A Body in Berkeley Square (22 page)

Naveau had a fairly thick accent, so I
doubted he'd ever infiltrated English lines, but he might have been
a receiver of information.

My heart grew cold. The fact that Brandon and
Mrs. Harper had written to Naveau during the Peninsular War filled
me with foreboding. Why the devil should they have? That Colonel
Brandon, a high stickler for loyalty, would send a document to a
French exploring officer for any reason seemed ludicrous.

Something was wrong here, very, very
wrong.

"Tell me about your master's visit to Paris,"
I said. "Now."

Hazleton rubbed his face and took another
fortifying drink. "Well now, we went out to the Continent about a
year ago. Mr. Turner likes to travel. Don't know why. The food is
rotten, and I can't understand a word no one says, even excepting
that some of the ladies in Milan and Paris are sweet as honey. Not
that they wash as much as I'd like, but they're friendly. Mr.
Turner met this fellow Naveau in Milan. After that, he tells me
that we're packing up to go with Colonel Naveau to his home in
Paris."

"What was the purpose of the visit to
Naveau?" I asked. "Business?"

Hazleton barked a laugh. "Naw, Captain. It
was sordid lust. My master was bent the wrong way, you know.
Started when he was a lad, and he never gave it up. So long as he
wasn't bent for me, I said, I didn't care what he did. He starts a
fascination for this colonel, and there's nothing for it but we
must go to Paris with him."

"They were lovers, then."

Hazleton gave me a glassy stare. "Never went
that far. My master was keen for the colonel, but I do not think it
went the other way. My master threw himself at him for nothing. The
Frenchies, you know, they don't care when a fellow is bent. They
just pass on by. But here now, you go to the stocks quick enough.
But my master never got what he wanted from the colonel. The two of
them argued much, never could agree about anything. One night, my
master wakes me up and says we're going back to England. 'Why?' I
asks. 'Tired of plying your charms?' He boxed my ears for
impertinence, but I got up and packed his duds, and we fled back to
England." He drained his glass and upended the bottle for more.

"What was Naveau like? Did you speak to him
much?"

"Not I. Didn't have much to say to him, did
I? But his own man, name of Jacot, had no complaints about him.
Told me about the colonel being an exploring officer and what they
did in the war. Naveau was decorated for services to the French
army, he said. Very intelligent man, Jacot claimed. Good at
soldiering. A bit at a loss in civilian life."

Such a thing had happened to many, including
me. "Napoleon was deposed and the French king restored. Did Naveau
remain a good republican?"

"Jacot said it seemed like he was glad all
the fighting was over, no matter who was at the helm. I heard
Naveau himself say that war was bad for France, that so many men
had died for so little. But Mr. Turner didn't like to hear about
the war and the colonel's career. Every time Colonel Naveau started
going on about life in the army, Mr. Turner would change the
subject."

I thought of Turner, young and fresh-faced
with his soft curls of brown hair. I imagined that listening to
stories of an old war horse had wearied him.

"About this paper Naveau was looking for," I
began.

Hazleton shrugged. "Don't know much about it.
Naveau came bursting in here and started going on about Mr. Turner
being a thief and ruining him. He demanded I return a paper what
Mr. Turner stole. I said I didn't know nothing about it, but that
you had been up here for a time by yourself, so maybe you'd taken
it. Then he ran off after you." Hazleton glanced at my fading
bruises again. "Didn't know he'd pummel you."

"I would like to know why that document was
worth pummeling me for."

"No idea, Captain. No idea at all. At any
rate, it's not here."

"It seems it is not. You never saw it?"

Hazleton burped. "If I did, I wouldn't have
paid it much mind, if it were in Frenchie talk, 'cause I don't know
it, as I said."

"Then how did you communicate with your
ladies in Paris?"

"Oh, I know enough for
that
." He
grinned. "You don't need much language to tell a lady you fancy
her, now do you?"

"No, I suppose you do not."

I asked him a few more questions, but it was
clear that Hazleton did not know what the document was or where it
could be found. I left him to finish imbibing the last of his
master's claret.

Outside, I bought a bit of bread from one
vendor and coffee from another. I chewed through my repast and
thought about what to do.

