The breeze that slid between the trees had a sudden icy bite.
“You are claiming Mrs. Gibbons worked for Bonaparte?” Grenville said as my mouth refused to move. “Again, I say, have a care Armitage. Slander can be costly.”
“Ha,” Armitage barked. “Why do you suppose Isherwood put her aside? Nothing could be proved, but he could not afford to have her near. Rumors about her would ruin his career, wouldn’t it?”
I at last found my voice. “I find this highly unlikely.”
“She had many an officer in her snare, both English and French,” Armitage said in enjoyment. “She passed information right under Wellington’s nose.”
His declaration gave me pause. I admitted I hadn’t known much about Marguerite, but she hadn’t seemed the sort to betray her country to Napoleon.
I remembered her as a vivacious woman but one devastated by the failure of her marriage. She’d been defiant but also hurt and dazed. Our conversations, what there had been of them, had been on any topic but cavalry maneuvers or plans to push the French army out of Spain. Not that I would have been privy to such plans, in any case.
“She could hardly have pried important information from me,” I said. “I was a junior captain in Salamanca, never called in to discuss strategy. I never knew where I’d be going until the day of the battle. Even then it wasn’t always clear.”
Armitage’s eyes twinkled in the darkness. “Even so, Captain. She might have mistaken your importance—or perhaps she was simply taking her leisure with you. Her machinations no doubt wearied her after a time, and she sought amusement.”
He had the same irritating habit of tossing off insults as did Desjardins.
“You knew the Isherwoods well, did you?” I asked, drumming my fingers on the head of my walking stick.
“Barely at all. I encountered them socially from time to time, as Isherwood comes from an old and highly regarded family. But I heard quite a lot about them. Everyone did.” Except you, apparently, his amused look implied.
“In other words, you impugn her character without evidence,” I said.
Armitage gave me a mocking bow. “I have heard you are quite the gentleman with the ladies. The war is over now, but do not relax your guard. Women like Marguerite never cease. And you say she is here in Brighton?” This seemed to bother him, though he kept up the bonhomie.
“With her husband.”
“Whom you say is an ordinary chap. Ha. Probably a bloody spy as well.”
“I say, Armitage,” Grenville said in a pained voice. “You will find yourself on one end of a dueling green if you continue to fling such accusations about.”
Armitage let out a laugh. “I am joking, my friends. Speculation and amusement about a nobody. I trust none of our words tonight will be repeated?”
He cast a warning gaze at us both, the aristocrat commanding his inferiors.
Grenville’s quizzing glass was now at his eye. “Of course they will not be.” The iciness in his tone chilled the air. “It is never a question.”
Armitage had the grace to look embarrassed. “Forgive me, Grenville, but you have not met the gentlemen I have in my life. Diplomats are the least trustworthy people in existence. And upon them hang the fate of nations.”
I wondered if he included himself in that number.
Armitage liked to dominate, I could see. He wanted control of a place, a conversation, and what was said when his friends left him. I wondered if that control had extended to his brother, to the point of deciding that the woman who was to marry that brother would be better off with Armitage himself.
To give him the benefit of doubt, war played arbitrary tricks on people’s lives, altering them forever, as it had altered mine. There was nothing to say his brother had simply not stood in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Armitage took his leave of us and breezily walked away, heading toward the lighted part of the green from which the fireworks would be viewed.
Grenville dropped his quizzing glass into its pocket then removed a handkerchief and dabbed his mouth as though he’d tasted something foul.
“His is an old title,” he said, tucking the handkerchief away. “Which makes him believe himself untouchable. My family is far more lofty than his, but as I am a distant twig, he dismisses me. You, of course, are a dust mote in his very small mind.”
“So I gathered.” I leaned on my stick, my energy giving way. “His accusation of Mrs. Isherwood is unlikely, in my opinion. She was an unhappy woman, ill-used. She does not deserve more dishonor piled upon her.”
Grenville was looking me up and down, his famous brows high.
“Is something amiss?” I asked tersely.
“You are a man of great reserve, Lacey. You know my entire history, while bits and pieces of yours turn up at the oddest times.”
“Not quite. You had a daughter you kept to yourself.”
“I never knew I had a daughter until the fact was slapped in my face.” He took on a fond look. “She is doing well, by the way. Gained much applause for her portrayal of Portia at Drury Lane this spring.”
“So I have heard.” Grenville’s obvious pride in Claire Bennington would divert me any other time. “Forgive me if I have not provided you a list of my paramours from the time I was able to understand what one did with a woman until my present marriage. It would hardly be kind to the ladies.”
“That is not what I mean, which you know very well,” Grenville returned. “But I would have thought this information relevant, as the woman’s husband has been murdered.” He let out a sigh. “Unfortunately your affair with Mrs. Isherwood makes you still more of a suspect. Gentlemen have battled over ladies before. Do regularly, in fact.”
“It was a long time ago.” I heard the weakness of the statement even as I said it. “She was far better off without the blackguard Isherwood. Why should I fight him about her now?”
Grenville rubbed a finger under his lip. “I’d love for your memory of the night to come flooding back.”
“As would I.” I tamped down despair as the emptiness of those hours rose up to mock me. “But I’ve lost time before when inebriated. I may never recall what happened.”
