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

by Ashley Gardner

  Pomeroy came through the door first, with his cheerfulness that had struck fear into the hearts of many a criminal. “Mrs. Travers, I arrest you in the king’s name for willful murder against your stepson Gareth Travers and the man called Nelson Mackay. Come along with me now, won’t you?”

  “It were an accident,” she shouted, tears starting from her eyes. “I was only trying to get him to listen.” She fought again, but Brewster held her hard. “It should have been Leland that was killed, not our Gareth. That family made a bloody sodomite out of him. I will tell everyone what the Derwents are, and Leland will hang. Unnatural acts are against the law, and they will pay for corrupting him.”

  “That’s as may be,” Pomeroy said in his good-natured way. “But first, I need you to come with us to the magistrate. You can turn her loose now, sir. I have her.”

  Brewster, at a nod from me, relinquished his prisoner to Pomeroy. He watched Pomeroy take the woman out, she quivering with fury and terror, Brewster’s dismissive look saying all. He thought her a fool, and well he might. Of everyone interested in the book, only Brewster had managed to actually get hold of the thing.

  Spendlove remained, his light blue gaze sweeping the room. Lord Percy turned away, as though he did not wish to be recognized. Henry Lawrence remained straight-backed and unashamed. Grenville and I presented a solid wall between Spendlove and the priceless book behind us, and Brewster blocked Spendlove’s way to the bedchamber.

  “This will be an interesting trial,” Spendlove said. “A woman killing her stepson for the sake of a valuable book that could keep the family fed. And the stepson a sodomite. The jury’s sympathy might be with her, if they believe her.”

  I acknowledged this with a nod. “Possibly.”

  “Might help if the book never turned up,” Spendlove said. “If the jury thinks she simply had a bee in her bonnet, we might have our conviction.”

  “True,” I conceded.

  Spendlove knew damn well I had the book. I also wagered he knew exactly who was in my bedchamber, listening to every word.

  Spendlove settled his tall hat on his head. “Pomeroy will thank you for the arrest,” he said, “but next time you have a killer, Captain, just bring her to Bow Street and never mind the dramatics.”

  “She might not have confessed to you,” I said without rancor. “And I needed the satisfaction of hearing it myself. Gareth Travers was my friend.”

  Spendlove fixed me with a hard stare. “I waste my breath pointing out that you take too much on yourself.” He gave Grenville, Percy, and Lawrence a nod. “Gentlemen.”

  He cast one more look at Brewster and the closed bedchamber door, and then finally turned and walked out.

  None of us spoke until we heard him bang the door at the bottom of the steps, then his steady footfalls on the cobbles outside.

  “Well,” Lord Percy said. He brought out a tiny, round snuffbox, opened it, inhaled a pinch, and politely offered some to Grenville, who just as politely declined. Percy tucked the box away and sneezed into his handkerchief. “I’ll take the book now and go,” he said, wiping his nose. “Do not worry, I will keep it under lock and key. I already have a place in my cabinet arranged for it.”

  “Have you been in the same room with us all, my dear?” Lawrence asked. “I equally have paid for this book.”

  “Which belongs to Gareth’s father,” I said firmly. “He’s lost his son and is about to lose his wife. Must he lose his treasure, as well?”

  Lord Percy blinked. “But I paid for it, man.”

  Grenville came forward. “I am certain we can all come to some arrangement,” he said smoothly. “You know I have some manuscripts in my collection that interest you both. Call round, and we’ll discuss things.”

  Percy’s eyes narrowed, but he must have read in my face how angry I was. He studied me, studied Grenville, with the silent Brewster hovering, and understood his options.

  He let out a sigh. “Very well.” He took up his hat, which he’d left on a table by the door. “I will send word, Grenville, and call on you. You must already know what I have my eye on.”

  Another polite bow between the two, and Lord Percy departed.

  Lawrence bestirred himself, likewise taking up his hat. “I will call on you as well, Grenville. I adore your collection. We’ll natter the day away.” He bowed to me. “Thank you, Captain Lacey, for a most entertaining evening.”

