"So his death and Brandon's arrest inconvenience you greatly."
"Inconvenience?" Mrs. Harper sprang to her feet. "It has been hell, Captain Lacey. I do not know where the letter is. Colonel Brandon might be hanged for murder. Now you tell me that Colonel Naveau has come from France to ruin us all."
I came to my feet with her. "How can he ruin you? What is this letter?"
She stopped, her eyes steady. "What do you believe it is?"
"I first thought it a love letter between you and Brandon, but I only assumed that. You never corrected me, and neither did he. I have since learned that it is a document that Colonel Naveau very much wants returned. You and Brandon have each told me that the pair of you had an affair, but is that true?"
Mrs. Harper nodded. "We did. At Vitoria, just after my husband's death."
"You were grieving," I said, "and alone, and he was helpful."
"I was not simply grieving. I was devastated. I loved my husband desperately. I was so angry that he'd been taken from me, and I was also in a good deal of trouble. Colonel Brandon was there. He was strong and helped me, and he was… I cannot explain what he was to me. I should not have surrendered to him; I felt the betrayal of my husband, but I could not help myself. I admired Aloysius, and I was so grateful."
She broke off. But I understood. Brandon could be a compelling leader when he chose. He needed followers and needed to be admired, and Aloysius Brandon had the confidence and the strength to make men follow him. I had felt the same pull when I'd first met him, the compulsion to do anything for him.
"Why were you in a great deal of trouble?" I asked.
"Because of my husband, Major Harper. He'd done a terrible thing. And I was afraid, so afraid that he'd be disgraced, even in death, stripped of his rank, branded a traitor. And I would be branded a traitor's wife. I did not understand the horror until I went through my husband's things in preparation to return to England. I did not know where to turn. Brandon, unbelievably, said he'd help me."
"I am supposing that your husband had dealings with this Colonel Naveau?"
The look she sent me was filled with appeal. Though she did not have the beauty of Lady Breckenridge or Louisa, I was touched by the need in her eyes.
"Mrs. Harper," I said. "My purpose today is to prove that Colonel Brandon did not murder Henry Turner. I am not here to condemn your husband for what he might have done in the past, or you for helping him. The war is over. What happened then no longer matters to me."
"It ought to matter," she said savagely. "What my husband did could have cost lives, the lives of your men. Perhaps your own life, if you'd been unlucky."
"Naveau was an exploring officer," I said. "Did your husband pass him information?"
"That is what I discovered when I went through his things. My husband had been taking money from Colonel Naveau in exchange for dispatches."
I let out a breath. Spying could be a lucrative game but a deadly one. If her husband had been caught sending information to the French, he would have been tried for treason. Shot at best, drawn and quartered at worst. Major Harper had been fortunate to die in battle.
I did not tell the entire truth when I said I no longer cared what had happened on the Peninsula. Men who sold secrets were the worst of humanity. A dispatch sent to the enemy could destroy battle plans and slaughter thousands of soldiers, for nothing.
"What did you do?" I asked quietly.
"I destroyed all his papers." Mrs. Harper quirked a brow at me. "What would you have me do, Captain, run at once to his colonel and confess that he'd been selling secrets to the French? My first loyalty was to my husband, who had been good to me. I destroyed every last scrap of evidence that he'd done anything wrong. But then, only a few days after my husband's death, Colonel Naveau sent a message. It was sheerest good luck that I found it before my husband's batman did. The message was odd, but I understood that Naveau was waiting for something. I did not know what to do. So I confessed to Aloysius and swore him to secrecy."
"And he agreed?" I was baffled. Brandon was a stickler for proper behavior in a soldier, in an officer, in a gentleman.
"Aloysius agreed to say nothing. My husband was dead-he'd died honorably, saving other men. And Aloysius did not want dishonor or punishment to fall on me. He suggested we send a message to Colonel Naveau explaining that Major Harper was dead and to leave me alone."
Bloody hell. "That was unwise and not even necessary. Naveau was a professional exploring officer. If he received no more word from your husband, he would conclude that his source had dried up, and he'd turn elsewhere. Likely he would have heard of your husband's death on his own, in time."
"But Naveau's message frightened me. He did not know when he wrote it that my husband was dead. He was angry and threatened to reveal to Wellington what my husband had been doing. Colonel Brandon wrote a letter to Naveau, in French, and somehow got it delivered to him; I have no idea how he managed it. As a peace offering, he included a dispatch that Naveau had been asking for."
"Good God."
"Yes, he risked much for me."
I had been angry at Aloysius Brandon in the past, but my rage rose to new heights today. "He did risk much. He risked ignominious death and ruin for himself and his family. And for what? Your pretty eyes? Did he ask you to elope with him?"
Mrs. Harper looked perplexed. "He asked me to marry him, yes. How did you know?"
"Because I was at the other end of the matter. Did you know that he planned to leave his wife for you? You must be a remarkable woman to lure him from Louisa Brandon, who I assure you is quite remarkable herself."
She flushed a dull red. "I refused him. He was very excited after we'd delivered the message and begged me to marry him once he obtained the annulment of his marriage. But I could not. I'd loved my husband dearly. I did not want to rush to another man as though my husband had meant nothing to me. So I turned Aloysius away."
"Yet you admit that you had an affair with him," I said.
"A very brief one. I was afraid and alone, as you said, and needed comfort. Then I told him to go."
Which he'd done. Brandon had returned to his wife to discover that Louisa had run to me in her distress. He'd been furious and would not believe that she and I had not had a liaison. But if Brandon had been indulging himself in another woman's bed, small wonder he'd instantly believed I'd indulged his wife in mine.
"And you returned to England?" I asked.
"To Scotland, actually. My sister had married a man from Edinburgh, and they invited me to live in their house. She has two small children, and they welcomed me as part of the family. It was a peaceful existence."
"Until this spring?"
Mrs. Harper moved back to a chair and sank into it. "I received a letter from Henry Turner in February. He said he had the very letter that Aloysius had written to Colonel Naveau. How he came by it and how he found me, I do not know. Mr. Turner instructed me to come to London and to pay him the sum of five hundred guineas, or else he would take the letter to the Horse Guards and proclaim that my husband and I and Colonel Brandon had been traitors together."
Now I understood Brandon's outrage at Turner. I felt it myself.
She went on. "I hurried to London and wrote to Aloysius. I was petrified. And he…" Her eyes sparkled with anger. "At first Aloysius wanted nothing to do with me. He said bluntly that our affair was long ago, that he and his wife were happy, that I should cease to pester him. I was furious with him. He had as much to lose as I did."
"I read the letters you wrote back to him. You declared that both your names would be revealed. I took it to mean that your love affair would be made public."
"Aloysius finally agreed to help, though he was not best pleased about it. Turner wanted to meet us at the Gillises' ball, knowing that Colonel Brandon and his wife had been invited. So we made the appointment and brought him the money."