A Body in Berkeley Square (3 page)

I knew the way. I climbed the stairs, noting
that the house was dark, cold, and silent. If the servants were up
and awake, they were staying out of sight.

I found two maids in the room with Louisa,
both looking upset and alarmed. Lady Aline Carrington, a stout,
white-haired woman with a booming voice, was seated on a divan with
Louisa.

Louisa reclined next to her, a blanket over
her knees. Her maids had loosened her hair, and it hung down one
shoulder in a golden swath. Despite that, she looked tired and old,
well beyond her forty-three years.

When she saw me, she exhaled in relief.
"Gabriel."

Lady Aline creaked to her feet. "Lacey, my
boy. Dreadful business, this. You will find out what really
happened, won't you?"

"That is my intention," I said.

"Louisa was a bit worried you wouldn't
trouble yourself," Lady Aline said, always frank.

Louisa flushed. "Aline, will you please allow
me to speak to Gabriel alone?"

"Of course. Come along," she told the maids.
"Your mistress will not crumble to dust without you. At least not
for ten minutes."

The maids, who had been straightening
Louisa's blanket and holding a cup of tea for her, made every show
of reluctance as they left the room. Lady Aline drove them out
before her, then she shut the door.

"Louisa," I began, preparing to launch into
my speech of comfort.

Louisa pushed aside the blanket and left the
divan to fling her arms around my neck.

This was so unusual for Louisa, that I stood
still, nonplussed, before I closed my arms around her and pulled
her close.

Once, three years ago, Louisa had come to me
for comfort. On that rainy, hot night in Spain, her husband had
told her of his plan to end their marriage. She'd come, weeping, to
my tent in the middle of the night, and I'd held her as I held her
now, stroking her golden hair and giving her words of comfort.

"I will do everything I can, Louisa. I will
help him. Never fear that."

She laid her head on my shoulder. It was
unlike her to crumble, but tonight she had endured much. I wondered
whether she had known about Mrs. Harper before this, and I silently
cursed Brandon for raining everything upon her at once.

I held her for a time. The coal fire
flickered quietly on the hearth, and rain pattered against the dark
windows.

At last, Louisa lifted her head and wiped her
eyes with her fingertips. "Forgive me, Gabriel. But I feel as if I
cannot breathe."

I smoothed her hair. "Louisa, I know
magistrates; I even know a man whom magistrates fear. Your husband
will be released and brought home to you. I swear this."

Her gray eyes, luminous with tears, contained
resignation and a strange finality. I realized with a jolt that she
believed Brandon guilty.

"Louisa," I began, and then I felt a draft on
my cheek.

The door had opened, and Lady Breckenridge
stood on the threshold.

The widowed Viscountess Breckenridge was
thirty years old. She was slender but not overly thin and had thick
black hair and dark blue eyes. She was quite attractive and knew
it, and I had let that attraction entrance me quite often of
late.

Lady Breckenridge was outspoken and acerbic,
but she could show touches of kindness, such as when she had
purchased me a new walking stick when my old one had been ruined.
She also enjoyed bringing up-and-coming artists and musicians to
the attention of society, and she lived well in her status as widow
of a wealthy and titled gentleman and only daughter of another
wealthy and titled gentleman.

She had claimed once that she wanted
friendship from me, but I never quite knew how to take her
overtures.

Lady Breckenridge paused for one silent
moment on the threshold, taking in Louisa in my arms without
changing expression. Then she swept into the room, gesturing for
the tray-bearing footman behind her to follow.

"Lady Aline suggested drink stronger than
tea, Mrs. Brandon," she said. "I sent your servant to find your
husband's cache of brandy and whiskey."

Louisa stepped away from me and moved back to
the divan.

Lady Breckenridge instructed the footman to
leave the tray on the tea table. She was still in her ball gown, a
creation of deep blue velvet. The hem was lined with a stiff gold
lace that rose in an inverted V in the front to be topped with a
bow somewhere near Lady Breckenridge's knees. Her sleeves were
long, but the ensemble left her shoulders bare. She'd draped a silk
shawl over her arms, but did not bother to pull it up to warm her
skin.

