A Regimental Murder (31 page)

He gave a sharp laugh. "Is that what she told
you? She is a termagant, have you not discovered this? She turned
her daughter against me and bade her break the betrothal. I plan to
bring suit against them for breach of promise."

I lifted him by his coat and slammed him
against the wall. I held him there, my face inches from his. "You
touched her, you little worm. You deserve to die for that."

His too-pretty face flushed. "She is a whore.
You ought to know. She whored for you."

The man was a fool. I banged his comely blond
locks against the moire wallpaper. "You do not dare speak of her.
Do not even speak her name. Pack your things and get out of
England. And if ever I find that you have gone near her, or in any
way made yourself known to her, I will kill you. You have my word
on that."

His polite mask vanished. The eyes that
looked out at me were filled with disdain and scorn and a darkness
even beyond what I had imagined. "You know nothing about Lydia
Westin. She is a cold bitch who seduces gentlemen then turns them
away. You poor fool, she did the same to you."

I put my hand on his throat. "I believe I
told you not to speak her name."

"You are nothing, Captain. Even your
association with the great Mr. Grenville does not make you
important. If you try to fight me in court, you will lose, and then
all will know what kind of woman Lydia Westin truly is."

I kept my voice deadly quiet. "I have no
intention of fighting you in court or anywhere else. And you have
spoken her name twice since I told you not to."

He sneered, unafraid. I saw now in his eyes a
man who viewed all of humanity as fools to either use or step
around. His politeness kept us at bay, but beneath that politeness,
he looked upon us all with loathing. He took what he wanted, and
his practiced courtesy and smooth handsomeness deluded others into
thinking him kind.

"You had better open the door for your Mr.
Grenville," he said now. "He sounds quite anxious. Then we can
finish this foolishness."

"Yes," I said, not releasing him. "We will
finish."

Grenville had taken away my walking stick and
its concealed sword, knowing what I might do. But I had not told
him about the knife in the pocket of my coat. I removed it now. It
was a small thing, a souvenir from Madrid, with which I cut open
books and broke seals on letters and frightened away footpads. It
fitted nicely into my palm, the thin, pointed blade only as long as
my index finger.

I touched it to Allandale's cheek. He focused
nervously on the tip. "What are you doing, Lacey? Are we going to
fight like drunkards in a rookery?"

"No, we will not fight. I have no intention
of letting you fight. I am going to reveal to everyone your true
face, so that when they look upon you forever after, they will know
you for what you are, and loathe you."

He stared, his mouth a round O,
uncomprehending.

I pressed the blade into his skin and cut
him. He screamed.

Grenville's voice rose on the other side of
the door. "Lacey! Bloody hell!"

My knife worked. I sliced stroke after stroke
across his alabaster cheeks, shallow cuts that would heal and close
and leave a criss-cross of scars all over his face. Scars that
would remind him, every time he looked in the mirror, of me. They
would tell him that he could not merely smile in soft politeness
and have what he wanted. He would never, ever be able to trick
anyone with his handsome face again.

Such coherent thoughts would come much later
when I reasoned out why I had done what I'd done. At the moment, I
only shook with rage and hatred and deep hurt.

This man had broken my beautiful Lydia,
wounding her so deeply that she had gone deliberately into despair
and shame. The Lydia Westin who had so resolutely stood by her
wronged and innocent husband, in the face of all who opposed him,
would never have dreamed of lowering herself to a courtesan's
tricks, or to using a man who had showed her the slightest
kindness. Allandale's actions had turned her into someone she
herself had hated in the end.

He had taken her from me before I'd even met
her. I would never know that other Lydia, the one true and
steadfast and honorable and beautiful. He had shamed her and hurt
her, and I doubted she would ever recover from that.

And so I cut him. My knife moved across his
lips, his eyelids, his brows. All the while he screamed and wept
and pleaded. He tried futilely to claw himself free, but a too soft
life had made him weak. I pinned him firmly and sliced again and
again into his ever so handsome face.

