Grenville bent over the oars. Brandon rose. "No. Leave it. Pull for shore."
"I'll not leave her!"
"We have to. There's no time."
My chest was hot, my belly clenched. "Go 'round again, Grenville. Do it."
"Damn you, Lacey. I'll make it an order if I have to."
I swung on Brandon. "I'm not leaving her here to rot, you bastard, like you left me. Grenville, row."
Another pistol shot whistled past us. Brandon seized me. "Do I need to knock you down?"
My rage came forth in a wash of madness. I hit him, hard, in the gut, and then in the jaw. Brandon cursed and spat blood. Then his head came up, and his eyes sparkled with all the fury and hatred he'd bottled up behind politeness for the last two years.
"Fuck you," he said.
I lunged for him. I beat him, the man I'd loved best in the world once upon a time, beat him with all the anger and rage and helplessness I'd felt when Denis's men had pummeled me. I beat him for Nance, drowning under the dark waters of the Thames, for Jane Thornton, who'd likely had gone to the same fate. I beat him for Aimee, broken and scarred by a monster, and for Louisa, who cared far too much for both of us. I beat him for myself and the ruin of my life.
Grenville grabbed me from behind. "Enough. Lacey, stop it. He's right. She's gone."
Brandon disentangled himself from me. Blood smeared his face and spattered his neckcloth.
The fight went out of me. Grenville held me for another moment or so until my rage washed away, and my legs buckled. I sank to the bottom of the boat and buried my head in my hands.
The other two fell silent. Brandon's breath gurgled in his throat. The fire on Denis's boat roared into the night.
Across the water came a muffled sobbing, quiet and soft, accompanied by faint splashing. I raised my head.
Grenville was on his feet, balancing against the pitch of the boat, sighting into the darkness. "There!" He pointed. I followed the line from his outstretched finger to a tiny patch of deeper darkness, bobbing in the current.
I got to my knees and grabbed an oar. Grenville dropped to the seat, snatched the oar from my grasp, and bent his back to turn the boat. Brandon half stumbled, half crawled to the tiller, seizing it as it began to slap against the water.
We slid across the current to the girl who floundered weakly in the shadow of Denis's boat, her cries growing fainter as we neared. I held the rope ready. Grenville competently turned to drift alongside Nance, just as her head went under.
I tossed away the rope, leaned hard over the side, and grabbed. Nancy's shoulder slipped from my grasp, but her hair tangled my wrist. I buried my fingers in it and hauled her upward. She came, all limp and heavy, and I got my hands under her arms and pulled her over the gunwale. Nance fell to the bottom with a wet slap, her skirt in shreds, her legs cut and bleeding.
Her eyes were closed, her skin cold and clammy. I rolled her onto her belly, and pressed hard on her ribs. I pushed and pushed, while my opium haze receded and pain ground through me.
At last, Nancy groaned and vomited up the dark water of the Thames. I pulled her into my arms, holding her, rocking her, kissing her wet face. Tears spilled from her eyes, but she clung to me, kissing me back, her lips weak.
Grenville took up the oars again and rowed us away from the conflagration and the boats zigzagging through the river, and toward the shore.
* * * * *
I awoke to warm sunshine, a sweet-smelling bed, and a cool hand on my brow.
"Louisa."
I caught her hand and gripped it, tight, tight. She returned the pressure, and our eyes met, and held.
I lay in a featherbed with cool sheets over me and lavender-scented pillows under my head. My body ached all over, my face stinging with healing cuts.
"Where am I?" I croaked. "This isn't your spare bedroom."
Louisa smiled. "No, it's Mr. Grenville's. He insisted you be brought here, and he sent for his own surgeon."
Damn good of him, but I felt a twinge of worry. "What about Nance? Where is she?"
"At my house, being fussed over by my cook and housemaid, hating every minute of it."
My face hurt too much for smiles. "She does not much like women."
"So I understand from her unfortunate language. Who is she?"
I let Louisa disentangle her hand from mine. "A street girl whose well-being I foolishly care about. Please don't cart her off to a workhouse. Or one of those horrible houses of reform."
