I thought about the letters she'd written to her friend, which had hinted at some fear. "Did you speak to her friend, Miss Frazier?"
"I did. She is a lively woman, a spinster of about thirty, and apparently Miss Morrison's greatest friend. When I asked her about what Charlotte Morrison had written to her, she looked down her fine nose at me and told me to mind my own damned business. She said she would do nothing to interfere with Charlotte's happiness, and the best thing I could do was return to London and pretend I'd never come."
"She certainly sounds firm of purpose. What did you do?"
Grenville lifted his hands. "I returned to London. I suddenly realized she was right, that the lives of Charlotte Morrison and the Beauchamps were none of my damned business. So now I have a dilemma. Do I tell the Beauchamps that their cousin is safe and relieve their fears? Or do I pretend I never went to Somerset, as Miss Frazier commanded, and let them sort it out themselves?"
I lay quietly for a time, thinking. The conclusions my drugged mind had drawn flitted just out of reach, what had seemed so clear then now foggy and muddled.
"I believe I know why she went," I said.
"Do you? Well, I am baffled. I might understand her actions if she'd run away with some roue, but she married a stolid, respectable vicar with gray hairs. Why should she fear telling her family of it? Unless he's a highwayman in disguise." He laughed a little at his own joke.
"I'm certain the vicar is as respectable and steady as he seems. But I have an advantage. I read the letters, and you did not."
"But you told me what was in them," Grenville pointed out.
"I know. But I couldn't convey the feelings I got from them. There was so much Miss Morrison did not say."
Grenville regarded me impatiently. "So what do I do, Lacey? Tell the Beauchamps to find her themselves?"
"Tell them nothing for now. I would like to go to Hampstead myself and speak to Lord Sommerville."
"Why? Sommerville already told me he'd discovered nothing about his kitchen maid's death."
Weariness weighted my limbs, and I needed to sleep, but I answered. "Charlotte disappeared soon after the maid's death. So soon that my first thought upon hearing the tale was that the body found was Charlotte's."
"I thought the same. But it wasn't."
"No. Charlotte is alive and well."
Grenville shot me an impatient look. "You're being damned cryptic, Lacey."
"Forgive me, I'm still half-dead on opium. I mean that Charlotte no doubt knows who killed the girl. That knowledge made her flee back to the safety of Somerset."
Grenville stared at me a moment, clearly curious. Then he shook his head. "Our trip to Hampstead will have to wait in any case. I doubt you could walk across a room just now."
He was right. I sank a little farther into the mattress. "It was good of you to put me up. I will remove to my own rooms as soon as I can."
"Nonsense. Stay until you are healed. You need warmth and I have plenty of coal. My chef is happily inventing menus for you. I think he's rather bored with me."
"I suppose you won't let me argue."
"Suppress your pride for once and do what's good for you, Lacey. We'll go to Hampstead when you're better, but only when you're better. Or I'll fetch Mrs. Brandon, who will no doubt tie you to the bed."
I smiled and subsided. I prepared to let myself drift off to sleep again, then I remembered something. "What day is it?"
"A fine and fair Monday afternoon."
I tried to sit up. "Bremer's trial is today. I can't in all conscience let him be condemned for murder. I must talk to Pomeroy."
Grenville shook his head. "It will keep. In fact, it no longer matters."
His somber look alarmed me. "Why not?"
"I'm sorry, Lacey. I heard yesterday that the wretched Bremer is dead."
I convalesced at Grenville's for five days. His chef did prepare some delightful and hearty meals for me, and it was probably thanks to his cooking that I healed as quickly as I did. His valet also seemed to enjoy waiting on me, and the footman who lugged coal bins about always stopped to chat about sport and give me a few tips on the races.
And all I could mull over was that I had not saved the stupid and frail Bremer.
Grenville had a friend who was a barrister, a silk, and he, knowing of Grenville's interest in the case, had relayed the news of Bremer's death. There'd been nothing sinister about it. Bremer had caught a chill, which settled in his lungs, and he'd died quickly.
Grenville told me, "My friend said that the magistrate believed Bremer to be guilty and that a gentler justice was served him by the hand of God. Butler went mad and killed his master, the magistrate said, was arrested, and died in gaol. End of story. Public and justice satisfied."
But I was not satisfied. I lay in Grenville's sumptuous guest room, too ill to move and too frustrated to rest. I had failed Bremer in my idiotic pursuit of Denis.
Grenville did his best to keep me cheerful, reading stories to me out of the newspaper and giving me the gossip from his club. I learned who was wearing the wrong-colored waistcoat, who had been snubbed, and who had lost a fortune at whist, and I didn't care about one word of it.
Louisa Brandon came to see me every day and threatened me with dire fates if I tried to get out of bed too soon. On one occasion, she brought her husband.
As the sun was descending behind Grenville's elegant, silk-draped windows, Colonel Brandon entered my chamber alone. He walked halfway across the carpet then stood with his hands behind his back in the attitude of parade rest and looked at me. I wondered if he'd come to force his apology on me, but the spark in his cold blue eyes told me that he was tired of being polite.
"You look bloody awful," he said.
I gave him a nod. "I imagine I do."
A cut ran from the corner of Brandon's mouth to his chin. I dimly remembered pounding my fist just there when we'd fought in the rowboat.
"Thought you'd like to know," he said. "I was speaking the other day with Colonel Franklin, Gale's commanding officer. He said he got the order about Hanover Square from Brigadier Champlain himself."
Champlain had been one of Wellington's most trusted generals. I propped myself up on my pillows, waiting for him to go on.
"I saw Champlain at a card party yesterday," he said. "He imparted to us that he'd sent for Franklin in response to a message from a friend. This friend was afraid that the house of an acquaintance in Hanover Square would be set alight by a mob. Champlain owed the friend a favor and agreed to assist."
"And the name of the friend?" But I'd already guessed.
"James Denis."
Of course. Denis would hardly want the father of the abducted girl drawing attention to Horne. I wondered if Denis had ordered Mr. Thornton to be shot, or if that had been Cornet Weddington's own idea.
"Louisa ferreted it out of him," Brandon said. "Franklin gave the orders to Lieutenant Gale, and Gale took out a squad of his best men." He hesitated. "According to Grenville, this Denis is the same gentleman who had you dragged out to that boat."
"Yes."
"Good Lord, Lacey, he has one of the highest generals in England owing him favors. And you've pitted yourself against him."
"I have."
Brandon stared at me a moment longer, his anger palpable from where he stood. "You always were a damned fool."
He knew better than most what I fool I had been.
So Denis had a general in his pocket. I wondered how many other men in high office owed Denis "favors." Perhaps I should have gone through with my plan to shoot Denis after all.