nudged my horse into a faster trot, and pulled my hat down over my forehead as the first drops touched me. My route led me through an open field, and the road dipped.
A young man rose up from the low hedge beside the road and grabbed my horse’s bridle. The horse snorted and danced, and I slid halfway from the saddle.
“What the devil— ?”
The youth abandoned the bridle, grabbed me by the arm, and yanked me from the saddle. My stiff knee protested, and I landed hard on the packed earth.
My assailant came at me, arms wide. I struggled upright and waited. He lunged. I tucked my body together, ducked to one side, and caught his outflung arm.
He was strong, heavy, young muscles determined, but he was inexperienced. I jerked with my weight and flipped him neatly over onto his back.
He made a “ha!” noise as the air whooshed from his lungs, and he lay still a moment, like an insect on its back. I sprinted the distance to the horse. I knew I’d never mount without assistance, so I snatched my walking stick from the saddle.
I yanked the sword from my cane just as two huge arms closed around me from behind and the lad half lifted me from my feet. I swung my sword behind me in an arc and slapped him hard on the leg.
He yelped. I slapped again. His hold loosened. I pulled my elbow close to my body and slammed it backward.
“Oop—” he gasped.
I slid from his slack grip, whirled, and faced him, my sword level with his heart.
“Odd place for a robbery, here on an open green in the middle of the day.”
He did not answer. His mouth opened and closed a few times, his face red with his returning breath. His eyes held no belligerence, only surprise, as though he had not counted on a victim who would fight back.
The youth stared at my sword a moment then whirled and fled, straight for the horse.
“Damnation.” I limped after him as fast as I could. The horse, as I’d said, was an even-tempered beast who did not fear humans. She shied a little as the big lad approached but allowed herself to be caught. Instead of mounting, the boy dug into the saddlebag, pulled out the lacquer box, released the horse, and ran from me across the green.
I cursed again, running and hobbling after him, my knee spreading white-hot pain up my spine. I had told Mrs. Beauchamp I’d take care of the letters, and now they moved farther and farther away in the beefy hands of an unknown boy.
“Lacey!”
I turned and saw Grenville cantering toward me on his bay horse. “What happened? Did you take a fall?”
“Go after him.” I pointed at the silhouette of the lad fast disappearing into the mist and rain. “Hurry. Get the box from him.”
Grenville nodded curtly, wheeled his mount, and galloped away.
I caught my horse and led her in Grenville’s wake. Dividing my weight between the walking stick and the mare, I was able to hobble along without hurting myself too badly, although the horse tried to take a bite out of my jacket from time to time.
I reached the top of a small rise and looked down the slope that slid smoothly to a gray pond, dull under the rain. The lad made for it, Grenville only a few strides behind.
A small black object arced from the young man’s hands and landed with a silent splash in the water. The lad leapt from the bank into the water, and Grenville’s mount danced backward from the fountain that erupted from the impact. The boy swam the narrow distance to the other bank, pulled himself quickly out, and ran on.
“Grenville!” I shouted through cupped hands. “Get the box!”
Grenville slid from his horse, then stopped among the reeds, his hands on his hips. I ran forward, dropping my horse’s reins. The box bobbed in the still water, not yet saturated enough to sink. I slipped in the mud on the bank, and caught myself in time from falling in.
“What the devil happened?” Grenville demanded. “Who was that?”
“I don’t know.
”
I leaned out over the pond, extending my cane. The box floated just beyond my reach. “Hold on to me.”
“Blast you, Lacey, you’ll go in, and then I’ll have to fish you out.”
“Do it!”
Grenville looked at me in exasperation but nodded.
I lowered myself to my stomach in the mud. Grenville grasped my ankles while I inched toward the water. The box floated, half-submerged and bobbing on the gray surface. I thrust my walking stick toward it. The handle slapped the water, and the box danced away. I slithered forward, praying Grenville had a good grip on my legs, and reached again.
I touched the box. The end of the cane shook as I gingerly hooked the gold head of the stick on the edge. I raked the box toward me. It came, dragging on the surface, its top glistening with water. When the box bumped the bank, I tossed my walking stick to the ground beside me, plunged my hands into the chill water, and dragged the box out.
