Ashley Gardner - A Regimental Murder

The only other final note in the business was that I at last gave in to Grenville's insistence and let his tailor make me a coat to replace the one I'd lost in Kent. The new coat was black and made of finest wool, so light I barely was aware of wearing it but warm enough to keep out the London damp. The thing fitted, glovelike, over my somewhat wide shoulders, a change from the secondhand, pinching garments I usually wore.

Grenville persuaded me into the coat because he'd said I'd earned it. I had sacrificed the old coat in my quest to clear Lydia's husband, and cleared him I had. Bow Street Runners earned their rewards; I must earn mine.

I also believe he regarded me in a new light after the incident with Allandale. I'd catch him looking at me sidelong for weeks after, and his conversation with me was more guarded, less impatient.

Louisa Brandon was the only person that autumn who did not avoid me. I confessed to her what I had done, and why, and she understood. I read anger in her eyes, not at me, but at Allandale, and at Lydia Westin.

I told her all as we walked together in Hyde Park on a day late in September. I'd spent intervening time staving off melancholia and not very successfully. The day was chilly, but I had needed to see her. She'd replied that she'd meet me, no doubt welcoming the chance to escape from her convalescing and somewhat irritable husband.

"I was a bit sharp with Mrs. Westin," Louisa said now. She strolled at my side, her hand on my arm. She had admired the coat and told me it made me look fine, but even that had not warmed my heart. "I know it was not her fault," she continued, "but even so, I was most annoyed at her actions."

"She could have done nothing else," I answered. "I would have given myself to her, you know, Louisa. Completely."

"I know."

We walked in silence for a time. I wondered if Brandon had raged at his wife when she'd confessed to him why she'd gone, or if he had wept. Both most likely.

Louisa had not written to me since she'd returned home, nor come to my rooms to see me, though she must have known I'd been ill with the melancholia. But I did not admonish her. I simply enjoyed her presence, savoring this walk and the warm pressure of her hand on my arm.

As we turned along the path toward the Serpentine, she spoke again. "Have you given up looking for Carlotta?"

I thought a moment about James Denis and the paper he had held out to me.

"Yes," I said. "I have given it up."

We stopped to gaze at the gray surface of the water. A breeze rippled it.

"I am sorry," she said softly.

I faced her, studying the rust-colored bow beneath her chin. In the shadow of the bonnet, her gray eyes held sadness.

I said, "I thought I had found something that I'd always wanted. Instead…" I paused and drew a burning breath. "I found something I can never have."

Louisa touched her fingers briefly to my chest, then lifted her hand away. "Your heart will heal in time, Gabriel."

I looked at her, at the ringlets of gold that touched her face. "Perhaps," I said. "But at the moment, I think it never will."