Most of all, Barbury's letters expressed his great happiness that he and Peaches were together again-monotonously so. Occasionally, he admonished her about her craving for excitement, which would get her into trouble some day, he warned. Sadly, he had been correct.
All Barbury's letters had been addressed here, to number 12, St. Charles Row. She had used this place as a home away from home, a place to which her lover could send letters, in which she could dress herself as Peaches the lovely actress and meet her Lord Barbury. Her husband would likely never find this place, and Peaches probably had paid Kensington handsomely for the privilege.
I refolded the last letter and sat lost in thought. Suppose Chapman had discovered this place and his wife's duplicity-would it have driven him to murder? He would certainly have had reason to be incensed. Peaches and Barbury had been conducting a most intense affair.
True, Chapman had produced a witness to swear that he was dining during the hour his wife met her death, but I could not cross Chapman off the list of suspects yet. Of anyone, he had the greatest motive, and Peaches had been thrown into the river very close to Middle Temple Hall.
Likewise, I still could not dismiss Lord Barbury. Like Chapman, he'd had witnesses to his presence at White's at the time in question, but he could have hired someone to carry out the murder. When Peaches had turned from Lord Barbury the first time, his letters had been sad but understanding. However, other letters had shown a fiery, hot-blooded man-a man who very much desired a woman and was almost ill with despair when he could not see her.
If Peaches had told him she wanted to end their relationship a second time, could Barbury have been provoked to murder? Possibly. Many murders were committed out of jealousy and anger; the newspapers were full of such stories.
I stacked the letters together, laid them on the desk, and opened another drawer. I found there another letter, unfolded and unfinished, lying atop a neat stack of blank paper.
This letter was in a different hand and addressed to "My dearest, funny, sweetest Bear." Peaches had called Barbury "Bear," Jean had said. Not the salutation of a woman to a man she planned to leave.
We will have two delicious weeks together, she wrote, when we can pretend that we belong totally and completely to one another. Oh, my darling, my heart beats faster with thought of days and nights in your presence, where you may touch my hand or my cheek any time as though I was yours forever and ever. And nights-how I long to be with you in the dark all night long, without fearing the clock and the dawn.
She went on for a few paragraphs in this vein, excitement and desire pouring from her pen. She never mentioned Inglethorpe, or her husband, or her method for deceiving Chapman. Why she'd never finished the letter nor sent it, I didn't learn from her words.
The clean papers beneath the page were smooth and free of indentation. I toyed with the idea that Kensington had come in and removed a second page of the letter, one that incriminated him of her murder, leaving only the top page for me to find.
If he had, he'd removed any blank sheets that might have been under it to catch the indentation. The letter stopped a good two inches above the end of the page. Peaches likely had only written that much, then tucked the paper into the drawer to finish later.
I folded it over on itself, hiding the excited, happy words, and laid it with the rest of the letters.
I found nothing else in the writing desk or in my continued search of the room. Finishing, I seated myself on the upholstered bench at the foot of the bed, my hand on my borrowed walking stick, and looked about me.
Peaches had lived here and loved here. Had she died here?
Again, I had seen nothing that obviously pointed to her murder, but Kensington could easily have removed any evidence. I still did not much believe he did not have a separate key.
I found it strange that the house had this one oasis of calm, where Peaches had found refuge. I had expected the room to be a terrible place, a prison, but it felt more like a sanctuary. Peaches had had this one place of her own, in which she could lock out her husband, Kensington, and even her lover if she chose.
I stayed there for a time, listening to the faint sounds of traffic outside, then I rose and gathered up the letters. There was a fairly large bundle, but I took them all. I gave the room one last look, descended to the ground floor of the house, and bade the doorman run and fetch a hackney coach for me.
The doorman was ill disposed to help me at all, but Kensington appeared and told the man to do what I said.
Kensington eyed the bundle of letters while I waited. "Finished prying, Captain?"
"For now." I gave him a cold look. "Tell me, what exactly were you to Peaches, all those years ago, when she was a girl just going on the stage?"
