I certainly did not mind such a wish coming from a lady as pretty as she, but I had to wonder why.
"Madam, you know I am not a wealthy man," I began.
"No," she admitted. "But I have met your friends, Mr. Grenville and Mr. Denis. They are powerful gentlemen."
I raised my brows. "You are saying you wish me to ask Grenville or Denis to pay for the keeping of you on my behalf?"
"Yes," she said. She flushed. "I know it is most irregular, but that is what I wish, Captain Lacey."
"You amaze me," I said softly. "Though I understand that you must survive. Like Marianne."
"It is not only that. I have seen enough of men, Captain, to know when one is worth much. And so I make bold to propose such a thing to you."
My heart beat hard. I hardly knew what to say. She flattered me, but at the same time, I knew she made her living by flattering. She was lovely, she could soothe me, and I would be ten times a fool to accept her.
I wished that I had the wherewithal to be so foolish.
I touched her cheek. "I am sorry," I said. "I would that circumstances were different."
She looked at me a moment longer, then gave her head a shake, conceding defeat. "As am I."
"You are resilient," I stated again. "You will fare well."
She gave me a rueful smile, the practiced courtesan vanishing for a moment. "You have much faith in me, Captain." She touched the lapel of my coat. "Thank you."
"Thank you," I told her. I raised her hand to my lips, and then the carriage that would return us to London rattled to a halt at the end of the lane, and we made to depart.
Chapter Twenty
A few days later, Grenville felt well enough to join me and Pomeroy in the tavern in Pall Mall that we often frequented.
"We'll get a conviction," Pomeroy said, his blond hair slick with the evening's rain. "Sutcliff's papa is rich enough to buy them off, but Sir Montague is a stickler. He'll push it through."
"We can hope so," Grenville said dubiously. He was much stronger, but he moved slowly and flinched simply lifting his tankard of ale. He had visited Marianne earlier that day, and from the pinched lines about his mouth, I understood that the encounter had not gone well.
Pomeroy, oblivious to such things, rambled on. "Why should a rich cove's son like that swindle and blackmail and murder, eh Captain? He's got everything handed to him on gold plates."
I sipped my ale, which was rich and warm against the March rain outside. "Because his father wouldn't give him the gold plates," I answered. "Kept him on a meager allowance and refused to let him come into the business until he grew up a little. Sutcliff told me himself he'd wanted to prove to his father that he could make money on his own and be as ruthless as any nobleman."
"Rich gents," Pomeroy said derisively. "Me own dad never had nothing, so I took the king's shilling. I didn't need to prove nothing."
I had run away from home to the army, as well, though I'd gone with Brandon to receive an officer's commission. In my heart, I'd wanted to prove myself better than my father. I hated to think that I understood Frederick Sutcliff all too well.
Grenville lifted his brows. "My father kept me on a strict allowance as a lad. He was generous with gifts, but not such a fool as to give me enough money with which to make an idiot of myself. Funnily enough, I never resorted to blackmail and other crimes to supplement my income."
"Yes, sir, but you're not wrong in the head." Pomeroy tapped his forehead. "That Sutcliff chap is a bit crazed."
"I'd feel sorry for him," Grenville said. He put his hand to his torso and winced. "Except for this bit of a hole in my middle. Perhaps I'll make it a fashion, a knife slit in coat and waistcoat, a hairsbreadth shy of the heart and lungs."
Pomeroy guffawed, but I knew Grenville's anger. It had been too close.
Pomeroy drained his glass and wiped his mouth. "Well, young Sutcliff is for it. The father will probably get him transported instead of hanged, but that's the rich for you. Now, it's back to Bow Street for me, though I'll walk slowly and see how many criminals I can catch in the act."
He chuckled, touched his forelock to us, and left the tavern. I had no doubt that he'd arrest several unlucky pickpockets and prostitutes along the way.
"To think," Grenville said, absently turning his tankard. "That I thought a post at a boys' school would be restful and unexciting." He shook his head. "More fool I."
"I have come to appreciate the quiet of Grimpen Lane," I said, smiling a little.
He did not return the smile. "Marianne," he began in a low voice, "will not tell me why she traveled to Hungerford. She made it plain that she did not want to tell me. I know, however, that you know." He lifted his tankard and drank. "And that you, too, will not tell me."
I felt a twinge of remorse, but I shook my head. "I am sorry. The secret is hers, and I gave her my word."
He lifted his gaze to mine. The pain in his dark eyes did not come from his wound. "You are a singular man, Lacey. You will keep your word to an actress who is little better than a courtesan, but you will not answer to a man with the power to break many a gentleman in his path."
"I know," I said.
He held my gaze for a moment, then looked away. "So be it," he said.
He turned the conversation, as only he could, to other, inconsequential things, but I knew it would be a long time before he would bring himself to forgive me.
Pomeroy's prediction that Frederick Sutcliff would never hang for murder proved to be true. He did appear at trial and was condemned, but Sutcliff's father was wealthy enough and powerful enough to have the sentence commuted to transportation. I watched from the gallery as Sutcliff stammered his way through the trial. Jeanne Lanier appeared and behaved very prettily, easily charming the judge into believing her a naive Frenchwoman easily duped.
It sealed Sutcliff's fate. Rutledge also attended the trial. When I saw him in the street afterward, he growled at me and blamed me for the entire affair. I tipped my hat to him and walked on.
Louisa Brandon visited me the next day. I had at last written her that James Denis had given me the information about Carlotta and my daughter. She had not written back, but when I saw her carriage in the street outside Grimpen Lane, my heart lightened.
Once I had sent Bartholomew and Louisa's footman away, I could not keep from her. I kissed her cheek, then I held her hands and simply looked at her.
"I missed you," I said.
"I missed you, as well." She frowned at me. "Now I want to hear the entire awful tale of everything that happened at Sudbury. To think I imagined you'd gone to enjoy green meadows and rides along quiet lanes."
"The country is a brutal place," I said, hoping to make her smile. I sat her down and began to tell her all that happened.
She asked questions, and I answered, and the tension between us fell away. We talked long and easily, as we'd done in the army when she and I and Brandon had spent the end of every day together. Louisa and I had gabbed like old gossips, making light of our fears for the morrow.
After our conversation had wound to its close, I pulled out the paper Denis had given me and handed it to her.
She scanned it in silence, her eyes a mystery. "What will you do?"
"That is why I asked you here. To tell me what to do."
"Gabriel…"
I rose and paced, unable to keep still. "I cannot trust my own heart, Louisa. It has been too long. Shall I rush to France and wrest her from a life where she has been happy? Demand my rights as a husband and father? How will that make anything better?"
She watched me with troubled eyes. "You do not know she has been happy."
"Of course she has. Carlotta was not the sort to live in silent misery. If her French officer made her unhappy, she would have flown elsewhere, again and again, until she felt safe. Or she'd have flown back to England, to you, not me. She was a woman who ever needed comfort and protection."