Murder in Grosvenor Square (7 page)

I eased myself to the edge of the bed, my sore leg happy with me for resting it, and reached for the paper. The sheet contained a drawing of Lucius Grenville in profile, exaggerating his dark eyes, sleek dark hair, knotted cravat, and high collar points. Facing him, also in profile, was a woman with frizzy black curls, a pointed nose, a long neck, and diamonds at her throat.

The caption read:
Signora C— , a talented and very lucky soprano, native of Venice, has caught the eye of our own Mr. G—. She now wears jewels from his household. Can he be thinking of handing her the plate?

Chapter Six

“Ah,” I said.

For the past few weeks, Grenville had begun squiring about an opera singer called Paola Carlotti, the newest sensation to reach the Covent Garden stage. The two were well matched in looks, and newspapers had begun depicting them together.
The handsomest pair in Mayfair
, they’d been labeled.

Grenville had scarcely spoken to me of Signora Carlotti; in fact, he’d scarcely spoken to me about much in the last weeks, except arrangements regarding the duel.

He and Marianne, with whom Grenville had been carrying out an
affaire
de couer
since May last, had begun a coolness earlier this winter, after the incidents surrounding Drury Lane at New Year’s. Marianne had expressed the wish not to see him anymore, and Grenville had complied. She’d retired to Berkshire for a time, and I hadn’t known until walking in here this evening that she’d returned.

Grenville, the most famous dandy in all of Britain, now that Mr. Brummell had removed himself to France, was not one to rush after a woman, pleading for her forgiveness. Nor would he flee to his country estate to sulk. Indeed, his reputation forbade such things.

So he’d taken up with Signora Carlotti, giving the newspapers much enjoyment. Signora Carlotti, already famous for her voice on the Continent, was now gaining great repute in London. I’d heard her, and I agreed with the assessment that she was brilliant.

Handing her the plate
was the journalist’s speculation that Grenville meant to marry her. Many families passed part of their wealth down in the form of heavy silver dinner services that retained their value through the years. A woman “getting her hands on the plate,” meant getting her hands on the family’s money, usually through marriage.

“This is trash, Marianne,” I said, shoving the papers aside. “You cannot credit everything you read in a scandal sheet.”

Marianne sniffled again, much liquid in her nose. She swiped it away with her hand, and I yanked out a large handkerchief and passed it to her.

Marianne took the handkerchief, not too proud to accept. She blew her nose and dabbed her face with the fine lawn square. “Don’t be stupid, Lacey. Signora Carlotti is beautiful, sings like an angel, and is a novelty. I imagine he believes himself madly in love with her.”

“As a point of fact, I have no idea.”

“Truly? And I thought the pair of you so chummy.”

“I hardly live in his pocket. I’ve been busy.”

“Playing house, yes.” Marianne smiled through her tears. “With Lady Breckenridge. Are you weary of her shrewishness yet?”

“Keep a civil tongue,” I said, trying and failing to sound severe. “You never answered my question of why you have purloined my apartments and my bed.”

Marianne shrugged. “More comfortable than mine. And I hardly expected you this late.”

“Wanted a good wallow, did you?” I began folding the papers. “You could apologize to Grenville and ask to be friends again. Wouldn’t hurt you.”

She cast me a pitying look. “I doubt he remembers my name. He gave me a decent amount of money at our parting, but it will only last so long. I will have to crawl back to Drury Lane and beg for a place, I suppose. But I’m getting too old for it, Lacey. The rich gents like them young, and I have lines on my face.”

Marianne, a few years younger than me, had no lines that I could discern, but I did not disagree with her. Gentlemen who looked for mistresses on the stage tended to pick out those with fresh faces and youthful steps.

“It was bound to happen,” Marianne said, dispirited. “I will find another means, don’t worry about me. I have before, and I will again …”

Her words faltered, her bravado crumbling. Marianne closed her eyes, fighting tears, then she gave up and hunched over, face in her hands, letting sobs come.

I set aside the papers, moved around the bed to her, then sat down and pulled her close. Marianne clung to me and cried into my shoulder, her body shuddering as I stroked her hair.

She was right that Grenville was likely done with her. He was a proud man and had been hurt at her rebuff when he’d tried to apologize to her. He’d first been contrite, then stiff, then began squiring about Signora Carlotti.

