A Body in Berkeley Square (33 page)

Denis nodded, as though knowing my thoughts.
"Good afternoon, Captain. My carriage will return you home."

I left him, still tempted and uncertain. I
knew that one day soon, I would return to him, hat in hand, and ask
for his help. He knew it, too.

I turned away without telling him goodbye,
and his butler led me out.

*** *** ***

I did not return home but asked Denis's
coachman to leave me in South Audley Street. Lady Breckenridge's
drawing room this afternoon was filled with highborn ladies, wits
and dandies, and a poet and an artist.

They'd heard that Mr. Bennington had been
arrested for murder, and wasn't that dashed odd? Poor Claire
Bennington, they said, but then, her husband had always been a
queer chap that no one knew much about. Best she put him behind her
as quickly as possible.

Lady Breckenridge smiled at me from across
the room. She lounged in a peach silk gown that bared her
shoulders, and smoke from her cigarillo wreathed her face. A
decadent lady, she liked her sensual pleasures, but she had
heart.

When I at last was able to speak to her, she
leaned to me and whispered, "Stay behind."

I obeyed. As the callers drifted away, I
lingered, shaking hands with the wits and dandies who were trying
to become closer to the great Grenville.

Finally, the last guest went away, and Lady
Breckenridge and I were alone.

"Let us adjourn upstairs," she said. "This
room reeks of perfume. Lady Hartley does like exotic scent, and
there's nothing for it that we all must be drenched in it by the
time she leaves."

So saying, she ascended to the next floor and
to her private boudoir. Barnstable, after his inquiries about the
state of my bad leg and rejoicing how quickly my bruises had gone
away, brought us coffee and brandy and then left us alone.

I told Lady Breckenridge about Bennington's
examination and the fact that Brandon had gone home.

"Thank heavens," she said, pouring a large
dollop of brandy into my coffee. "Poor Mrs. Brandon. How awful for
her. It will not be easy for her to forgive him."

"No. But she loves him enough to do it."

Lady Breckenridge's brows arched. "Love and
loyalty in marriage. What an odd idea."

I smiled over my coffee cup. "Rather
old-fashioned."

We drank in companionable silence.

"This summer I will spend time at my father's
estate in Oxfordshire," Lady Breckenridge said presently. "It is a
beautiful place, and the gardens are quite grand. People pay a
shilling on Thursdays to look at them."

"Do they, indeed?"

"I am going to be so bold as to ask you to
visit. For a fortnight, perhaps. My mother would approve of
you."

"Of a penniless captain who cannot even be a
captain any longer?"

"My mother is a true blue blood. She cares
nothing for money. Or at least, she does not now that her only
daughter is provided for. She can retreat into lofty ideals. She
does it very well." Lady Breckenridge smiled, the affection in her
eyes outweighing her acerbic words.

"I would be honored to accept such an
invitation."

"Good," she said.

I set down my cup, and rose. Lady
Breckenridge looked surprised. "Goodness, are you going
already?"

"No." I reached down, took her cup from her,
and put it on the table beside her. Then I closed my hands on hers
and raised her to her feet.

"Donata," I said. "I want never to be less
than honest with you. You once guessed that I had been married, and
you assumed me a widower. The truth is that I am still
married."

Lady Breckenridge's eyes widened. I went on
quickly. "Fifteen years ago, Mrs. Lacey deserted me. I have not
seen her since. I recently discovered that she lives in a village
in France with her lover." I tightened my grip. "I want to find her
and dissolve the marriage if I can. And after I have done what I
need to set her free, I would like to ask leave to court you."

Lady Breckenridge said nothing. Any other
woman might have been overwhelmed by what I'd just told her, or
grown furious, or burst into tears. But I knew that Lady
Breckenridge would forgive honesty far more quickly than she'd
accept pleasing lies. She was resilient, this lady.

"I have no idea how to make pretty lover's
speeches," I said when the silence had stretched. "Not like your
poets."

