"It is what dear friends do, Louisa. Quarrel and forgive over very stupid things. Were we strangers, we would not care."
Louisa gave me a deprecating look. "You have turned philosopher. Very well, I will put things simply. If, while you are in Berkshire, you find that you need help, you will ask me, and put your pride aside."
"Of course," I said, relaxing. She was still angry at me, but Louisa was acknowledging that she did not want me out of her life entirely.
"And if you escape from death by a hair's breadth again, you will at least have the courtesy to tell me," she said sternly.
"You will be the first to hear the tale."
She gave me a severe look, then she shook her head. "We have been friends too long for this, Gabriel. Please know that I still think you are too stubborn for words. I will not stand by while you needle my husband, but I am not ready to lose you, yet."
"And I will never be ready to lose you."
We studied each other, her gray eyes clear in the candlelight.
"Do not think I have forgiven you," Louisa said. "I still believe you are in the wrong about Aloysius."
"I know."
I would capitulate to Brandon if she wanted me to, as bitter as the words would taste. I valued her enough that I could at least cease hurting her.
We returned to watching each other in silence. We did not always have to speak; we had said plenty over the years.
I heard Bartholomew bang back inside, and then the odor of overcooked beef wafted up the stairwell. Bartholomew entered the room without looking at either of us, deposited a tray on the writing table, and bustled around for the cutlery.
I smiled at Louisa, and she smiled at me.
"I might forgive you not telling me of your adventures," Louisa said, "if you sit down and tell me everything, now, from beginning to end. Leaving out no detail, however small. I told Lady Aline that I might be late."
I accepted her terms. I seated her in the wing chair, sat down to my afternoon repast, and began my tale.
*** *** ***
The next afternoon, I departed London. Grenville offered his chaise and four to take me to Berkshire, and I accepted. While I disliked taking favors, I could not argue that his private conveyance would be much more comfortable than a mail coach crammed with passengers.
Grenville declined to accompany me himself, and I knew why. Lucius Grenville, the renowned world traveler, suffered from motion sickness and ever did his best to avoid it.
Bartholomew was proud to be going with me to Sudbury in his capacity as my personal servant. I knew that Grenville had admonished him to keep him informed of any excitement I might find there.
Before we left London proper, I had one more call to make. I bade Bartholomew wait for me in the chaise in South Audley Street, while I knocked on Lady Breckenridge's door.
To my good luck, Lady Breckenridge was at home. Barnstable led me upstairs to her private chambers, and announced me, after first inquiring about the state of my leg. I assured him that his cure had done me well, and Barnstable went away, pleased.
I had not seen or spoken to Lady Breckenridge since our adventure at The Glass House, although she had responded to my inquiry through Lady Aline that she was resilient and in good health. She'd even thanked me for giving her an evening free of ennui.
Today Lady Breckenridge reclined on a chaise longue in a lacy peignoir, her dark hair in loose curls under a white cap. She held a slim, black cigarillo in her fingers, and woody-scented smoke hung in the room.
"You have come to say good-bye?" she asked me without rising. "You are always the gentleman, Lacey."
"I try to be."
"Berkshire." Lady Breckenridge took a long pull on the cigarillo. "The country is hopelessly dull, you know."
"I'm looking forward to dull," I said.
We regarded each other a moment in silence. Our silences were not like the silences between me and Louisa Brandon; I did not know Lady Breckenridge well enough to discern what she was thinking.
"I came to tell you that any letter addressed to me at the Sudbury School, near Hungerford, will reach me," I said.
"Ah." Lady Breckenridge set the cigarillo carefully on her dressing table. "You wish me to include you in my correspondence."
"I would honor any correspondence from you."
Her brows arched. "A lady writing to a gentleman. How scandalous."
"I believe you enjoy scandal."
She looked at me a long time, a glint of humor in her eyes. "Yes. I believe I do."
I gave her a military bow. "I will say good-bye, then. Thank you."
I was uncertain what I thanked her for--perhaps for simply existing.
"A moment." Lady Breckenridge rose gracefully and glided across the room to the armoire. "I meant to send this on to you. But I may as well give it to you now." She withdrew a long bundle, unwrapped it, brought what had been inside to me and put it into my hands.
It was a walking stick. The stick had a polished mahogany cane, burnished a rich red-brown, and a gold handle in the shape of a goose's head.
Lady Breckenridge closed her fingers over the handle and gently slid it outward to reveal a blade. "It has a sword, like your old one," she said. "And it's engraved." She turned the handle over in my palm and indicated the inscription: Captain G. Lacey, 1817.
I slid the blade back into the sheath. "It is a thing of beauty. Thank you."
"Grenville said he would buy one for you. But I told him I was already having one made and not to spoil my surprise."
I smiled. "It is a fine gift."
She looked pleased then strove to hide it.
Friendship, I had learned, was a gift not to be scorned.
I leaned down and kissed her lips, then departed for Berkshire.
END
Please continue reading for a preview of Captain Lacey's next adventure
The Sudbury School Murders
By Ashley Gardner
Book 4 of the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries
* * * * *
Chapter One
March 1817
"And I want it stopped," Everard Rutledge growled.