  Giving me a smile that said many things, he turned and made his exit.

  Once both gentlemen had gone, Lawrence’s voice floating after Percy, Brewster opened the bedchamber door.

  I slanted Grenville a look, feeling the need for a large glass of brandy. “Was that innuendo from Lord Percy?” I asked. “When he said you must know what he had his eye on? Meaning Marianne?”

  Grenville shook his head. “Percy is not that witty. Unlike me, Percy would give up an inamorata for a manuscript in the blink of an eye. No, he wants a medieval psalter I purchased a few years ago. I outbid him for it, and he’s never forgiven me.”

  Denis had not emerged from the bedchamber during this speech. Even Brewster was surprised, and called a puzzled, “Sir?”

  I looked in. Denis reposed in a chair next to my bed, one of the journals I’d begun to keep about my adventures in London open on his lap. He glanced up as we pushed in, marking his place with one finger.

  “Remarkable reading, Captain,” he said. “I commend you. I believe I will continue to enjoy this accounting until its end, then I will retire. With the Book of Hours, which you will leave with Brewster. Do not worry,” Denis said in a sterner tone when I opened my mouth to argue. “I will compensate the reverend. In fact, he will do quite handsomely from this. You may go, Captain. I will see myself out.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I traveled back across London with Grenville and Marianne, she having clattered down the stairs as soon as she heard the Runners leaving.

  Grenville held her hand all the way from Covent Garden, while he told her what had transpired below. She’d listened in the stairwell, she said—she would never have stayed meekly in her rooms—but complained that she missed much when we kept our voices down.

  I did not care for talking at the moment. I’d exposed Travers’s killer, but I’d solved nothing. Gareth was still dead. If Leland survived, he would grieve. He had lost the other half of his whole, and it would take him a long time to recover from that, if he ever did.

  Grenville took Marianne to his own house. Or so he said was his destination when I descended in South Audley Street.

  “He’s taken leave of his senses, hasn’t he, Lacey?” Marianne called to me from the carriage. “Inviting an actress and his ladybird to his home, of all places. What will the neighbors think?”

  “Damn what they think,” Grenville said. “They will concede to me this boon.”

  Marianne gave me a mock amazed look, but I could see she was stunned and touched.

  When I entered the house, Donata banged swiftly out of an upstairs room and started down the stairs for me. Lady Aline and Gabriella were nowhere in sight—I assumed the one gone home, the other in bed.

  Bartholomew took my coat from my tired body, the light in his eyes telling me he was eager to know all that had happened. Barnstable headed for the backstairs, ordering the scattering staff to draw a bath for me, as the lady of the house came down to the foyer.

  “Go to bed, Bartholomew,” she ordered crisply.

  Bartholomew looked disappointed, but he only bowed and obeyed. Donata waited until he’d taken my things away before she faced me, on the exact spot Grenville had hours before.

  “Now who is reckless and a damn fool?” she said, not bothering to lower her voice. “Bartholomew told me everything, and then he and the rest of my servants barred the door to me. Locking me in my own house. On your orders, I was told.”

  Her blue eyes blazed, her rage making her shake.

  She was the most beautiful woman I had ever known.

  I put my ha
nds on her shoulders, unable to speak. Donata gazed back at me, her anger high, but I read stark fear in the depths of her eyes.

  “I’m home,” I said. “And whole.”

  “Damn you.” Tears filled her eyes, and she thumped her fists to my chest. “Don’t you ever …”

  I caught her hands. I kissed each tense fist, then I put my arms around her and held her close.

  “Damn you,” she whispered.

  I rested my face in her neck, breathed her scent, and became myself again.

  *

  I only learned what had become of the Book of Hours much later. Denis did indeed pay Reverend Travers a handsome sum for it, though I never heard how much. What Denis did with it after that—kept it, sold it on—I never knew. The Nines did close, both Sir Montague and Sir Gideon made certain. Not long later, it opened again, and became all the rage.