"Don't worry. She may stay in my attics until you decide what's to be done for her."
"I hope you have a stout lock on your attic door."
A smile crinkled the corners of her eyes. "She has tried to run away twice. Until I told her you wished her to remain there. Since then, she's been curiously compliant. The things she says about you are--quite interesting."
I grunted. "Don't trust her."
Louisa smiled again, then she dropped her gaze, watching her hand smooth my sheet. "Aloysius wants to apologize to you. For something he said out on the river, I gather."
My head began to ache. "I am far too tired to face Aloysius."
"A moment only, Gabriel. Please."
I stared at her until she looked up and met my gaze. I wanted to tell her that I much preferred Aloysius's candid curses to that damned public politeness he hid behind while he hated me with his eyes. But I was not certain she'd understand. She wanted me to forgive him all his past sins, and I was not yet ready.
"Tell your husband and his apology to go to hell," I said.
Her eyes filled with tears. We eyed one another for a few heartbeats of silence before she turned and rustled across the cavernous room and out the door. She did not say good-bye.
My fogged brain still swam with the aftereffects of opium, and whatever else Grenville's surgeon had given me for pain. I remembered the conclusions I'd formed while on board the boat, and I groped for them through the haze of my thoughts. I was missing one piece of information about Horne's death--the identity of one person--but I knew now what that person had done.
As much as I tried to think it through, my eyes closed, and when I awoke again, the shadows slanted sharply on the huge carpet.
Grenville's spare bedchamber must have been about thirty feet across and as much high. The canopied bed I lay in could have held five people, and the cost of the damask hangings could have bought them all food for a year. I felt like an insect waiting to be stepped on.
I rubbed the blur from my eyes as Grenville himself tramped into the room. He was dressed in a costly suit and a pristine cravat, but he wore soft, flat shoes and no jewels in his lapels, so I assumed he was spending the evening at home.
When he saw that I was awake, he pulled an armchair next to the bed and plopped down on it, resting his elbows on his knees.
"Where did you learn to row like that?" I asked.
"Quebec. And the Nile. I'll tell you all about it someday. I never thought I'd have adventures in staid and boring London, but that was before I met you."
"Grenville, about that letter I sent you--" My face warmed, remembering the haughty phrases I'd used.
Grenville held up his hand. "Say nothing of it. I had no right to be such a highhanded prig, and I deserved everything you said. Well, most of it. I might have to box you over one or two things. But it's a mercy you told me to go to Mrs. Brandon's supper party. When my servants came home without you, I worried a bit, but when I received your letter next morning, I understood you were simply annoyed with me. When I called on you in person, and you weren't home, I still supposed you avoiding me. But when I told Mrs. Brandon of your absence, she became alarmed at once." He shuddered. "Damn it, Lacey, Denis might have killed you and we still wouldn't know."
"He didn't mean to kill me."
"No? Those pistol shots came damned close for someone who had no intention of killing you."
I shook my head against the pillow. "If Denis had wanted me dead, he'd have had me killed at once. He could have done
so at any time, easily, and you'd still be wondering where I'd got to. No, he meant to frighten me away from crusading against him. He wanted me to escape, and probably watched to see how I'd do it. The shots were made by his hired men, who were understandably annoyed at me for setting the boat on fire."
"Perhaps." He looked skeptical.
"How did you know where to find me, anyway?"
Grenville's dark eyes lit, as though he'd been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to tell me his part in the adventure. "As I said, Mrs. Brandon grew alarmed when I said I hadn't been able to find you. So I told Brandon--and his wife, because she refused to leave the room--about Denis and my fears."
Grenville paused to smile. "Your Mrs. Brandon must be one of the Furies. As soon as she heard my tale, nothing would do but that we went out at once and searched for you. She was prepared to come with us to the end. Nothing her husband said could persuade her otherwise, even when he shouted at her to obey."
I could picture the scene exactly. "Louisa is the most stubborn woman I know."