The likeliest person to have that document,
if it had not been destroyed, was Mrs. Harper. If Brandon had told
me the truth, if he'd met with Turner at eleven o'clock and made
the exchange--a bank draft for the document--and left the room
again with Turner still alive, then he must have rid himself of the
document between eleven o'clock and about one, when Pomeroy's
patroller took him to Bow Street and made him turn out his
pockets.

After meeting with Turner, Brandon had taken
Imogene Harper aside in one of the alcoves in the ballroom. Had he
passed her the paper and told her to hide or destroy it? Or had he
strolled to a nearby fireplace and burned it himself?

It would have taken some time to push it into
a fireplace and watch until it burned to ash. Brandon would have
had to ensure that the paper actually did burn and didn't fall
behind a log or into the ash grate. I could not fathom that no one
would notice him doing this.

No, he must have passed it to Imogene Harper.
But then, if Mrs. Harper had it, why had she come to search
Turner's rooms? Either she did not have it, or she'd been looking
for something else.

I ground my teeth in frustration. Nothing
made sense.

Piccadilly ran before me, misty in the rain,
skirting St. James's, the abode of clubs and hotels, as well as
gaming hells where fortunes were lost on a single throw of dice. As
I walked again in the direction of Green Park, I reflected on Mr.
Turner's propensity for wagers and his keen luck.

Leland had told me that Turner would wager on
whether a cat would walk a certain direction or whether a maid
would be sick or well. Arbitrary events. I wondered if his
machinations with the document were part of a wager--can Mr. Turner
procure a document from a French colonel and blackmail an English
colonel with it?

I found this farfetched, but I wondered how
Turner knew that the document would be important to Colonel Brandon
and Imogene Harper.

It was only ten o'clock, and few of the
haut ton
were up and about. The streets were busy with
servants and working people scurrying about to make ready for when
their masters rose that afternoon. I strolled into Green Park,
observing nannies with children who'd been brought to London with
fathers and mothers for the Season.

Seeing them made me think about my own
daughter running about the army camps with little regard for
danger, and her frantic mother railing at me to stop her. Carlotta
had been raised by a nanny and a governess and had expected her
daughter to be looked after in the same manner. I had hired a wet
nurse, naturally, but after that, Carlotta was dismayed to find
that she'd have to take care of the baby herself.

I had not minded looking after Gabriella and
had not understood my wife's distress. Louisa, too, had lavished
attention on the child. But Carlotta had been miserable, and I had
not been patient with her.

I wanted to see Gabriella again. I could
taste the wanting in my mouth. I wanted to see Carlotta as well. I
wanted to end things cleanly with divorce or annulment or whatever
solicitors could cook up in their canny brains. I wanted to be free
so that I could turn to the rest of my life.

Lady Breckenridge had told me that any
victory she would have with me would be hollow. I did not want that
to be true. I was an impetuous man and liked to rush into affairs
of the heart, but this time, I wanted to ensure that what I had
with Donata Breckenridge was real.

She'd thought the reason for my hesitation
was that my heart was engaged elsewhere. The truth was that I
wanted to go to her a free man, so that if I offered her my heart,
it would come with no impediments.

The surprising thing was that Lady
Breckenridge seemed not to mind that I had nothing to offer her.
She asked nothing from me but myself, and I knew better than to
sneer at such an offer.

I stood watching the nannies herd the
children for a while longer, then turned my steps toward a hackney
stand. I needed to consult Pomeroy, discover where Mrs. Harper
lived, and then pay her a visit.

*** *** ***

When I left Bow Street after speaking to
Pomeroy, a lad in the street tried to pick my pocket. My hand
closed around a bone-thin wrist, and the small, dirty-faced boy
attached to it cursed at me.

I released him and gave him a thump on the
shoulder. "Clear off and go home."

He jumped and fled as fast as he could, no
doubt thinking me stupid for not marching him off to the magistrate
on the spot. He must have been desperate--or else highly
confident--to try to rob me just outside the Bow Street office.