  The morning after the arrest, I went to see Leland. Donata—I had told her all as we’d lain in bed in the early hours—journeyed the short distance with me in the Breckenridge carriage, and we visited the sick room.

  Leland’s color was better, and I let myself put aside fears he wouldn’t live. Life was never certain, I knew, but he was being well looked after.

  “I wish Gareth had never seen the book,” Leland said after I’d finished my tale, his hands loose on the covers. “Why could he not believe we cared for him as he was? That he did not have to have money to be worthy of notice?”

  I had no answer, but Donata did. “Sometimes we find it difficult to believe that we measure up to those we love. That we could possibly be cherished only for ourselves.”

  She shot a look at me, and I wondered if she were admonishing me or admitting to the fault within herself.

  Leland was not comforted. “I’m glad Mr. Denis has the book. It only brought misery to us all—Gareth, his father, his stepmother, me, and my family. It is ironic, is it not, that a book meant for prayer and devotion should be the heart of so much evil?”

  A poetic way of looking at it. I was about to make the point that it was, in the end, only a book, but Donata again spoke first.

  “It was a book meant for vanity, not devotion,” she said decidedly. “A prince or a duke paid a high sum to have it made for him so he could look at pretty pictures when he was supposed to be listening to sermons and meditating on his sins. I am certain that the gold leafing on the pages alone could have fed a village for a winter. But that is royalty for you.” She dismissed the dukes and princes with a wave of her elegant hand.

  “Those who are not royalty spend plenty of money on frivolous things,” I said, my spirits rising a little. Bantering with Donata was good for the humors.

  “I never said they did not,” she returned. “But Leland is right. I imagine the book was the source of much trouble from the time it was commissioned.”

  And yet, it was so very beautiful. Denis, a man who recognized beauty, had immediately taken possession. Even Brewster, who’d run hungry in the rookeries as a youth, had known how much such a book would be treasured.

  “It has cost me too much,” Leland said, a sadness in his eyes that might never vanish. “Gareth could be such a fool about many things, but I miss him, Captain.”

  He let his eyes drift closed, his lashes wet. Donata and I quietly took our leave.

  “He is young,” Donata said as we journeyed home. “He has everything of life before him.”

  “True.” Leland might not appreciate that now, however. I threaded my fingers through Donata’s gloved ones. “I lost much in my young life, but what I have gained pleases me.”

  Donata gave me a little smile, without her usual archness. “I like now, too.”

  I agreed without words that now was quite a fine time.

  *

  Donata hosted a supper for family and friends a few weeks later, in preparation for Gabriella’s come-out. The double doors had been thrown open between the three ground-floor rooms to create as large a space as possible for the guests, which included a smattering of appropriate young men. Donata’s idea of “private” meant fifty people.

  I’d seen Leland Derwent several times as he’d healed, the last walking slowly with Mrs. Danbury and his sister in Hyde Park. Leland had tottered along, leaning on a walking stick, the ladies on either side of him. I’d stopped to inquire about his health, and Leland had given me a faint smile, emptiness in his eyes.

  While we’d stood thus, Grenville’s famous high-stepping horses pulling his equally famous phaeton came toward us. Grenville drove, and on the seat beside him was none other than Freddie Hilliard.

  Grenville halted and descended when he drew alongside us, giving his horses to his tiger, the lad who rode on the back of the phaeton for that purpose.

  I professed my pleasure at renewing acquaintance with Mr. Hilliard, and Grenville presented him to the Derwent ladies, and Leland, who acknowledged that they’d met once before.

  Freddie tipped his hat politely. Then his expression of wry amusement at his fellow human beings vanished as he enclosed Leland’s weak hand in his large and strong one. “Mr. Derwent,” he said, his voice holding quietness and compassion. “My condolences for your loss.”

  Leland started to answer with his customary politeness, then he caught something in Freddie’s dark eyes and faltered. I watched him realize that Freddie did indeed understand everything Leland was feeling. “Oh,” Leland said. “Thank you.”