"Poetry can be tedious. Too many words to say
a simple thing." She studied me a moment longer, the pressure of
her fingers warm on mine. "Very well, Captain. I give you
leave."

Something stirred in my heart. I leaned down
and brushed her lips with a soft kiss.

When I made to pull away, to take my leave,
she held on to my hands. "Stay," she said.

We looked at each other a moment longer.

"Very well," I replied, and did so.

END

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

A Covent Garden Mystery

By Ashley Gardner

Book 6 of the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries

* * * * *

Chapter One

June 1817

The young woman buying peaches in Covent
Garden in the early morning had honey-brown hair under a small
bonnet, clear white skin, deep brown eyes, and a faint French
accent. The stall owner was trying to cheat her.

"Ha'penny for two, miss," the stall owner, a
stooped man with a fat red nose and strands of greasy hair under a
cap, said. "Best to be had."

He was goading her to take two shriveled
specimens. When she pointed to the firm, ripe fruit near the man's
hand, he shook his head. "Penny a piece for those, love."

I'd just seen him sell two fine peaches to a
housewife for half that price, but he probably thought he could
fleece a foreigner, especially an inexperienced girl.

I turned to the peach-seller's stall, walking
stick in hand. A lady in distress, even over peaches, spoke to my
knight-errant instincts.

"Prices have changed have they?" I asked the
peach seller.

He shot me an irritated look. "They do,
Cap'n."

"In a quarter of an hour?" I leaned to him.
"Sell her the same as you sold the others."

The peach seller glowered at me, a glint in
his eye, but he backed down. I had the reputation for a foul
temper, although I believe my acquaintanceship with magistrates and
Bow Street Runners decided the matter.

He handed the good peaches to the girl.
"Ha'penny," he muttered. To me he said, "I know why your nose is so
long, Cap'n. You use it to poke into business 'tisn't yours."

"True." I touched the offending appendage.
"Several men have broken it for me."

"Shouldn't wonder." He gave the girl the
peaches and took her coin. With another bellicose look at me, he
turned to his next customer. "Two for ha'penny."

The girl placed the peaches in the basket on
her arm and glanced at me shyly. "I thank you, sir."

I had not seen the young woman in Covent
Garden before. Her dress was well made, high-waisted and
plain-skirted, the gown of a young, gently-born miss. She seemed
more suited to strolling formal gardens with smitten young men than
roaming Covent Garden shopping for peaches.

Though she spoke English well, her voice held
definite French overtones. Perhaps she was an Englishman's
paramour, brought home with him from Paris. Or the daughter of
emigres who had fled France long ago and elected to stay in
England, even after Louis Bourbon had been restored to his
throne.

Whoever she was, she smiled at me, grateful for
rescue. Her expression was guileless--too innocent to be a man's
paramour, I decided. She possessed an unworldly air that spoke of a
simple life. She must be a dutiful daughter, gathering breakfast
for her mother or father.

I tipped my hat to her. "Captain Gabriel
Lacey, at your service. May I escort you somewhere?"

Her smile was crooked, and her brown eyes
sparkled with good humor. "My father and mother are staying near,
sir. I wanted peaches this morning, and so ventured to find
them."

That they'd let her come out alone to the
markets in Covent Garden did not speak well for them. But perhaps
they were provincial people, used to places where everyone knew
everyone, where no one would dream of harming the daughters of
respectable gentlefolk.

The girl stirred a protective instinct in me.
I held out my arm. "Which house? I will walk you there."

She blushed and shook her head. "You are
kind, sir, but I must not trouble you."

She thought me forward. At least she was that
wise, but could have told her she had nothing to fear from me.

"You can introduce me to your mama and papa,"
I began, but a shrill voice cut across the market, a startled cry
in French.

My young lady turned, and her smile broadened into
one of relief. "That is my mama, now, sir. I thank you again for
your kind assistance."

I barely heard her. Hurrying toward me, through the
milling housewives and maids, footmen, carters, and cook's
assistants making their morning rounds, came a ghost from my
past.

