Elizabeth Thornton - [Special Branch 02] (17 page)

“A beautiful woman,” said Gwyn.

“A woman with a monumental ego,” Judith corrected. “And she is long gone.” She studied Gwyn’s set face, then went on gently, “A man is entitled to his past, Gwyn, yes, and a woman is, too. There’s no need to look so tragic.”

“Oh yes there is,” said Gwyn with feeling.

“But why?”

“Because I very much fear that the spiteful hussie who decorated these rooms has run off with the chamber pot, and I really have to go.”

Judith stared, then dissolved in laughter. After a moment, Gwyn joined in.

Gwyn rested after lunch, fell into a deep and dreamless sleep, and wakened to find that it was dark outside and the candles had been lit. There was a handbell on a table beside the bed that she was supposed to ring if she wanted anything, and Maddie would come running. Gwyn didn’t even think of using it. She eased out of bed and in slow, cautious
steps pushed into the mirrored dressing room. There were candles lit here too, one candelabra on a polished mahogany table that served as the washstand.

After pouring water from a porcelain pitcher into its matching porcelain basin, Gwyn carefully slipped her nightdress off her shoulders and let it fall to her feet, then she wrung out a washcloth and bathed her hot skin. She bathed her eyes, her throat, her arms, her breasts, and that was all she could do. She couldn’t bend or stretch or, as she belatedly realized, pick up her nightdress from the floor and put it on again.

So much for trying to do everything for herself.

She turned slowly, knowing full well that a dozen naked nymphs, her mirror images, would be waiting to greet her. And so they were, frights every one of them, with dark smudges under their eyes and a grotesque linen dressing crisscrossing their milky white bellies. She advanced upon them and stopped to stare. It was a humbling sight. Her red hair hung about her face and shoulders like the strands of a wet mop. Her breasts were too small; her hips were too large, and the skin on her abdomen was no longer taut. She didn’t know how any sane woman past the first bloom of youth could bear this kind of torture.

Gritting her teeth, she made her way back to bed.

T
hat same evening found Jason ensconced in a large wing armchair, sipping from a glass of Madeira in the lodgings of his friend, Richard Maitland, Chief of Staff of the Special Branch. He had just told him as much as he could remember about the attack on Gwyn.

“She was lucky,” Jason said. “The bullet did little damage. It’s going to hurt like blazes for the next day or two, but the doctor says that bedrest is the only cure.”

“You didn’t take her to Half Moon Street, I hope?”

“No. She’s in a safe place where no one will think to look for her. Brandon is there now, and her friend, Judith Dudley.”

“So far, so good. You’ve done well.”

His friend’s words went a long way to convincing Jason that he wasn’t the lunatic Brandon and Gwyn seemed to think he was. Like Gwyn, Brandon believed that he was making too much of the attack on her, that the housebreaker had panicked or broken into the wrong house and that’s the last they would see of him. Richard’s views, however, carried far more weight with Jason.

There was another reason that made him glad he
had come. Richard was already on the case, because one of Lord Liverpool’s cabinet ministers had been a guest at Sackville’s party. There were also several members of parliament and two judges, but they were not under investigation. It was the footman, Johnny Rowland, whose murder had to be cleared up. Richard had thought it was a piddling affair that would be solved in a matter of days, but what Jason had to say made him want to rethink the case.

Jason’s friendship with Richard wasn’t exactly close, partly because they’d known each other for less than a year, but more so because Richard wasn’t an easy man to get to know. Maybe it was the nature of his work that made him an intensely private person, or maybe it was the fact that he was a Scot.

After five minutes in the man’s company, Jason had summed him up as the proverbial dour Scot, but that was before he learned that Richard was an avid rock climber, like himself. Since then, they’d done some climbing together. When two climbers who are practically strangers scale the peaks, they soon learn all they need to know about each other. After their first climb, Jason knew that Richard was fearless, though never rash, and when things went wrong, he could be counted on to keep his nerve.

Jason watched his friend add coal to the fire. When he sat down, Jason said, “What about magistrates? Should I go to them?”

“Like it or not, we have to involve them, or they may start an investigation that interferes with Special Branch. Leave them to me.”

Silence fell. Finally, Jason said, “It seems so bizarre.”

“What does?”

“That our paths have crossed like this. And I can’t see how Gwyn fits into the picture.”

“Maybe she doesn’t.” Richard took a long swallow of Madeira. “Tell me about her.”

Jason shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. When she was orphaned, she came to live at Haddo.” He gave his friend a short sketch of Gwyn’s life and concluded by telling him about the legacy.

“That’s one mystery,” said Jason, “I intend to clear up at once. I don’t think it’s related to any of this. But how can I tell until I know the donor’s name?”

Richard nodded. “That’s how I work. Make no assumptions and tie down every loose end.” After a moment, he went on, “Harry is the one who intrigues me most. A bold lad, is our Harry. No apparent disguise, you say?”

“He wasn’t disguised.”

“Not that anyone could detect. Was he really so reckless as to show his own face in broad daylight, then return that very night and knock on the door as though he were an invited guest?”