Mrs. Harper, I'd learned from Pomeroy's
clerk, had lodgings in a small court north of Oxford Street, near
Portman Square. I decided to take care of another errand on the
way, and took a hackney back to Mayfair and South Audley Street. At
one o'clock, I was knocking on the door of Lady Breckenridge's
townhouse. Barnstable opened the door to me.

"Has her ladyship arisen yet?" I asked.

"She has indeed, sir." He looked critically
at my face. "Healing nicely, sir. Always swear by my herbal bath.
If you'll come this way, sir."

He led me upstairs to Lady Breckenridge's
sitting room and left me there while he ascended to her rooms to
inform her I'd called. I steeled myself for Lady Breckenridge to
send me away, but before long, I heard her light footsteps
approach.

I turned as Lady Breckenridge entered the
room. She looked awake and alert, but she did not smile at me.
Today she wore a light green morning gown and lace shawl and had
pinned her hair under a white lace cap.

"I apologize for visiting you at such an
appalling hour," I said.

She lifted her brows. "I would have called
it a beastly hour myself, but never mind. My cook informs me that
she has prepared tea for me. I can offer that and cakes if you
like."

"I am full of bread and coffee, thank you. I
have been wandering about London eating from vendors' trays."

She gave a slight shrug as though she did
not care one way or the other. "I assume you had some reason for
this call."

"I did." I hesitated. I'd thought it a good
idea to come when I'd made the decision, but Lady Breckenridge did
not seem happy to see me. After the manner in which we had parted
the last time, I could hardly blame her.

"I came to ask if you might give me an
introduction to Lady Gillis," I said. "I would like to speak to her
about the night Turner died, and I would like to look over the
ballroom again."

Lady Breckenridge folded her arms, and the
lace shawl slid down her shoulders. "I see." Her voice was cool;
her stance, unwelcoming.

"I have presumed," I said quickly. "I beg
your pardon. I did not mean to take advantage of you."

"You do presume." She gave me a quiet look.
"But I am happy that you did."

Something inside me relaxed. "The last thing
I want is to take advantage of you."

She gave me a humorless laugh. "The last
thing? I do not believe you, you know. There must be plenty of
other things that you do not want more than that. But very well, I
will take you to visit Lady Gillis, so that you may once more look
at the scene of the crime. Give me a day or two to speak to her.
From what I've been told, Lady Gillis is most distraught about the
murder, and has refused to leave her bed."

"I am sorry to hear that. I do not wish to
distress her, but I truly need to see the anteroom and the ballroom
again."

"You will," Lady Breckenridge said, tone
confident. She trailed her long-fingered hands down her arms. "I
will give you a bit of advice, however. If you wish to speak to
courtesans by the pillars at Covent Garden Theatre, you should not
speak so loudly or so obviously."

Her face was very white, and I saw something
flicker in her eyes. Hurt, I thought, and anger.

"Damn it all," I said feelingly.

I had hoped that my conversation with
Marianne would go unnoticed, but I ought to have known better. My
face warmed. "As I have observed before, you are a very
well-informed lady."

"Good heavens, Gabriel, it is all over
Mayfair. I could not stir a step last night without someone taking
me aside and asking me whether I knew that my Captain Lacey had
been pursuing a bit of muslin under the piazza."

"They should not have spoken to you of such
a thing at all," I said indignantly.

"Yes, well, my acquaintances are a bit more
blunt than necessary. They seemed to believe that I would find this
on dit
interesting."

"They ought to have better things to talk
about."

"I agree. I did tell them quite clearly to
mind their own business." She was rigid, her eyes glittering.

"Gossip is misinformed, in this case," I
said. "She was not a bit of muslin. She was Marianne Simmons."

Her brows arched. "And what, pray tell, is a
Marianne Simmons?"

"Hmm," I said as I thought about how to
explain Marianne. "Miss Simmons is an actress. She occupied rooms
above mine for a time, and made the habit of stealing my candles,
my coal, my snuff, and my breakfast whenever she felt the need. I
let her; she never had enough money. She is shrewish and
irritating, intelligent and bad-tempered, and has fallen quite in
love with Lucius Grenville, although I must swear you to silence on
that last point. She has a habit of accosting me whenever she
perceives something wrong between herself and Grenville, which,
unfortunately, is often."