Death at Brighton Pavilion (Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries Book 14)

by Ashley Gardner

  I spun away from him, but what I saw out the window as I did made me stop in amazement. The shouting from the sailors outside increased, their cries now edged with panic.

  Armitage saw what I did, and his eyes widened.

  Another ship, squat and thick-bodied, charged at us across the waves. No sails propelled it, but thick black smoke poured out of a metal chimney poking high behind the pilot house. The last of the evening sun touched it with red-gold light, tinging the smoke a faint pink.

  Steamboats were a new phenomenon of the last dozen years, and now a few plied up and down the Thames, carrying curious passengers from dock to dock. More boats, I’d heard, moved along the Clyde and across firths in Scotland. Some steam vessels worked in harbors as tugboats, pulling in larger ships to docks or shipyards.

  This was a tug, I realized, as it came closer, an interesting meld of steam power, paddle wheels, and ingenuity.

  It was also heading dead for us, no swerving. It was set to ram us.

  Armitage bolted. He was above and at the side, yelling at the tug, calling them bloody fools, threatening them with the law. I chuckled with wry humor at the sight of a murderer claiming the law as his ally.

  I grabbed the bleeding Desjardins and hauled him up the ladder to the deck. I fell there, Desjardins half on top of me, and watched in fascinated horror as the belching tug bore down upon us.

  The yacht’s pilot had caught the wheel, desperately trying to turn us. The lines I’d loosened whipped overhead, and the sails, half unfurled, jerked hard at the mast. The yacht listed heavily to port, and in that moment, the tug rammed it.

  Board hit board, the pleasure craft breaking open with a tearing screech. I pulled myself up and stared at the tug as I balanced on the gunwale, and at the sturdy body of Brewster at its bow. Behind him stood Colonel Brandon, a look of grim satisfaction on his face.

  That was the last I saw before I dove sideways, overboard, away from the path of the giant wheel. The small boat, with Bickley still in it, had drifted off, and I swam hard for it.

  I’d never make it. My arms and legs were cramped with exhaustion, my right arm stinging where Desjardins’ shot had scraped it. Bickley, eyes wide, watched me swim, feebly holding out a board for me to grab.

  The beautiful face of Donata flashed through my mind, followed by that of Gabriella and then Anne. Then Peter’s grin that transformed his rather stern countenance into a lighthearted boy’s.

  I wanted to be with them one more time.

  Something splashed beside me. A rope, with a loop tied in it.

  I looked up at the tall side of the tug, to see Brewster, his mouth moving as he shouted at me. I could hear nothing over the roar of the engine, the waves, and the shattering boards of the sloop.

  Brandon leaned next to him, and beyond Brandon, Grenville hung on to the rail with both hands. Brave man, was Grenville, to come out here in that boat.

  I caught the rope and dragged it around myself and under my arms. Immediately, it tightened, and I was pulled, like a large fish, to the aft hull of the tugboat.

  A ladder of rope and wood slats dropped down from the side, and I realized I was meant to climb this. I clung to the ladder, trying to move my legs to make my feet find the steps.

  The rope tightened. I was half-dragged up the side as I fumbled with the ladder, until I spilled over the gunwale and landed, sodden and gasping, in a heap on the deck.

  “Brewster,” I whispered, my voice a thin rasp. “Tell Denis to give you a rise in wages.”

  The crowd that had gathered around me drew back in relief.

  “He’s all right,” Brewster said to the others in his slow way. “Daft bastard.”

  The tug was a terrible place. It stank of smoke, coal, and oil, the air inside the pilot house barely breathable.

  I leaned back on a hard wooden bench, which was a long way from the elegance of the chair I’d used to bash out the window on the yacht, and thanked God for delivering me. I was out of the wind, the sun, and the water. A hot mug of coffee, laced with Grenville’s best brandy, warmed my hand.

  “How is Bickley?” I asked after a few more sips of fortified coffee.

  The man had been fished out of the small boat and hauled aboard. He was now in a cabin in a deck below this one.

  “Ill and unhappy,” Brandon said cheerfully. He sipped deeply of the dark coffee. “But he’ll mend. He was already chattering to the magistrate about all the things Lord Armitage did and threatened to do.”

