The Hanover Square Affair (Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries Book 1)

by Ashley Gardner

  Pomeroy considered this. “All those things could have happened. All the same, I’m not arresting the man. And you’d do best to let him alone, Captain. He’s a one what likes his privacy. Pretend he never went to that house, and you know nothing about it.”

  “I already have an appointment to speak to Mr. Denis.”

  Pomeroy looked me up and down then spoke in a slow voice. “You know, Captain, when we were on the line, opinion in the ranks was that you were one of the bravest officers in the King’s army. The bravest and the best. But sometimes, we thought you went too far. You were so crazy-brave, you expected all the rest of us to be too. Like charging a hill loaded with artillery. We thought we should truss you up and toss you in the baggage carts. Meaning no disrespect, sir.”

  I looked him in the eye. “We won that hill, Sergeant. Which allowed our infantry to move through.”

  “It didn’t make you any less insane. This is another case you ought to be trussed up, sir. Don’t have nothing to do with Mr. Denis. You’ll regret it something powerful. Let Bremer be the culprit. Easiest on everyone.”

  Except Bremer, I thought. I changed the subject. “What do you know about the murder of a young woman in Hampstead?”

  Pomeroy’s eyes gleamed. “Someone else has been murdered?”

  “The body was found about a week or so ago, in the woods. A young woman. She’d been there a while.”

  “Hmm, I think I remember hearing about it. A maid or some such?”

  “A kitchen maid for Lord Sommerville. Her name is Matilda. I’d like to know her surname, and also the name of her brother who traveled to Hampstead to identify her body.”

  “What do you want to know for?”

  “I’m interested. Also, any information on a woman called Charlotte Morrison, who disappeared about the same time the girl was killed.”

  “Oh-ho. You think the two are connected.”

  “They might be. I have no idea. Have you had any leads regarding Jane Thornton?”

  “Not heard a word, but I’ve got an ear out. I saw your notices. I wouldn’t mind ten guineas meself. You giving out rewards for information on the other two?”

  “Not as yet. When you hear anything at all, send word to me.” I started to walk away.

  “I ain’t your sergeant anymore, Captain. I don’t take orders from you, you know.”

  I swung around. “But I’m mad, remember? You never know what I might take into my head to do.”

  I left him then, muttering not quite under his breath about right-bastard officers who liked to make a hell of everyone’s lives.

  *** *** ***

  I went back to the Thorntons’ house in the Strand. The one person who had been present for Horne’s murder was Aimee. I’d wanted to leave her alone, to let her turn her back on Horne and his house, but Bremer’s fate might depend on her answers to my questions.

  Alice greeted me and informed me that Mr. Thornton was still alive. He had come ‘round the day before, but now lay asleep again, dosed with laudanum. I was encouraged, but did not give in to hope. He still could so easily slip away.

  I asked to see Aimee. Alice looked surprised, then told me that she’d gone to stay with her aunt, a woman called Josette Martin. She gave me the direction, and I headed east in a hackney through the Strand and Fleet Street and into the City, to a small boardinghouse near St. Paul’s Churchyard.

  “Captain.” Josette Martin met me in the middle of a neat, though shabby drawing room and shook my hand. Threads of gray laced her brown hair, which was braided and looped in neat coils. Her face was square and her nose snub, but her eyes were large and wide, framed with long black lashes.

  “Mrs. Martin.”

  “You are the gentleman who brought Aimee home?” She spoke flawless English, but with a fluid French accent.

  I acknowledged that I was.

  She motioned to me to sit in an armchair then perched on a sofa a little way from me. “It was very good of you to help her. How did you come to find her? She remembers very little.”

  Even as she expressed gratitude, her look was wary. She must have wondered what I’d been doing in the house where her niece had been held captive.

  “Will she live with you now?” I asked.

  She nodded, candlelight catching in the gloss of her hair. “I raised Aimee after her parents died in France. I trained her to be a lady’s maid, as I was. But I believe we will not stay in England. We will return to France when she is well.”

  “How is she?”

