A Body in Berkeley Square (26 page)

"Dead."

She shuddered. "I thought him merely foxed,
and I was angry at him, celebrating at our expense. But he sat too
still, and then I realized that he was not breathing."

"And you decided to search him for the bank
draft."

"Yes."

"Why? To save Brandon a bit of blunt?"

"That was not all I thought. I did not think
the draft should be found on a dead man. I did not want it to point
to a connection between Mr. Turner and Aloysius."

"It was a good thought, but Brandon's
behavior did that for him. Well, I am back to not knowing what
became of the paper. Brandon is most reticent to tell me."

"He is ashamed."

I snorted a laugh. "He is afraid that I will
use the knowledge against him. Well, Mrs. Harper, instead of
clearing Brandon, I now have information that gives him still more
of a motive. He killed Turner not to cover up an affair with you
but to keep himself from being arrested for treason. Damn."

Mrs. Harper looked at me limply. "I am
sorry."

"Brandon is an idiot, which is not your
fault. He never should have written that letter."

"I know."

"The only way I can save him is to discover
who truly did murder Turner. Did you see anything that can help
me?"

She shook her head. "I was in the alcove. By
the time I made my way to the anteroom, Turner was already
dead."

"You said his body was warm, so he could not
have been dead long. Are you certain you saw no one leave the room
before you entered it?"

"I did not."

I imagined the small gilded room with its
simple furnishing and scarlet walls. I remembered the opulent
staircase hall and Basil Stokes complaining that one never saw the
servants because they walked through back passages behind the
walls.

Anyone who knew how to get into those
passages could have slipped into the anteroom--if indeed, a door
from the anteroom led to the passages. They need not have been seen
in the ballroom at all. Brandon had been observed striding toward
the back of the house, ostensibly in search of sherry.

Damn, and damn, and damn.

I rose to my feet. "Mrs. Harper, I thank you
for being frank with me. I am going to find that blasted paper if I
have to tear apart London to do it. And I will clear Brandon, too.
Please, if you remember anything else, any small detail that might
be helpful, send me word."

She promised to, but her face was wan, her
eyes tired.

I left her with my card and my direction
penned on it. Mrs. Harper said goodbye, her eyes quiet in
defeat.

I knew she believed that if I had to betray
her to save Brandon, I would. And, I thought as I left the house
for the spring fog, she might not be wrong.

*** *** ***

Lady Breckenridge had sent me a note via a
servant that morning, telling me she'd procured an appointment for
me with Lady Gillis. She'd instructed me to call at the South
Audley Street house at three o'clock.

I had just enough time now to journey from
Portman Square to South Audley Street, and I arrived on Lady
Breckenridge's doorstep at three o'clock precisely.

Lady Breckenridge greeted me in a swirl of
silk and cashmere and pressed a cool kiss to my cheek. "You are
amazingly punctual, Gabriel. Shall we go?"

I was pleased--first, that she had done this
favor for me, and second, that she felt comfortable enough with me
for a kiss as greeting, without awkwardness. I was pleased, too, to
sit next to her in her carriage, and have her shoulder brush my arm
with the carriage's movement.

I suddenly was sorry that Lord Breckenridge
was dead, because I longed to shoot the man myself. I had, however,
thoroughly bruised his face in an impromptu boxing match, and that
would have to satisfy me.

Lady Breckenridge's small hand lay loosely in
her lap, and I reached down and closed it in mine. "You told me
once that I resembled the late Lord Breckenridge," I said.

She gave me a startled look. "You and he had
a similar build, true. And hair the same color. But you are a
completely different man, thank God."

"I share the sentiment. I promise you,
Donata, that I will never subject you to the humiliations he did.
Ever."

Lady Breckenridge gave me a half-smile. "I
know. You have too much damned honor."

"Not only honor," I corrected her.
"Affection."

She stared at me. I do not know whom I
surprised more with the word, Lady Breckenridge or myself. She
looked at me for a long moment, then she laid her head on my
shoulder and kept it there for the rest of our short journey.