  Brandon gestured with his cup to the portly magistrate, Sir Reginald Pyne, huddled on a bench in the stern. He looked as miserable as Grenville. Grenville manfully sat across from me at the table, holding on to said table while he imbibed directly from his brandy flask.

  We were now clanking and bumping toward shore. The wind tore at the boat, and the waves heaved her, but the tug moved unwaveringly.

  “Desjardins?” I asked after a time. I’d not seen anyone brought up but Bickley and the yacht’s pilot.

  “Bleeding from a nasty wound.” Brandon’s delight was unnerving. “Surgeon’s sewing him up. He’ll be fine, in my opinion, and soon sent back to France, leaving all his money and assets here. He’s safe to live there again—unless the French king objects to him trying to aid Bonaparte.”

  “Desjardins is not very bright,” I remarked, drawing warmth from the coffee cup. “But he has managed to grow wealthy and influential on cunning. Perhaps he’ll learn to do that in France as well.”

  “No matter what, he’ll be leaving our shores,” Brandon said, his delight turning to determination. “I’ll make certain of it. Poxy bastard made that damned war harder on us, and we lost good men.”

  “Where is Armitage?” I asked. “Cowering next to Desjardins? Or washing his hands of the fellow?”

  Grenville lowered his flask. “He’s dead, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh.” I thought of fighting the man, how strong he’d been, how he’d nearly killed me. He’d seemed indestructible. “Drowned? Or run down by the tug?”

  “Killed hisself, didn’t he?” Brewster broke in. He too had a flask, no diluting his spirits with coffee. He stood near the front of the cabin, watching the land come at us.

  “Killed himself?” I blinked. “How on earth did he do that?”

  Brewster turned, taking a pull of his flask. “Had a knife. Plunged it right into his own throat. Bled fast, dead before we pulled him out of the water.”

  I gaped. “Good Lord.”

  “A swifter and easier death than he’d have been given as a traitor and a murderer,” Colonel Brandon said. “He’d have faced ignominy and then execution, his lands and title taken back by the crown. He knew it.”

  “He’d have to be tried first,” I argued. “Easy for him to claim he was falsely accused. Isherwood is dead, Desjardins is a foreigner. Even Bickley’s testimony could be dismissed as one of a grieving man. We can’t prove orders Isherwood might or might not have given seven years ago. I know bloody well Armitage killed Bickley’s son, to eliminate another witness, but there is no proof. Why did he not believe he’d have a chance?”

  “Because he’d be tried in the Lords,” Grenville said, his voice calm and quiet to my angry one. “And so many lords can’t stick him. Armitage went over heads to gain that posting to Austria, and the rumor that he killed his own brother is credible. He’d have been convicted, I’m willing to wager. He’s made himself that many enemies.”

  “His wife had better claim complete ignorance and innocence,” Brandon said. “Or she’ll be dragged down herself.”

  “I could pretend I remember that it was Lady Armitage who assailed me outside the pub and tricked me into going to the Pavilion.” I thought of what Desjardins and Armitage had claimed—that it had been my hand that had dealt Isherwood the fatal blow. Was it the truth? Or the pair still trying to shift the blame for their deeds? Unless my memory returned, I could never know. I sighed and returned to my coffee. “But I’d have to swear that in court, and I am not very good
at lying.”

  “You aren’t that,” Brewster agreed.

  I ignored this. “How did you find me?” I asked the general company.

  “Went to the cottage you’d been summoned to,” Brewster answered. “You weren’t there when I arrived, and none had seen you go. But then I spotted a gentry cove’s sailing ship putting out to sea, towing a little boat behind. I nabbed a spyglass from a bloke and had a butcher’s. Couldn’t see anything, but I wagered it were you out there.”

  “So you commandeered a steamboat?”

  “His Nibs did. I ran back and told him. He went down to the docks himself. Had to finagle, and the colonel here had to help, but His Nibs paid a large amount of money for the tug captain to set off after the boat. It were slow, but finished the task.”

  “You plowed it into a yacht owned by a count,” I said, impressed. “Or a viscount if it’s Armitage’s.”

  Brewster wiped his mouth. “Accidents do happen at sea.”

  “Indeed they do.” James Denis had seen to that.