"I pointed out that Mrs. Danbury had arrived and needed looking after, and that seemed to persuade her. But looking into Mrs. Brandon's eyes, I knew how the Spartans felt. We'd better bring you back alive, or not come back at all."
"Mrs. Danbury?" I remembered the elegant blond woman I'd met at the viewing of the painting. "Dear God, she didn't see me, did she?"
"No. I brought you directly here and sent word to Mrs. Brandon."
"Thank you for that."
Grenville lounged back in the chair. "Do you want to know how I found you?"
He seemed anxious to impart the rest of the tale. I nodded, not really caring.
"I started searching for you around Grimpen Lane and Covent Garden. One of my footmen found your walking stick--in pieces--behind the opera house. In pieces. The scabbard was broken, but I'm having another made for you."
"Good of you."
"Not at all. The trail was easy to follow after that. Large men in a scuffle leave overturned rubbish and annoy people, and that is remembered. Someone saw them carry you into a carriage and head toward the river. I remembered that Denis kept two boats on the Thames--which I'd learned when he'd procured the painting for my friend--and I went there. One of the boats was gone, and several boatmen on shore had seen it taken out. So I hired a boat, and Brandon and I went after you." He stopped. "Is it true you started that blaze on board?"
"Yes."
"Good Lord, man. You might have killed yourself."
"I know. But I would have taken Denis's men with me. They meant to frighten me, and I wanted to frighten them back."
"Good God, Lacey, I sincerely hope he calls a truce. And that you honor it."
I lay quietly for a moment, my aching head demanding a rest. I had slighted Grenville in my proud anger and still he'd made a dangerous and difficult attempt to rescue me. True, part of his impetus had been to satisfy his sense of adventure, but his actions told me that he forgave my momentary peevishness and thought it of no consequence. There was just a chance that I might have made a friend.
I opened my eyes again. "You said in your letter that you'd found interesting developments in Somerset."
Grenville's eyes sparkled. "I found much more than that, Lacey. What I found was the missing Charlotte Morrison."
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Two
I nearly sat up, but pain drove me back down. "Found her?"
"Yes, safe and sound, and married to a vicar."
I stared. "Did you say married to a vicar?"
"Exactly."
"Then she has nothing to do with Jane Thornton."
"I could see no connection, no."
I rubbed my pounding temples. "Damn. Then you went for nothing."
"Not necessarily," Grenville said. "I believe the problem more complex. Her curate became a vicar with a living, and a rather good one; I can't imagine the Beauchamps opposing the match."
"Why the mystery, then?"
Grenville tapped his fingertips together, a habit, I noticed, he had when interested in a problem. "That is what I wondered. Miss Morrison wouldn't speak much to me, and neither would her husband. They thought at first I'd come from Bow Street to drag her back to Hampstead. When I finally convinced them I had not, they unbent a little, but still did not want me to tell the Beauchamps where she was. I pointed out to Miss Morrison that she'd worried her cousins exceedingly, but this did not appear to move her. She seems very frightened of something, and I could not get her to tell me what."
I thought about the letters she'd written to her friend, which had hinted at some fear. "Did you speak to her friend, Miss Frazier?"
"I did. She is a lively woman, a spinster of about thirty, and apparently Miss Morrison's greatest friend. When I asked her about what Charlotte Morrison had written to her, she looked down her fine nose at me and told me to mind my own damned business. She said she would do nothing to interfere with Charlotte's happiness, and the best thing I could do was return to London and pretend I'd never come."
"She certainly sounds firm of purpose. What did you do?"
Grenville lifted his hands. "I returned to London. I suddenly realized she was right, that the lives of Charlotte Morrison and the Beauchamps were none of my damned business. So now I have a dilemma. Do I tell the Beauchamps that their cousin is safe and relieve their fears? Or do I pretend I never went to Somerset, as Miss Frazier commanded, and let them sort it out themselves?"
I lay quietly for a time, thinking. The conclusions my drugged mind had drawn flitted just out of reach, what had seemed so clear then now foggy and muddled.
"I believe I know why she went," I said.