The last time I'd seen her, she'd been thin
and frail, a golden-and-white girl looking at me with timid eyes,
her dainty mouth shifting between smiles and puckered worry. Her
face was still pale and flowerlike, though lines now feathered
about her eyes and mouth, and her skin had coarsened a bit. The
curls that wreathed her forehead, under her bonnet's brim, were
still golden, perhaps a little darker than they'd been fifteen
years ago. Time had thickened her figure, but she retained an air
of graceful helplessness, one that urged a gentleman to rush to her
side and demand to know how he could assist her.

That air had ensnared me as a young man. I
had proposed to her within a week of meeting her.

The woman stopped a few feet behind the girl,
her lips parting in shock. Though I must have changed a great deal
from the unruly and impetuous young man I'd been, she knew me, and
I knew her.

Her name was Carlotta Lacey, and she was my wife.

Carlotta's eyes were blue. When I'd proposed in a
country meadow near Cambridge, those eyes had glowed with
excitement and delight. She'd let me kiss her, and then, full of
confidence in our future, we'd consummated our betrothal there on
the somewhat damp ground. I remembered the sweet scent of crushed
grass, the tiny star flowers that tickled my nose, the warm taste
of her skin.

Whether she remembered any of it as we stood closer
than we'd stood to each other in fifteen years, I could not tell. I
only knew that she looked at me with unblinking eyes, and that
she'd deserted me for a French officer a decade and a half ago.

Carlotta recovered first. She closed gloved fingers
around the girl's basket, and said in French, "Come away,
Gabriella."

The word struck me like a boulder thrown with great
force. My gaze shot to the girl, the breath leaving my body.

The young woman looked back at me, her brown eyes
innocent and uncomprehending, and the same shade as my own.

Gabriella Lacey.
My daughter.

"No." The word burst from my tight throat. I stepped
around of Carlotta, blocking her way.

Gabriella looked startled. Carlotta moved her grip to
the girl's arm. "Later," she said to me. "Not now. We will come to
it later."

She had not changed in one respect. Anything Carlotta
could avoid facing, she would shove away from her with force.

I had recovered from the grief of her leaving me. I
had lived through the anger and loneliness and the resignation. I
could forgive Carlotta for deserting me, because I had made her
miserable. But I had never forgiven her, nor would I ever forgive
her, for taking away my daughter. I had not seen Gabriella since
she was two years old.

I said, "By the laws of England, she belongs to
me."

Mothers had no legal guardianship over their children
unless they were granted it, which I had not done. Carlotta taking
Gabriella away had been a crime in truth.

The worry in Carlotta's eyes told me she knew very
well what she had done and what I could do to retaliate. She looked
at me pleadingly. "We must speak of it later. Not here. Not
now."

"Maman, what is the matter?" Gabriella asked in
French. "What is happening?"

Carlotta arranged her face in soothing lines.
"Nothing, my dear," she answered, her tone too bright. "We will go
home."

I pressed my walking stick against the side of
Carlotta's skirt. She could not rush away, her favorite method of
solving problems, without pushing past me and making a scene.
Gabriella peered at me anxiously. She no doubt thought me a madman,
accosting her mother for whatever diabolical reason was in my
crazed mind.

I realized then that when I had said to her,
Captain Gabriel Lacey, at your service,
Gabriella had given
no beat of recognition. She had no idea who I was.

"You did not tell her," I said to Carlotta.

"Not now," Carlotta repeated. "Please, Gabriel, let
us speak of this later. For heaven's sake."

The haze cleared a from my mind, and I realized that
the denizens of Covent Garden teemed about us, watching with
interest. Gabriella looked as though she would shout for help at
any moment. The peach seller and the ale seller next to him
observed us with blatant curiosity, Londoners always keen for an
impromptu drama. A large black carriage with fine gray horses
shouldered its way through the crowd, people brushing us as they
flowed away from it.

I moved my walking stick. I could not very well seize
my daughter and drag her away with me, much as I wanted to. We
could not split her in two, Solomon-like, in the middle of Covent
Garden.