Ashley Gardner - A Regimental Murder

Along the road north through Hatfield, I told Grenville-and Brandon-about Denis's information and Pomeroy's report that Kenneth Spencer had headed to Hertfordshire, the same place Eggleston had gone to ground with his lover.

The road we traveled was, fortunately for us, rather dry this day. July had segued to August, with its still warm days but cooler nights. The heat wave, I hoped, had broken.

This road marked the route that eloping couples took to Gretna Green, in Scotland, where they could quickly marry. I had eloped with my young wife, but we had not had to travel the long way to Scotland. The man now sitting next to me had managed to obtain a special license for us. That license had allowed us to marry at once, without calling the banns in the parish church, thus preventing my father from standing up and voicing his most strenuous and foul-worded objections. If he had not managed to find impediments to our marriage, he would have created them. As it was, I had been of age, my wife's family had not objected-their daughter had been, in fact, marrying up-and I'd had the license in hand. My father had raged and roared, but the deed had been done.

Colonel Brandon now glanced at the paper I'd handed Grenville, and read the words with great disgust. "Eggleston's lover is a man?"

"Yes," Grenville mused. "And a famous one at that. Surprising. I had thought he was Breckenridge's toady."

"I would not put much past the team of Eggleston and Breckenridge," I said.

"Well, we shall see when we arrive." Grenville returned the paper to me, then pulled out a lawn handkerchief and dabbed his lips. "Forgive me, gentlemen," he said. "I am afraid- "

The coachman was able to halt and Bartholomew able to lift his master out just in time. Poor Grenville rushed into the trees to heave out whatever had been in his stomach. Brandon watched the procedure in great puzzlement but, to my relief, said nothing.

We reached our destination, a house east of Welwyn, at seven o'clock. The waning sun silhouetted a rambling brick cottage covered with climbing roses. It was a quaint little house, one entirely out of keeping with Eggleston. But it was remote, well off the road and five miles from the nearest village.

Grenville descended shakily from the carriage and came to rest on a little stone bench beside the walkway to the front door. He breathed in the clean, warm air, and color slowly returned to his face.

Brandon and I proceeded to the door. No one answered my knock. Above in the brick walls, casement windows stood open, but I spied no movement, heard no noise from within.

I knocked again, letting the sound ring through the house. Again, I received no answer. On impulse, I put my hand on the door latch. The door swung easily open.

Brandon peered over my shoulder. We looked into a tiny entranceway, not more than five feet square, with open doors on either side. I stepped in and through the door to the left.

The large square room beyond was part sitting room and part staircase hall. A ponderous wooden stair wrapped around the outer walls and led to a dark wooden gallery on the first floor. An unlit iron wheel chandelier hung from the ceiling at least twenty feet above us. Dust motes danced in sunlight from windows high above.

"Eggleston!" I shouted.

My cry echoed from the beams and rang faintly in the chandelier. No footsteps or voice responded. No servants, no paramour, no Eggleston.

Brandon whispered behind me, "Breckenridge truly murdered Spinnet to gain his promotion? Dear God, I was ready to defend him and his honor."

"Doubtless they had him cowed." I put my foot on the first stair, holding my walking stick ready.

"Lacey!"

It was Grenville, shouting from outside. His voice held a note of horror. Brandon and I turned as one and sped out again to the brick path.

Grenville was no longer on the bench. He had followed the path around the house to the garden. Roses climbed everywhere, twining through trellises, rambling across a wall, tangling in the grass. On the other side of the wall, which was about five feet high, the earth had been overturned into rich, dark heaps. Brambles of roses sat in pots, ready to be planted.

As we approached, Grenville moved his stick through the soil and brought up a white hand in a mud-grimed sleeve.

"Good God," Brandon whispered.

The hand and arm belonged to a body lying facedown and shallowly buried in the dirt. Grenville brushed earth from the man's back, studying him in somber curiosity. In the back of my mind, I marveled that a man who grew nauseous traveling ten miles in a carriage could observe a dead body without a twinge.

He leaned down and without regard for his elegant gloves, turned the body over.

I drew a sharp breath. Brandon gave no hint of recognition. Grenville got to his feet. "It's Kenneth Spencer," he said.

He had been dead perhaps a day. His face was drawn and gray, his eyes open and staring at nothing.

"His neck is broken," Grenville said slowly. "Just like Breckenridge's."

Brandon stared at him. "But Breckenridge fell from his horse."

"Did you see him fall?" I asked him.

"No. I told you, I found him on the ground. I thought… " He stopped. Grenville and I both watched him. He reddened. "Very well. I followed you when you rode out that morning. But I lost you in the dark and there was a mist. Later I walked the same route I thought I had seen you take. And I found Breckenridge. I thought it was you, fallen from your horse." His brow furrowed. "Good God. So you were right after all? Someone killed him?"

"But who?" Grenville asked, studying Spencer. "Eggleston?"

"No, I do not- "

A sharp crack sounded in the summer air and shards of brick from the top of the wall suddenly stung my face.

"Good lord," Grenville said.

Brandon and I were already on the ground. I reached up, grabbed Grenville's coattails, and dragged him down to the mud.

Brandon sat up, his back flat to the wall. "Where did the shot come from?" he whispered. "The house or the woods?"

"Devil if I know," I hissed back. "Too quick."

"The house, I think," Grenville said. We looked at him. "The direction of the gouge the bullet made in the wall," he explained.

Another crack, and another pistol ball winged off the wall and whizzed over our heads. "Definitely from the house," Brandon muttered.

"My coachman and Bartholomew are still in front," Grenville said. "They could sneak into the house while he's firing at us."

"And be shot for their pains," I said sharply. "Both of them are in there."

Laughter sounded over our heads, from the open casement windows that overlooked the garden.

"Do we lie here the rest of the day?" Grenville asked. His usually pristine cravat was caked with black mud. "Or try to get in there and disarm them?"

"If there are two of them," Brandon said, "both shooting, or one reloads while the other fires, we could be here a long time."

"At least until dark," I said. I leveraged myself up to sit next to him, keeping my head well below the lip of the wall. Kenneth Spencer's outstretched arm nearly touched my boot. "We can slip away then. They won't be able to see well enough to aim."

Grenville gave me a sour look. "They could always hit us by chance."

"Or…" Brandon looked at me. "Do you remember the ridge near Rolica?"

I knew what he was thinking. Eight years ago, at the beginning of the Peninsular campaign, he and I had been trapped together on a path we had been reconnoitering. Our horses had been frightened away and we were cut off from our troop by a gunman who kept us pinned in a small niche in the rocks. We had lain there together, tense and certain we would not live the day, while bullet after bullet struck the rocks inches from where we huddled. Shards of rock had stung my face; Brandon's cheeks had run with blood.