Kensington smiled. "A friend, I hope."
"What did you do for her? And what did you make her do for you?"
"I resent your implication, Captain. I managed to introduce Amelia to a company of players, to get her a part on a stage, to expose her to people with influence. That is all."
"She did not like you."
He waved that away. "She was young, with a head full of romantic notions. The ladies, you know."
"If I discover you murdered her," I said, my voice steady, "may God have mercy on you."
Kensington's eyes flickered the slightest bit and his bravado faltered. He was not exactly afraid of me, but he was uncertain. I liked that.
A hackney coach rolled to a stop in front of the door just then, and I departed with my treasures.
It was a long, slow, cold ride back to Covent Garden. We wound through the City to Fleet Street, then through the Temple Bar and onto the Strand and so to Grimpen Lane. It was dark by the time I climbed the stairs to my rooms.
Bartholomew was there, tidying, brushing my regimentals again for my evening meal with Grenville and Lord Barbury. I bade him find me a box for the letters, and he returned from the attics with a small one of rough wood, into which the letters just fit. I would return them to Lord Barbury to do with what he liked.
When Bartholomew deemed the regimentals ready for me, he helped me into them. Before I'd finished fastening the cords on my coat, someone knocked at the door. Bartholomew went to answer, then returned to tell me that Mrs. Beltan, my landlady, was asking for me.
"It's Mrs. Brandon, sir," Mrs. Beltan said when I reached the front room. "She's downstairs and would like a word."
I descended after Mrs. Beltan to the bakeshop in some disquiet. Louisa usually thought nothing of walking upstairs to my rooms, leaving her footman to gnaw bread in Mrs. Beltan's shop. That she'd chosen to send Mrs. Beltan upstairs for me worried me somewhat.
The shop was full of customers at this time of day, including Louisa's footman, who, as usual, was chewing on a pastry. Mrs. Beltan led me to the little parlor behind the shop, let me in, and closed the door, leaving me and Louisa alone.
Louisa awaited me in a room that reminded me of Mrs. Beltan herself: plump and cozy and old fashioned. Cushions covered nearly every flat surface, cushions that were fat and tasseled, thin and embroidered, plump and plush. They were piled on the Turkish couch, the two chairs, the window sill, and the shelves of a cupboard.
Louisa sat on the Turkish couch and did not rise when I entered. She looked tired, I thought. Very tired.
I went to her and raised her hands from her lap. She did not protest when I pressed a light kiss to each, but she kept her fingers loosely curled.
"Louisa, what is it? Are you all right?"
"I do beg your pardon, Gabriel," Louisa said, voice weary. "I did not mean to worry you. I've only come to ask you for a favor."
"You know I would do anything for you."
"Good. Then I will ask you to please cease baiting my husband."
She looked up at me, and I stilled. In her eyes was something I had never seen before. She was not angry. She had gone beyond that.
"He is easy to bait, Louisa," I said lightly. "He has no imagination."
"I kn
ow. He is as stubborn as you are."
I released her hands. "Thank you very much."
"You can stop this, Gabriel. You simply will not."
I took a step back and let out a bitter laugh. "You would like me to pretend that things are well and mended, as we did all last autumn? That was not easy, as you must have known. I am pleased that Brandon and I have returned to normal."
Louisa rose in a rustle of skirts, her cheeks red. "I see. So you are happy to stand here and tell me how glad you are that you and Aloysius have returned to bickering like schoolboys? I am tired of it, Gabriel. Tired of your arguments and of being caught in the middle. I am tired of you."
Her words struck me like pistol balls, but she rushed on. "Do you think I enjoy knowing what you fight one another about? You are dear to me, Gabriel, dearer than almost anyone in the world, you always have been. You have told me I am dear to you."
"You are," I said, stricken.
"Then why do you force me to choose? I am loyal to my husband. I always will be. He deserves that."