Lady Breckenridge gave me a sharp stare, as
though daring me to ask what she was doing there. I was grateful to
her for helping Louisa home, but I wondered at her motives.

I was grateful also to Lady Aline for
suggesting the brandy. I poured a dollop into Louisa's teacup and
pressed it into her hands. "Drink this."

Obediently, Louisa lifted the cup to her
lips. I sloshed whiskey into one of Brandon's precious cut crystal
glasses for myself, and sipped. The liquid burned a nice warmth
through my body.

"Brandy, nothing better," Lady Aline said,
coming back into the room. "Lacey, pour me some of that whiskey,
and do not look shocked, I beg you. I am much older than you and
can drink what I like."

I hid a smile as I obliged her and poured the
whiskey. "May I give you tea, Donata?" I asked Lady Breckenridge.
"Or will you be daring and drink whiskey as well?"

Lady Breckenridge hesitated, then made the
smallest negative gesture. "Nothing for me, thank you."

Louisa gave me an odd look. Lady Aline raised
her brows and drank her whiskey.

I realized after a moment that I'd betrayed
myself. I called very few women by their Christian names; to do so
was to acknowledge an intimate friendship. I addressed Louisa by
her Christian name, and Marianne Simmons, who'd filched my candles
when she'd lived upstairs from me. I should properly address Lady
Breckenridge as
my lady.

I decided that trying to correct myself would
condemn me further, so I said nothing.

Lady Aline tossed her whiskey back as well as
any buck at White's and told Lady Breckenridge to go home.

"I will stay with Louisa tonight, poor lamb,"
she said. "I will call on you tomorrow, Donata, dear."

"Thank you, my lady," Louisa said to Lady
Breckenridge from the divan. "It was kind of you."

Lady Breckenridge raised her brows. "Not at
all. Good night, Aline, Captain." She made a graceful exit from the
room.

I could not leave it at that. I excused
myself from Louisa and Lady Aline and followed her out.

When I caught up to Lady Breckenridge at the
head of the stairs, she gave me a faint smile. "I am capable of
finding the front door, Captain. Mrs. Brandon's servants are most
obliging."

She began to descend, not waiting for me.
She'd dressed her hair tonight in tightly wound curls looped
through a diamond headdress. The coiffure bared her long neck,
which I studied as I followed her down the stairs.

At the door, one of the maids helped her don
a mantle, a heavy velvet cloak with a hood.

"Thank you," I told Lady Breckenridge. "For
helping Louisa. It was kind of you."

"You are wondering why I did," she said as
she settled the hood. "I am not known for my helpfulness."

"I know that you can be kind, when you wish
to be."

A smile hovered about her mouth. "High
praise, Captain. I helped her, because I knew she was your friend.
And Lady Aline's." Her eyes were a mystery. "Good night."

I touched her velvet-clad arm. "May I call on
you tomorrow? I would like to hear your version of events, if you
do not mind discussing them. You were there and likely much less
agitated than Mrs. Brandon."

"Of course." She inclined her head. "I will
tell you all I can. Call at four o'clock. I intend to laze about
tomorrow and be home to very few. Good night."

I released her arm and bowed. Lady
Breckenridge acknowledged the bow with a nod, then swept out into
the strengthening rain under the canopy that the obliging footmen
held over her.

*** *** ***

By the time I returned to the sitting room,
Louisa had regained some color. The blanket was tucked around her
again, and pillows cradled her back. Lady Aline sipped a full glass
of whiskey, her rouged face now bright pink.

"I should have been more gracious," Louisa
was saying.

"Nonsense," Lady Aline said. "Donata
Breckenridge is a woman of sense, despite her ways. She enjoys
playing the shrew, and who can blame her? Her husband was appalling
to her from beginning to his very nasty end. She has a good heart,
but she hides it well."

"All the same," Louisa murmured. I realized
that she was embarrassed. A viscountess, a member of the
aristocracy, had witnessed her husband's humiliating arrest and
confessions.

"She will say nothing, Louisa," Lady Aline
assured her.

Louisa sank into silence.

I pulled a chair close to the divan. "Louisa,
I will have to ask you questions about tonight," I said. "Can you
bear to answer now? Or would you rather wait?"

"She needs her rest, Lacey," Aline said.