  The sinews of Freddie’s hand moved as he tightened his grip, then released Leland’s hand. “May we walk with you a spell, ladies? Mr. Derwent?” Freddie asked. “As you know, riding with Mr. Grenville can be an alarming experience.”

  Leland smiled at his jest—Grenville was reputed to be one of the best drivers in the ton—while Grenville raised his brows, and Mrs. Danbury laughed. Mrs. Danbury, with a swift glance at me, said she’d take Melissa home and let the gentlemen enjoy one another’s company.

  Shy Melissa had looked relieved, Mrs. Danbury flashed a smile at me, and took Melissa away. I walked with the others a while longer before I departed for home. Freddie had done most of the talking, pulling Leland into the conversation, but not so forcefully as to tire him.

  Grenville dropped behind to say good-bye to me when I left them. “Perhaps Leland will make a full recovery,” he said, watching the tall actor and the smaller young man walking close together.

  “Perhaps he will,” I agreed. “Fine chance that you and Mr. Hilliard happened to be strolling this way today.”

  “Is it?” Grenville’s eyes twinkled, his spirits high. I pictured him and Marianne planning the encounter at length. “Yes, it was most fortunate.”

  “Give my regards to Marianne,” I said.

  Grenville tipped his hat. “Of course. Good day, Lacey.” He walked away to catch up to the other two, his walking stick swinging.

  *

  “She will take, I am certain of it.”

  Donata’s voice startled me from my thoughts. She stood at my elbow, clad in a silk gown of light peach that clung to her curves, the gossamer sleeves mere puffs on her shoulders.

  I watched Gabriella in her pristine white muslin as she spoke in her friendly way to Colonel and Louisa Brandon. Colonel Brandon watched her closely, no doubt remembering her babyhood, and her mother, Carlotta, and our whirlwind life at that time.

  I saw only my daughter’s loveliness, and felt a cold qualm. “I know I should be happy for her, but why do I want to lock her into the attic until she is five and thirty?”

  Donata squeezed my arm. “Do not worry overmuch, Gabriel. Aline is no fool—she and I will watch Gabriella like hawks, and only young gentlemen we have rigorously vetted will be allowed to even speak to her.”

  “I am the father of a beautiful daughter,” I said in a resigned voice. “I worry. It is ingrained, I think.”

  “So you should,” Donata said. Another squeeze. “And while we are speaking on the subject, perhaps now is as good a time as any to tell you that I am increasing.”

&n
bsp; I did not register the words at first. I heard only conversing and well-bred laughter from Donata’s guests, the soft strains of the pianoforte as the newly married daughter of one of Donata’s friends played. I saw Bartholomew, who’d conceded to help out as a footman tonight, pass by me in a blur of dark blue footman’s livery and blond hair.

  “Ah,” Donata said as I began to seek air. “Yes, it was quite worth the wait, that look on your face.”

  I found my voice. “Bloody hell, Donata. You could not prepare me more carefully than that?”

  She lifted one peach-clad shoulder in a shrug. “You and I share a bed quite often. We have done so for nearly a year now, I will remind you. I would think you well prepared. The news can hardly come as a shock.”

  My qualms turned into full-blown fear. Childbirth was dangerous. So many things could go wrong.

  At the same time, rapture came over me. A child. One I could watch grow up, as I had not been able to do with Gabriella.

  I looked into the eyes of my wife, seeing my fears and excitement reflected there.

  “On second thought,” I said, striving to make my voice light. “I believe I had better lock you in the attic for the next year.”

  Donata’s smile warmed me, and I knew I had been waiting all my life for this woman.

  “Only if you lock yourself into it with me,” she said. “I know we’d have a fine time.”

  “Done.” I took her hand, and raised it to my lips.

  End

  Thank you for reading!

  Captain Lacey’s adventures continue in

  The Thames River Murders

  Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries

  Book 10

  Coming 2015

  The Captain Lacey Regency mysteries

  are also now available

  in audio

  read by British actor and voice talent,

  James Gillies