Water poured from the seams. I rolled over, dislodging Grenville’s hold, and squirmed to a sitting position on firmer ground. I sat holding that damned box, my coat and breeches plastered with mud. I turned the box around in my hands, depressed the catch that opened it, and stared in dismay at the sodden mess inside.
“Anything salvageable?” Grenville asked.
“I have no idea.” I lifted a paper, gently separating it from the others. Peeling off his muddy gloves, Grenville reached a long-fingered hand into the box and pried out another paper. I related the tale of the young man’s surprise attack and his theft of the box.
Grenville frowned. “Notice that he threw the box into the pond.”
I glared up from the wet paper in my hand. “Yes, I had noticed.”
“I mean that if he were only afraid of being caught, he could have flung the box down and fled, or thrown it across the pond to pick up when he reached the other side. But he deliberately chose to send it into the water. As though he wanted to destroy the letters rather than risk you getting them back.”
“Or he thought we’d stop and try to retrieve it, giving him time to run away. What would he want with Charlotte Morrison’s letters?”
“What indeed?”
I glanced at him, but he had bent to the task at hand again.
Grenville caught the horses while I patted the papers with my handkerchief and folded them carefully back into the box, now lined with Grenville’s handkerchief. Grenville boosted me onto my horse, tucked the box back into the saddlebag, then mounted his own horse. I couldn’t help looking warily into the scrub that lined the road as we turned onto it.
“I doubt he’ll be back,” Grenville said. “He expected to pluck his pigeon easily, not be pummeled by you and chased by me.” He chuckled. “I am sorry I missed the first part.”
I didn’t bother to answer. I was cold and muddy and annoyed and my leg hurt like fury. Grenville, on the other hand, even in the rain, looked dry and elegant and ready to step into a drawing room.
We parted again at the crossroads, me to ride on to the Beauchamps, Grenville to continue to Lord Sommerville’s.
I had to explain to Mrs. Beauchamp what had happened to the letters. She hugged the box to her chest as she listened, her brown eyes round.
“Whoever would want to steal Charlotte’s letters?”
“He may not have known the letters were inside,” I said. “He saw a pretty box and thought it would contain something valuable.”
I knew that was untrue. The box had been out of sight, in the saddlebag. The lad had deliberately looked for it.
“I am so sorry, Captain. Thank you for rescuing them.”
“I ought to have taken better care of them.”
“You cannot blame yourself.”
She wanted to be generous. She gave me some hot tea laced with port and let me dry out near her fire. She chatted to me of life in Hampstead and of Charlotte and their life together.
Her husband waylaid me as I made my departure. On the walk in front of the house, Beauchamp seized my arm and looked up into my face, his dark eyes glinting. “Did the letters help?”
“That remains to be seen,” I said. “You may be right that she is dead.”
“If you find her—” His voice caught. He cleared his throat. “Please bring her home to us.”
“I will.”
Beauchamp did not offer to shake hands, nor did he bid me farewell. I turned back to my horse, let his footman boost me aboard, and rode back to the public house to await Grenville’s return.
*** *** ***
The drive back to London was quieter and wetter than the journey out had been. For the first part of it, I told Grenville what had been in Charlotte’s letters, and he described his visit with Lord Sommerville. Grenville had managed to bring up the death of the kitchen maid. Lord Sommerville, as the local magistrate, and also distressed that one of his staff should come to such an end, had made an inquiry, but it had turned up nothing. The young man she customarily walked out with had been in London on the night in question, visiting his brother and nephews. According to servants’ gossip, the maid Matilda, had apparently been cuckolding the young man with a new suitor, but Lord Sommerville did not know who the new suitor was. In the end, the death was put down to Matilda’s having met a footpad in the woods.
After Grenville’s recounting I dozed, still tired from my adventure. Grenville remained pensive and talked little. He mostly read newspapers, which each gave a lurid account of the murder of Josiah Horne. The Times speculated whether the brutal killing would reintroduce the question of creating a regular police force in England, such as they had in France.