I looked at Louisa's drawn face, and my heart
bled. I'd spent most of my adult life wanting to make things better
for her, and I never had been quite able to do so.

"I would rather tell you at once," Louisa
said. "I want to put it behind me."

I glanced at Aline, who gave me an almost
imperceptible nod.

"Let us start from the very beginning, then.
Why did you attend Lord Gillis's ball?"

"We were invited. I received the invitation a
week ago. I decided to accept because we could fit it into our
night." Louisa paused. "No, that is not entirely true. I was
flattered to be asked. Aloysius had met Lord Gillis during the war.
I was pleased that Lord Gillis remembered us."

"And he was willing to attend?" Colonel
Brandon went to social occasions because of a sense of duty, not
pleasure. When he reached the gatherings, he immediately sought the
card room or his circle of friends and left Louisa to enjoy the
event on her own.

"As willing as he usually is," Louisa said
with the ghost of a smile.

"Tell me every detail you can remember," I
urged. "Begin with leaving your house tonight. What was Brandon
like? Did he behave in any way out of the ordinary?"

"Much as usual, I think." Louisa sighed. "I
admit that I was not paying attention. I was much more worried that
my gown would be not quite right, and what would Lady Gillis think
of me? It seems so silly now."

I could not imagine Louisa looking anything
but radiant, but I did not say so. The way ladies viewed other
ladies, I had come to learn, was much different from the manner in
which gentlemen viewed them. A woman would notice that the braid on
another woman's bodice was two years out of date; a man would note
how the color of the braid brought out the blue of her eyes.

"You looked splendid, Louisa," Lady Aline
said. "I told you so, I believe."

Louisa gave her a wan smile. "You were very
kind, I remember."

"What time did you reach the Gillises' home?"
I asked.

"About ten o'clock, I think. Many others
arrived at that time, as well. I remember that the square was
packed with carriages."

"When you walked into the house, did you note
who was around you? Who went in before and after you did?"

Louisa's brow furrowed. "I am not certain. I
cannot remember, Gabriel. It seems as though it took place in
another lifetime."

"Why is it important, anyway, Lacey?" Lady
Aline interrupted. "Surely it's only important whether Brandon went
near the Turner fellow."

"I am thinking along the lines of the knife.
Brandon said he did not even know he had it with him. Perhaps he is
lying, perhaps not. In either case, what if someone picked his
pocket and obtained the knife that way? In the crush at the front
door, with people milling about trying to enter the house all at
once, a hand could easily slip into Brandon's pocket and purloin
the knife."

Aline gave me an incredulous look. "Do you
mean to say that a guest of Lord Gillis was an accomplished
pickpocket? All of Mayfair would swoon."

"Not necessarily a guest. Footmen and maids
surround their masters and mistresses. Lord Gillis's own servants
usher in the guests and take their wraps."

"Well, good Lord," Lady Aline said. "Then
everyone in the house, from the master to the scullery maid and
everyone in between, could have murdered Mr. Turner."

"Yes," I said, feeling gloomy. "They all
could
have. We need to pare down the number to the ones most
likely, and from there we will find the culprit."

"You make it sound alarmingly simple," Aline
said, a wry twist to her lips. "How can we?"

"By asking rude and impertinent questions.
Something I excel at."

Lady Aline looked amused. I was not known for
my patience, especially in situations with dire consequences, like
this one.

I returned to the question. "Do you remember,
Louisa? To whom did you speak when you first entered the
house?"

She sat in silent thought for a moment. I
knew it would be a difficult task for anyone to remember what they
did every minute of one particular evening. The events that
followed would make it doubly difficult for her, but I had to
try.

"Mrs. Bennington, the actress," Louisa said
at last, naming a young woman who had recently taken the crowned
heads of Europe by storm.

From what I'd heard, Claire Bennington had an
English father but had been raised on the Continent, taking the
stage in Italy about five years ago. She had become a success
there, and recently returned to London, where she had quickly won
over audiences. She was still quite young, only in her early
twenties, and married to an Englishman whom she'd met on the
Continent. This season, it was quite popular for hostesses to have
Mrs. Bennington attend one of their events and give a short
performance for the guests.