  “You are kind to ask. Aimee will recover, in body at least. He was very cruel to her. The man is dead?”

  “Most definitely dead.”

  Josette’s eyes hardened. “Good. Then God has taken his vengeance. Do you think that wicked of me?”

  “To be happy that the monster who hurt your niece is dead? I feel the same.”

  That seemed to satisfy her. “I thought at first you’d come from the magistrate. To question her.”

  I kept my voice gentle, though impatience pricked me. “I do want to ask her a few questions if she is well enough to speak to me. I am trying to find what became of her mistress.”

  “Miss Thornton? I am worried for her as well. The Thorntons are poor. Aimee did the duties of upstairs maid and looked after both Miss Thornton and her mother, but they were all kind to her. It was a good place.”

  “May I speak to her?”

  “I am not certain. She was in low spirits this morning, but she may agree to see you. She is grateful for what you did.”

  Josette rose. I got up politely and crossed to the door to hold it open for her. She flashed me a small smile as she went by, with even, white teeth.

  I waited for nearly a quarter of an hour for her return. I tried to keep my patience, but I was annoyed with myself that I had not questioned Aimee from the start. I might have prevented Bremer’s arrest—not only did I not believe the butler had killed his master, I also wanted to get Bremer into my clutches to find out what had happened to Jane. Pity had moved me to leave Aimee alone, but I might have cost Jane her safety.

  Josette at last returned to tell me that Aimee would see me, but she was very tired. I promised I would ask Aimee only a few questions, and Josette led me down a hall to a small bedroom in the rear of the house.

  The room was dark, the curtains closed. Aimee lay on a chaise, wrapped in a shawl, her feet covered with a rug. She looked at me with enormous dark eyes in a pinched face.

  Josette went to the window and rearranged the curtains to let in more light. Then she drew a stool next to the fire, fished mending out of a basket next to it, and began stitching. I pulled a straight-backed chair from the wall and seated myself next to the bed and Aimee.

  During the war, I’d seen women, and also men, who had been brutalized by soldiers, wear the same look of blank fear that Aimee wore now. Their trust had been broken, their peace destroyed.

  I kept my voice quiet. “Aimee, do you remember me?”

  Aimee nodded, her yellow hair limply brushing the pillows. “From the house.”

  “How are you?” I asked.

  Aimee turned her head and looked at the window, where weak sunlight tried to filter through clouds. “Alice and the mistress were kind to me. And Mrs. Brandon.”

  She spoke woodenly, and I noted she did not answer my question.

  “I’ve come to talk to you because I want to find Jane Thornton. Anything you can tell me, anything about how you came to Mr. Horne’s house and how she left it, will help.”

  Aimee had closed her eyes during my speech. Now she opened them and plucked at the fringe of the shawl. “I do not remember very much.”

  “Anything you can,” I said. “I want to find Jane and bring her home.”

  Her gaze flicked to me briefly then away. “Alice told me how kind you’ve been. But I don’t know how much I can help. They gave me opium to make me sleep and would not let me stay with Miss Jane. I want the opium all the time now, and it hurts when I cannot have it. Isn�
�t that funny?”

  I didn’t find it in the least amusing. “Do you know how you came to be in Mr. Horne’s house at all?”

  “Not very well.” Her voice died to a whisper. “I remember my young lady and I had gone to the Strand to wait for the carriage. It was so crowded that day, I did not know how it was going to find us. A woman, she came to us and asked Miss Jane to help her. She was dressed in rags and crying and begged for Miss Jane to come with her.”

  “And Miss Thornton went?”

  “Miss Jane had a kind heart. She was afraid the woman was sick or in trouble, and so she went. The beggar woman took us into a tiny court a little way down the street, and then I remember nothing. Perhaps someone hit me, I do not know. I awoke in an attic and I was very frightened, but Miss Jane was there, and she comforted me.”

  “Was this attic in Mr. Horne’s house?”

  “No. I do not know where we were. We were bound hand and foot in the middle of the floor and could not get loose. When it was very dark, people came and gave us something to drink. I knew it was opium, but they made us drink it. When I awoke again, I was in another attic, but in a bed, and Miss Jane was there, with him.”

