A Body in Berkeley Square

A Body in Berkeley Square

by Ashley Gardner

Book 5 of the

Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries

A Body in Berkeley Square

Copyright 2005, 2011 by Jennifer Ashley (Ashley
Gardner)

All rights reserved.

Excerpt from
A Covent Garden Mystery
copyright
2011 by Jennifer Ashley (Ashley Gardner)

Published 2011 by Jennifer Ashley (Ashley
Gardner)

www.gardnermysteries.com

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment
only. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission from the author.

This book is a work of fiction. The names,
characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's
imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be
construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead,
actual events, locales or organizations is entirely
coincidental.

* * * * *

Chapter One

At two o'clock in the morning on the fifth of
April, 1817, I stood in an elegant bedchamber in Berkeley Square
and looked down at the dead body of Mr. Henry Turner.

Mr. Turner was in his twenties. He had brown
hair arranged in fashionable, drooping curls and wore a black suit
with an ivory and silver waistcoat, elegant pantaloons, and dancing
slippers. An emerald stickpin glittered in his cravat, and his
collar points were exceedingly high.

Only a slight red gash marred the waistcoat
where a knife had gone in to stop his life. Except for the waxen
paleness of his face, Mr. Turner might be asleep.

"And he died where?" I asked.

"In a little anteroom off the ballroom
downstairs," Milton Pomeroy, my former sergeant, now a Bow Street
Runner said. "Right in the middle of a fancy ball with the creme de
la creme. Lord Gillis had him brought up here, so the guests would
not be disturbed by a dead body, so he said."

Lord Gillis was an earl who lived in this
opulent mansion on Berkeley Square. Tonight he had hosted a ball
which the top of society had attended, including Lucius Grenville,
Lady Breckenridge, Lady Jersey, and the Duke of Wellington.

Colonel Brandon and Louisa Brandon had been
invited also because Lord Gillis had been an officer before he'd
inherited his title, and he loved to gossip with military men--at
least those ranked colonel and above.

After supper had finished and dancing had
recommenced--about midnight--Mr. Turner had been found in a small
anteroom, alone and dead.

"What about the weapon?" I asked.

For answer, Pomeroy held up a knife. It was
slim and utilitarian, with a plain handle, unmarked. I'd had one
much like it in the army and regretted its loss when I wagered it
away in a game of cards.

Pomeroy laid it carefully on Mr. Turner's
chest.

"Belongs to one Colonel Aloysius Brandon," he
said.

I stared at it in sudden shock, then back at
Pomeroy.

"I am afraid so, sir," he said. "He admitted
the knife was his, but has no idea how it came to be a-sticking out
of the chest of Mr. Turner."

I at last understood why Pomeroy had so
urgently sent for me. Colonel Brandon had been my commanding
officer during the recent Peninsular War. He'd also at one time
been my mentor and my friend.

Currently, Brandon was my enemy. His actions
had ended my career as a cavalry officer and brought me back to
London tired and defeated.

"And where is Colonel Brandon now?" I asked
tersely.

"Bow Street. I sent him off with my
patroller. He'll face the magistrate tomorrow."

Like a common criminal, I thought. The
magistrate would examine him and decide whether he had enough
evidence to hold Brandon at Newgate for a trial.

I studied the knife. Nothing remarkable about
it except that it had belonged to Colonel Brandon.

"Did Brandon offer any explanation as to how
the knife got there?" I asked.

Pomeroy rocked on his heels. "None
whatsoever. Our colonel looked blank, said he didn't do it, and
that I should take him at his word." He cocked his head. "Now what
kind of Runner would I be if I believed every criminal what told me
that?"

I could imagine Brandon, his back straight,
his blue eyes chill, telling Pomeroy that his word should be enough
to clear him of a charge of murder. He had likely marched off with
the patroller, head high, indignation pouring from every inch of
him.

"That the knife belongs to Brandon does not
mean that he stabbed Turner," I said. "Colonel Brandon could have
used the knife at any time this evening--to pare an apple or some
other thing. He might have laid down the knife, and anyone might
have picked it up."

Pomeroy tapped the side of his nose. "Ah, but
the good colonel told me that was nonsense. Said he never
remembered taking the knife out of his pocket."

Typical of Brandon to make everything worse
with heated protests. He would expect Pomeroy to obey him without
question, as though we still stood on the battlefields of the
Peninsular War.

But we'd left Spain three years ago, Napoleon
had been defeated, and Brandon and Pomeroy and I were now
civilians. Brandon, with a large private income, lived in a rather
opulent house on Brook Street, and I, with no private income, lived
in rooms over a bake shop near Covent Garden.

Even so, Pomeroy's instant acceptance that
Brandon had stabbed this young man through his so elegant suit
irritated me a bit. Pomeroy liked solutions to be simple.

"I never remember Brandon mentioning having
acquaintance with Mr. Turner," I said. "He does not look like the
sort of young man Brandon would even consider speaking to."

"True, the colonel did not know Mr. Turner,
he says. I believe him, for the reasons you give. But he didn't
have to know him, did he? Turner was annoying the colonel's
paramour, and the colonel killed him in a fit of jealousy."

I stared at Pomeroy in abject astonishment.
"Paramour?"

The Colonel Brandon I knew would never have
anything so common as a paramour.

Pomeroy nodded. "A woman named Mrs. Harper,
Christian name, Imogene. According to guests at the ball, Colonel
Brandon became angry at Mr. Turner's pursuit of Mrs. Harper and
threatened to kill him."

I stood still in incredulity. Brandon in a
temper might call out a man who behaved badly to a lady, but what
Pomeroy said was unbelievable.

