Murder in Grosvenor Square (11 page)

I covered her cold fingers with mine. “He is better?” I asked.

Lady Derwent’s clear gray eyes brimmed with tears. “He woke,” she said, glancing at Leland, who lay insensible, his breathing even. “He asked for you—no, begged to see you. We dreaded explaining that Gareth—Mr. Travers—had not survived, but he already knew, poor boy. He must have witnessed it. Horrifying. I cannot imagine …”

“Then do not,” I squeezed her hand again, wishing I could pass my strength to her. Though age and consumption had diminished her, Lady Derwent must have been a ravishing beauty in her youth. The bones of her face, the softness of her eyes, still carried the prettiness she’d had. Her daughter was lovely too, though Melissa’s timidity prevented her natural beauty from shining through.

I went on, “If Leland saw who did this, then we can seize the culprit and bring him to justice. The villain should be made to pay.”

Lady Derwent nodded. “Yes, we will prosecute. Gideon has already said so. But Leland, he said he will only speak to you of it.” She bit her lip. “And then he drifted off again, and has not wakened.”

My concern returned, but perhaps the best thing for him was sleep. “Shall I come back later?”

“Not at all.” Lady Derwent released me to lever herself to her feet. I was beside her again in an instant, my steadying hand under her elbow. She gave me a grateful look. “He asked me to beg you to stay when you arrived so he could speak to you the moment he woke. But I’m afraid I must …” She put her fingers to her mouth as though she could press back the cough that began to lift her chest. “Gideon is finally in bed, and I—”

She broke off, her breath faltering. Melissa came to her other side without a word, but she would not look at me in her shyness.

“Have a rest,” I told Lady Derwent, and included Melissa in the admonition. “I will look after Leland.”

Lady Derwent’s voice was a whisper. “I know you will. Thank … I beg your … ” Another cough threatened.

“Save your breath for the steps to your chamber,” I said quickly. “Good morning, Lady Derwent. Miss Derwent.”

I made them a bow, and mother and daughter left the room, daughter supporting mother. One of the maids who’d come to assist Lady Derwent shut the door behind them.

As soon as the latch clicked, Leland’s eyes popped open. “Captain?” he whispered.

I went quickly to the bed. “Leland?”

He hadn’t been sleeping at all, I saw. His eyes didn’t have the vacant, bleary look of someone just roused, though they were moist and filled with pain.

“Gareth.” The word rasped from him, filled with grief.

“I know.”

Leland groped for my hand. I sank to the chair Lady Derwent had vacated and clasped Leland’s fingers as comfortingly as I had his mother’s.

“I am so sorry,” Leland said in a croak. “I was such a bloody fool. I—”

“Stop,” I said. “No recriminations.”

Leland’s head moved on the pillow, then he winced and stilled. “I feel as though the devil is dancing inside my skull. It bloody hurts.”

The fact that he used such strong words told me the depths of his anguish. “You were coshed, lad. Of course it hurts. Can you tell me what happened?”

“Would that I knew.” Leland’s voice was weak, but held conviction. “I did not see who did it, if that is what you mean. All of a sudden, I was on the ground. Gareth was beside me. He looked at me, gave me a little smile, and then … then …”

Leland squeezed his eyes shut, his lashes moistening, the lad too weak to sob. I stroked his hand, wishing I could be of better comfort.

His eyes drifted open again. “Forgive me. I can’t seem to stop.”

“You will receive no censure from me, Leland.”

“It was always Gareth and me,” Leland said. “We never needed anyone else.”

“I know.”

“He was always there for me.” His voice scraped, but he lurched on, his eyes bright, as though he needed to get the words out. “From the time we were eight years old, at school. I was terrified. All those boys, watching me, taunting me. Gareth laughed at my fear. Said it was a grand adventure, wasn’t it? We were explorers, and the other boys were wild natives. We started having meetings of what he called our Explorers Club. Membership—two. It was very exclusive.” He broke off to laugh, which brought fresh tears.

I continued to hold Leland’s hand, knowing nothing I could say would help. “Can you tell me anything at all about what happened?”

He drew a few breaths before he could speak again. “I wish I knew. It’s all a horrible blank. The last thing I remember is agreeing to meet Gareth at my club, at Brooks’s. I have the idea we were going to do something else from there, but I cannot remember what. I do not know whether I even went to Brooks’s.”

