The Thames River Murders (21 page)

“Oh. Ah, I see what you mean.” Bennett’s brows lowered as he thought. “She truly was well liked.”

“Yet, she angered her family and her friends by becoming a
converso
and marrying you.”

“That is true.” Bennett pondered again, the very image of a concerned gentleman trying to help. “Very true. I do hate to speak ill of any lady, but her sister, Devorah—she is a bitter woman.”

I gave him a neutral nod, not wanting to convey my own opinion of her. Devorah was indeed bitter.

“Her father and mother were quite angry as well,” Bennett said. “And of course, the young man who had hopes of becoming her husband.”

I hid my start. Neither Hartman nor Devorah had mentioned another suitor. “His name?” I asked.

“Let me think. I scarce remember. He was a Hebrew, of course, with one of their outlandish names. No, I have it—Stein. Yes. Itzak was his given name. I remember, because I told Judith I thought it a damned odd way to say
Isaac
.”

Bennett regarded us as though we should be amused with him, but we remained stone-faced.

“Anyone else?” I asked.

Bennett shrugged. “I have little idea, Captain. I am not good at this sort of thing. Her father would know.”

I would get her father to speak to me somehow. “If you happen to remember any more,” I said, “you will send word, won’t you?”

“Of course. Of course.” Bennett flashed me an appealing look. “Please discover who killed my Judith. I beg of you, Captain, bring this man to justice. If I can be of further help, I will, I assure you.”

Sincerity oozed from him. Grenville, who’d silently let Donata and me get on with interrogating him, finally spoke. “We shall do our best. Perhaps you should go home, Mr. Bennett. You have had a shock.”

“Yes, indeed,” Bennett said breathily. “I will return to my Margaret.” Another glance at us, another flush. “I assure you, gentlemen, your ladyship, that Margaret knows about Judith. And Seraphina. I keep nothing from her. She knows all of my unhappy past.”

During this speech, Grenville had moved for the bell, and Matthias opened the door after he’d let enough time lapse. No need to confirm that he’d indeed been listening.

Bennett, touching his breastbone again, prepared to make his exit.

“Seraphina,” I said.

Bennett stopped short, turning in confusion. “Pardon?”

I leaned on my walking stick. “You told us that you married Seraphina because you believed she was increasing. Is that how she passed away, if I might inquire? In childbed?”

Anger flashed in Bennett’s eyes—anger at me. “No, indeed. She was not increasing at all. It was a cancer.” He shrugged helplessly. “Nothing we could do.”

“I see.” I felt a pang of pity for Seraphina. “I am sorry.”

“Thank you.” Bennett took my sorrow to be for him, when in fact, I was only sorry for his wife. All of his wives. “Good evening, your ladyship. Mr. Grenville. Captain.”

Bennett’s tone when he said
Captain
betrayed his irritation with me. Robbed of his exit as the forlorn hero, he simply walked out of the room.

Matthias, retaining his icy hauteur, said, “This way, sir,” and led him down the stairs.

I moved to the window to watch Bennett emerge. A hackney waited, the driver lounging apathetically on the box.
 

Bennett snapped something to him, the driver gave him a weary look, then started the horses before Bennett was all the way inside the coach. Bennett fell the rest of the way to his seat, his curse audible, then Matthias’s gloved hand caught the door and slammed it shut.

I turned away to find my wife collapsed on another sofa, a goblet of brandy to her lips. She downed it in a practiced way and clicked the glass to the table.

“That was distasteful,” she said, and I knew she did not mean the drink.

“Indeed,” Grenville answered. He doctored himself with brandy as well, and poured a goblet for me. “Not a man who endears himself to other gentlemen.”

“Only to ladies, it seems,” Donata observed.
 

She sent a glance at me, knowing my own propensity for preferring the company of the fairer sex. I prayed I was not so horrible about it as Andrew Bennett.

“Do you think he killed her?” Grenville asked me.

I took the brandy he offered, poured it down my throat, and answered once the liquid had warmed me. “I know this—if my beloved wife had left the house one afternoon and did not return, I would shift heaven and earth to discover what had become of her.”

Donata’s wry expression faded. I’d begun to do just that the other night, when my dread that I’d lost her had overwhelmed me.