My temper broke. "For God's sake, why? The man was ready to put you aside because you disappointed his selfish plans for fathering a dynasty. He deserves you spitting on him."
She shook her head. "I do not think that Aloysius ever meant to divorce me. Not truly."
"No? He made a damn good pretense of it."
"I misread him. I know that now. He hurt me, and I wanted to hurt him back."
"So you came to me that night to hurt him?" I asked, a dull ache in my chest.
"I do not know why I did what I did that night. I ran to you because I was afraid and confused, and so angry, Gabriel, you do not know how angry."
"I have some idea."
Her eyes were clear gray, like rain-washed skies. "No, you do not. He had wounded me at my weakest point, and I was furious at him for that. He had shattered my pride, and I wanted to strike back at him. You took me in and were so indignant on my behalf, and that pleased me."
"It pleased me too," I said, remembering.
I had hated Aloysius Brandon that night. When Louisa's tears had ceased enough that she could tell me her story, I had been ready to murder Brandon on the spot. Louisa had several times tried to give Brandon his hoped-for son, and she had failed each time. The enlightened Colonel Brandon blamed Louisa. I knew that Louisa secretly blamed herself, though she never voiced the thought.
I, on the other hand, put the blame squarely on Brandon. If he'd treasured Louisa as he ought, likely he would even now be surrounded by a horde of children.
"I believe that what angered him most is that you took my side against him," Louisa said.
I smiled wryly, hurt tainting my words. "Not finding you in my arms?"
Not in bed. I had held her close, letting her cry on my shoulder, while I had tumbled her hair and kissed her forehead. We'd been sitting on a camp chair, her cradled on my lap, the morning after she'd fled her husband, when Brandon had come looking for her.
I have never forgotten the look on his face. For all his bluster that he wanted to give her up, Brandon had damn well never meant for me to have her.
"We both stood against him, and he could not bear that," Louisa said. "He has always been much more worried about his pride than his love."
She was wrong. Brandon had wanted to kill me that night. He had certainly tried to kill me later.
"He is proud," I agreed. "His pride will be the death of him."
"I could say the same of you."
I could not argue. I had asked Louisa, this past summer, why she stayed with the irritating man. She had replied that she remembered the man Brandon had been-the admirable, brave, and compelling captain who had lured me from my Norfolk home. She still saw that in him, she'd said.
I could only see a man who'd let his achievements puff him up until he raged at minor disappointments. Brandon had wanted everything: the perfect wife, the perfect family, the perfect career, perfect devotion from me, the man he had created. He'd almost achieved all this until his pride destroyed it.
"I cannot help baiting him," I said, hiding my uneasiness behind a sardonic tone. "Brandon needs reminding that he ruined me. He can wait as long as he likes for me to fall on my knees and beg his forgiveness. I enjoy showing him that I've had done being his toady."
"Damn you, Gabriel, do you think I enjoy it? Watching you at each other's throats, hurling abuse at one another? I left the room the other night, but I would have had to flee to the next county to avoid hearing you. The servants too were most embarrassed."
"I know you get caught in our crossfire," I said, chagrined. "I am sorry. You know I never mean to hurt you."
"But it does hurt me, and neither you nor my husband let that stop you. How many times will you apologize to me, how many times will I forgive you for friendship's sake? I am running out of forgiveness."
I looked at her in sudden apprehension. "You are the dearest friend I have in the world, Louisa. I try to keep my temper around your husband, but he is so damned provoking. I could chew through a spoon trying to hold in my anger when he begins pontificating. You must know by now that reconciliation is impossible."
"Well you ought to chew through the spoon, then. And I know you will not reconcile. Both of you refuse to unbend. My meetings with you enrage my husband, as you know they do. I believe you encourage visits between myself and you simply to annoy him. And so these visits must stop."
The floor seemed to tilt like the deck of a ship. "Louisa, when I meet with you, it has nothing to do with your husband."
