A Body in Berkeley Square (32 page)

Brandon gaped at me as I told the story for
the second time tonight, and when I finished, he began to
splutter.

"The blackguard! Using my own knife, sitting
by quietly as you please while I waited in here for my trial. Damn
the man."

"Would it help to know that he is terrified
of what is to come?" I asked.

"What? No, of course not. I long to call the
fellow out, but I suppose that would not be the thing."

He paced the cell, animation flowing into his
body. Brandon dejected was a sad sight, but now his eyes flashed,
and his back was straight and strong.

"If you had told me the truth from the
beginning, sir, you might not have had to come here at all," I
said.

Brandon swung to me. "Oh, yes I would have.
When I admitted the knife was mine, Pomeroy blamed me at once, damn
the man."

"Which he would not have if you'd stayed in
the ballroom the entire night with your wife. Why the devil did you
not at least say that Stokes saw you wandering the back rooms at
the time of the murder?"

"Because it was none of his business. I
didn't want Stokes standing up in court bellowing every place I'd
been."

I thought I understood. "Because if it were
mentioned, someone, Stokes himself perhaps, might recall you
slipping back there after Lord Gillis sent for Pomeroy and his
patrollers. And then Pomeroy, ever thorough, might find what you'd
hidden there." His eyes widened at my guesses, and I lost my
temper. "Damn it, sir, I know all about Naveau, and the document,
and Mrs. Harper. What the hell were you thinking?"

"You know what the document is?" he asked,
watching me.

"I read it. Why the devil didn't you come to
me when Mrs. Harper first approached you? I could have retrieved
the paper without all your machinations at the ball. I know people
who could have made Turner hand it over--Grenville for one, or if
we were more desperate, James Denis. I would have done this for
you. Why did you not trust me?"

Brandon looked at me with infuriating
stubbornness. "Because I know how much you hate me. Why would you
not use the opportunity to bring about my downfall? I could see you
doing so, with glee."

"Then you read me entirely wrong. I have been
loyal to you since the day I swore allegiance to you, twenty years
ago. That has not changed."

Brandon shot a guilty look at my walking
stick. "I hurt you."

"I know. And I haven't forgiven you for that,
believe me. But you were angry then--you thought I'd taken Louisa
from you, the woman you love more than your own life. You feared
that Louisa would leave you for me, even after you retracted your
plan to divorce her. You would have deserved it if she had, but
Louisa loves you. The pair of you are so romantic, you make me
weep. I never bedded your wife, sir. Never. She never would have
done such a thing."

"But you would have," he said sullenly.

"Of course. On an instant. Louisa has always
been special to me. If she had wanted to give herself to me in that
way, I would have taken what she offered and felt privileged to
receive it. But she never offered, it never happened, and it never
will."

Brandon glared at me with his old fire. "Such
words do not make me disposed to trust you."

"You might be a complete idiot concerning
your wife, but it is also true that I owe you my life. All of it."
I gave him a firm look. "And so I will do my damndest to keep you
safe."

I took the document from my pocket and held
it up for him to see. I'd read it in Louisa's sitting room and
nearly groaned in dismay. In Brandon's handwriting, in French, the
letter told Colonel Naveau of Mrs. Harper's husband's death and
explained that there would be no more information from that source.
The letter also included a copy of a dispatch that Major Harper had
set aside for Naveau.

"This is what everything has been about," I
said. "Good God, sir. What possessed you? The chance to convince
Mrs. Harper to marry you and bear your children? Was that truly a
reason to betray your own men to the French? Others might have done
so, but I never in a thousand years dreamed
you
would."

Brandon ignored my tirade, his gaze on the
paper. "Where did you get that?"

"Louisa gave it to me after she'd found where
you'd hidden it in the Gillises' house."

"I told Louisa expressly not to show it to
you."

"Why not? What did you fear I'd do? Give it
back to Naveau? I am, in fact, supposed to do that very thing, on
the orders of James Denis."

