"We should find a copy of the marriage settlement," I said, "before we draw a conclusion."
"Agreed. But I cannot imagine what else it could be. Westin certainly was a man without vices…" He broke off, his dark eyes riveting to an entry on a ledger page. "A moment. I spoke too soon. This is interesting."
Nothing else had been all night. I waited impatiently.
"I am not certain whether this counts as a vice," Grenville said. "But at one time in his life, our Colonel Westin was in the habit of purchasing cantharides." He sat back and looked at me.
"Spanish fly?" I asked, surprised.
"On more than one occasion. But this was a long time ago. 1798, to be precise." He turned back a page. "No, wait, a few years before that as well."
"Anything more recent?"
Grenville flipped forward through the book. I took up the other ledger and gently turned its pages. We had been looking for things of recent memory, but perhaps we ought to examine the man's deep past as well.
"I looks as though he gave it up," Grenville said presently.
I frowned. "Why on earth would a man married to Lydia Westin need an aphrodisiac?"
Grenville shot me a thoughtful look. "Some take it for the stimulation. It adds a spice, shall we say, to the performance. Though one must have a care not to poison oneself with it."
I leafed through the ledger, baffled. Westin did not seem the type of man to try something as dangerous as Spanish fly simply for the adventure of it. Especially in light of Lydia's assertion that her husband had disliked pleasures of the flesh. Were I married to Lydia Westin, I certainly would not need a dose of Spanish fly to convince myself to take her to bed.
I searched for another explanation. "I have heard that it is sometimes used for the skin, as well." I touched an entry. "This ledger shows he was seeing a doctor for an unnamed affliction in the past. Perhaps he used the cantharides for that."
"Possibly. But I hardly believe B and E would convince Westin to go to the gallows to keep the secret of a skin condition."
I did not either, but I needed something. "He made payments to this Dr. Barton for a number of years."
Grenville suddenly came alert. "Barton? Jules Barton? Of Bedford Square?"
"Yes. Why?"
He gave me a curious look. "There is only one reason a gentleman consults Dr. Barton of Bedford Square." He watched me as though I should know damn well why without being told.
"I have never heard of the man."
His eyes flickered. "Hmm. Well, I doubt any gentleman would confide to you he'd made a visit to Dr. Barton. At least not in another's hearing."
"Why? Who the devil is he?"
Grenville pressed his fingertips together. "One consults Dr. Barton when… Well, to put it delicately, one consults him-discreetly-when one cannot make one's soldier stand to attention."
My brows rose. Lydia's faint smile, her rueful look when she explained why she doubted her husband had a mistress, became suddenly clear. "So," I said, "you believe Westin was not so much unattracted by pleasures of the flesh as unable to enjoy them."
"That would explain the Spanish fly," Grenville said. "Perhaps Dr. Barton suggested it. Poor beggar. To be married to such a lovely woman, and not be able to- "
"They had a child," I pointed out. "Miss Westin is of marriageable age now, so could well have been conceived near to 1798. Perhaps he was cured."
Grenville seemed determined to throw cold water on everything. "One child. A girl. Most gentlemen would keep trying until his wife produced a son. Did he continue to see the doctor after her birth?"
I examined the page of payments to Dr. Barton. Several were dated a mere nine years previously, shortly before the Peninsular campaign began. "Yes," I answered.
"A lucky shot, then. Or…" Grenville paused. "This is not a nice speculation, but perhaps…" Again he hesitated. "Perhaps Miss Westin is not Westin's daughter at all."
Silence fell. I traced a pattern on the ledger page. My finger shook once. "What are you suggesting?"
"Something sordid and vulgar, I am sorry to say. But we are looking for reasons that Breckenridge, Eggleston, and Connaught might have blackmailed Colonel Westin."
"If we were speaking of Lady Breckenridge," I said, keeping my voice quiet, "I might agree with you. But Mrs. Westin does not seem the type to have a sordid affair and then force her husband to accept her child. I do not believe it is in her character."
"I know." He studied me for a time. "But perhaps when she was young, and wanted a child, and her husband could not give it to her.."
"She sought it elsewhere?" My fingers tightened on the ledger. "Colonel Westin's letters are filled with great affection for his daughter," I pointed out. "Would he have doted on her if she were another man's child?"
Grenville shrugged. "We live in odd times, Lacey. I know men who grew up in nurseries with half-brothers and — sisters and the illegitimate by-blows of either parent. Lady Oxford is rumored to have borne children by a number of different fathers, and yet her husband keeps the pretense that they are his own, and no one says a word. Hell, my own father brought home a little girl he called my cousin, and we both discovered much later he had fathered her with his mistress. It happens. Mrs. Westin may simply have wanted a child too desperately."
I looked at him. "This line of speculation is distasteful."
"I know. It is a distasteful business, all of it. But such a secret might be enough for Westin. Breckenridge could have threatened to reveal that shame to the world."
I let out my breath. "Such a predicament would certainly give Breckenridge, Eggleston, or Connaught hold over Colonel Westin." I took a draught of my now-cold coffee. "But dear God, Grenville, I do not want it to be true. I pray we find a better explanation."
I pictured Eggleston's glee at knowing a sordid secret about the impeccable Colonel Westin. But would they have loosed that hold by murdering him?
Grenville rested his elbows on the table. "Even if what we have speculated is true, that still does not prove who killed Captain Spencer at Badajoz. This is a most baffling problem you have become tangled in, Lacey."
Well I knew it. Lydia Westin had asked me to clear her husband's name. So far, I was only succeeding in tarnishing it.
As much as we tried, we could find nothing else that night to explain why Colonel Westin might have offered to die on the gallows. Defeated, we closed the ledgers, and Grenville called his carriage to take me the long way back home.
Grenville had asked leave to accompany me to my meeting with the Spencer brothers and I had agreed. He had an uncanny knack for asking the right questions, and his head was a bit clearer on the entire Westin affair than was mine. The next afternoon I met him at Pall Mall and we made our way to the appointment together.
The facade of the tavern had been refurbished to complement the modern buildings surrounding it, but the interior remained dark with age. The paneled walls and spindle-legged tables were nearly black, the beamed ceiling bowed, and the floorboards creaked. A blurred sign in one corner proclaimed that the house had stood since 1673. I felt surprised that it had not burned down at least once during that time, but perhaps it had, and the sign reposted to reassure patrons that it was as traditional as any other tavern.
Only a few men sat about sipping thick coffee or eating beefsteak this afternoon. We were in St. James's, where clubs had become far more the fashion than taverns or coffeehouses. But political liaisons were still cultivated here and old friends still met. I was pleased to see, however, that no journalists lingered here today.
As we halted just inside the doorway, blinking to adjust to the dim interior, two gentlemen rose and advanced upon us. One was slight of build and had a thin brown hair, a fringe of which hung limply on his forehead. The second man looked much like him, but larger, and his hair was thicker.