Murder in Grosvenor Square (Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries Book 9)

by Ashley Gardner

  Leland squeezed his eyes shut, his lashes moistening, the lad too weak to sob. I stroked his hand, wishing I could be of better comfort.

  His eyes drifted open again. “Forgive me. I can’t seem to stop.”

  “You will receive no censure from me, Leland.”

  “It was always Gareth and me,” Leland said. “We never needed anyone else.”

  “I know.”

  “He was always there for me.” His voice scraped, but he lurched on, his eyes bright, as though he needed to get the words out. “From the time we were eight years old, at school. I was terrified. All those boys, watching me, taunting me. Gareth laughed at my fear. Said it was a grand adventure, wasn’t it? We were explorers, and the other boys were wild natives. We started having meetings of what he called our Explorers Club. Membership—two. It was very exclusive.” He broke off to laugh, which brought fresh tears.

  I continued to hold Leland’s hand, knowing nothing I could say would help. “Can you tell me anything at all about what happened?”

  He drew a few breaths before he could speak again. “I wish I knew. It’s all a horrible blank. The last thing I remember is agreeing to meet Gareth at my club, at Brooks’s. I have the idea we were going to do something else from there, but I cannot remember what. I do not know whether I even went to Brooks’s.”

  “Easy enough to determine.” I tried to sound cheerful. “Your valet will know. So will your coachman.”

  “That is true.” Leland looked more hopeful. “All I can remember is opening my eyes in the pitch dark with cold cobbles beneath my cheek, and pain, so much pain …” His chest moved. “I somehow got to my feet. I got Gareth up. I tried to help him out of there, but I was lost. Our clothes were half off—I couldn’t stop to find them. Then I fell. Gareth was next to me … lying there, giving me that smile he used to. As though he were telling me, Keep your chin up, Eely, you’ll be fine.” Leland faltered, and wet his lips. “Then I woke here. I thought at first it had been a dream. That it was time to rise and meet Papa for breakfast. But my head exploded with pain when I tried to lift it, and Mama came rushing in. She told me … told me …” Tears tracked his cheeks. “Damn him. Why is he dead? Why did he leave me alone?”

  I had lost loved ones in my life—most people I knew had—but for Leland to lose someone who understood him as no one else had, and so young, had to be terrible. The person he’d had by his side all those years was suddenly gone, the world emptier without him.

  Their exclusive club had just diminished to membership—one.

  “Leland, I am so very sorry,” I said. “I will find who did this. I promise you.”

  “Won’t bring him back to me, will it?” Leland released my hand and rested his on the coverlet. “Do you know, I keep expecting him to come bouncing in the door, laughing at me, saying it has all been a joke or a dream. But my mother confirms that he is gone.” Leland stopped, going silent for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was thin. “Mr. Grenville helped bring me home, she says. Does he know?”

  I understood what he meant. I shook my head. “I have not told a soul.”

  Leland let out a breath of relief. “I think I could bear the whole world knowing, even my mother and father, but not Mr. Grenville.”

  “I cannot think why,” I said, trying to reassure him. “Mr. Grenville is a most understanding gentleman.”

  Leland blinked at me. “I have seen Mr. Grenville reduce a gentleman to tears by giving a look of asperity to his cravat.”

  “I have seen him do that as well. But I’ve learned that while he will ridicule pompous fools, he is kind to those he respects, and amazingly compassionate. It took me a long time to understand this. I wronged him when I first met him.”

  “Even so.” Leland flushed again. “I would not like Mr. Grenville to know my secrets.”

  “I will not tell him unless you give me leave to. What about Mr. Mackay? He was there.”

  Leland began to frown, then his brows drifted apart as though he found the effort too tiring. “Who is Mr. Mackay?”

  “He came to find me, to lead me to you.” I described him.

  “Oh.” Leland drew a ragged breath. “I remember. I sent him to you. He was gone a long time, or so it seemed, and I knew I had to move Gareth …”

  I put up my hand to still his tormented thoughts. “Was he one of Gareth’s friends? Did he see what happened?”