“Easy enough to determine.” I tried to sound cheerful. “Your valet will know. So will your coachman.”

“That is true.” Leland looked more hopeful. “All I can remember is opening my eyes in the pitch dark with cold cobbles beneath my cheek, and pain, so much pain …” His chest moved. “I somehow got to my feet. I got Gareth up. I tried to help him out of there, but I was lost. Our clothes were half off—I couldn’t stop to find them. Then I fell. Gareth was next to me … lying there, giving me that smile he used to. As though he were telling me,
Keep your chin up, Eely, you’ll be fine.
”
Leland faltered, and wet his lips. “Then I woke here. I thought at first it had been a dream. That it was time to rise and meet Papa for breakfast. But my head exploded with pain when I tried to lift it, and Mama came rushing in. She told me … told me …” Tears tracked his cheeks. “
Damn
him. Why is he dead? Why did he leave me alone?”

I had lost loved ones in my life—most people I knew had—but for Leland to lose someone who understood him as no one else had, and so young, had to be terrible. The person he’d had by his side all those years was suddenly gone, the world emptier without him.

Their exclusive club had just diminished to membership—one.

“Leland, I am so very sorry,” I said. “I will find who did this. I promise you.”

“Won’t bring him back to me, will it?” Leland released my hand and rested his on the coverlet. “Do you know, I keep expecting him to come bouncing in the door, laughing at me, saying it has all been a joke or a dream. But my mother confirms that he is gone.” Leland stopped, going silent for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was thin. “Mr. Grenville helped bring me home, she says. Does he know?”

I understood what he meant. I shook my head. “I have not told a soul.”

Leland let out a breath of relief. “I think I could bear the whole world knowing, even my mother and father, but not Mr. Grenville.”

“I cannot think why,” I said, trying to reassure him. “Mr. Grenville is a most understanding gentleman.”

Leland blinked at me. “I have seen Mr. Grenville reduce a gentleman to tears by giving a look of asperity to his cravat.”

“I have seen him do that as well. But I’ve learned that while he will ridicule pompous fools, he is kind to those he respects, and amazingly compassionate. It took me a long time to understand this. I wronged him when I first met him.”

“Even so.” Leland flushed again. “I would not like Mr. Grenville to know my secrets.”

“I will not tell him unless you give me leave to. What about Mr. Mackay? He was there.”

Leland began to frown, then his brows drifted apart as though he found the effort too tiring. “Who is Mr. Mackay?”

“He came to find me, to lead me to you.” I described him.

“Oh.” Leland drew a ragged breath. “I remember. I sent him to you. He was gone a long time, or so it seemed, and I knew I had to move Gareth …”

I put up my hand to still his tormented thoughts. “Was he one of Gareth’s friends? Did he see what happened?”

“I did not know him. I spied him there, begged him to go to Grimpen Lane and find you. I didn’t remember until he ran off that you no longer lived there.”

“He was lucky, as I had just arrived. But anyone at my lodgings would have known how to send for me. You did right.”

“Please give him my thanks,” Leland said, his voice cracking. “And beg him to say nothing.”

“If I can find him,” I said. “And I will—he may know who did this terrible thing.”

“No.” Leland started to shake his head. “Do not try to find out. Please. We must have been set upon to be robbed, that is all. You’ll never find the men in the warrens of London, and it doesn’t matter.” He trailed off, voice weakening.

“It does matter,” I said. “I dislike seeing my friends hurt. I will find whoever did this and take him apart.”

Leland gave me a wan smile. “You are a soldier. I always wanted to be like you. But it doesn’t matter. Not to me. Nothing does anymore.”

His voice faded, his eyes drifting closed again, and I grew alarmed. He was so weak, and the distress was doing him no good.

I stood. “Would you like me to send in your father?” I asked as gently as I could. “Or Mrs. Danbury?”

“No,” Leland said in a near whisper. “I’d like to be alone, Captain. I need to get used to it.”

Chapter Eleven

I’d hoped to speak again to Mrs. Danbury before I left the house, to discover why she was so adamant about me staying away, but when I looked into the room she had entered on the ground floor, it was empty. The footman hovered near, wanting to escort me out the door, so I let him.