I held Donata’s gaze with mine as I continued. “Even if she did not wish to come home with me again, I would not rest until I determined that she was safe and well.”

“Yes,” Donata said. “You would do just that.”

Grenville sat down heavily next to Donata. “As would I,” he said. “As would most gentlemen who love and esteem their wives. Not be quick to dismiss her so I could marry another.”

“And yet.” I sank to a chair, cradling my empty glass. “People do go missing, meet with an accident, are never seen again. He assumed she’d been taken in by her family, locked away from him. He could not fight her entire clan to wrest her out again.”

“By law, he could,” Donata pointed out, with another glance at me. “A wife belongs to the husband entirely. She ceases to be.”

“Exactly,” Grenville said. “So why did he not use the full force of the law to march to her father’s house and drag her away? They married legally … we assume. I will check into that. But if all were aboveboard, and Bennett had the law on his side, why not use that?”

“Because Judith had no money,” I suggested. “Her father made clear she’d get nothing from him, no help, nothing in a will or trust. Dear Seraphina brought him several thousand pounds.”

“The question remains,” Donata said. “Did he kill her?”

Chapter Twenty-One

I wanted to shout a definite,
Yes!

“He was genuinely surprised when he heard Judith was dead,” I said, unhappy. “The swoon was not false, nor was his shock.”

“He might have bashed her over the head and walked away,” Donata suggested in a calm voice. “And not realized he’d killed her. Struck out in anger when she refused to come home with him.”

“Possibly,” I said. “But the surgeon was fairly certain she’d died instantly, or nearly so, from the blow. I hesitate to conclude his innocence, but I am afraid he might be.”

“He is a bad lot,” Grenville said. “I cannot put my finger on why, but I know he is.”

Donata said, “He tries too hard to be ingratiating. What was it you said Woolwich called him? Unctuous. He is certainly that.”

“He is,” I agreed. “I also believe he knew bloody well that his second wife was dying. Perhaps a doctor had told him of the cancer. He suddenly made plenty of effort to have Judith declared dead so he could marry Seraphina. Just in time to take control of her money.”

Grenville tapped his goblet. “Why did Mr. Hartman not fight him? When the courts officially said Judith was deceased? Surely he’d have an opinion.”

“Unless he already knew she was dead,” Donata said coolly.

“I have a different theory,” Grenville said. “To Mr. Hartman, she was already dead in his mind. Judith had abandoned him, her family, her religion, to take up with this knave. If Bennett had her made officially dead, that would enable Hartman to be finished with her.”

I shook my head slowly. “You are not a father, Grenville. If my daughter ran away with a rogue, even if I disowned her in my anger, if she wanted to leave said rogue, I’d welcome her back with open arms. I would not let the world think her dead, but do all in my power to get her free of him.”

“But Hartman perhaps did not have the power to free her from Bennett,” Donata suggested. “If he were insanely wealthy, he’d not have as much trouble, but he is a modest shopkeeper. If Judith were declared dead, he would no longer have to worry about convincing Bennett to give her a divorce, and funding said divorce, and could keep her home with him.”

“Our speculation becomes meaningless,” I pointed out. “Judith did die, Hartman did not know; Bennett did not know, or so he claims. I was not present when Devorah found out about her sister’s death, so I cannot say whether she knew. She was very angry when she came to see me—at her father, at Bennett. At me.”

“Perhaps
she
met Judith,” Donata said. “Quarreled with her, struck her. Not meaning to, possibly. Panics, pushes her into the water, runs home. Keeps the secret all these years.”

“Can someone keep a secret that long?” I wondered.

Grenville said dryly, “If one is to be hanged for that secret, certainly.” He rose. “The fact remains that someone killed her, and we are no closer to finding out who. We agree we do not like Mr. Bennett, but that does not mean he is a murderer.”

“A careful man, that is a certainty,” Donata said. She too got to her feet. “We shall have to find out more about him—which Gabriel is excellent at doing. He shakes people until they tell him what he wishes to know.”

I had risen when she did, and I went to her, arranging her shawl around her shoulders. I liked that I now had the privilege of doing so. “Then I will shake them,” I said.

