A Mystery at Carlton House

by Ashley Gardner

  The surgeon held a tiny babe upside down, shaking it by its feet. The infant howled in protest, the howling not ceasing when the surgeon swung it upright and thrust it at the midwife.

  Donata’s body and the sheets were covered in blood, as were the surgeon’s hands and arms. The surgeon looked exhausted. But instead of covering Donata with a sheet, turning to tell me she’d died in the process, he squeezed out a large sponge from the basin and began mopping off her skin. Then he threaded a wicked-looking needle and plunged it through her flesh.

  The midwife had turned away, using another sponge to wash off the babe, which she quickly wrapped in a blanket. She’d nearly disappeared out the door to Donata’s dressing room when I caught her.

  She turned back to me, the bundle in her arms crying its fury. The midwife’s eyes were round with fear, which lanced coldness through my heart.

  “Her ladyship came through fine,” she said in a shaking voice. “She’s powerfully strong, like all her mother’s family. This one needs a wet nurse.”

  She was about to swing away, but I caught her arm. “For God’s sake, woman,” I said. “Let me see my child.”

  The midwife’s look was full of trepidation, but she peeled back the blanket. I saw a face scrunched in rage, eyes closed, a pink mouth opened in a deafening roar. Tiny arms moved, tiny fingers clenching desperately at nothing.

  My heart must have stopped beating, because suddenly I was gasping for breath. I reached out and touched the hand, and the fingers closed around mine in a startlingly firm grip.

  “He’s a Lacey all right,” I said, the pride bursting from me before I could dampen it.

  “Not he, sir,” the midwife said in a terrified whisper. “She. It be a little girl. I’m sorry, sir.”

  Warmth blossomed in my chest like the sun pushing through a dense bank of fog on a winter’s day. The heat radiated through my body until my skin began to sear.

  “A girl,” I said numbly. “I have a daughter?”

  “Yes, sir.” Again the whisper. The midwife held the baby protectively, as though I might snatch her up and dash her to the ground.

  I’d never do anything to hurt her. Never. In my readings about ancient times, I’d learned that in those days a father had had a right to—had been encouraged to—leave a girl child exposed in the wilderness to die alone. The Spartans were made to have their children inspected by their leaders, who would decree whether the babe—male or female—lived or died. While I admired the ancients their courage, I’d never forgive them this barbarity.

  “A daughter,” I repeated, my voice ringing. I wanted to laugh in triumph. I had told Donata, when I’d first returned from Egypt, that we would have a girl. I’d already bought jewels for her. I’d been so certain, and now a bubble of joy wafted up and came out of my mouth as laughter. “Nothing could be better.”

  The midwife regarded me round-eyed. “A man wants a son.”

  “What for?” I asked in true amazement. “We have Peter. Another girl is perfect. She will be a rare beauty, like her mother. Now, let me hold her.”

  At last the midwife, still uncertain I wouldn’t harm a hair on the girl’s downy head, put my daughter into my arms.

  The babe was so small. I recalled holding Gabriella at her birth, the swelling of my heart, the terror that I was responsible for this little life.

  Nothing had changed. I had the same joy, the same fear, the same incredible love.

  My daughter opened dark blue eyes, glared at me, and bellowed.

  “Welcome,” I said over the noise, then my voice softened. “Anne.”

  * * *

  When I returned to Donata after giving tiny Anne to the midwife to take to the wet nurse, my wife was still in the profound slumber I’d seen when I’d burst in. The surgeon had finished whatever stitching he’d done and was again washing her, cleaning away all traces of childbirth. His strokes were methodical and unemotional, a man following a routine.

  “Let me do that,” I said and reached for the sponge.

  The surgeon turned a flinty expression to me, but to my surprise, handed the sopping thing over. “She shouldn’t be moved,” he said in his cold voice, his Cornish accent odd to my ears. “I had to make a deep incision. It will heal, but it has to be washed and the dressing changed regular. The wound can’t get too damp or too dry; don’t use oils and don’t let it get dirty.”