  The shore came up fast, as did the jetties that stuck out from below West Street and Middle Street. Just as I swore we’d run straight into them, the engine stopped, and in silence, we glided gently to the dock.

  “Much easier than a sailing ship,” Brewster said as the world ceased rocking. “It belches like a stevedore, but it moves as sweet as kiss your arse.”

  Chapter 24

  I managed not to collapse until I made it to the small white house I currently called home.

  Donata, Gabriella, Peter, and most of the servants met us at the front door, all wild with worry. My arm had been bandaged by the surgeon—not Denis’s surgeon, who could not very well show himself with a magistrate about—but a competent man from Brighton. I showed all my sling.

  “Nothing to worry about. Just grazed me. I’ll be closed up in no time.”

  Gabriella and Peter let themselves be reassured. Gabriella hugged me hard and Peter clasped my hand, manfully gulping back tears. They escorted me upstairs, but left me with Donata by my chamber door, Gabriella leading Peter away.

  I turned and made for Donata’s bedchamber instead, she following, because hers was soft, comfortable, smelled nice, and would contain her. Donata hovered while Bartholomew undressed me.

  “Damnation,” she declared when my battered and bruised torso came into view. “Gabriel, you must cease this.”

  I tried not to wince as Bartholomew began scrubbing off my back with a large, sopping sponge. I stood in under-breeches and nothing else, my cold skin prickling in the stuffy chamber.

  “Indeed,” I said as Bartholomew worked to remove all traces of my adventure. “I am growing too old to be blamed for a murder and then nearly killed. I am supposed to be on holiday.”

  “Blast you, Gabriel,” Donata growled, and then she came at me.

  Bartholomew tactfully stepped back as my wife enfolded me in a clutching embrace, burying her face in my shoulder. Her body shook, but she tried to muffle her sobs—she did not like to be seen giving way.

  I stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head. “We’ve let the house for another few weeks,” I said soothingly. “The holiday isn’t lost. We’ll go for walks and bathe in the sea and attend insipid soirees as much as you like.”

  Donata remained silent. Bartholomew quietly returned the sponge to the basin and withdrew, sending me a grin before he noiselessly closed the door.

  Donata lifted her head when the latch clicked. Her eyes were red-rimmed, tears on her lashes.

  “We won’t stay here,” she said sharply. “I cannot bear this place any longer.”

  “London will be hot,” I said. “The stench fearsome.” I recalled my years living in Grimpen Lane, with the Thames not far enough away to mitigate the stink.

  “No, Oxfordshire,” she said. “We’ll spend the remainder of the month at my father’s house and then go to Norfolk, before we return Gabriella to France. You’ll have to see to the harvest.”

  My cousin would see to the harvest quite well without me, but I nodded. “We’ll go, love.”

  I thought of Oxfordshire and the seat of the Pembrokes, the long avenue that led to the house of golden stone, the gardens that were the pride of Donata’s mother. I could ride with Peter through the fields, or walk with Gabriella along paths by the river. I would carry Anne on my shoulders and show her the lands of her ancestors.

  Then Norfolk where Peter and I would dig for clams and picnic in the abbey ruins, ride for miles along the salt flats. I longed for the wide lands, the huge sky, the sea stretching like a gray sheet to the north.

  “We’ll go, love.” I repeated.

  I raised her face to mine and sealed the bargain with a gentle kiss. Donata retrieved the sponge, and she and I finished wiping grime and blood from me. Once I considered myself clean enough not to mar the sheets, we took to bed.

  “His Nibs wants a word.”

  Brewster’s voice came mournfully around the packing crates in our downstairs hall, the boxes waiting to be loaded onto the wagons outside.

  “His Nibs is still here?” I asked in surprise. A week had passed since the day I’d been forced to sea. I’d healed my hurts but did not like to think of how close I’d come to dying.

  Desjardins, though he’d taken a heavy shot to the thigh, was mending. Brandon visited him every day, as did Mr. Quimby, who took plenty of notes. The comte was doing his best to save himself by blaming everything on Armitage, but Brandon remained of the opinion he’d be sent to France as soon as he could travel.

  Young Isherwood had visited and thanked me. I was not certain what for—I could bring no one to justice. Still he was gracious, with the right touch of acknowledgment. I predicted he’d go far as an officer.