The carriage stopped before the entrance to
the Gillises' home in Berkeley Square. The double door was flanked
with tall columns that led us into the rotunda of the front hall.
Maids took our coats and hats, and a butler led us to a drawing
room somewhere in the vast interior.

There, I met Lady Gillis for the first time.
When she entered, I was struck by how much younger she was than
Lord Gillis. Grenville had mentioned that Lord Gillis was older
than his wife, but Lady Gillis looked little more than a girl. I
put her age as barely into her twenties, the same as Mrs.
Bennington.

"Violet." Lady Breckenridge greeted Lady
Gillis with kisses to her cheeks, French fashion. "Captain Lacey
wishes to poke about your house. Shall you allow him?"

* * * * *

Chapter Sixteen

Lady Gillis did allow it, although she was
flustered. "It is not a nice thing to have a murder in your home,"
she said. "We have been at sixes and sevens since the ball."

"I am sorry it had to happen," I said.

"It was dreadful. Absolutely dreadful. I have
been abed for days."

"Did you know Mr. Turner?"

Lady Gillis started, then flushed. "No. Not
well. He was an acquaintance of a friend, who suggested I invite
him. Lord Gillis did not like Mr. Turner and told me vehemently not
to let him come, but I owed my friend a favor. I'm sorry now that I
did not listen to my husband."

Before I could ask further questions about
this friend and why Lord Gillis did not like Turner, Lady Gillis
suddenly said she felt unwell and declared she'd retire to her
rooms.

Lady Breckenridge offered to accompany her
upstairs, but Lady Gillis said quickly that she would be fine in
care of her maid. I rather think Lady Gillis wanted Lady
Breckenridge to keep an eye on me.

The ballroom in daylight was a very different
place from what it had been in the middle of the night. The arched
windows at the end of the room let in gray light, and the
chandeliers hung empty, devoid of candles.

A footman obligingly lit sconces for us then
disappeared on noiseless feet.

"Lady Gillis's servants are well trained," I
observed as the tall man glided out, leaving us alone. "They seem
to take in stride even a sordid murder."

"Lady Gillis is a duke's daughter," Lady
Breckenridge said. "She brought many of her mother's servants with
her after her marriage. They are an efficient lot, but rather
cold."

I thought of Lady Breckenridge's butler,
Barnstable, ready with a pleasant smile and a cheerful inquiry into
my health. I, too, would prefer a human being to a silent
automaton.

"I am surprised they allowed the murder to
occur," I remarked.

Lady Breckenridge shrugged. "Well, if their
master will allow in the rabble . . . "

I smiled with her then moved off to examine
the ballroom.

The longest wall held arched openings that
led to the small alcoves. Each alcove housed a chair or two, and
some included small tables. Dark green velvet curtains draped the
openings.

I loosened a tied-back drape and let it fall.
Both curtains would easily cover the alcove, rendering the inside a
private, if rather stuffy, compartment.

"Do you remember to which Colonel Brandon
took Mrs. Harper?" I asked Lady Breckenridge. "After Colonel
Brandon left Mr. Turner in the anteroom?"

Lady Breckenridge studied the alcoves a
moment. "That one," she announced, pointing to the opening just to
the left of me.

I entered it and seated myself on one of the
chairs. Wainscoting covered the wall from the baseboard to a chair
rail about three feet above the floor. I ran my hands around the
chair rail, looking for openings into which a folded piece of paper
could have been wedged behind the wainscoting. I did the same with
the baseboards, then turned over the little table and both chairs
to examine the undersides and upholstery.

I found no rents or gouges into which a paper
had been pushed. I examined the chair's and table's legs in case
one proved hollow--I did everything short of taking the furniture
completely apart.

Lady Breckenridge watched me curiously. "They
say that women ask too many questions, but I must know what you are
doing."

"Looking for Colonel Brandon's letter."

I had not told her the story Mrs. Harper had
given me today. I could not. Brandon needed my silence. Let Lady
Breckenridge continue to believe that the problem was a love letter
about a simple affair.

