Murder in Grosvenor Square (3 page)

Brewster looked me over, shifted his gaze to Grenville, who was stoically putting away the gun, then watched the approaching Spendlove. At last he gave me another nod and marched the young man away.

Spendlove quickened his pace. Two of his foot patrollers peeled away to approach Stubbins, and the remaining man and Spendlove flanked me and Grenville.

“Good morning, Captain,” Spendlove said, his expression a mixture of amusement and self-assurance. “And what have you been getting up to, so early on a spring morning in Hyde Park?”

Chapter Three

Spendlove kept his gaze on me, his light blue eyes hiding deadly glee. He had dark red hair that he tried and failed to tame, and the pale skin that went with his coloring, though his freckled face was sun-bronzed.

Timothy Spendlove wanted me under his thumb, he’d told me when I’d first met him. He wished to grind me for information about James Denis, who controlled much of the underworld in London. He’d use me until he had Denis in the dock, never mind what happened to me in the meantime.

I didn’t answer his question. Grenville laid the final piece of the dueling set back into its resting place and shut the inlaid mahogany box.

“We were testing my pistols,” he said smoothly as he locked the box. “Captain Lacey did not believe they were the finest he’d ever shoot, and wanted to try them himself. Unfortunately, one of the pistols went off too early and hit Mr. Stubbins.”

Spendlove lifted one red brow. “Who happened to be walking by with pistols of his own?”

Grenville shrugged. “This spot is a grand place for shooting, so early in the morning. No one around to get hurt. Except, of course, Mr. Stubbins,”

“What do you say, Captain?” Spendlove asked. “You’re very quiet.”

“It is early,” I said in clipped tones. “I’m not my best in the morning.”

“I see.” Spendlove spent a long moment studying me with eyes that missed very little. He flicked a glance at Stubbins, who was complaining loudly about me and Grenville to the patrollers.

Spendlove could arrest the lot of us on the moment, for attempted murder, or for brawling, or for discharging weapons in a public park—anything he could think of. I saw him debate whether it would be more to his advantage to see me up before a magistrate today or let me walk away. Perhaps if I faced a charge of attempted murder—even true murder or manslaughter if Stubbins took ill from his injury—I might promise Spendlove anything in exchange for my life and freedom.

No, Grenville would not leave me to dangle in the wind. He had an army of solicitors he could call upon to help me out of trouble and so did Donata. Spendlove knew that.

But I saw in Spendlove’s eyes as he fixed me with his gaze, that he did not care what friends I had. When he got me, and he would, his expression told me, all the expensive solicitors in London wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference.

Spendlove gave me a sudden and beatific smile. “Then good day to you, Captain.” His tone was polite, but I glimpsed his buried rage. “Mr. Grenville.”

Spendlove tipped his hat to us. I expected him to stride away, but he remained where he was, waiting for us to leave first. He said nothing more, not dismissing the event or admonishing me or vowing to have me in the end. He only watched, waiting to see what I’d do.

Grenville tucked his pistol box under his arm, and Gautier folded the table. “Time for a spot of breakfast, eh, Lacey?” Grenville suggested, then without another word started around Spendlove and into the mists, heading for the path where he’d left his carriage, Gautier in his wake.

I gave Spendlove a brief nod, which he did not return, took up my walking stick, and walked after Grenville, leaving the field of battle.

*

My wife was awake, reclining on a chaise in our upstairs sitting room, when I returned after declining Grenville’s invitation to breakfast. I was surprised to see Donata out of bed, because she rarely bestirred herself until well after one in the afternoon.

But there she was, drinking coffee and reading a newspaper, her thin peignoir flowing over legs. I smelled of gunpowder, and my face was filmed with the stuff along with the mud Stubbins had splashed over me.

Donata looked over her newspaper at me and raised her delicate brows. “Well, I see you are in one piece,” she said. “If a little worse for wear.”

I unbuttoned my damp coat. “Stubbins is as bad at shooting as he is good at being a bloody nuisance.” I let Bartholomew, my manservant, who was hovering like a worried maiden aunt, peel off the frock coat and waistcoat beneath.

When he wanted to strip me to the skin and scrub me down, I told him irritably to go away. “I’ll bring a bath, sir,” Bartholomew said. He blinked a few times, as though he had something in his eyes, then turned to carry my coat and waistcoat to the dressing room.

