By the time I heaved my sore body out of bed, Donata and Gabriella had returned from their shopping. Donata disappeared into her dressing room with her abigail, ready to transform herself for another night at soirees, supper parties, and the theatre.
Gabriella would stay in, and I decided I would too. No reason to go dashing about London when I was ill-tempered and hurt.
In light of what had happened with Peter in the park, and recalling my awful fears of last night, I sent word to Grenville via Bartholomew to please look after my wife this evening and escort her everywhere.
Bartholomew charged back not fifteen minutes later with Grenville’s reply that he’d be delighted. I had a quiet word with Brewster outside to also not let Donata out of his sight.
Grenville’s coach stopped in front of the house not long later, and Donata emerged, resplendent in a garnet-colored gown trimmed with gold, gloves covering her arms, and diamonds glittering in her hair and on her bosom. A flimsy shawl was all the protection she had against the night, but I had to admit she would turn the heads of all she passed.
I kissed her cheek, promising not to smear her rouge, and she gave me a warm look. Bartholomew and another footman held a canopy over her head between the door and Grenville’s carriage, keeping the mist from her.
Grenville did not descend, but held his hands out to Donata to help her into the coach. He nodded at me, his expression grave—he’d heard the tale of the attack. He would take good care of her, I knew.
“Pray do not worry so, Gabriel,” Donata said before she sat down opposite Grenville. “I will scuttle home like a virtuous wife before dawn.”
Grenville looked mystified, I only smiled, and Bartholomew stepped between us to shut the door.
The carriage was gone, leaving me on my own with my daughter.
Gabriella came down for supper. She and I ate in the dining room, candlelight throwing a golden glow over us as the footmen served, and Barnstable hovered to watch that all went smoothly.
I still was not used to the luxury of having light whenever I wanted—Donata’s staff saw that a supply of beeswax candles were available every day. In June, light lasted well into the night, but the dining room, in the back of the house, never saw much sun.
Gabriella had heard all about the incident with Peter. “How awful,” she said. “He is not afraid, though, brave lad. He says he intends to ride out again with you as usual.”
“Mmm.” I’d decide whether we should or not. “I am pleased you are in tonight, Gabriella. I knew I’d never confine Donata to the house, but I confess relief you are here where I can see you.”
“I have learned to take care in London,” Gabriella said, her eyes darkening. She’d been abducted while running alone through Covent Garden, and the harrowing incident still weighed upon her mind. “I am not so foolish as to dash about by myself, on foot. The innocent country girl has been erased from me.”
I smiled. “I hope not entirely.”
“That is what the young woman you are investigating did, I presume,” Gabriella went on, dragging her fork across her fish in buttery sauce. “Walked alone, and came to grief.”
“She did.” I told her what Grenville and I had discovered today, not flinching about giving Gabriella the details. I would not hide the dangers of the world from her, never again.
“Perhaps you can help me,” I said. “What reasons would a daughter of a protective father have for leaving the house by herself? I assume if she’d had a maid with her, the maid would have at least run for help, or been able to tell the family what happened.”
Gabriella took a thoughtful bite of fish. “If she had a protective father, and she went alone, I would say she was meeting a young man.”
“Yes.” I swallowed uneasiness that such a solution would spring at once to her mind. “Eloping with him? Or simply meeting him?”
“That is more difficult to say.” Gabriella’s face creased as she thought. “If no valise was found with her things, it might have been stolen, or she might have run out of the house simply to speak to the young man, intending to go back home after the tryst. Lady Aline, however, told me the tale of a young lady who walked out of her father’s house with nothing and climbed into a carriage her young man sent to meet her. She ran off with a dragoon officer and married him.”
A romantic tale. “We have no way of knowing whether a conveyance met Miss Hartman, or she walked to her destination. Did this young man hit her? And why, if she’d come to meet him clandestinely? I would assume him a lover or secret affianced. Or was it a robber? Or someone she quarreled with who struck her in a moment of anger? The blow was certainly hard.”
Gabriella shuddered. “Poor girl.”
I reached for her hand. “I beg your pardon. I did not mean to distress you.”
“I am not distressed.” Gabriella slid her hand from mine and drank from her goblet of watered wine. “I feel sorry for her, only. She must have been eager, running to meet him. I hope her death was quick.”
“She died at once it seems.” Both surgeons had said that, and those men had seen death. “I am trying to decide what to do next.”
“Her father or family would know—or could guess—what man she went to meet. Or, at least tell you about the men Miss Hartman knew.”
Or women, I added silently. A strong woman, with the right weapon, could strike a blow like that.
“The trouble is, Mr. Hartman will not speak,” I said. “He has made it clear he wants no one investigating his daughter’s death.”
Gabriella flashed me a smile. “Dear Father, I doubt you will let that stop you.”
“No, indeed,” I said with conviction.
“Mr. Hartman must have brothers, friends, or other children, who might be more forthcoming,” Gabriella suggested.
“Precisely my thoughts,” I said, thinking of the assistant Hartman had identified as his nephew. “You are certainly my daughter.”
Gabriella flushed. “I am proud to be.”
The women in my family were busy melting my heart today. When Gabriella had first discovered, a year ago, that I was her true father, not Major Auberge, she’d been furious and grief-stricken. She’d hated me on sight, and I could not blame her.
By the time I’d married Donata, she’d accepted me. This was the first time I’d heard Gabriella say she was pleased.
I gave her hand another squeeze, uncertain how to respond. I was saved from breaking down and weeping by Barnstable signaling the footmen to remove the fish plates and begin serving the meat.
***
True to her word, Donata returned home, in Grenville’s carriage, by three in the morning.
“I had a lovely time,” Donata said, kissing my cheek where I stood at the bottom of the stairs, clad in a loose dressing gown over my shirtsleeves and trousers. “Grenville is a fine dancer and stood up with me most of the night. We had marvelous fun daring the ton to believe we were having a love affair. Do not be alarmed if you hear it put about.”
I pictured Grenville and Donata, who’d become very good friends, whispering like schoolchildren as they planned their ruse.
“Why on earth should you want such a story put about?” I asked, unoffended.
“Because it is in bad taste for a woman to be in love with her own husband. I’d be ridiculed everywhere.” She patted my cheek, bathing me in lemony perfume. “Do not worry, Gabriel. Everyone knows how fond you are of Grenville and he of you. They will no doubt believe we are in a ménage a trois. Good night.”
My wife’s idea of humor was sometimes lost on me. I imagined Grenville laughing even now.
I spent a fairly restless night, mostly because of soreness from my fall. My dreams spun endlessly. I saw a young woman who looked much like Gabriella but my fancy painted her as Judith Hartman—young, dark-haired, vibrant. She came at me along the crowds of the Strand, waving to me, calling.
But when she reached me, the skin of her face fell away, and she was nothing more than bones at my feet, her empty eye sockets turned up to me in pleading, one of them smashed.