I righted a chair and sat on it. "Brandon led
Mrs. Harper here after he paid Turner in the anteroom. Then he left
Mrs. Harper to search for sherry. Where would he likely have
gone?"

Lady Breckenridge beckoned me to follow her.
She glided across the ballroom as silently as any of Lady Gillis's
servants and led me out a double door to a wide hall.

Several rooms opened off this hall, dedicated
to the comforts of guests or for displaying the Gillises' artwork.
"He might have come into any of these chambers," Lady Breckenridge
said. "There would be decanters and so forth in them."

"Brandon said he could not find any sherry."
I walked into one of the rooms and looked about at its gilded
furniture and paneled walls.

Lady Breckenridge shrugged, following me.
"Shall I ring for a footman and ask him in which room they'd put it
that night?"

"Not just yet." I crossed the hall and
entered another sitting chamber. This one had similar paneling, but
everything was gilded in silver rather than gold. "Lord Gillis's
servants do not seem the sort to leave guests thirsty. So was
Brandon's search for sherry a sham? And why?"

I hated this. Every bit of evidence I went
over pointed more and more to Brandon having committed the crime.
He'd been wandering this hall while Turner was being murdered, but
none had seen Brandon except Basil Stokes, who'd only caught sight
of him just before Mrs. Harper screamed.

Brandon had to have known, when Turner was
found dead with Brandon's knife in his chest, that he might be
arrested for murder. In the confusion between the discovery of
Turner's body and the arrival of Pomeroy, Brandon would have
striven to rid himself of the incriminating document.

He might have handed the paper to Mrs.
Harper, but she'd claimed he did not, and I believed her. He might
have given it to Louisa, but according to witnesses, Brandon had
not gone much near Louisa until Pomeroy started taking him to task,
and she'd come to stand by him. Or he might have hidden it in a
place he'd spotted when he'd been roaming these rooms looking for
sherry for Mrs. Harper.

I turned in a circle, taking in the room.
Lord Gillis's servants would be certain to clean these chambers
thoroughly every day. They were correct, well trained, and aloof,
probably some of the most experienced in their class. Where could
Brandon hide something where they would not find it?

Then again, this was Colonel Brandon. He had
not made it through the ranks to colonel for nothing. He was a good
and inspiring commander, and sometimes, uncannily perceptive. Only
where his personal life was concerned was he lacking in wisdom.

The place he would hide his letter was in
plain sight.

My gaze went to the books in the glass-doored
bookcase, and my heart beat faster.

I saw in my mind, clear as day, Colonel
Brandon striding into one of these rooms, snatching a book from a
shelf, sliding the letter between pages, jamming the book back
among its fellows, then striding out again before anyone in the
ballroom wondered where he'd gone. By the time Pomeroy arrived to
begin his questioning, the letter had been well hidden.

I crossed the room, pulled open a bookcase
door, and began examining the books.

Most of the leather spines were uncreased and
unbroken. The pages on the few I pulled out likewise were uncut.
When a man bought a book, the pages were still folded into sixteen-
page signatures; many signatures made up a book. One used a paper
knife to cut each folded bundle open so that the book could be
read. Some men purchased libraries for the look of them rather than
for intellectual pursuit; often pages of entire collections
remained uncut.

In one of these books, unread by the
inhabitants of the house, must lay the secret Brandon was willing
to go to the gallows to protect.

"Help me," I said. I began pulling out books
and opening them.

Lady Breckenridge's cinnamon and spice
perfume touched me as she came to assist me. I was close--so close.
Her slender hands touched mine as she pulled out books and copied
my movements.

The books in the silver-gilded room yielded
no secrets. Anxiously, I shoved the last book back into the shelf
and hobbled back to the gold-leafed room. Only a dozen books
decorated a bookcase here--I searched those and found nothing.

There were four more rooms along this
corridor. Lady Breckenridge and I looked through every book in each
of them. By the time I'd slit open the last book, I'd found
nothing. My leg was hurting, and I wondered if my suppositions were
wrong. But they felt right--seemed right. My vision of Brandon's
actions had been so vivid.