“What are you getting at, Richard?”

“I’m not sure. Why don’t we go to Sutton Row and have a look around? I like to picture exactly how the crime took place.”

“Fine,” said Jason.

Richard got up and walked to the open door. “Harper!” he roared.

Harper appeared almost at once. He was fortyish, with a battered look about him that always made Jason think of a retired pugilist. He was supposed to be Richard’s bodyguard, and was reputed to be a crack shot. If Richard was a man of few words, Harper was positively inarticulate, though he possessed an extensive repertoire of frowns and grunts that apparently passed for language. Jason knew he was exaggerating, but not by much.

“Did you hear all that?” asked Richard abruptly.

Harper nodded.

“Take a couple of militiamen and put a guard on
the house, but nothing too obvious. We don’t want to scare Harry away if he decides to come back.”

“And if the magistrates or runners come calling?”

“Harper,” said Richard patiently, “you’re the biggest liar in the service. Use your imagination.”

With an evil grin, Harper left.

Jason was amused. “You allow your subordinates to eavesdrop on your private conversations?”

“Hah! You try convincing Harper that he’s a subordinate. He takes his orders from the prime minister and he never lets me forget it. Jason, I’m not joking. Lord Liverpool appointed Harper as my bodyguard, and like it or not, I’m stuck with him.” He paused. “Harper’s worth his weight in gold, but don’t tell him I said so.”

Both men grinned as they left.

“By the way,” said Richard, “you keep calling your cousin Gwyneth or Gwyn. What’s her full name?”

“Mrs. Barrie. Mrs. Nigel Barrie.”

“Mrs. Nigel Barrie. I seem to know that name.” Richard stopped on the stairs. “I remember her.” His voice was suffused with warmth. “Lisbon. Summer of eighteen nine. I was wounded in my first action. Your cousin nursed me back to health. She was in charge of the make-shift infirmary. We couldn’t believe it. She was only a girl herself. And we were all in love with her.

“Gwyneth Barrie,” he said softly. “Bad luck about her husband. She didn’t deserve that.” He looked at Jason. “Let’s see if there’s anything in her house that seems odd or out of place.”

The doors to Gwyn’s house were locked and there was no sign that anyone had forced an entry. The kitchen was as Jason had left it. Gwyn’s bloodied
garments were on the floor, along with broken dishes and chairs that had been overturned in the fight.

“Brandon was here,” Jason said, “to pick up some clothes for Gwyn, but everything seems to be as I

left it.”

They went through the house room by room, and drawer by drawer. When they were finished, Richard said, “She has no mementoes of her late husband; nothing to pass on to her son. And no miniature portrait.”

“She has his pistol.”

They were in Mark’s bedroom. The bed was unmade and Jason was fingering a toy soldier he’d picked up from the table. He was remembering what Gwyn had said, that Harry would have killed her, then Mark, whether she’d given him the portrait or not.

His hand tightened around the toy soldier. “Harry is a killer,” he said harshly. He looked up at Richard. “I don’t believe he’s a housebreaker. He didn’t have to shoot Gwyn. He may have wanted the portrait, but he came here to kill her. That’s what he really wanted, to kill Gwyn.”

“Yes, I’m afraid you’re right,” said Richard. “And that means, he may try again. But I think you’ve already worked that out.”

“It sounds so much worse to hear you confirm it.”

Richard nodded. “I’ll want to talk to her at some point.”

“Then you’d better be quick about it. I’m taking her to Haddo just as soon as she’s fit to travel.”

“I think that’s wise. I can always post down and question her at Haddo. Meantime, find out if there’s anything else she knows. Something she’s forgotten. Small things that seem out of place. It doesn’t matter how insignificant. She must know something about that portrait.”

“I’ll question her, and I’ll make sure she understands how serious this is.”

“Good. I’m finished here. Shall we go?”

“You go ahead. I want to pack everything Gwyn and Mark will need for going down to Haddo.”

“Let Harper do it. He could move the Tower of London and no one would know it was gone till it was too late. What I mean is—”

“I know what you mean. You think someone may be watching the house and I’ll lead them to Gwyn. I wouldn’t, you know.”

Richard laughed. “If ever you tire of making money,” he said, “come to me and I’ll give you a job.”

The following morning, Sergeant Harper set a tray down on his chief’s desk in his office in the Horse Guards, and poured out two cups of coffee. He didn’t say anything. Colonel Maitland was making notes, and when the chief was deep in thought, it behooved everyone around him to keep his mouth shut. The thought softened the perpetual frown that seemed to have set like plaster on Harper’s brow. He remembered Richard Maitland as a young officer on his first campaign. They were all the same, those greenhorn officers. They didn’t know their elbows from their arses.

And now look at him! Not that Harper was uncritical of his chief. He worked too hard, and when he did take a rest, all he could think about was sailing or climbing great hunks of rock. There would be a woman in it somewhere, thought Harper. There always was. And though his own sad experiences in the petticoat line had put him off women for life, he wanted something better for the colonel than a bachelor’s life.