"Sergeant, you are speaking of Colonel
Aloysius Brandon. He does not have a paramour. He never did. He is
the most moral and faithful husband a wife could have. He is
tiresome about it. The idea that he murdered a rival lover in a fit
of jealousy is beyond absurd."

Pomeroy held up his forefinger. "And yet, not
a few witnesses put him walking off alone with her several times
during the evening, never mind escorting her in to supper. These
same witnesses say they overheard quarrels between himself and Mr.
Turner about Mrs. Harper. Besides"--Pomeroy played his trump
card--"Colonel Brandon admitted to me that Imogene Harper was his
mistress."

My mind whirled. "Pomeroy, this is
astonishment on top of astonishment. I cannot credit it."

"It has much credit, sir, and 'twill be the
colonel's debit, so to speak." He chuckled at his joke.

I stood still a moment, trying to take it all
in. "Mrs. Brandon was at the ball with him, you say?"

"Aye. That she was."

"Did he admit this in front of her?"

Pomeroy nodded, losing his smile. "Aye, that
he did. Mrs. Brandon refused to leave his side while I questioned
him."

She would have insisted on staying, thinking
it must all be a mistake. I imagined the blow of Brandon's
admission striking her, her face whitening, her gray eyes growing
moist with pain. I would wring Brandon's neck when I saw him.

"Where is Mrs. Brandon?" I asked sharply.

"Gone home."

"Alone?"

"No, sir. Her maid toddled off with her, and
the Viscountess Breckenridge and Lady Aline Carrington."

Aline Carrington was Louisa's closest woman
friend, and I was happy that the lady had chosen to take care of
her. The addition of Lady Breckenridge surprised me. She was a
young widow, friend to Lady Aline, but she'd not been acquainted
with Louisa. Also, Lady Breckenridge was a woman about whose
motives I was not always clear.

Pomeroy went on, "Mrs. Brandon told me to
fetch you here."

"Mrs. Brandon is a wise woman."

"Aye, sir. I always obey when Mrs. Brandon
gives orders."

"Good man."

I lifted the knife and held it between my
palms, the point touching one hand and the handle touching the
other. The knife told me little. The blade was slim and stained
with blood. Neither blade nor hilt contained any markings or
engravings. In itself, the knife indicated nothing.

I laid the knife on the table. "Please show
me where he was found."

Pomeroy raised thick yellow brows. "Don't
know what good that is. It's just a room."

"All the same."

Pomeroy gave me the look he'd always reserved
for my more questionable orders, but he lumbered away.

Before I left I looked down at Turner once
more. A young man, his life abruptly ended. Did he have a father
and mother, brothers, a wife, an affianced? His face told me
nothing. He'd been a dandy and a well-to-do young man--his clothes
and the emerald stickpin attested to that.

Lucius Grenville would know all about him.
Grenville would know the young man's crowd, his intimates, his
family. Grenville would also be able to tell me where Mr. Turner
went to school, what wagers he liked to place at White's, and what
kind of horses he drove. The Polite World knew everything about
everyone, and this was definitely a crime of the Polite World.

I followed Pomeroy down the staircase. This
house was opulent, with no expense spared to impress the invited
guest. The staircase lifted three stories from a wide hall paved
with marble, and paintings of Gillis ancestors marched up the walls
to the domed ceiling at the top. The stair railing was wrought
iron, shaped in fantastic curlicues.

Pomeroy's boots clumped swiftly as we
descended. I followed more slowly, my footsteps punctuated by the
sharp tap of my walking stick. At forty-one, I already walked like
an old man, courtesy of a painful wound in my left leg--a wound for
which Colonel Brandon was directly responsible.

Lord Gillis had remodeled his abode with
modern conveniences--large windows, airy rooms, and hidden halls
and staircases through which servants could pass without being seen
by the inhabitants or their guests. But the house did not want us
there. The cream-colored walls and marble floor were cold, and the
ancestors by Reynolds and Holbein frowned upon us. The house did
its best to shut out all that was not beautiful and glittering, and
so was disdainful of a former sergeant and a captain of limited
means tramping through its halls.

We left the staircase and trudged through an
equally grand corridor that led to the ballroom. A short staircase
from this took us to the ballroom floor. Ladies and gentlemen would
sweep down these graceful stairs, announced by the majordomo at the
top.

The ceiling was punctuated with ponderous
chandeliers, each holding about fifty candles. All but a few
candles had been extinguished, rendering the room gloomy. Hours
ago, this room had blossomed with light and music, with gentlemen
in evening dress and ladies in velvets and jewels gliding elegantly
about.

Lucius Grenville waited for us with Lord
Gillis. Lord Gillis drank brandy, and from his pink complexion,
he'd consumed quite a few glasses.

Grenville, brandy glass in hand, cool
sangfroid in place, greeted us with a nod. "Lord Gillis, may I
present my friend, Captain Gabriel Lacey. Captain Lacey, Lord
Gillis."

We might have been at a soiree. Lord Gillis
was fifty and gray, but he had the physique of a man who enjoyed
hearty walking and riding. He looked up at my six-foot height with
strong eyes.

According to Pomeroy, Lord Gillis had been
serving as a major on the Peninsula in 1811, when he'd received
word that his cousin, the previous earl, had died. He'd quit the
army and returned home, but he still retained his military bearing
and his interest in military men and events.

"I wish the circumstances of the meeting were
happier, Captain," Lord Gillis said shaking my offered hand. "Our
little ball will be a nine days' wonder."

"Will you show me where it happened?" I
asked.

Lord Gillis pointed. "In the room just at the
foot of the stairs. Forgive me, but somehow I never want to see it
again."

"I am sorry," I said. "Did you know Mr.
Turner well?"