  “I did not know him. I spied him there, begged him to go to Grimpen Lane and find you. I didn’t remember until he ran off that you no longer lived there.”

  “He was lucky, as I had just arrived. But anyone at my lodgings would have known how to send for me. You did right.”

  “Please give him my thanks,” Leland said, his voice cracking. “And beg him to say nothing.”

  “If I can find him,” I said. “And I will—he may know who did this terrible thing.”

  “No.” Leland started to shake his head. “Do not try to find out. Please. We must have been set upon to be robbed, that is all. You’ll never find the men in the warrens of London, and it doesn’t matter.” He trailed off, voice weakening.

  “It does matter,” I said. “I dislike seeing my friends hurt. I will find whoever did this and take him apart.”

  Leland gave me a wan smile. “You are a soldier. I always wanted to be like you. But it doesn’t matter. Not to me. Nothing does anymore.”

  His voice faded, his eyes drifting closed again, and I grew alarmed. He was so weak, and the distress was doing him no good.

  I stood. “Would you like me to send in your father?” I asked as gently as I could. “Or Mrs. Danbury?”

  “No,” Leland said in a near whisper. “I’d like to be alone, Captain. I need to get used to it.”

  Chapter Eleven

  I’d hoped to speak again to Mrs. Danbury before I left the house, to discover why she was so adamant about me staying away, but when I looked into the room she had entered on the ground floor, it was empty. The footman hovered near, wanting to escort me out the door, so I let him.

  Clouds covered the sky, and a misting rain began to fall. I waved away the footman’s offer to have the Derwents’ coach brought around for me, and walked from the square to Grosvenor Street, and thence to Grenville’s.

  I found Grenville awake. He was in his dressing gown in his sumptuous bedchamber, imbibing coffee, his hair mussed from sleep. When Matthias ushered me in, Grenville waved me to a chair and bade the young man bring me coffee as well.

  “Nasty business,” Grenville said as soon as I was sipping the fragrant brew. “I thought to stay with Leland all last night, but Lady Derwent sent me home. She might seem frail, but that woman has a will of iron.”

  I had to agree. “Leland has woken, which is a good sign, but at this point, I have no idea whether he will live or die.” I paused, unhappy. “He’s a resilient lad, but head wounds …”

  “Yes, it looked bad.” Grenville’s optimistic demeanor was considerably dimmed. “The Derwents are taking it hard.”

  “They’ll take it harder if he dies,” I said.

  We reflected on that gloomy prospect. “The question is,” Grenville said after a moment, “is what the devil were they doing in that unlit passage in Seven Dials? I had thought them discreet enough to stay indoors, and pampered enough to wish a soft bed in which to couple. Good Lord, I would.”

  I nearly choked on my coffee, and quickly set the cup aside. “Not a half hour ago, I was promising Leland I’d not breathe a word to you.”

  Grenville lifted his brows. “Everyone knows, Lacey. Or at least has guessed. Leland Derwent and Gareth Travers have been fused as one since they were children. They’ve taken no interest in ladies, they lived in the same rooms at university, Gareth runs tame in the Derwent household, and neither have made any obvious move to enter the marriage mart.”

  “You have not entered the marriage mart,” I pointed out. “Not every man does.”

  “Ah, but there is a difference. My affaires ar
e talked of—incessantly—and no one has observed Leland or Gareth so much as casting a woman a longing look. We know. We simply do not speak of it. Nor did we expect them to do anything except happily grow old together.”

  “And now they cannot.”

  “No, poor lads,” Grenville said, heaving a sigh. “Which brings me back to the point—why on earth did they meet in a back lane in the middle of a rookery?”

  I tried to press aside anger and worry to look at the problem clearly. “Perhaps they did not. Perhaps they were found in the act, somewhere comfortable, as we speculate, struck down, and carried there. Or, they were not in flagrante at all but were arranged to be found like that.”

  “A very elaborate scheme,” Grenville said. “For what purpose?”

  “To humiliate the Derwents? To intimate that all was not as moral and upright in Sir Gideon’s house as it seemed?”

  “Surely, in that case, they’d have been found in a more public place,” Grenville said. “As it was, they were lucky to be found at all.”