  “With Mr. Horne?”

  She nodded, her eyes filling. “He told Miss Jane he’d hurt me if she did not do what he said. I begged her to not listen, to run away, but she went with him. She always did what he said.”

  “She did not try to run away, or find a constable, or go home?”

  Aimee shook her head against the pillows. “He did not have to hold her with a lock or a door. She was so ashamed of what she’d become, even though it was not her fault. I told her to go, and it made no difference about me, but she would not. And then he sent her away. All alone, with nothing. He broke her spirit, then he tossed her out like rubbish.”

  For the first time since I’d entered the room, Aimee looked directly at me. Her wide brown eyes held deep and unwavering pain and unmasked fury.

  “Did he send her somewhere?”

  “I do not know. One morning, she was gone, and he would not tell me where, though I asked and asked. I know he must have thrown her out.”

  “Was she going to have a child?”

  “I do not know. She would not tell me. But I think so. He thought so.”

  I hesitated a long time, trying to put my questions in a way that would not hurt her. “You were in the wardrobe in his study the day he died,” I said. “He put you there.”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  Her fair brows drew together. “What do you mean?”

  “Did he put you in that morning, or later, after his visitor had departed?”

  Aimee’s body drooped. “I do not know. I have been trying to remember. But I hurt so much, and I was so tired.”

  “Do you remember the visitor?”

  “I remember Mr. Bremer coming to the study and telling him someone had come to call. Mr. Horne was angry at him. But then he told Mr. Bremer to let the guest upstairs. I do not know who it was; Mr. Bremer spoke so softly. After Mr. Bremer left, Mr. Horne carried me to the wardrobe. I cried and begged him to let me go back to the attics so I could rest, but he pushed me in and locked the door.”

  “Could you hear through the door what the two gentlemen spoke about?”

  “I cannot remember if I heard them or not. The doors were thick, and I was sleepy.”

  I decided to try another tack. “After the other gentleman left, did Mr. Horne open the wardrobe again?”

  She went silent a moment, her eyes reflecting pain. “I do not believe he did, sir. I was well and truly asleep after that, and I remember nothing.”

  I sat back. If Horne had not opened the wardrobe again, that might mean he’d been dead when his visitor, Denis, had left him. But Horne might simply have decided to leave Aimee there, and someone else could have come to the study and killed him while she slept.

  “The butler, Bremer, has been arrested for Mr. Horne’s murder,” I said.

  Aimee’s eyes widened. “Mr. Bremer, sir? He did not. He could not have.”

  “It is possible that he did. After Mr. Denis—Horne’s visitor, that is—departed, Bremer could have come in and stabbed Mr. Horne, not realizing you were in the wardrobe.”

  “Oh, no, sir, not Mr. Bremer.”

  “Why not? You said you heard nothing.”

  She shook her head, alert now. Josette looked up from her stitching.

  “Mr. Bremer is a foolish and weak old man,” Aimee said. “He was terrified of him. He never could have done such a thing.”

  “You do not think that even an elderly man, cowed and frightened, could have killed him in a fit of terror?”

  Her lips whitened. “I do not know.”

  “What about the other staff? Could any of them have killed him?”

  “I never saw the others. Except Grace.”

  “What about Grace?”

  Aimee’s brow puckered. “I think—I don’t remember. I never saw her that day, I do not think.” Her eyes lost their glitter, and she touched her hand to her throat. “I am sorry, sir. I’m very tired.”

  Josette put aside her stitching and rose. “Aimee should rest now, sir.”

  Disappointment touched me, but I got to my feet. I’d hoped Aimee would tell me everything I needed to know, but I could not expect a tormented and ill woman to have all my answers for me.

  I wanted to give Aimee words of comfort, to help her with pretty phrases, but I had nothing to give. She had been broken, body and soul, and it would take a long time for her to heal. Perhaps she never would, completely.

  Josette accompanied me to the front room, her gait rigid with disapproval.

