"Do not mind Leland," he said. "He is embarrassed, that is all."
"Embarrassed?" I looked after the retreating figure. Leland was putting all his strength into getting away from us as fast as he could.
"There are certain things that Leland does not like to speak about. It is no great secret; most chaps at Oxford knew, although one never said anything, of course."
"Knew?" I queried. "About Henry Turner?"
"Indeed. What Leland does not wish to tell you, Captain, is that Henry Turner did not keep the company of women. He preferred young men, if you understand me." He smiled. "I trust that little on dit will go no further than the three of us? One does not like to gossip about the dead."
Chapter Nine
"Well, Gareth Travers has given us quite another motive," Grenville said as we rode back to London in his phaeton that afternoon. "Perhaps Turner was killed by a lover, one who did not want him to reveal the true nature of their liaison."
"Or a lover jealous of another," I said. "Or a man who felt threatened by him."
"Leland himself? He and Mr. Travers are very close. Perhaps Turner concluded that they are closer friends than seems. Perhaps Turner even made advances to Leland, possibly threatened to expose Leland if he refused. Leland claimed that Turner wasn't a blackmailer, but Turner was certainly trying his best to blackmail Mrs. Harper and Colonel Brandon. Leland seemed to protest too much. Of course, he'd not dare to admit anything, true or not. Far too dangerous if someone got hold of the wrong idea."
True. Sodomy was a hanging offense, though difficult to prove. Penetration had to be witnessed. But a man could be accused of buggery and sentenced to stand in the pillory, left to the mercy of the mob. A sodomite in the stocks at Charing Cross could be killed by an angry enough crowd. Leland, the son of a well-respected gentleman might not suffer the stocks, but his and his father's reputations would be ruined, his sister's chances at making an advantageous match spoiled.
"I have difficulty imagining Leland killing Turner to shut him up," I said. "He would try to appeal to Turner's better nature, whether Turner had one or not. Leland is very much in the same mold as his father."
Grenville shook his head. "I sometimes pity Leland. I must be difficult being the son of so moral a man."
"I cannot say. My father was a man of rather confused morals." I stretched my leg, which had become sore, trying to find comfort on the small seat.
I thought of the bedchamber Turner's father had let me see that afternoon. Mr. Turner was not certain why I wanted to see where his son had lived when he was at home, but he'd led me to the chamber without fuss.
Inside, Mr. Turner had stopped, as though realizing all at once that his son would never inhabit the room again. Numbly, he'd straightened a chair in front of a desk, then he'd turned around and walked out without a word.
I'd wandered the cold, still chamber, not certain what I was looking for. It was not a terribly personal room. Turner's flat had been filled with his own things, as tasteless as some of them had been, but they'd been what he liked. This room had been a mere place to sleep when he visited his family. I found no indication that Turner might have had male lovers, no love letters from people of either sex. In fact, I found no letters at all.
The few books in the small bookcase near the fire had been treatises on botany, one on rose gardens with colored plates. The rose garden book was nicely bound but did not look as though it had much been read. I also found several volumes of The Gentleman's Magazine from years past bound together. I thumbed through them, but saw little of interest, except an article on the house of one Lucius Grenville in Grosvenor Street. Sketches of his drawing rooms and ballroom were presented.
Now, as I held on to the seat while Grenville let his phaeton fly over the roads, I said, "I keep returning to that damned Frenchman. What did he want, and what has he to do with Turner?"
Grenville steered his phaeton through a ford of a small stream. Such was his skill that water splashed from the wheels but did not so much as touch our boots.
"Perhaps it is not Turner who interests him," Grenville suggested. "But Mrs. Harper and Colonel Brandon. Hence he went after Mrs. Harper's letters."
"Mrs. Harper, perhaps, but I cannot see Brandon having dealings with him for any reason. Brandon will not speak to anyone French, even emigres who have lived in England for thirty years. Damn all French, is his motto."
"I did not say that he and this Frenchman were friends. Perhaps they encountered one another during the war."
"I very much doubt it," I said. "Although I will not out-and-out disregard the idea. Brandon refused to have anything to do with anyone French, even when he and I and Louisa lived in France during the Peace of Amiens. Brandon talked only to Englishmen and ate only English food. He was quite a bore about it. And I never remember seeing the fellow who invaded my rooms."
Grenville smiled a little. "I encounter such Englishmen abroad. Cannot abide foreign ways, they say. Give them the Times and a joint of beef, and they are happy. I wonder that they bother to leave home at all."
"Travel broadens the mind, I have heard tell," I said.
Grenville barked a laugh. "You are in a cynical mood today, Lacey. But let us return to France. Did Mrs. Brandon have the same prejudice about all things French? Or did she make friends with French persons?"
"She did make friends. She simply neglected to mention them to her husband."
"Perhaps Mrs. Brandon is the connection. Could she have met this Frenchman?"
"I never heard of it. She did not mention her French friends to Colonel Brandon, but she told me of them. She never spoke of meeting a French military man, and I never saw her speaking to anyone who looked like him."
"Perhaps she simply did not tell you. I don't wish to be indelicate, Lacey… I know the lady is a great friend of yours.. "
"If you are hinting that Louisa Brandon she had an affair with him
…" I broke off. "It is unlikely, but truth to tell, I have no idea."
I hadn't thought Brandon capable of betraying Louisa, but now he was in prison, trying to defend the woman who was, or at least had been, his mistress. I'd thought myself Louisa's greatest friend, that there was nothing Louisa Brandon would not confide in me. But I had to concede that if she decided to keep a liaison secret from me, she could. She was wise enough and discreet enough to hide it well.
"I will have to find this Frenchman and squeeze the truth from him," I said.
We had reached the outer limits of London, rolling fields giving way to houses with gardens and increased traffic of drays and wagons and carriages.
"Do you think your Mr. Pomeroy will have found him by now?" Grenville asked as we closed in behind a chaise and four.
"Pomeroy is nothing if not thorough. However, if he has not, then I know a gentleman who will definitely be able to put his hands on the Frenchman."
Grenville glanced sideways at me. "You mean Mr. Denis."
I nodded once. "I do."
James Denis was a man who found things, and people, for others for an exorbitant price. The methods with which he found them were not always legal-stealing artwork and other valuables was in his line as well as punishing those who disobeyed him with death.
He and I had lived in an uneasy truce since the day a year or so ago when he'd had me kidnapped and beaten to teach me manners. The event had, in fact, not taught me manners, but we'd each learned exactly how far we could push the other.
Earlier this spring, I had found the culprit who'd murdered one of his lackeys, and Denis had expressed gratitude. In return, he'd told me where in France my wife lived, leaving it up to me whether I sent for her or sought her out or left her alone. I was still a bit annoyed with him over his dealings in the affair of Lady Clifford's necklace, but I couldn't say I'd been surprised.