"What you do with him after his trial will be your choice," I said. "Leave him, obtain a legal separation-that is for you to decide. I will help you as much as I can, use my few connections to bring about a happy ending for you."
Louisa lifted her head. "Gabriel, take me to France."
I started. "To France?"
"Yes." She crumpled my handkerchief in her hand. "You told me that you wanted to go to France to find Carlotta. I offered to accompany you. Let us go, and leave London and all of this behind."
Her eyes blazed fire in her pale face. Despite her anguish, she looked beautiful, resolute and glittering, like a diamond.
"Louisa, if you hie off to France with me while your husband endures a murder trial, you will never live it down."
"What does it matter? We are ruined. I am ruined. Even if Aloysius is found innocent, we shall always be known for it-the colonel who was tried for murder, arrested in front of his mistress and his wife. It will follow us all our lives."
"I know," I said.
She sprang to her feet and began pacing. "I want no part of it. Take me to France. I am certain that Paris will be slightly more exciting than a country village in Dorset."
"Suggest a journey to Paris to Lady Aline. I will persuade her to accompany you."
Louisa stopped and faced me, two dark red spots on her cheeks. "I do not wish to go with Aline. I wish to go with you."
I studied her flushed face, her brittle eyes, her bosom as it rose with her agitated breath. If she had offered me this in 1814-after Napoleon had been temporarily defeated, when France was open again-I would have gone with her in a flash.
I would have taken her to Paris and bought her frocks and drunk wine with her while the English delegation decided what to do with France and the restored Bourbon king. I would have abandoned honor and everything else to be with her, to take her hand and explore the world with her, to never to return to England again.
I would have done it. I would have done it in 1815, after Waterloo, when my life was nothing and the Continent was free and open once again. I would have fled with her to begin anew.
But not now. Now, I'd begun to build something from the wreck of my life. I'd laid a foundation with my friendship with Grenville, discovered an interest in investigating crime with Pomeroy and Sir Montague Harris. I had made friends with the Derwents and Lady Aline Carrington, Mr. Thompson of the Thames River patrol, and my landlady, Mrs. Beltan.
And I had met Lady Breckenridge.
I thought that in Lady Breckenridge I'd found a friend who understood me, one who could keep me from making too great an idiot of myself. I remembered her lips on mine the day before I'd journeyed to Epsom, and how much I'd liked that feeling.
I had forged tenuous things that were new and needed to be explored. I now had something to lose.
I cared for Louisa more than I'd ever cared for myself. But I no longer wanted to give up my entire life for her.
She saw that in my eyes as I gazed at her. Her expression became one of defeat, and her shoulders drooped.
"I am sorry," I said, as though it would make any difference.
She shook her head. "I ought to have known that in the end, you would abandon me, too."
I got to my feet. "No, never abandon you. Never that." I took her hands. "I will never leave you to face anything alone. You have my word. But if we did dash away together to France, or Italy, or any number of places, you would soon grow ashamed. You would dislike yourself, and you would grow angry at me for not stopping you. You would begin to dislike me, and that I could not bear."
Tears stood in her eyes. "Gabriel."
"In any case, I am horrible to live with. Ask Bartholomew."
She did not smile. Louisa stood looking at me for a moment longer, then she lowered her gaze and walked away from me. She moved to the window and stood looking out at the gray drizzle that had begun.
I did not know what else to say to her. I felt numb.
"I should not have asked you," Louisa said. "Forgive me."
Her back was slim, but straight and strong. She might not believe she could weather this problem, but I knew that she could. Louisa had a core of strength that the stoutest general would envy. Her strength had taken her through the hellish living on the Iberian peninsula, and through the grief that both Brandon and I had put her through.
"Louisa," I said gently. "I swear to you that I will get his charges dismissed. I will bring Aloysius Brandon home. Because as much as I despise him for what he has done to you, I do not believe that he committed murder."
"Why not? The rest of the world does."
"What did Sir Montague and Sir Nathaniel tell you?"
She turned around. "They said that Aloysius had reason to kill Mr. Turner. He had been seen growing angry with him, they had gone off alone together where Aloysius claims he called the man out. Aloysius named Mr. Turner a coward when he refused, and the knife was his."
"The knife." I paused. "Was the knife truly Brandon's, without question?"
"I do not know. I did not know all of his private possessions. And in any case, he admitted that the knife was his."
"But he does not remember carrying it into the party. Or at least, so he says."
Louisa made an exasperated noise. "The two magistrates asked me that as well. As though I go through my husband's pockets before we leave the house. I'm not the sort of wife who dresses her husband. He has a valet for that."
"So if anyone would know about the knife, it would be the valet."
"Yes, they asked Robbins. Interviewed him quite closely. Robbins agreed that the knife belonged to Brandon and said that he placed the knife in the pocket of Aloysius's frock coat. Aloysius did not ask for it, but he liked to have the knife with him. Aloysius insisted he did not notice whether the knife in his pocket."
"Therefore," I said, "the knife is Brandon's in all likelihood. What we must discover is how it got from Brandon's pocket into the wound."
"Most people think he put it there," Louisa said.
"Well, I am one person who does not. But it would not be difficult to steal the knife from him. Someone could easily dip into his pocket. The most likely person to have taken the knife is, of course, Mrs. Harper."
"You believe she is a murderess, not simply a Jezebel?"
"I do not know yet what I believe. She lied to me, that is certain. Brandon is lying too. Once I clear out the lies of these two, I believe the solution will present itself."
Louisa sagged. "I no longer know what to believe."
I went to her and put my hands on her shoulders. "Please trust me. I will do whatever I can to make your world better for you. I love you that much."
The tears that had been threatening to fall now spilled down her cheeks. "I love you too, Gabriel. I always have."
I kissed her forehead. Her curls were like silk beneath my lips.
It was difficult not to embrace her, not to whisper that the world could go to hell, that we could leave England together.
But I resisted. I stepped back from her and let her go.
In silence, Louisa gathered her shawl and her bonnet. She would not look at me as she tied the green silk ribbon under her chin. "For some reason," she said, trying to keep her voice light, "I feel as though I should be wearing black."
"Have you seen your husband since he has gone to Newgate?"
"No. How could I?"
"Go and see him," I said. "Have Sir Montague take you."
Louisa looked at me in anger but she said nothing. She finished tying the ribbon then she gathered her shawl and walked to the door. "Goodbye, Gabriel," she said.