"Do you? Well, I am baffled. I might understand her actions if she'd run away with some roué, but she married a stolid, respectable vicar with gray hairs. Why should she fear telling her family of it? Unless he's a highwayman in disguise." He laughed a little at his own joke.
"I'm certain the vicar is as respectable and steady as he seems. But I have an advantage. I read the letters, and you did not."
"But you told me what was in them," Grenville pointed out.
"I know. But I couldn't convey the feelings I got from them. There was so much Miss Morrison did not say."
Grenville regarded me impatiently. "So what do I do, Lacey? Tell the Beauchamps to find her themselves?"
"Tell them nothing for now. I would like to go to Hampstead myself and speak to Lord Sommerville."
"Why? Sommerville already told me he'd discovered nothing about his kitchen maid's death."
Weariness weighted my limbs, and I needed to sleep, but I answered. "Charlotte disappeared soon after the maid's death. So soon that my first thought upon hearing the tale was that the body found was Charlotte's."
"I thought the same. But it wasn't."
"No. Charlotte is alive and well."
Grenville shot me an impatient look. "You're being damned cryptic, Lacey."
"Forgive me, I'm still half-dead on opium. I mean that Charlotte no doubt knows who killed the girl. That knowledge made her flee back to the safety of Somerset."
Grenville stared at me a moment, clearly curious. Then he shook his head. "Our trip to Hampstead will have to wait in any case. I doubt you could walk across a room just now."
He was right. I sank a little farther into the mattress. "It was good of you to put me up. I will remove to my own rooms as soon as I can."
"Nonsense. Stay until you are healed. You need warmth and I have plenty of coal. My chef is happily inventing menus for you. I think he's rather bored with me."
"I suppose you won't let me argue."
"Suppress your pride for once and do what's good for you, Lacey. We'll go to Hampstead when you're better, but only when you're better. Or I'll fetch Mrs. Brandon, who will no doubt tie you to the bed."
I smiled and subsided. I prepared to let myself drift off to sleep again, then I remembered something. "What day is it?"
"A fine and fair Monday
afternoon."
I tried to sit up. "Bremer's trial is today. I can't in all conscience let him be condemned for murder. I must talk to Pomeroy."
Grenville shook his head. "It will keep. In fact, it no longer matters."
His somber look alarmed me. "Why not?"
"I'm sorry, Lacey. I heard yesterday that the wretched Bremer is dead."
* * * * *
I convalesced at Grenville's for five days. His chef did prepare some delightful and hearty meals for me, and it was probably thanks to his cooking that I healed as quickly as I did. His valet also seemed to enjoy waiting on me, and the footman who lugged coal bins about always stopped to chat about sport and give me a few tips on the races.
And all I could mull over was that I had not saved the stupid and frail Bremer.
Grenville had a friend who was a barrister, a silk, and he, knowing of Grenville's interest in the case, had relayed the news of Bremer's death. There'd been nothing sinister about it. Bremer had caught a chill, which settled in his lungs, and he'd died quickly.
Grenville told me, "My friend said that the magistrate believed Bremer to be guilty and that a gentler justice was served him by the hand of God. Butler went mad and killed his master, the magistrate said, was arrested, and died in gaol. End of story. Public and justice satisfied."
But I was not satisfied. I lay in Grenville's sumptuous guest room, too ill to move and too frustrated to rest. I had failed Bremer in my idiotic pursuit of Denis.
Grenville did his best to keep me cheerful, reading stories to me out of the newspaper and giving me the gossip from his club. I learned who was wearing the wrong-colored waistcoat, who had been snubbed, and who had lost a fortune at whist, and I didn't care about one word of it.
Louisa Brandon came to see me every day and threatened me with dire fates if I tried to get out of bed too soon. On one occasion, she brought her husband.
As the sun was descending behind Grenville's elegant, silk-draped windows, Colonel Brandon entered my chamber alone. He walked halfway across the carpet then stood with his hands behind his back in the attitude of parade rest and looked at me. I wondered if he'd come to force his apology on me, but the spark in his cold blue eyes told me that he was tired of being polite.