  “That is true.” I said. “If the motive were to ruin the family, there was great risk in it not coming off.”

  “And it won’t.” Grenville’s reply was quick and resolute. “You know how they were found, but we can keep it from others. That they were struck down as they were robbed and then left for dead will be the story. Who else knows about them being in dishabille?”

  “Brewster,” I said. “The man Denis has sent to be my nursemaid. He carried the lads from the passage, but I’d redressed them by then—though I never found Leland’s missing coat. The cart driver Brewster hired saw nothing.”

  “Denis’s men are a close-mouthed lot,” Grenville said. “Though it might be worth speaking to Denis to make certain.” He took a sip of coffee. “Anyone else see them before you put their clothing to rights?”

  “There was the young man who came to fetch me. Mackay. Nelson Mackay. A little older than Leland and Gareth. Black hair. Blue eyes. Good clothes, soft hands—not a laborer. Haven’t seen him at the clubs.”

  Grenville’s brows came together as he thought. “I’ve not the heard the name.” He shook his head. “No, I can’t place him. I will ask Gautier. He has more knowledge of who is who in London than Debrett’s.”

  I let amusement trickle through my foul mood. “I thought you were the font of all knowledge.”

  Grenville contrived to look modest. “I do know an extraordinary number of people—far too many I sometimes believe. But Gautier knows them from all walks of life.” He sighed. “I do feel the crowd pressing on me a bit these days, Lacey.”

  I resumed my coffee. “Are you going to speak longingly of Egypt now?”

  “Of course I am. I have mentioned putting together an expedition for next winter. Now that you are safely married—with your daughter perhaps ensconced in the bosom of matrimony herself by then—we can be off.”

  The thought of my daughter married so soon brought a pang to my heart. But, after all, that was the intent of her debut Season. Donata and Lady Aline were working to interest the best young English gentlemen in her, but I was not yet ready to let her go.

  “I am not certain my wife will take well to me leaving for several months to remote lands of the Ottoman Empire,” I said.

  Grenville waved that away. “By next winter, she will likely send you off with enthusiasm. Newlywed bliss palls, you know.”

  “Oh? You have experienced it?”

  Grenville gave me a look of feigned horror. “Of course not. But I have watched many of my friends go through it, and every single one says the same. Why do you think I avoid the parson’s trap?”

  So he could do what he pleased, I knew, without having to answer to anyone. I’d learned that Grenville prized, above everything, his freedom.

  I would have thought Marianne his perfect mate, in that case. She was not a clinging woman, and she too prized her liberty. They might rub on well together, if they were both not so pigheaded.

  “Do ask Gautier about Mr. Mackay,” I said. “Why he was on the spot is a mystery. We must find him and put a few questions to him.”

  “Sir Gideon and I have managed to keep the story of Gareth’s death and Leland’s injuries quiet for one night, but it will get out, one way or another,” Grenville warned me. “Bow Street will want to investigate the crime. Shall you inform your former sergeant? Set him on the track with his usual zeal?”

  “No,” I said at once. Pomeroy had the knack of turning up embarrassing information, smiling all the while. And if Spendlove got hold of this, who knew what hell he might rain down on the Derwent family? “I will find out as much as I can as quickly as possible. If Pomeroy or Spendlove ever believe I think it anything but a robbery turned deadly …”

  “Then Pomeroy will not let it rest.” Grenville nodded sagely. “I understand you wanting to protect the Derwents from a full Bow Street investigation. However, there isn’t much to go on, is there?”

  “Which is why we must return to Seven Dials.” I drained my cup and set it on its saucer with a decided click. “At once.”

  “Ah, I feared you’d say that.”

  He hated rising early, but I could tell he was eager to be investigating. Though he kept up appearances by grumbling, Grenville was ready to depart in half an hour. He called for his carriage, and we set off, with Matthias and Bartholomew, who’d come in response to his summons, in tow.

  *

  The lane in Seven Dials looked dismal by the light of day. Darkness had hidden the grime on the cobbles and the crumbling bricks of the buildings around us, but sunshine breaking through the clouds illuminated the passage in all its squalor.