  The look he sent me from his usually cold, dead eyes held admonishment. I knew from experience that even small wounds could take sick and send a person to death within hours.

  I nodded. “I understand.”

  He seemed to believe me. “Tend her well, and she’ll live. The babe is strong and will thrive, even if it is a girl. It makes no bloody difference.” The disgust behind his words told me what he thought of the midwife’s anguish that Donata had borne a daughter.

  “I know,” I agreed. “My first wife brought in a daughter, who is the most beautiful young woman in the world. We’ll care for her well.”

  “Start with your wife,” the surgeon snapped. “Nothing wrong with the child.” He gave me a severe look. “Guard your wife and don’t let anyone try to heal her by bleeding her. She’s lost too much already. Draining her will kill her. Understand?”

  I felt an icy chill. “Yes,” was all I could manage.

  “Once she begins to recover, she must have complete rest, no exertion, no picking up or moving heavy things.”

  I swallowed. “She has servants to do such tasks for her.”

  “Complete rest,” the surgeon repeated. “For six weeks at least. That means no asserting your husbandly rights. She must sleep and sleep alone.”

  Another cold wave. The idea that I could irreparably hurt Donata because I was amorous made me rather ill. “I understand.” My voice cracked.

  The surgeon studied me a moment, his gaze assessing, as though he wanted to say something more. Then he gave me a nod and turned away.

  I found it odd that a man who apparently had taken lives with the same precision he’d used to sew up Donata knew so much about keeping people alive. There was not one ounce of compassion in his eyes, however. He was like a weapon, dangerous and deadly—one only had to point him at an enemy and pay him well.

  So James Denis had told me. The surgeon had been employed at one time to kill Mr. Denis himself, and only Denis’s powers of persuasion, plus his considerable wealth, had changed that.

  “Thank you,” I said in sudden gratitude. No matter what the surgeon had done in the past—and I saw no remorse in him for it—he had saved Donata and my daughter. “You must accept a token of—”

  “I accept nothing,” the surgeon broke in, his weariness with this conversation evident. “Mr. Denis pays me.”

  “Of course,” I said, removing my hand from my pocket where I’d thrust it to find coins. The surgeon did not possess the reactions of a normal human being, I thought, no gratitude, no humility, no simple politeness. It was as though he did not understand such things and could only watch as the rest of us went through the motions.

  “I thank you again,” I said, and gave him a formal bow.

  The surgeon gathered up his bag, which clinked with metal instruments. He brought out a dark vial and handed it to me. “If she has too much pain when she wakes, give her a few drops of this.”

  I took it, wondering if it was the same liquid he’d given my bodyguard, Brewster, when he’d been shot nearly a year ago. The surgeon had let on that he’d made it with plants from the Americas but no more than that.

  He didn’t enlighten me now. He only gave me another nod and abruptly left the room without so much as a good-bye.

  I set the bottle carefully on the night table, took up the damp sponge, and wiped it over Donata’s abdomen above the bandage the surgeon had wrapped around her. I’d ring the maids to help me settle her in dry, clean bedding, but for the moment, we were alone, husband and wife, though the wife was insensible.

  I leaned down and kissed Donata’s damp forehead
. “She’s beautiful,” I whispered. “Thank you, my love.”

  Donata drew a long breath, as though acknowledging her ordeal was over. She let it out again, her body going limp but with the deep tranquility of sleep.

  I kissed her hand and rested it by her side. I rang for the maids to carefully change the bedding, then I settled into a chair beside the bed and remained there for the rest of the day and far into the night, thanking God every moment.

  * * *

  Donata recovered slowly, but recover she did. I nursed her through the first weeks, washing and drying her wound and bandaging it as the surgeon had instructed. When she had pain, I fed her some of the medicine he’d left, which she confessed had an odd taste but gave her a pleasing sensation.

  “A little bit like the magical gas we enjoyed at Mr. Inglethorpe’s,” she said as she reclined in her bed, a lacy cap nearly lost in her dark hair. Her color was good, her eyes sharp, and her observations as pointed as ever. “Pity he got himself killed before I could ask where he obtained it.”