“No, you’ll wait until I send for it,” I called after him. I was suddenly exhausted and weary of the whole business.

When the door closed behind Bartholomew Donata languidly put aside her newspaper, rose, and came to me. She laid her hand on my chest, her fingers resting over my heavily beating heart, never mind the mud on my new lawn shirt.

“I am pleased to see no holes here,” she said, tracing a pattern across my pectorals.

Her hand flattened on me, then her cool assuredness evaporated, and she half-fell against me, hands clutching the muddy ruins of my shirt. Her dark head bowed to my shoulder. I smelled the lavender rinse she used on her hair, the warmth of woman under the peignoir.

Her body shook against mine—with sobs, I realized.

My brave Donata, who never cried, was clinging to me, weeping. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close.

“There now,” I said, kissing her hair. “I was in no real danger. Stubbins is a terrible shot.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she said, her words muffled against my chest.

I turned her face up to mine and kissed the tears on her face. That this beautiful woman wept for fear of losing me was astonishing.

I kept one arm around her waist as I led her to my bedchamber. I closed the door, turned the key in the lock, and took Donata to bed. The bath and all its luxuries could wait.

*

The duel gained me respect in some quarters, notoriety in others.
No honor
, a few of Grenville’s acquaintances at White’s said.
He should have shot into the air. Stubby was the aggrieved party. Lacey had humiliated him, after all.

Grenville’s closer friends were more apt to congratulate me on a job well-done.
Stubby needed to be potted. Good to see his comeuppance.

My visit to the Derwents the next week was trickier. Sir Gideon Derwent, my host, did not hold with duels, or violence of any kind. He admired me for being in the army, but blood and death in war was inevitable, he’d say, and necessary to put down those who would oppress. Shooting a man in cold blood in a park was a different thing.

His large home in Grosvenor Square could have been overly ostentatious had not his family made every corner cozy. Vases of flowers arranged by the hands of the Derwent ladies were placed next to marble statuary, baskets of plain mending rested next to damask chairs.

Nearly every room was strewn with books piled haphazardly on top of one another, bookmarked with ribbons, scribbled notes, pressed flowers, a folded piece of sheet music. The Derwents—Sir Gideon and his wife, his daughter Melissa, his son Leland, and the various and sundry friends they brought home—read these books, discussed them, debated them, laughed at them, praised them.

But for all their knowledge and appreciation of books, art, music, and conversation, they remained the most innocent family I’d ever known.

Gareth Travers was there that evening, as well as another couple who arrived with a daughter the same age as Melissa Derwent. Melissa and the young lady—Miss Braithwaite—knew each other, but instead of going off into a corner to whisper and giggle as young ladies do, they remained politely with the family, staying silent until spoken to directly.

I contrasted the two young ladies to my daughter, Gabriella. Gabriella would have joined in the adults’ discussion and given her opinion freely. I’d overheard Donata’s friends say that Gabriella was too forthright and needed to learn to concede, but I preferred her openness. Gabriella’s mother, my former wife, had been meek to the point of exasperating me to harsh words. My fault for my impatience, but I would not like to see my daughter give way before a man of hard temperament.

Gabriella was learning how to be a woman from Donata and Lady Aline—a spinster with decided opinions no one dared contradict—and Louisa Brandon, wife of my former commander, who had a backbone of steel. Gabriella was, I concluded, in good hands.

I did note that at the gathering after supper—ladies and gentlemen together, no male withdrawing for port and cigars—care was taken to seat Miss Braithwaite near young Leland, while Gareth Travers was manipulated to be near Melissa Derwent. The parents orchestrated the moves of this dance, while the young people were oblivious, or pretended to be. I did see Melissa blush when Gareth spoke to her, and a starriness appear in her eyes. Perhaps Gareth would be connected to the Derwent family in yet another way soon.

I noticed Donata watching the young people sharply, but when I caught her gaze, she turned away with a neutral expression.

Lady Derwent seemed in good spirits. The lady was dangerously thin, consumption wasting her. Sir Gideon had taken her for a short holiday to warmer climes after New Year’s, but Lady Derwent insisted on returning to London for the Season. Studying her, I surmised it might be her last. She had the bright-eyed, animated look consumptives took on when they were nearing the end.