  I’d expected to find more blood on the cobblestones. I’d sworn the place coated with it last night, but it had been pitch dark, and my heart had been hammering in shock and fear. There hadn’t been much rain in the night to wash the cobbles. But except for a stain a few feet wide and the smears leading to where I’d stumbled across Leland and Gareth, I could find no other blood.

  Grenville held a handkerchief to his mouth, the stench of the lane far from pleasant. Matthias and Bartholomew moved up and down the passage looking for whatever they thought might help.

  “Does the scarcity of blood confirm your theory that they were attacked elsewhere?” Grenville asked when I voiced my findings.

  “I am not certain,” I said, looking over the cobbles again. “Head injuries bleed quite a bit, but the villain might have brought something with which to sop up the blood. Or they did not bleed as much as I think they should have. I am no expert.”

  Grenville crouched to look at the dried blood, his handkerchief moving as he grew interested. “Whether they were attacked here or not, how did that chap Mackay find them?”

  “A good question,” I said. “How did he so conveniently turn up? Not the sort of gentleman who would be wandering these streets. We must lay our hands on him.”

  “Sir.” Bartholomew’s voice came from farther down the passage. Grenville and I walked to him, avoiding puddles of noisome filth to find him holding a chunk of wood he’d pulled from a pile of rubbish, his brother Matthias examining it closely.

  It was a stout piece used for building, once hewn smooth, now broken off and jagged. A half dozen nails poked out of it about an inch from its end. Grenville brought out his quizzing glass, fixing his gaze on the nails as Bartholomew held the wood steady in his gloved hands.

  “Blood, if I’m any judge,” Grenville pronounced.

  “It’s a good cosh,” Bartholomew said. “This kind of beam’s not easy to come by—would be expensive at a builder’s yard.”

  Nails would not be easy to come by either, in this part of town. Everything that could be sold would have been.

  “Doubtless the murderer threw it away here, hoping it wouldn’t be found,” Grenville said.

  “But it turned up as soon we looked for it,” I pointed out. “Anyone who took the trouble to hide Leland and Gareth back here would surely rid himself of the we
apon in another place. I believe he wanted this to be found.”

  Grenville could not take his eyes from the nails. “You make too much of it. He panicked. He’d just struck down the sons of rich gentlemen and could not afford to be caught. He drags the bodies into the passage, then remembers he still has the cudgel, and hastily buries it among other rubbish.”

  “Do you really believe that?” I asked in a mild voice.

  Grenville straightened up and dropped his quizzing glass into his pocket. “I have no idea. That is what your friend Pomeroy would say, though. An agitated man who’d acted rashly and then tried to hide what he’d done, rather clumsily.”

  “Sir.” Matthias spoke this time, jerking his chin back down the crooked passage.

  A man, hulking and menacing, stood at the opening to the street. I observed him without alarm and beckoned him closer.

  “Please tell Mr. Denis that I am well protected by Matthias and Bartholomew,” I said to Brewster when he reached us. “You had no need to follow me this morning.”

  “Tell ’im yourself,” Brewster said. He picked something from between his front teeth, and spat. “His nibs gives me an order, and I carry it out. No questions. Besides.” He sent an amused glance at Bartholomew, who had moved protectively next to Grenville. “This one got himself shot several times trying to protect you, didn’t he?”

  “Better I was shot than Mr. Grenville,” Bartholomew returned heatedly. “I healed quickly.”

  “Heh. Then your Mr. Grenville got hisself stabbed good, didn’t he? Where were you then?”

  Matthias went red. “Keep a civil tongue, and don’t talk about your betters. Mr. Grenville is worth twenty of you.”

  I admired the brothers’ courage, but Brewster was a killer. I started to step between them, but Brewster only laughed. “Loyalty’s a good thing, lad. Is this the cosh?”

  “We think so.” I took it from Bartholomew before he decided to test it on Brewster, and showed Brewster the nails.

  “Thought so. Stupid of him to leave it here. He should have tossed it in the river.”

  “Which is what I would have done,” I said. “So our killer is either a fool or very clever.”