  Donata’s bed was littered with newspapers, books, letters, and paper from a writing box. After the first week, she’d begun writing letters like mad, and receiving many in return. I insisted on keeping a close eye on her, nursing her myself, which drove her to distraction, but she hadn’t banished me.

  Once a day, I went to the nursery, took Anne from the wet nurse and the other maids who doted on her, and carried her down to Donata for a visit.

  In those first days, Anne was little more than a small, pink thing wrapped in blankets. She had a shock of black hair and dark blue eyes, a belligerent stare, and a cry that could shatter glass. I believed her the most incredible thing on this earth.

  Donata was pleased with her, and she was pleased with me for not fussing because Anne wasn’t a boy. Why such importance was placed on having a man-child I couldn’t fathom. Girls were lovely, sweet, kind, and gentle. I’d gone to school with boys from the age of eight, and I saw nothing to recommend them. Peter, Donata’s son from her first marriage, was the exception, of course.

  Peter was welcome to these sessions with Anne as well. He wasn’t certain what to make of a sister who did nothing but sleep, belch, or bellow, but I saw fondness and a proprietary look creep into his eyes as he got to know her.

  The surgeon vanished from Oxford the day after Anne’s birth, not to be seen again. Bartholomew, who’d gone to Oxford at my insistence to satisfy my curiosity, reported that he’d gone. I was grateful to Mr. Denis for persuading the surgeon to come here at all. Denis had never said a word about it, but I knew the surgeon had journeyed here only at his request—all my persuasion could not have done it.

  Our friend Lucius Grenville, who’d returned to London after Donata had been safely delivered, turned up again after New Year’s, to Donata’s delight, to tell her all the important news from Town—who was planning to do what during the social season, and who was having affairs with whom. I left them to gossip while I walked up and down the heated room with my daughter, my heart swelling with pride and affection.

  Pride goeth before a fall, they say, and I was due for a hard smash.

  Donata wanted to travel back to London as soon as she was able, bringing Anne and Peter with us. I wished her to stay in Oxfordshire for the entire Season and be as well as possible for next year, but she, of course, would have nothing of that.

  “I certainly cannot rusticate in the country for six months, Gabriel. I would never live it down,” she said, exasperated after arguing with me for days. “The South Audley Street house will be open, and I will begin my musicales. Grenville told me Lady Partington is hosting a tenor, and she has ghastly taste. I cannot let her inflict a young man who screeches like a banshee on my friends and acquaintances. Gabriella will be returning to us in April, and we must continue introducing her to eligible young men. She left too quickly for proposals last summer—which is as I prefer, so we can find the very best prospect for her, not simply a young man who is more eager than sensible. We must be in London.”

  I had known I’d lose the dispute even before I began. When Donata said we would continue presenting Gabriella, she of course did not mean she and I. She meant herself and Lady Aline Carrington, her dear friend and confidant. Between the two of them, they had most of London cowed.

  I did continue to protest, because I feared for Donata’s health, but I had to admit that between her rest at Oxfordshire and the surgeon’s elixir, she regained her health fairly rapidly. My anxiousness turned to relief, though I did not relax my vigilance. A person could appear to be on the brink of recovery, only to relapse and slip away with no notice.

  I conceded to return with her to London on one condition: That she rest as often as she could and to go out at night only with me or Grenville accompanying her.

  Donata smiled at me. “Of course, Gabriel,” she said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  She’d planned all along to recruit us as her escorts, I realized. She’d not have given in so quickly otherwise.

  * * *

  The last week of January saw us traveling up to London in easy stages. We took two coaches—Donata’s father’s traveling chaise for the nursemaids and children and Grenville’s for Donata, Grenville, and myself.

  My wife and my closest friend talked incessantly about people I’d never heard of while I dozed against the window. Grenville reposed on his cleverly made bed that pulled out from the seat—he suffered enormously from motion sickness and could not travel more than a mile without having to lie down. I marveled at the fact that he’d journeyed with me all the way to Egypt and back, and indeed, he’d been quite ill on the sea. Grenville, for all his dandified manners, had much courage and even more determination.