One week after my arrival at the Sudbury School, Rutledge faced me over his desk in his private study. The headmaster had a large, flat face, a bulbous nose, and short graying hair that looked as though perpetually whipped by high wind. His coat hung untidily on his large frame, his ivory waistcoat was rumpled, his yellowing cravat twisted. The effect was as though a bull had climbed into an expensive suit and then gone about its business.
He had just told me a story of vicious pranks that had been perpetrated in the school--a chandelier in the dining hall coming down, a fire in the maids' attic, threatening letters written in blood, and three boys falling ill due to poisoned port.
"Not nice," I remarked. "Worse than the usual pranks boys play on each other."
"Exactly," Rutledge barked. "What do you intend to do about it, eh?"
I looked at him in surprise. I had not thought that discovering pranksters would be in the sphere of the secretary's duties, but Rutledge glared at me as though waiting for me to produce the name of the culprit then and there.
"What would you have me do?" I asked him.
"Well damn it, man, is this not why you are here? Grenville told me you were a master at poking your nose into things that did not concern you."
"I do hope Grenville did not put it quite like that," I said mildly.
Rutledge scowled. "He neglected to tell me how impertinent you are. I cannot imagine you made a very good soldier."
"My commander would agree with you," I said. Colonel Brandon, once my closest friend, had often lectured me about my tendency to disobey orders and tell my superiors what I thought of them.
"But please continue about the problem," I said, my curiosity piqued in spite of myself. "If you wish me to discover which boys are responsible, I will need as much information as I can obtain."
"You will do it, then?"
> I wished I had been asked rather than simply expected. Lucius Grenville had much to answer for. "I admit interest," I said. "That these tricks have been perpetrated for three months without anyone being the wiser is intriguing. Someone has been uncommonly clever."
"Uncommonly indecent," Rutledge snarled. "When I put my hands on him-- "
I knew the rest. Rutledge, I had learned in the week since my arrival, believed in strict and severe discipline. This was not unusual for a school's headmaster, but Rutledge seemed to enjoy meting out punishment more than did most sergeants in the King's Army.
Rutledge's harsh methods so far had produced no result. I could see that the students here feared Rutledge but did not respect him.
He leaned across his desk. "I do not think you grasp the seriousness of the situation, Lacey. The sons of the wealthiest men in England attend the Sudbury School. Their money could buy you, and even Grenville, a dozen times over. I do not wish for fathers to become unhappy at their sons' complaints. Do you understand?"
"I understand well enough."
The Sudbury School did not house the sons of lords and statesmen; rather, their fathers were nabobs and merchants and men prominent in the City. They were the merchant class, the middle class, the sons of men who had started with nothing and gained fortune with the sweat of their brows. Boys finished Sudbury School, went to the City to add to their father's fortunes, and in turn sent their own sons here.
Rutledge did not care a fig about money, personally. The unkempt manner of his clothes, his obliviousness to the comfort of his study, his evenhandedness in dealing out punishment to the boys, told me this. Rutledge would be as much at home in Carleton House as in a hovel--in other words, he'd never notice.
What Rutledge cared about was the Sudbury School. His form of honor, if you will. Rutledge was gentleman born, had attended Eton with Grenville. But he'd stuck his claws into this school for bankers' sons, and by God he intended it to be a success. Its reputation was his reputation.
Rutledge went on, "I know that you yourself were the victim of a prank, Captain, though you chose not to report it. Sutcliff, my prefect, had to tell me. What were you thinking, man?"
Bartholomew a few nights ago had thrown back my bedding to reveal a grass snake, half-suffocated on the featherbed. I had lifted it between my fingers and laid it gently in the branches of the tree outside my window.
I said, "I was thinking it was harmless and did not need to be brought to your attention."
"Harmless?" Rutledge almost shouted. "And why, pray, did you believe it harmless?"
I half smiled. "I assumed a few boys were simply testing out the new man. To see whether I fussed or laughed."
Rutledge's expression told me that levity had been the incorrect response. "You should have reported it to me at once, and the boys found and punished. You encourage their behavior."
I held my temper with effort. "I doubt it connects to the more serious pranks."
"How can you know that?"
"Poison in port and fires in servants rooms are considerably more dangerous than one bewildered grass snake."
Rutledge's annoyed expression told me he did not agree. "So the question remains, Captain. What do you intend to do about it?"
His belligerence was ruining a fine spring day. I had hoped to escape for a walk after my duties, but Rutledge had ordered me to stay. Then he'd laid aside his papers, rested his fists on his desk, and told me all about the pranks.
"I will question the boys," I told him. "They likely know who is involved but are reluctant to speak. Even if they do not know, they might be able to point to something. I will speak to the prefects of both houses, as well. They are much closer to the boys than you or even the tutors can be."
Rutledge peered at me in disappointment. "I expected more from you, the way Grenville boasted. The students have already been questioned. I had them all thrashed, but to no avail. You will get nowhere with that line of thinking."
"The students might be more willing to speak to a sympathetic stranger than their headmaster or even a prefect," I pointed out. "Servants, too, see things, hear things. I shall have my man talk with them."