***

I accompanied Donata to the supper ball later that evening as we had agreed. I wore my regimentals, as other military men did, though I was seeing fewer and fewer as the years went on. I felt at home, however, in the familiar dark blue coat with white facings, silver braid on my chest and shoulders, and my deep blue breeches and high boots.

The ball was held in a house in Mount Street, home to one of Donata’s many friends, Lady Courtland, wife of an earl.

A card room had been set up for gentlemen who had no interest in dancing. I usually made for these first thing, now that I had a little more in my pockets to cover the wagers. Tonight, however, I felt the need to stay by Donata’s side.

She did not appear to mind. As a couple, we wandered through the crowd, greeting acquaintances and friends. Donata liked being unconventional, though I knew we’d be laughed at for clinging so close to each other.

“I’m happy you’ve come tonight,” Donata said to me, giving my arm a squeeze. “Not only does it clear my mind from that horrible interview with Mr. Bennett, but you can meet the young men who will be at Gabriella’s come-out next week.”

I had already met a few, and I thoroughly disapproved of them, for no reason at all.

They were paraded before me now, one by one. Not so blatantly—Donata knew how to handle people.

They were Edward Clayton, Emmett Garfield, Geoffrey Kent, and Daniel Marsden.

All four were sons of gentlemen with respectable estates and enough means to stay the Season in London without ruination. Geoffrey Kent was looking to begin a political career, and all four were primed to take over their father’s estates when the time came, and in fact, helped run them now.

They were not aristocrats, though Clayton was distantly connected to an earl’s family, but landed gentlemen, whose fathers owned lucrative estates.

They were, in fact, of the exact means and station in life that I was and my father had been. The difference was that my father had squandered all the income and let the house fall to ruin while these gentlemen’s parents were more responsible.

I’d met Kent and Clayton before. They dressed well but not flashily, were respectful to me and attentive to the ladies, and did not play for exorbitant stakes in the card room. I was trying very hard to find fault with them. Clayton, for instance, spoke with a nasally tone.

David Marsden had even fewer faults that I could discern, much to my irritation. He reminded me a bit of Leland Derwent—very polite, deferential to me and Donata without fawning. He was well educated and seemed to have actually studied something at university—he was interested in science and mathematics as well as ancient texts.

I was happy to meet Emmett Garfield, because here was a man I could actively dislike.

First, he was too handsome. The other three looked like what they were—sprigs of old English families, stretching into the distant past. They had fair hair, pudgy faces, and chins that spoke of too much inbreeding. Garfield had dark hair, a hint of the Continent about him, and was broad of shoulder and taut from riding and boxing. He enjoyed sport, he confessed, more than indoor activities.

He was also cocky. Garfield bowed courteously to me but his look was sly, I thought—he was assessing me as a potential father-in-law.
 

If he married Gabriella, he’d be connected to a wealthy viscount through me, and no doubt would try to use his charms to have young Peter doing whatever he wanted. The sparkle in his eyes told me Garfield knew exactly what I thought.

“Captain,” he said, with the right amount of deference.

I shook his hand as politely as I could. “Mr. Garfield.”

Donata had moved from my side to speak to friends, the feathers in her headdress swaying, so I could not count upon her to warm the air with conversation.

“You are from Norfolk,” Garfield observed, as I groped for something to say. “Lovely country. I have visited its lanes on an idle day after Newmarket. The draining projects have made the farms there quite rich.”

“Not always,” I answered. “There was a terrible yield a few years ago, when the summer never warmed.”

“Yes, I remember. It affected us all, but it was particularly bad there, I heard. But I understand
your
farm does not produce at all?”

“Not at the moment,” I said. “I will return there this year and begin improvements.”

“Very wise.” The young man had the audacity to wink. Mr. Garfield leaned closer to me. “I have heard it remarked upon, sir, that you came from nowhere, and now nearly are lord of somewhere—such was your skill.”

“If you have heard such a thing,” I snapped, “the speaker is very impertinent.”

“I know, and I told him so.” Garfield’s smile was warm and engaging, which made me dislike him more. “But you must admit, you were uncommon clever. No one had ever heard of you, and now, here you are, the constant companion of Mr. Grenville, and married to one of the most prominent ladies of the
ton
.”