"You might think so, but in the back of your mind, you know you are rubbing salt in the wound. And you delight in it." She sighed. "I too, am not guiltless. I have kept up our friendship, meeting you and telling him of it, almost daring him to say there is anything untoward. But defiance grows wearying after a time. I want it to end."
My world tilted still more. "What are you saying? That we must sacrifice our friendship to soothe Aloysius Brandon's temper?"
"I am saying that this farce has gone on long enough. If you and my husband will not reconcile, then I will not take your side against him. He is my husband. I live with him day after day, and I do not want to be at war with him. I am too old for this. I am forty-three, Gabriel, rather long in the tooth for storms. I want peace."
"You will never find peace with Brandon," I said darkly. I knew I was behaving foolishly, but a great gap of fear had opened at my feet.
"You are wrong. When he is not reminded of you or confronted by you, we are a most tranquil couple."
Louisa was wrong again, I thought desperately. Her so-called tranquility was not harmony; it was simply the avoidance of painful subjects.
She lifted her chin, as though daring me to contradict her. "I deserve that peace. I want it. And so I want you to stay away."
I felt sick. I wanted to reach out and hold onto something. "You are abandoning me?"
Louisa looked at me a long time, her eyes sad, but tired. "Yes," she said quietly.
I tried to still my panic. Louisa had no obligation to me, I told myself. We had been thrown together during our years in the regiment, she a commander's wife, me the cocksure officer who had risen on my own bravado. In times of fear, triumph, grief, and joy, I had always known that Louisa would be there. She was the firm ground in the quagmire of my life. Even when she'd not physically been present, the mere thought of her had been enough to bolster my spirits. I had gotten myself out of many a tight spot on a battlefield by swearing that I would make it back so I could tell Louisa the tale.
Now, in London, with our lives so dramatically changed, I needed her more than ever. I was lost here, but I was never lost with her.
Louisa fingered her cloak. "You and Aloysius have forced me to choose, and I have chosen. I came here to tell you."
My panic threatened to overwhelm me. "Damn it, Louisa, seeing you, our friendship, that is what makes me live from day to day."
Her eyes blazed anew, ingots in the cold room. "Do not
dare blackmail me with guilt, Gabriel. And do not dare fall into melancholia to sway me back to you. Next time I will not come running."
It cost her to say those words. I saw that. But she had forced herself to say them. She was tired of me and my temper and my melancholia. She had finished with me.
And I could not bear it. "Louisa, for God's sake. I'll lick his boots if you want me to. I'll attend Sunday dinner and raise a dozen toasts to him. I will do what you want."
Louisa regarded me sadly, the heat gone. "It is too late. Let it be done with."
"Give me a chance to put things right, or at least make them better for you."
"No," she said. "This entire rift was my doing from the beginning. Mine. So I am putting it right. You and Aloysius will have to live with it." I must have looked as anguished as I felt, because Louisa's expression softened. "I do not mean that I will cut you forever. We may speak when we meet. But nothing deeper than that. I cannot pretend any longer."
She turned away.
"What do you mean?" I said. My throat ached. "What do you mean you cannot pretend? Cannot pretend that you care for me? Tell me plainly."
Louisa was at the door, hand on the door handle. "Any words I tell you, you will twist. I will not let you."
She opened the door. The voices of Mrs. Beltan's customers came to us, riding on a scent of warm yeast and baking bread.
I could not call after her. I could not beg her to stay. I could only stand there, my hands curling and uncurling, while the woman I cared for most in the world walked out of my life.
Chapter Twelve
I lost track of the time I sat in Mrs. Beltan's parlor after Louisa had gone. I'd sunk down onto the pillow-strewn couch where she'd sat, unable to move, unable to think. Time seemed to forget about me, and I forgot about it.
I could not believe I had been such a fool about a woman I cared for-again. I had loved my wife, Carlotta, loved her to distraction. And yet, I'd been impatient with her, brushed her aside with brusque words or snapped rebukes. All the while I'd think that, later, I would make it up to her, that I loved Carlotta so much I could explain and ask for forgiveness. She would understand, I was certain.
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