Brandon whitened. "I will never let you. I
will kill you first."

"Your faith in me is overwhelming."

I turned on my heel and stalked to the
fireplace. There I knelt and thrust the letter into the flames.

"What are you doing?" Brandon demanded.

"Burning the thing. Or would you like to face
charges of treason?"

I took up the poker and pushed the papers
into the heart of the fire, then I watched while the whole of the
thing burned. When any scrap fell, I lifted it with tongs and
shoved it back into the flames.

I waited until the papers had burned
completely to ashes, then I rose.

Brandon was staring at me as though he could
not believe what I'd just done. "James Denis told you to take that
to Naveau?"

"Yes," I said tersely.

"What will you tell him?"

He looked a bit worried. I wondered whether
Brandon anxious on my behalf or feared that Denis would retaliate
against him for not stopping me.

"I will think of something. Why did you not
have Louisa destroy it?"

"I hadn't time to examine the papers at the
ball. I wanted to be certain Turner had given me the right
document. Turner had closed it and the letter into another paper,
and I barely had time to break the seal and see that the
handwriting was mine before I fled the room. I fancied I'd heard
someone coming. Then when I learned that Turner had been killed, I
panicked."

The last turn of the labyrinth straightened
before me. "That is how your knife got into the anteroom. You
pulled it from your pocket to break the seal on the paper, and you
left the knife on the writing table in your haste."

Brandon looked uninterested. "Yes, I suppose
I must have done. At the time I was not concerned about the damned
knife."

"Careless of you. You left a murder weapon
handy for the ever resourceful Mr. Bennington." I looked at him in
anger. "How could you have written such a letter in the first
place? How many men did we lose because you sent Naveau that
dispatch?"

Brandon gave me a look of contempt. "None at
all. The information was false."

I stopped. "I beg your pardon?"

"I changed the dispatch when I copied it. The
information Naveau received was false. I imagine that because of
it, a French troop uselessly scoured the hills for hours, looking
for English artillery. Meanwhile we were far away." Brandon peered
at me. "Did you think I would pass information to the French,
Gabriel? What do you take me for?"

I let out my breath. "Do you know, sir,
sometimes I could cheerfully strangle you."

"We are already in prison. You would not have
far to go."

Brandon rarely tried for levity, so I could
not know whether he attempted a joke.

"If the information were false, why the devil
were you so anxious to get the document back?"

"Well, I could not prove that it was false,
could I? I would have to have the original dispatch, which I assume
has been destroyed by now, or Wellington would have to come forward
and claim he remembered every detail of the original battle plans.
I
knew it was false, and Naveau probably realizes it was by
this time. A tribunal, on the other hand, especially one influenced
by any enemies I made during the war might not choose to believe
me. And even if I could prove I'd passed bad information, Mrs.
Harper's husband might still be exposed, and she ruined. I hardly
liked to risk it."

I stepped close to him. "If anything of this
nature happens again--though I likely
will
strangle you if
it does--
tell me
."

"When I require your help, Gabriel, I will
ask for it."

We regarded at each other in silence, face to
face, eye to eye.

I turned away. "Be happy that I am both fond
of your wife and bad at obeying orders," I said. "You will be
released tomorrow. Good night."

The turnkey let me out. I left Brandon in the
middle of the room, staring at me with an unreadable
expression.

* * * * *

Chapter Twenty

The next morning, in the Bow Street
magistrate's house, I told Sir Nathaniel Conant the story of
Bennington's confession to me, verified by Grenville and Pomeroy,
who had heard it from the next room.

Mr. Bennington, wearing his usual air of
faint scorn, stood before Sir Nathaniel and smoothly agreed that
yes, he was a murderer twice over. Love of money, he said, was the
root of all evil. That was in the New Testament. In Saint Paul's
letters to Timothy, if one wanted to be precise.