Grenville gave me no explanation of why he’d disappeared from the inn the night before, and I did not ask him about it. His coachman left me at the top of Grimpen Lane, and I walked home. Again my neighbors streamed out to ogle Grenville’s coach and fine horses. Mrs. Beltan handed me a stack of letters that had arrived for me in my absence. I bought one of her yeasty, buttery buns and retired upstairs to read my correspondence.
Among the constrained and polite invitations to social gatherings was a letter from Louisa Brandon, telling me that she was doing what she could for the Thorntons. She also mentioned that she would host a supper party on the weekend, making it plain that she wanted me to attend. I tucked the letter aside, my mind turning over what excuses I’d come up with for refusing her invitation.
Another letter, which I lingered over for a time, was from Mr. Denis himself, setting an appointment with me for two days hence at his house in Curzon Street. The tone of the letter conveyed that Horne’s dying was only an inconvenience and should not stop a transaction of business. I wrote out a reply that I’d come.
The last of the post was a folded square of paper with my name on it in capitals. Unfolded, the note read: “I arrested the butler. Magistrate made short work of him. Pomeroy.”
Chapter Twelve
I flung down the letter. I’d washed my hands of Horne’s household and his death, but I did not think Bremer had killed his master. I’d left them to Pomeroy’s mercy, and he had been his usual ruthless self.
After shaving and downing the bun, I walked to Bow Street and the magistrate’s court. Inside the drab halls, the dregs of the night’s arrests lay about waiting to appear before the magistrate. The smell of unwashed bodies and boredom smote me. For some reason, I scanned their ranks for Nance, but I didn’t see her. Most game girls bribed the Watch to look the other way, but occasionally, one chose to pick the wrong gentleman’s pocket or got caught in a brawl.
The pale-faced bailiff accosted me and demanded my business. I sent him looking for Pomeroy. While I waited, a small man with wiry hair latched his fingers on to my cuff and began a barely intelligible, one-sided conversation, washing me in gin-soaked breath.
“Get on with you,” Pomeroy boomed. He cuffed the little man, who howled and ran back to the wall. “Captain. Good news. I arrested the butler. He goes to trial in five days.”
There was no privacy to be h
ad in that hall. I motioned Pomeroy away from the crowd, but still had to raise my voice to be heard. “Why Bremer?”
“Stands to reason, doesn’t it? He’s the last one to see his master. He stabs him, cuts off his bollocks, sticks the knife back in the wound, leaves the room, and tells everyone the master asked not to be disturbed. You turn up later and won’t go away, so he legs it upstairs and ‘discovers’ the body. Nothing mysterious about it.”
“But why should Bremer kill Horne?”
“Because by all accounts that cove Horne was a right bastard. Jury won’t be sympathetic, though. Be wondering if their own manservants will get the idea to cut off their bollocks.”
I stood my ground. “Horne paid very high wages. Surely Bremer would put up with a difficult master for that. Or give notice if he truly disliked the man.”
Pomeroy shrugged. “No doubt he’ll confess his motives at the trial.”
“And why mutilate Horne? Why not stop at killing him?”
“Damned if I know, Captain. I didn’t ask him.”
“What did he tell the magistrate?” I asked.
“Not much. Kept babbling that he didn’t do it. Magistrate asked him then who did? But he couldn’t answer. Just gibbered.”
I shook my head. “Think, Pomeroy. Whoever killed Horne had to best him. Horne was younger and stronger than Bremer. It couldn’t have been easy to stab him.”
“Even the weak and frightened can do damage when they’re riled enough.” Pomeroy gave me a patient look. “Magistrate wanted a culprit. I gave him one.”
“Horne had another visitor that day. No one saw Horne after the visitor left, not even the butler.”
“Oh, yes? Who was that then?”
“Mr. James Denis.”
Pomeroy snorted. “And it ain’t likely I’m going to run ‘round and arrest him, sir, is it? He’s a toff that no one’s going to touch, least of all the likes of me. What would he kill Horne for anyway?”
“Perhaps Horne owed him money, and Denis was angry that he hadn’t been paid. Perhaps Horne slighted him. Perhaps Horne knew something that Mr. Denis didn’t want put about.”
The Hanover Square Affair (Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries Book 1) Page 10