I was sad for them. These people were too kind, too gentle, for the sort of tragedy they were rushing headlong toward. I only hoped I could help when it struck.

My adventure in the park was not discussed. Not the thing in front of ladies, of course. Perhaps that was why the Derwents worked hard to keep this evening pleasant and harmless, so that such topics did not darken the door of their grand home.

When my wife and I returned to her Adams brothers’ decorated house in South Audley Street, Donata shed her politeness as she shed her clothes, and bathed me in cigarillo smoke and her opinions.

“Miss Anna Braithwaite as a match for Leland Derwent?” Donata said as she reclined on her chaise, clad in her favorite peignoir. She wore a turban woven through her curls and had a cup of tea and glass of brandy at her elbow. The idea that ladies should drink nothing stronger than ratafia, or perhaps sherry, was absolute nonsense to her.

I sipped from my own glass of brandy as I lounged in a Bergere chair, comfortable in my dressing gown. I’d grown fond of these sessions with my wife late at night, shut away from the world, listening while she dissected it.

“Quite a bad idea,” Donata went on. “Leland Derwent needs a woman with backbone. Heaven knows he doesn’t have one of his own. Not the lad’s fault, with his upbringing.”

“The Derwents are the kindest people in England,” I said, a bit stiffly. “I like them.”

“Everyone does,” Donata answered, unworried. “That does not mean they are the
wisest
people on earth, or that they would not do well with a little bolstering of their blood. If Leland is paired with an insipid female, the two of them will be crushed underfoot, especially with Lady Derwent dying. Sir Gideon will collapse without his wife, and
someone
will have to hold up that family.”

I hated to think of the day when Lady Derwent left them, but I knew Donata spoke the truth. “They have Mrs. Danbury,” I suggested.

Mrs. Danbury was Sir Gideon’s niece, a woman twice widowed, with much more experience of life than the sheltered Derwents. She had not been present tonight—the explanation offered was that she dined with dear friends.

“Ah, Mrs. Danbury.” Donata took a long pull of her cigarillo and let smoke trickle out with her words. “I forgot, you have a
tendre
for her.”

I blinked. “I beg your pardon. I have never had a
tendre
for Catherine Danbury.”

Donata’s eyes glinted. “And yet I recall one afternoon how you, far gone on the fumes of an interesting gas, threw away your walking stick and danced and danced with Mrs. Danbury. Laughing. You would have kissed her, had you not remembered yourself in time.”

She was not wrong. My face grew hot as I recalled the day. I’d made a complete and utter fool of myself, having breathed in an intoxicating gas offered at an afternoon society gathering. The gas had, amazingly, taken all pain and soreness from me, and had apparently taken away my reason as well. My only excuse for partaking of the gas was that I’d been investigating a murder with connections to the gathering’s host. Donata had been present, observed me closely, and had been quite critical. She’d also been very helpful, after that, in my pursuit of the killer.

“Blame the concoction,” I said. “I would have danced with you instead, but you were rather off-putting that day.”

“I didn’t know you.” Donata waved away smoke and took a sip of brandy. “Even if I had been friends with you then, I certainly wouldn’t have let you waltz me about a drawing room full of rather tawdry people.”

I raised my brows. “Your friends and acquaintance, I’d thought.”

“Tawdry all the same.” One dark curl had escaped her cap and rested like coiled silk on her shoulder—I grew distracted watching the candlelight play upon it. “I enjoyed the gas—a new sensation and good for the humors. A pity Inglethorpe had to get himself skewered.”

We both fell silent as we remembered the dire circumstances of that case. During that investigation, as well, had been the first time I’d kissed Donata.

“I have been pondering the matter of Leland Derwent,” I said after a time. I took a deep drink of brandy, savoring its rich, burning taste. “I am thinking of him as a match for Gabriella.”

Donata froze in the act of lifting her tea, the cup hovering in the region of her bosom. “You are joking.”

“Not at all.” I rolled my glass between my palms. “You are right that Leland is unworldly and naive. Gabriella has also been sheltered, thank God, but she has a great deal of common sense. Leland is a fine young man, his parents are of impeccable stock and reputation, and Sir Gideon is wealthy. Gabriella would be well provided for.”