I remembered the hot, baking sun, the smell of vegetation struggling to live in the heat and dense air, the overpowering scent of elephant, and the faint cries of a very young Mrs. Lacey, as white and golden as Melissa Derwent, screaming that the elephant would eat her, or me, or at least kill us in some horrible way. I had laughed at her.
Had I ever been such an arrogant, blind fool? Yes, my conscience whispered to me. You were exactly that.
I was aware I'd paused too long, and hurriedly resumed my narrative.
Mrs. Danbury, seated next to me, listened to my tales as avidly as the others did, but her eyes crinkled in amusement at the rapt attentions of her cousins. But at least she listened. She could have flicked her fingers and sighed and given other signs of growing boredom, but she never did.
Leland's stare on the other hand, fixed and filled with hero-worship, made me most uncomfortable. I hoped to God that tomorrow morning he would not run off to join a regiment.
Lady Derwent ate very little. She toyed with her food, her thin fingers shaking slightly. Her smiles were as eager as her son's and husband's, but I saw her strain to keep her lips still, saw the cough well up in her throat from time to time before she hastily buried it in a handkerchief.
A dart of sympathy pierced my heart. These people, these innocent, kind, genuinely friendly people would soon know grief. I wondered how long it would be. From the waxen tinge to Lady Derwent's skin, I thought it possible she would not live much past Christmas.
I sought to entertain them as I could, pulling their thoughts from sorrows to come. I tried to keep the more gruesome aspects of my stories to a minimum, attempting to relate only the light and humorous. Louisa would like these people, I reflected. I would introduce them, when she recovered from her own present grief. In fact, it might be just the thing for her. She hated to wallow in her own sorrows, and this unworldly, innocent family would tug at her heart.
After we had consumed the elegant desert-a decadent pudding decorated with spun sugar-we moved back to the drawing room. Despite its ostentation, the room was well lived in. Workbaskets rested by chairs, books lay about, a lady's sketchbook had been tucked into a rack near a settee. The Derwents obviously spent every evening here, guests or no. They occupied every inch of this grand house, and with their charming obliviousness, rendering what could be cold and grandiose warm and friendly.
Melissa performed a minuet for us on a satinwood pianoforte. She played competently but nervously. I clapped politely when she finished and smiled when she curtseyed. Sir Gideon and Leland both seemed very pleased with me.
It was very late before I could introduce into the conversation the purpose for which I'd come. I tried to casually lead to the topic of Sir Edward Connaught, Major in the Forty-Third Light Dragoons, but in the end I had to bluntly ask if he were their acquaintance.
"Of course, my dear fellow," Sir Gideon replied. He handed me yet another tumbler of mellow, sweet brandy. "I do know him. He was one of those involved at Badajoz, was he not? With this killing of the man, Captain Spencer."
"Yes." So they did read the newspapers after all.
Sir Gideon turned an eager gaze on me. "I did not know Colonel Westin well, except from the club, poor chap. Did he really kill that wretched man at Badajoz?"
"No," I answered. "I believe Colonel Westin was innocent."
My words rippled through the room like the faint approach of a summer storm. The four Derwents turned to me, breathless. Even the footman, who had come with a tray of exquisite chocolates, froze to listen.
There was nothing for it then that I should tell them every detail of the Badajoz investigation, as well as about the death of Lord Breckenridge.
Never in my life had anyone listened to me with complete interest, begging me to go on when I slowed. Another man might have been flattered; I realized early on that they simply had very little connection with the outside world. I must have seemed larger than life to them.
By the time I departed-Sir Gideon insisted on calling his own carriage for me-I had made an appointment to meet Connaught in the company of Sir Gideon and Leland four days hence.
I also garnered another invitation for supper in a week. They suggested they make my invitation to supper a standing one once a fortnight. This idea delighted the four Derwents; Mrs. Danbury smiled in the background. I was uncertain whether to be pleased or alarmed.
As we pulled away, I looked back at the warm, bright house that had welcomed me so. They wanted me back. I would oblige them.
I was just settling back when my eye caught a brief movement. I peered past the coach lights into the darkness. Gaslight had been laid here, but in the space between the pale yellow globes the darkness was complete. I had seen someone, a man I thought, duck back into shadows.
It had been Brandon trailing me to and about Astley Close, but he had no reason to do so now. Disquiet settled over me. I asked the coachman to stop, told him what I saw, and to drive back to the spot.
When we reached it, the footman and I climbed down and examined the lane between the houses, but we found nothing, and no sign that anyone had passed.
Chapter Seventeen
The next day I set plans in motion. If I were to marry Lydia Westin, and I had fixed upon this course, I had many things to do.
Long ago, when I had first married, I had swept my bride away in haste without thought to jointure and settlements. This time, I would go more carefully. Lydia was a widow, a very wealthy one. I had nothing. When Lydia married, unless wills and settlements said otherwise, I would gain control of her money.
I did not wish to be perceived as what both Allandale and Lady Breckenridge intimated, a fortune hunter. I would need to ensure that barriers would be set in place against me so she'd have use of the money for her lifetime, and leave it to whom she wished.
Then there was the matter of my first marriage. My wife had abandoned me fourteen years ago. I had no idea now where she was, or even if she still lived. When she'd first left me, I had been ready to drag her back in shame. Louisa had argued with me day and night against it. For abandoning me, my wife could be tried for adultery, sentenced to the stocks, or much worse. I'd come to realize that I wanted her back only to assuage my pride, not to assure her safety. The frail girl would never have survived the censure and the ruin of her character, let alone trial and ignominy. I'd finally convinced myself to let her go.
Later, I'd attempted to find her and so discover what had become of my daughter, but the trail had gone cold. I'd attempted a search several times, wasting money with no result. I'd not found her to this day.
I could not have done much, in any case. Divorces were costly and difficult to obtain-only those in the upper classes managed to divorce and even then they could be ostracized by their family and friends. An annulment could be granted only under certain circumstance, such as my wife and I being too closely related or one of us already married to another party-or me being afflicted with Colonel Westin's malady. So I had simply let her go. I was a poor man with no prospects; likely she and my daughter were better off without me.
I could, of course, simply declare her missing and marry again without taking the trouble to search for her. Others did so when wives or husbands traveled to far lands and never came back. After seven years without word, one could presume they had died and marry again without censure.
But I wanted to know.
Of course, my wife could very well no longer be living. Her French lover might have abandoned her long ago, or she might have married another. She might have died in France. My first step was to find her, and decide what to do after that.