Clouds covered the sky, and a misting rain began to fall. I waved away the footman’s offer to have the Derwents’ coach brought around for me, and walked from the square to Grosvenor Street, and thence to Grenville’s.

I found Grenville awake. He was in his dressing gown in his sumptuous bedchamber, imbibing coffee, his hair mussed from sleep. When Matthias ushered me in, Grenville waved me to a chair and bade the young man bring me coffee as well.

“Nasty business,” Grenville said as soon as I was sipping the fragrant brew. “I thought to stay with Leland all last night, but Lady Derwent sent me home. She might seem frail, but that woman has a will of iron.”

I had to agree. “Leland has woken, which is a good sign, but at this point, I have no idea whether he will live or die.” I paused, unhappy. “He’s a resilient lad, but head wounds …”

“Yes, it looked bad.” Grenville’s optimistic demeanor was considerably dimmed. “The Derwents are taking it hard.”

“They’ll take it harder if he dies,” I said.

We reflected on that gloomy prospect. “The question is,” Grenville said after a moment, “is what the devil were they doing in that unlit passage in Seven Dials? I had thought them discreet enough to stay indoors, and pampered enough to wish a soft bed in which to couple. Good Lord, I would.”

I nearly choked on my coffee, and quickly set the cup aside. “Not a half hour ago, I was promising Leland I’d not breathe a word to you.”

Grenville lifted his brows. “Everyone knows, Lacey. Or at least has guessed. Leland Derwent and Gareth Travers have been fused as one since they were children. They’ve taken no interest in ladies, they lived in the same rooms at university, Gareth runs tame in the Derwent household, and neither have made any obvious move to enter the marriage mart.”

“
You
have not entered the marriage mart,” I pointed out. “Not every man does.”

“Ah, but there is a difference. My
affaires
are talked of—incessantly—and no one has observed Leland or Gareth so much as casting a woman a longing look. We
know
. We simply do not speak of it. Nor did we expect them to do anything except happily grow old together.”

“And now they cannot.”

“No, poor lads,” Grenville said, heaving a sigh. “Which brings me back to the point—why on earth did they meet in a back lane in the middle of a rookery?”

I tried to press aside anger and worry to look at the problem clearly. “Perhaps they did not. Perhaps they were found in the act, somewhere comfortable, as we speculate, struck down, and carried there. Or, they were not in flagrante at all but were arranged to be found like that.”

“A very elaborate scheme,” Grenville said. “For what purpose?”

“To humiliate the Derwents? To intimate that all was not as moral and upright in Sir Gideon’s house as it seemed?”

“Surely, in that case, they’d have been found in a more public place,” Grenville said. “As it was, they were lucky to be found at all.”

“That is true.” I said. “If the motive were to ruin the family, there was great risk in it not coming off.”

“And it won’t.” Grenville’s reply was quick and resolute. “
You
know how they were found, but we can keep it from others. That they were struck down as they were robbed and then left for dead will be the story. Who else knows about them being in dishabille?”

“Brewster,” I said. “The man Denis has sent to be my nursemaid. He carried the lads from the passage, but I’d redressed them by then—though I never found Leland’s missing coat. The cart driver Brewster hired saw nothing.”

“Denis’s men are a close-mouthed lot,” Grenville said. “Though it might be worth speaking to Denis to make certain.” He took a sip of coffee. “Anyone else see them before you put their clothing to rights?”

“There was the young man who came to fetch me. Mackay. Nelson Mackay. A little older than Leland and Gareth. Black hair. Blue eyes. Good clothes, soft hands—not a laborer. Haven’t seen him at the clubs.”

Grenville’s brows came together as he thought. “I’ve not the heard the name.” He shook his head. “No, I can’t place him. I will ask Gautier. He has more knowledge of who is who in London than Debrett’s.”

I let amusement trickle through my foul mood. “I thought
you
were the font of all knowledge.”

Grenville contrived to look modest. “I do know an extraordinary number of people—far too many I sometimes believe. But Gautier knows them from all walks of life.” He sighed. “I do feel the crowd pressing on me a bit these days, Lacey.”

I resumed my coffee. “Are you going to speak longingly of Egypt now?”

“Of course I am. I have mentioned putting together an expedition for next winter. Now that you are safely married—with your daughter perhaps ensconced in the bosom of matrimony herself by then—we can be off.”