  “Forgive me,” I said. “I did not mean to upset her.”

  Josette looked up at me in sympathy. She truly did have beautiful eyes. “It is not your fault, sir. You had to know.”

  “I will look for Jane. I will find her.”

  “Yes, sir. I know you will. Thank you for being good to Aimee.”

  I took Josette’s hand in farewell. Something sparked in her eyes, something behind the gratitude, and the anger, and the sorrow, something I did not understand. She looked back at me, bemused, and I released her hand and took my leave.

  *** *** ***

  That evening, I began looking in the brothels for Jane Thornton. I began with those known near Hanover Square and fanned out my search from there.

  The witty called such houses nunneries or schools of Venus, and coined the madams who ran them, abbesses. But they were nothing more than bawdy houses in which a gentleman could purchase the company of a lady for an hour or a night. Many houses nearer Mayfair housed fine ladies, who might have begun their lives as gentlemen’s daughters. The fashionable thronged to these high-flyers for clever conversation as well as for baser pleasures.

  The farther east I traveled, the coarser the houses became and the less clean the girls. In each I asked about a young woman called Jane or Lily.

  What I got for my trouble were threats, being shoved from doorsteps, and nearly being pummeled by the bullies who guarded the doors. After the abbesses discovered I had no money, they considered me a nuisance and wanted to be rid of me. I had to show the length of steel in my swordstick a time or two before their bullies would let me go. They must have sent word ‘round to each other, because some were ready for me before I even arrived.

  I visited the nunneries near my rooms later, after dark, just to be thorough. None were any more pleased to see me than those in Mayfair had been.

  As I tramped down Long Acre, Black Nancy sidled up to me and slipped her hand through the crook of my arm.

  “If you want a game girl so bad, Captain, yer can just come to me.”

  I glanced sharply down at her, not really in the mood for her banter. “I am looking for a girl who shouldn’t be in the nunneries. Not one who should.”

  “You’re that baffling, Captain. What are you on about?”

  “A young lady’s family is look
ing for her. I want to find her and send her home.”

  Nancy made a face. “Well, what if she don’t want ter go? Reformers try to send me home all the time. Stupid sods. Me dad’s worse than any flat I ever had.”

  Nancy had once told me that her father beat her, and I’d seen the bruises on her face that she tried to hide with paint and powder. “I think I do not much like your father,” I said.

  She chuckled. “Suits me. I don’t like him either.”

  I strolled back toward Covent Garden, and she stuck to me like a dog following its master. “What’s this girl’s name? Maybe I know her.”

  “I’m not certain what she’s calling herself. Maybe Jane. Or Lily.”

  She pursed her lips. “I know lots of Janes. No Lilies.”

  I looked down at her. “Are there any new girls on the streets of late? One who doesn’t seem to fit in?”

  “There’s new girls all the time. They don’t last. Would she work Covent Garden?”

  I shook my head, depressed. “You don’t know anyone called Charlotte, do you?” I hazarded.

  “How many ladies do you want, Captain? No, I don’t know no Charlottes. Why don’t you want a Nancy?”

  I studied the white-painted face beside me. “I have one more than I can endure now.”

  She grinned, her scarlet mouth wide. “Ain’t you lucky I like you? ’Cause I’ll tell ya something, Captain. I found your coachman.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  I stopped short and looked down at her in astonishment. A squat man stumbled into me, then pushed past me with a curse.

  “Why didn’t you say so?” I demanded.

  “You never asked. You were pleased to go on about your Janes and Lilies and Charlottes.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Keep your trousers on, Captain. Or rather, no. I bet you’re handsome in your skin.”

  “If you are only going to babble nonsense, I’ll go home and keep my shillings.”

  Nancy clung to my arm. “Wait a minute. I’m only teasing yer. I did it just like yer said. I hung about watching the nobs come to the theatre. I asked and asked about people called Carstairs until I found their coach. But the coachman was new. Only been coachin’ for the Carstairs for a couple weeks. Last coachman gave notice, you see, and went off.”