Behind me, the door burst open. Strong hands
seized me and hauled me away from Allandale.

I went without fight, because I'd finished.
Allandale's face streamed blood, cuts covering his face in a
bizarre pattern. Tears mixed with the blood, smearing it, dripping
to his cravat.

"Good God, Lacey, are you mad?"

Grenville was glaring at me. He seemed to
have brought other gentlemen with him, but I could not see them
through the haze of my rage.

"Yes," I said. My hands were shaking as I
slid the knife back into my pocket. I looked at Allandale. "The
wilds of Canada will not be too far. Be gone by tomorrow."

Grenville still held me. I jerked from his
grasp and strode past him and the gibbering Allandale and out of
the room. Outside, club members had gathered to peer into the room
and discover the source of the fuss.

I heard Grenville come behind me. He gained
my side as we reached the foyer and plunged out into St. James's
Street and the sweet September air.

Grenville's efficient coachman had the
carriage waiting for us. Matthias bundled the both of us in. The
door slammed and I fell into the seat. I was shaking and sick, and
my hands were sticky with Allandale's blood.

"Are you insane?" Grenville asked
incredulously. "He will bring you up before a magistrate."

"Good. Then I can spread far and wide what
kind of man he is. No one will ever trust him again. Even if I go
to the gallows for it."

I leaned against the cushions and passed a
hand over my brow. My fingers were shaking so hard, I stopped and
gazed at them in amazement.

"Are you all right?" Grenville asked
sharply.

"Yes," I said. Then I found myself on my
hands and knees on the floor of his opulent carriage, gasping for
breath.

*** *** ***

Allandale did try to prosecute. He began a
suit against me the next day, which Pomeroy called round to warn me
about. But before the constables could make their way to Grimpen
Lane to arrest me, Allandale and his suit suddenly vanished.

I assumed that Grenville had influenced
someone in high places, but Grenville wrote that he'd not had the
chance to make any plans before Allandale had suddenly left
London.

The mystery was solved when I received a
letter on thick, cream-colored paper, sealed with a blank wax seal.
In it, a fine, slanting hand I did not recognize informed me that
my recent trouble had been taken care of. The letter was not
signed. I knew, however, in my heart, that James Denis had just
made another entry in my debit column.

Somehow, the story put round was that I had
taken Allandale aside and bruised him for trying to cheat me at
cards. Such a motive was understandable, and I am sorry to say it
won me a bit more respect in Grenville's circle. The knife was
never mentioned, not by the gossipers, not by me, and not by
Grenville.

Lydia Westin had also quietly departed
London. When I passed along Grosvenor Street not a week after our
final interview, I saw that her house had indeed been shut up,
William gone, and the shutters closed. She had not said
good-bye.

The only other final note in the business was
that I at last gave in to Grenville's insistence and let his tailor
make me a coat to replace the one I'd lost in Kent. The new coat
was black and made of finest wool, so light I barely was aware of
wearing it but warm enough to keep out the London damp. The thing
fitted, glovelike, over my somewhat wide shoulders, a change from
the secondhand, pinching garments I usually wore.

Grenville persuaded me into the coat because
he'd said I'd earned it. I had sacrificed the old coat in my quest
to clear Lydia's husband, and cleared him I had. Bow Street Runners
earned their rewards; I must earn mine.

I also believe he regarded me in a new light
after the incident with Allandale. I'd catch him looking at me
sidelong for weeks after, and his conversation with me was more
guarded, less impatient.

Louisa Brandon was the only person that
autumn who did not avoid me. I confessed to her what I had done,
and why, and she understood. I read anger in her eyes, not at me,
but at Allandale, and at Lydia Westin.

I told her all as we walked together in Hyde
Park on a day late in September. I'd spent intervening time staving
off melancholia and not very successfully. The day was chilly, but
I had needed to see her. She'd replied that she'd meet me, no doubt
welcoming the chance to escape from her convalescing and somewhat
irritable husband.