Rutledge dismissed this with a wave of his hand. "Useless. They will not tell you, even if they do know."
I grew annoyed. "Did you expect me to pull the solution out of the air? I must begin somewhere."
"Yes, yes, very well. But I expect you to tell me everything. Everything, Lacey."
I did not promise. I'd tell him what he needed to know, nothing more. I had learned in my life that problems were often more complex than they seemed, and most people did not want to know the entire truth. Rutledge was a man who saw everything in black and white. Subtle complexities would be beyond him.
He dismissed me then, curtly. Without regret, I left the warm and comfortable room for the cold hall.
The case intrigued me, but Rutledge had not endeared himself to me. I was also put out with Grenville and intended to write to him so, first for not telling me that my employment here was simply a means for solving a puzzle, and second for not warning me that Rutledge was such a boor.
A walk in the brisk March air, I thought, would do me good.
It was late afternoon, and boys and tutors spilled through the double doors to change their clothes for chapel or dinner or more studies. There were thirty boys in this house, which was called the Head Master's house. I had not yet met all the students, but I had started to recognize a few. Ramsay was a tow-headed boy of about thirteen who always looked apprehensive. Timson, the same age, had a roguish look, and it pained me to realize that he reminded me of myself at that age. Frederick Sutcliff, the prefect, was tall, lanky, older than the other students, and generally despised. He was full of himself and not above a little harsh discipline that he did not report to Rutledge. His father was also one of the wealthiest men in England.
The Classics tutor, Simon Fletcher, gave me a nod. He did not live in this house, but in the one opposite, called Fairleigh. Fletcher liked a quiet pint in the village tavern, and I'd met him there on more than one evening. The mathematics tutor, Tunbridge, was lecturing his star pupil as usual, a heavy-browed, spindly youth of sixteen.
The lads gazed up at me as I made my way down the stairs and out of the house. They always stared because I was a tall, broad-shouldered man obviously wounded in the war, and also because they'd heard I'd refused to toady to Rutledge. This had raised me to a certain admired status.
Some of the boys nodded and said a polite, "Captain." Most of the others simply watched.
Cool damp air awaited me outside in the quad, and I breathed it in relief. Rutledge's study was comfortable enough, but his moods fouled the air.
The setting of the Sudbury School was fairly peaceful. The houses had been built in the time of Henry VIII. They had dark, narrow staircases and galleries that creaked, small windows, and crumbling plaster. But the estate had been owned by a family of vast fortune, who were able to fortify the houses and modernize them as time went on without marring their beauty.
The Head Master's house comprised the north and east sides of the quad, and Fairleigh, named for one of the founders of the school, the west side. The south building housed a large hall and two smaller ones for lectures, tiny classrooms, a common dining hall for the boys, and a more formal dining room, in which Rutledge hosted visitors to the school.
I left the quad through the gate and began walking to the stables. The Berkshire countryside certainly smelled cleaner than London's grime-filled streets. Here was the fragrance of new grass, wet earth, and the faint musty odor that came from the quiet canal that flowed past the school.
Rutledge at least did not mind me taking a horse every morning and riding about the green swards or along the towpath beside the canal. Rutledge was mad for sport and approved of men who liked to ride. I was still a cavalryman at heart and was glad to have the opportunity to ride regularly again.
I reflected as I walked that I had come to Berkshi
re to find peace, and so far, it had eluded me. But perhaps peace was not in a place but within one's self. In that case, I might never find it. There was little at peace inside Gabriel Lacey.
In the stable yard, I met Sebastian, a young Romany who had been taken on by the head groom to assist him. He was cleaning tack and not looking happy about it. Sebastian was excellent with horses, and he and I had become friends of a sort. I had been surprised at first to discover that Rutledge allowed one of the Roma to work in his stables, but Sebastian told me Rutledge had not known about it until after the fact. Sebastian had proved handy enough--and came cheap--and Rutledge had decided to look the other way.
"Good afternoon," I said genially to Sebastian.
He gave me a nod. The other stable hands ignored me. Two leaned on rakes and chatted, one sat on a crate smoking a pipe while he mended a bridle.
Sebastian was usually effusive, but today, he frowned at the saddle he polished. "Did you want a horse, Captain?" he asked in his melodious voice.
"No. I'm out for a short stroll, that's all. Is everything well with you?"
"Yes."
It was not, I could see, but Sebastian closed his mouth in a tight line. He was about twenty, not much older than the oldest boys at the school. The pupils generally liked him, because he was good-natured and knew everything there was to know about horses.
A door at the end of the line of stalls led to the quarters for the groom and his stable hands. A man emerged from this door just then. He was tall and burly, with black hair under a coachman's hat.
I stared at him. I recognized him--or thought I did.
He saw me, stopped, and ducked back into the shadows of the doorway.
"Who was that?" I asked Sebastian.
He looked up, puzzled at my tone. "Mr. Middleton," he answered. "The groom."
I had not seen this Middleton since my arrival. I usually visited the stables very early in the morning, and Sebastian alone prepared my mount.