“I doubt you went temporarily mad.” Grenville must have read my unhappiness, because he put a kind hand on my shoulder. “Never fear, my friend. We will discover what occurred and why you were dosed and by who. We will pull together and not let you down.” He removed his comforting touch. “However, you must oblige me by telling me the tale of you and Mrs. Isherwood. Then we will decide whether Armitage is correct about her, or if he is simply being a fathead.”
My uncertainty about the question bothered me. I believed my assessment of Marguerite the true one, but Armitage had sowed doubt.
I noted the crowd gathering on the green. “The fireworks are about to begin.”
“Indeed. Let us return to our happy families and enjoy ourselves.”
Grenville gave me an encouraging nod and led the way back to civilization.
Grenville rejoined Marianne, and was soon surrounded by her friends—actors and actresses who were quite taken with him. I broke from them after a few moments to seek my wife and daughter.
The Steine was very dark beyond the lantern-lit main path. While the park had a simple layout, there were patches under trees that were inky black, a perfect trysting spot for lovers or a hiding place for robbers.
I fancied I spied Lady Aline Carrington, or at least her outlandish headdress, feathers waving above a large turban. Donata and Gabriella would be near her, or Aline would know where I could find them.
A loud bang announced the first of the fireworks. It rose in a red nimbus, bursting over the towers of the Pavilion to rapturous applause.
More explosions followed the first, white, orange, and green spangling the night. The crowd surged in front of me, cutting off my view of Lady Aline. I skirted them, moving along a path overhung with trees, plunged into darkness as I sought the light.
I felt a rush of air to my right. Assuming I was about to be assailed, I sidestepped, bringing up my walking stick to fend off the villain.
Another explosion of fireworks sounded behind me. In front of me came a second bang, nearly lost in the blasts in the sky. I saw a bright flare of gunpowder and then I was on the ground, my face in the mud, instinct preserving my life.
Desjardins’ gun had been a long-barreled shooter. This was a pistol, I could tell from the sound and a chance gleam from the fireworks.
I roared as I surged to my feet, anger propelling me upward. I ran forward, recklessly assuming that the shooter had only one pistol, which would now be spent.
Empty air answered my assault. I struck out with my cane but encountered no one.
The boom of the fireworks smothered any sound of retreating footsteps. I plunged along in the direction I imagined the shooter would have run, until I was rewarded by the outline of a man against the sky.
I snarled and launched myself at him. A large pair of hands caught me, wrested away my stick, and shoved me several feet backward.
“It’s me, guv.” Brewster held my walking stick protectively in front of him. “What the devil you attacking me for?”
“Brewster. Bloody hell.” I sucked in a breath, my heart banging behind aching ribs. “A blackguard shot a pistol at me.”
“‘Struth.” Brewster thrust my walking stick back at me. “That’s twice in one day. Was it the Frenchie?”
I took the cane and rested it at my side, my knee now hurting powerfully. “I do not believe so. The comte wore a distinctive scent, and I did not smell it.”
“A man can wash,” Brewster pointed out.
“True, and I couldn’t smell much over the gunpowder and the fireworks.” My rage dissolved into stark worry. “Where are my daughter and Donata? If there are madmen with pistols about, you need to be watching over them, not me.”
“Don’t fuss yourself—they’re with Mr. Grenville and a whole host of ladies and gents.”
“Where?” I began striding toward the pack watching the fireworks, forcing Brewster to catch up with me. He did so with a grunt of irritation.
“Certain ye want to join them? You look like you’ve been kissing the ground.”
I glanced down at myself. A bright wave of fireworks showed my suit plastered with mud, my cravat and waistcoat black with it.
“Bartholomew will not be pleased,” I observed.
“Naw, he’ll be chuffed. He likes looking after your clothes.”
I ignored him. If I hurried to Donata and Gabriella, there would be questions and alarm, and I might serve them better by finding and stopping the fellow instead.
“As I am not fit to be seen, let us hunt for the shooter,” I said.
Brewster glared at me. “No, ye should take yourself inside in case he tries again.”
“Exactly, and we should find him before he does. He must have run that way.”
I pointed with my stick to the road beyond the Steine. It was the darkest path, and I’d seen no one running on the lighted ones. The strongest possibility was that he’d fled across the street and into the labyrinthine back lanes of Brighton.
“You expect to find him in there?” Brewster demanded. “Brighton has paid night constables. Let them do their job.”
“He shot at me, Brewster,” I said in a hard voice. “This was not arbitrary, but personal. He waited until I was in the shadows to strike.”
“I know that, and I’ll scour the town for him, but right now, ye need to get inside where he can’t shoot at you anymore. That is, if you’ll stay away from the windows.”
Part of me reasoned that Brewster had the right of it, but being a target boiled rage through my blood.
“Someone is going to much trouble to make my life hell,” I snapped as I headed for the road. “Making me believe I killed a man and then trying to kill me in return. I have had enough of it.”
“Go back to London,” Brewster advised as he caught up to me. “Much safer.”
His sarcasm was sharp, and I did not bother to answer.
“Captain Lacey?” A woman’s voice stopped me before I reached the other side of the street. “Are you fleeing the fireworks? You never liked them much, I remember.”