I heard a step in the doorway, and a retreat. Not the heavy tread of Mrs. Beltan, but someone lighter, quicker. I gently extricated myself from Marianne and stood up. She huddled down again, my handkerchief to her face.

I emerged into the sitting room in time to see the front door close. I crossed to it as quickly as I could, having left my walking stick in the bedchamber, and threw open the door.

The man on the top step froze, as though surprised I’d come after him. I did not recognize him. He was not a young man, nor had he reached middle age. He wore a well-fitting dark suit, but his cravat was sloppily tied, as though he’d dressed in a hurry or had a thoughtless valet. He wore gloves of an expensive variety, and shining, well-made boots that he stood in uneasily. He had a round face, riotously curly black hair, and shock in his blue eyes so deep it pulled me away from irritation at his interruption.

“Are you Captain Lacey?” he asked uncertainly.

“I have that distinction,” I answered.

The man looked me up and down a few more times, his agitation growing. “Yes. You’d better come.”

I did not move. “Where? Who are you, please?”

“I …” For a moment, I had the impression the fellow didn’t remember. “Mackay. Nelson Mackay.”

“Mr. Mackay.” I gave him a polite bow. “Where am I to follow you?”

He chewed on his lip, his face pale, his blue eyes full of anguish. “He asked for you. He said to fetch you.
Please,
Captain.”

I felt a draft as Marianne came out of the room behind me, her dressing gown straightened and face clean but her hair hanging down her back.

“Good heavens,” she said, studying the man from red-rimmed eyes. “He seems in a right state. You’d better go with him, Lacey, hadn’t you?”

*

I gathered up my greatcoat, fetching my walking stick from the bedchamber, and followed Mr. Mackay into the dark dampness of the March night. He led me through Russel Street to Covent Garden, the vendors in the market now closing down for the night, which meant the criminal element would be emerging to play.

The street girls knew me and grinned as I passed, but they stared at Mackay, who was as out of place as a tropical bird in brickyard. He walked carefully, as though he rarely took a step in his too-shiny boots, which made me wonder—where was his coach, hired or otherwise? Why was he tramping, alone, in the environs of Covent Garden?

I had no chance to ask. He began a brisk pace after we turned to James Street and so on to Long Acre. Beyond that, we headed toward Seven Dials, not the most salubrious part of town. I kept my walking stick ready and looked about me, but Mr. Mackay seemed oblivious to danger. I’d never seen a man so nearly beg for ruffians to set upon and rob him.

As Mackay turned down a narrow and noisome passage, I wondered whether
I
wasn’t the man asking to be set upon. I’d followed him here, knowing nothing about him, and I now willingly walked after him down the lane. I was a lame man armed only with a sword, which I’d have to extricate from my walking stick. I’d never manage against a crowd of Seven Dials toughs.

Mackay stopped in the middle of the passage and let out a noise of despair. I caught up to him and found him peering at a swath of mud on the hard-packed cobbles.

“He was here.” Mackay put his hands on top of his head and made another moaning sound. “He was here. What has become of him?”

I liked this less and less. I loosened my sword and studied the stones, finding not only mud but something dark and glittering in the faint light from a window above us. I crouched down, wincing at the pain in my knee, stripped off my glove, and touched my fingers to the wet patch.

The dying light showed a dark red substance clinging to my fingers, kept damp by the mud. Blood. And much of it.

“Who?” I asked, rising with difficulty. “Who was it?”

“Where did he go? Who took him?” Mackay’s words came fast with the beginnings of hysterics.

“Mr. Mackay.” My voice cut sharply through his cries. “You must tell me. What did you find here?”

He couldn’t answer. He’d be no more help to me, I could see. I wished for a lantern, but I’d brought none, having no idea Mackay had meant to lead me into these warrens.

I left him there and went back to the main street. People were hurrying home, ready to put walls between themselves and the night. I followed a man who ducked into a nearby house, and caught the door before he could shut it.

“I need a light,” I said into his frightened face. “A lantern, man. I need one.”

He hesitated, so I pushed inside his house, unhooked a lantern I found hanging beside the door, lit the candle from one his equally terrified wife had already lighted, and made my way out.