Sir Nathaniel, looking neither shocked nor
amused, committed Mr. Bennington to trial for the murder of Henry
Turner. The murder of Mr. Worth, occurring in another country years
ago, with no witnesses, would not be tried here, although Sir
Nathaniel would keep Bennington's confession to it in mind.

Bennington, however, never did come to trial.
He was found dead the morning before he was to stand in the dock,
hanging from his bedsheets in his prison room in Newgate. The
turnkeys were supposed to prevent such things, but as I had
observed, the turnkey for the rooms of the wealthy prisoners was
easily bribed. I assumed that the fastidious Mr. Bennington could
not bring himself, in the end, to face the public hangman.

In any case, Brandon was released the same
day Bennington was taken to Newgate. I do not know what Louisa did
when Brandon arrived home, because I was not there to witness it. I
left the two of them alone to rejoice, to scold, to decide what
they would do from there, together. They did not need me.

The same afternoon Brandon went home, I
received the inevitable summons to Denis's Curzon Street house.

I met with Denis and Colonel Naveau in
Denis's study, the room in which Denis usually received me. Denis
sat behind a desk that was habitually clean--I did not know if he
ever used it for anything other than intimidating his visitors.

Colonel Naveau, tense and irritated, turned
on me as I entered the room. "Have you got it?"

"No," I answered. "I burned it."

"What?" The colonel trailed off in French,
his language becoming colorful. Denis said nothing.

I laid my walking stick on a small table
beside me. "I burned it because its existence was a threat to
Colonel Brandon. I could not risk that you would not try to extort
money from him because of it, or from Mrs. Harper."

"Brandon sent it to me," Naveau said. "He
took the risk. He must live with that."

"Not any longer. Why did you keep the paper,
by the bye? To prove that you were a good republican and an
excellent exploring officer? Louis Bourbon is not a strong king.
Perhaps the Republic will rise again, and you will need to prove
your loyalty to it."

"Please do not tell my motives to me," Naveau
said. "I kept it for my own reasons." He glanced at Denis, who had
neither moved nor spoken during our exchange. "You promised he
would obtain it for me. I paid you money. Much money."

"I will return your fee," Denis said
smoothly. "Like you, Captain Lacey does things for his own
reasons."

Naveau gave Denis a hard look. "And you will
do nothing?"

Denis cleared his throat, and the two
pugilists who stood near the windows came alert. "Please pack your
things and return to France, Colonel," Denis said.

Naveau looked at me for a moment longer,
stark anger in his eyes. But he was not foolish enough to argue
with James Denis. He bowed coolly then strode past me and out of
the room.

A lackey in the hall closed the door behind
him. Silence fell. The pugilists returned to their stances by the
windows. Denis folded his hands on top of his desk and said
nothing.

"You must have known I would never give that
paper back to him," I said.

Denis inclined his head. "I suspected so,
yes."

"Then why did you ask me to find it? Not to
placate Naveau, surely."

"It was a test, of sorts."

"A test? And I failed?"

"No," Denis said. "You passed."

I lifted my brows.

"I wished to see where your loyalties lay,"
he said. "And what you would do for them. You are a man of great
loyalty, even when it conflicts with your heart."

I stared at him, not a little annoyed. "I am
pleased I could provide you with entertainment."

"No, you are not." He regarded me a moment
longer. "Was there something else?"

I hesitated, my fingers brushing my engraved
name on my walking stick. "My wife." A familiar lump rose in my
throat. "Did she ever marry her French officer?"

"Never officially. I believe they find it
easier to let others simply assume them man and wife. Mrs. Lacey
has had four other children with this Frenchman, as a matter of
fact."

"Good Lord." So, Carlotta had found family
and happiness at last. I continued, my lips tight, "If I dissolve
the marriage with her, they will no doubt be pleased."

"You will likewise be free," Denis said.

I knew that he could help me, that he waited
for me to ask him to help. James Denis could no doubt reach out and
scoop up my wife, pay the money to get me a divorce or annulment,
and land her in France again to marry her Frenchman.

He could, and he would. But I was not yet
certain I was ready.