  We spent the night on the road, not at an inn, but at the home of a friend of Grenville’s, an older couple with a large house and plenty of room for us all. The slow journey gave me the opportunity to make a complete fool of myself over Anne, with me carrying her, talking to her, marveling at everything she did. The waving of a fist, she tracking me with her eyes, or a gurgle from her mouth meant she was the cleverest girl in the world, and I never tired of drawing attention to that fact.

  Grenville’s friends, fortunately, were kind people, and indulged me, as did Grenville himself. Grenville did not even complain when Anne dribbled a long stream of drool down the front of one of his best waistcoats, which told me he was quite taken with her as well.

  We arrived at South Audley Street to be welcomed by Donata’s staff and then nearly smothered by their coddling. Donata ran them off with good-natured scolding, but out of her hearing I quietly encouraged the servants to keep a sharp eye on her, no matter what she said.

  Donata and I had been settled in the South Audley Street house only two weeks, January merging into February, when her butler, Barnstable, who had very black hair and a cool manner, informed me, while I breakfasted alone at an hour Donata called inhuman, that a Bow Street Runner had called to speak to me.

  Barnstable’s expression was stony as he conveyed the news. He regarded Runners as lowly thief-takers, working for reward, and did not approve of them coming to the house.

  I expected Milton Pomeroy, who had been a sergeant in my regiment on the Peninsula. He’d turned Runner when he’d left the army, and prided himself on carrying thieves to the magistrate. He was a large man with a larger voice, not clever but canny and vigorous.

  Barnstable had put the Runner into the reception room, a jewel box of a chamber with an inlaid floor, no windows, hard chairs, and painted panels. The Runner hadn’t sat down but paced the small room and swung around when I opened the door.

  I halted in dismay. The Runner was not my old friend Pomeroy. The man facing me had dark red hair slicked from his forehead, light blue eyes, and a hard, rather pink face on top of a large, fighting-man’s body. His name was Timothy Spendlove, and he’d once arrested me for murder. He’d not been pleased when it was proved I had nothing to do with the death and had release
d me with only the greatest reluctance.

  “Good morning, Captain,” he said. “I am pleased to see you’ve returned from foreign parts.”

  His eyes sparkled with malice—he’d have been more pleased if I’d remained in those foreign parts and perished there. Then again, Spendlove had told me, repeatedly, that he wanted to use me to tie a noose around James Denis’s neck, so I suppose he was not merely being polite.

  “What do you want?” I asked. I had no patience for banalities with a man I distrusted.

  “Pomeroy can be thick sometimes,” Spendlove began, keeping his cool eyes on me. “But he’s shrewd when it comes to collecting evidence to get convictions. He advised me, if I wanted my conviction and money, to consult with you.”

  Runners gained rewards for the criminals they arrested only if said criminal was convicted. After the arrest, while the unfortunate kicked his heels in Newgate or some other prison, the Runner did his best to collect evidence to convince a jury that he or she was guilty. The condemned went off to hard labor, to transportation across the seas, to the hulks, or to the gallows, and the Runner swept up the reward.

  “To consult with me?” I repeated, uncertain how to respond. I clenched the handle of my walking stick, my fingers pressing its cold golden head.

  “I have arrested a man for theft.” The corner of Spendlove’s eyebrow twitched once, twice. “Pomeroy claims you are diligent as a hound at finding out who has done what. I know the chap did it, but I must have a clear case. The magistrate warned me of that, though he was happy to keep the man for trial.” Spendlove looked sour—the current Bow Street magistrate was the same one who’d let me go for lack of evidence when Spendlove had arrested me for murder.

  “Theft of what?” I asked. I knew bloody well Spendlove could have banged up a man for no reason but suspicion and dislike. The only thing that kept me in this room asking him questions was the thought that I might rescue a poor innocent from his doom.