“I’ll return it when I’m done,” I promised as I went.

The wife recovered her shock and screamed at me “’Ere! You!” before her husband slammed the door, muffling the sound.

Back in the alley, Mackay was leaning against a wall, his breath coming in hoarse gasps. At least he’d stopped wailing.

I returned to the blood and lifted the lantern over it, quickly finding smears that led farther into the passage. The smear died to droplets after a time, but the candle picked them out.

I’d hoped Mackay would follow me, but he remained behind, in the dark. I stooped as I went along, supporting myself with my walking stick, flashing the lantern across the ground.

I came upon a boot print in the middle of the blood trail, then another, but the boots were of different sizes. Two men, one perhaps supporting the other. If they were seeking help, they were going the wrong way—deeper into the darkness.

I found them not many steps later. Clouds had gathered thickly above the city, rendering this closely confined passage utterly dark. The lantern, however, told me all I needed to know.

Two men lay stretched out upon the ground. They wore the boots whose tracks I’d seen, but the rest of their clothes were in disarray. One was missing his coat and waistcoat, the front of his long trousers open. The other’s breeches and drawers were down around his boots, though he’d retained his waistcoat and cravat.

The one with breeches fallen down was dead, his eyes open and staring into the night. The other, his pale hair smeared with black blood, was still breathing, his heart beating under my palm as I pressed it to his chest.

The dead man, his brown eyes open to the sky, was Gareth Travers. Next to him, his head bloody, lying beside the body of his lover, was Leland Derwent.

Chapter Seven

My strength left me. My legs folded up, and I found myself sitting against the dirty wall next to the two young men.

“Leland,” I whispered. “What happened to you?”

He didn’t answer. His eyes were closed but not tightly, a gleam of white orb showing in the lantern’s light.

I prayed. I hadn’t in a long while, but I begged God with harsh words to please make this scene not what it was. Make Leland Derwent not be here, beaten in an alley next to Gareth, who was dead.

God didn’t answer. He didn’t change anything in that dark alley. Nothing stirred at all, not even the rats that were wary of my light.

Strength returned to me with my rage—at Leland and Gareth for being here at all, at whoever had beaten these lads so thoroughly that one had died and one still might.

Had they been caught together in the passage? Performing an act that was so vile to whoever had found them that they’d been beaten down? And why the holy hell had Leland and Travers chosen a passage near Seven Dials for their tryst? Why not somewhere soft, private, and safe?

“Leland,” I shook him, then pried open one of his gray eyes and shone my lantern into it. Leland didn’t move, didn’t moan.

“Mackay!” I called back down the passage.

He did not respond, and I started cursing the man. What the devil had
he
been doing here? Why hadn’t he helped?

I shouted again for Mackay then went back down the passage to where I’d left him, hoping he hadn’t run away.

I expected so much that he had, that I was surprised to find him leaning against a wall, a folded handkerchief at his mouth. Mackay rocked a little, breathing in uneven gasps.

I shone the lantern in his face, making him blink. “Go back to my rooms,” I told him. “Fetch Marianne if she’s still there, and tell her to send for Grenville.”

Mackay’s eyes rounded in distress. “Mr. Grenville? You can’t … he can’t …”

“For God’s sake, man—Leland will die if he’s not looked after. I need Grenville’s coach to get him home. Now go.”

“But …”

I suppressed the urge to punch him. “Then are you willing to sit by them and wait until I return?”

Mackay’s eyes went even wider, and he shied from my light. “I can’t stay
here
.”

“Then go fetch Marianne. She’s the woman in my rooms. If she’s not there, check the rooms above. If you can’t find her at all, tell Mrs. Beltan in the bakeshop to send someone to Grenville—if you’re such a milksop that you can’t go yourself.”

Mackay managed a nod. “The woman in your rooms. Yes. I’ll … go.”

Handkerchief once more at his mouth, Mackay stumbled down the passage to the street. I wondered if he’d make it to Grimpen Lane.

Leland needed to be home, needed a surgeon. Grenville’s carriage could carry him there in some comfort. I knew Grenville would respond quickly to a message from Marianne, never mind her conviction he’d forgotten all about her. I knew better.