  Marguerite Gibbons and her husband finished their business in Brighton and returned to Portsmouth. Isherwood had left her a bit of income, she’d told me when she came to say good-bye, which indicated to me that the man might have felt some remorse for how he’d treated her.

  Marguerite was more of the opinion that her stepson had persuaded Isherwood that leaving her a token amount would look better for him than ignoring her altogether. In any case, she had finished with Isherwood’s man of business and looked forward to going home.

  She and her husband had said their farewells to Donata and me both, Marguerite giving me a warm smile. The smile told me she was grateful for what I’d done for her in the past, but that it would remain in the past. Mr. Gibbons was congenial throughout, as though he had no fears about his wife’s former lover. And he did not. I wished them well.

  Mr. Bickley left for his sister’s in Chichester once more. He’d offered to testify against Desjardins and take the blame for his part, though the magistrate said it probably wouldn’t come to that. Bickley had done nothing more than put opium in my coffee, and no jury would believe he masterminded the plot, or even understood all it entailed. Unless someone prosecuted Bickley, he’d remain quietly with his sister.

  I thought it brave of him to offer. Bickley would have had to stand in the dock and tell the world how his actions had caused death of his own son. Yet he’d done it, possibly to ease his conscience, though I could see he was a broken man.

  Armitage must have worked on his grief, feeding him stories of my life, happily married to a wealthy woman, while his brother had died under my watch in Salamanca. But Bickley’s punishment for participating in Armitage’s scheme had been dire indeed. I pitied him.

  Brewster nodded at me now, unhappy. “Mr. Denis is waiting until you’re safe in Oxfordshire before he goes home. Says he needs to pack you in cotton wool.”

  “Amusing.” I took my hat from Bartholomew and stepped out onto the street. “Nothing for it, I suppose.”

  We walked the short way to the house Denis had let. Around us families enjoyed the summer air, moving down to the promenade or carrying baskets to picnic at the Steine. A few pleasure craft drifted offshore, sails full.

  Work continued on the Pavilion
. Clement had showed Grenville and me through it this past week, he an elegantly liveried and knowledgeable guide. He’d demanded the entire story of the end game, of course. I liked the lad and hoped I would be able to visit him and his mother again one day. They were refreshingly kind people.

  Denis received me in his upstairs study, with its view over the fields behind it. A brush of sea air touched the close room, and wind bent the grasses under a cloud-dotted sky.

  “I’m off,” I said as I entered. “As you know. This afternoon, in fact. Direct any missives to her ladyship’s father’s house in Oxfordshire.”

  Denis only looked at me. “I called you here to remind you that I expect you to perform a task for me.”

  We remained standing, which told me the interview would be brief.

  “I remember,” I said. “Though, in the end, I never needed your help to trap Armitage.”

  “While that is true, you agreed to the bargain.” Denis’s eyes were cool.

  I gave him a nod. “You did, however, commandeer a boat to rescue me. For which I am grateful.”

  “It was expedient. Can I hold you to this promise?”

  “Yes.” A bargain was a bargain, and I’d honor it. Without Denis, I would now be dead, and we both knew it.

  “I will not ask the mission of you now,” he went on. “You will travel to Oxfordshire, Norfolk, and France as planned. Afterward, I will send for you.”

  “You could have stated this in a note.” I said, a trifle impatiently. “I have much to do today.”

  “I have more to say that I did not wish to write. Such as the fact that Comte Desjardins insists that you actually did stab Colonel Isherwood to death. He has told this to the magistrate, but it is clear that his word is not believed.”

  I swallowed, my throat dry. “He claimed this, yes, when he was trying to pot me in the boat. Do you think he is lying?”

  “It does not matter.” Denis gave me a level stare. “I have made certain that this statement will be taken as a falsehood—the comte’s effort to move the blame to another. The belief at the moment is that Lord Armitage struck the fatal blow. Colonel Isherwood’s son, who well knows Lord Armitage, accepts the explanation. Armitage strangled Joshua Bickley as well, Desjardins was quick to add.” He paused a moment. “Comte Desjardins will be ejected from England, Armitage is dead, and that is the end of it.”