"I was a bit sharp with Mrs. Westin," Louisa
said now. She strolled at my side, her hand on my arm. She had
admired the coat and told me it made me look fine, but even that
had not warmed my heart. "I know it was not her fault," she
continued, "but even so, I was most annoyed at her actions."

"She could have done nothing else," I
answered. "I would have given myself to her, you know, Louisa.
Completely."

"I know."

We walked in silence for a time. I wondered
if Brandon had raged at his wife when she'd confessed to him why
she'd gone, or if he had wept. Both most likely.

Louisa had not written to me since she'd
returned home, nor come to my rooms to see me, though she must have
known I'd been ill with the melancholia. But I did not admonish
her. I simply enjoyed her presence, savoring this walk and the warm
pressure of her hand on my arm.

As we turned along the path toward the
Serpentine, she spoke again. "Have you given up looking for
Carlotta?"

I thought a moment about James Denis and the
paper he had held out to me.

"Yes," I said. "I have given it up."

We stopped to gaze at the gray surface of the
water. A breeze rippled it.

"I am sorry," she said softly.

I faced her, studying the rust-colored bow
beneath her chin. In the shadow of the bonnet, her gray eyes held
sadness.

I said, "I thought I had found something that
I'd always wanted. Instead . . ." I paused and drew a burning
breath. "I found something I can never have."

Louisa touched her fingers briefly to my
chest, then lifted her hand away. "Your heart will heal in time,
Gabriel."

I looked at her, at the ringlets of gold that
touched her face. "Perhaps," I said. "But at the moment, I think it
never will."

END

* * * * *

Please continue reading for a preview of Captain
Lacey's next adventure

The Glass House

By Ashley Gardner

Book 3 of the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries

* * * * *

The Glass House

by Ashley Gardner

Chapter One

The affair of The Glass House began quietly
enough one evening in late January, 1817. I passed the afternoon
drinking ale at The Rearing Pony, a tavern in Maiden Lane near
Covent Garden, in a common room that was noisy, crowded, and
overheated. Sweating men swapped stories and laughter, and a
barmaid called Anne Tolliver filled glasses and winked at me as she
passed.

I first learned of anything amiss when I left
the tavern to make my way home to prepare for a soiree at the house
of Lucius Grenville. It was eight o'clock, the winter night outside
was black and brutally cold, and rain came down. A hackney waited
at a stand, white vapor streaming from the horse's nostrils while
the coachman warmed himself with a nip from a flask.

I walked as quickly as I could on the slick
cobbles, trying to retain the warmth of ale and fire I’d left
behind in the public house. My rooms in Grimpen Lane would be dark
and lonely, and Bartholomew would not be there. Since Christmas,
Bartholomew, the tall, blond, Teutonic-looking footman to Lucius
Grenville, had become my makeshift manservant, but tonight he had
returned to Grenville's house to help prepare for tonight’s
gathering.

At least my lodgings had become something
less than dismal since Bartholomew's arrival. Grenville had lent
him to me and paid for his keep, because the lad wanted to train to
be a valet, the pinnacle of the servant class. Therefore, I now had
someone to mix my shaving soap, brush my suits, keep my boots
polished, and talk to me while we chewed through the beefsteak and
boiled potatoes he fetched from the nearby public house.

I suspected Grenville's purpose in sending
Bartholomew to me was twofold--first, because Grenville felt sorry
for me, and second, because he wanted to keep an eye on me. With
Bartholomew reporting to him, Grenville would be certain not to
miss any intriguing situation into which I might land myself.

Bad fortune for him that Grenville had chosen
to call Bartholomew home to help him tonight.

My rooms lay above a bake shop in the in the
tiny cul-de-sac of Grimpen Lane, which ran behind Bow Street. The
bake shop was a jovial place of warm, yeasty breads, coffee, and
banter when it was open. Mrs. Beltan let the rooms above it cheap,
and I'd found her to be a fair landlady. The shop was closed now,
Mrs. Beltan home with her sister, the windows dark and empty.

As I reached to unlock the outer door that
led to the stairs, a voice boomed at me out of the darkness.