Ashley Gardner - The Hanover Square Affair

However, I needed his knowledge, so I'd accepted an invitation tonight, issued by one Colonel Arbuthnot, who was hosting a viewing of the latest work by an up-and-coming painter called Ormondsly. I'd accepted because I had every expectation of finding Grenville there.

Grenville was foremost in the art world, and artists cultivated his every opinion. The cream of society would wait, breaths held, as Grenville would lift his quizzing glass, candlelight glinting on the gold eyepiece, and run his slow gaze down the painting. I'd seen crowds biting lips, pressing fingers to mouths, or shifting from side to side while Grenville cocked his head, pursed his lips, backed a few steps, and then started the process all over again. At last he would render his judgment-he would either pronounce the painting a work of genius, or an abysmal failure. With his words, an artist would be made, or broken. He'd be certain to be at Arbuthnot's.

Before I could leave my rooms for the outing, my upstairs neighbor, Marianne Simmons, opened my door and tripped blithely inside. "Got any snuff, Lacey?"

Unsurprised, I took up my gloves and pulled them on. "In the cupboard." I nodded at the aging chest on frame that stood against the wall next to the door. Grenville had recently given me a fine blend from his suppliers in Pall Mall, complete with ornate ebony box inlaid with mother-of-pearl. I did not take much snuff, nor did I smoke the small cigarillos or larger cheroots that many army men did. It was an odd gentleman who did not like tobacco in some form or other, but I'd always found I could take it or leave it alone.

Marianne did not even thank me. She moved to the chest and began rummaging through the drawer in which I usually kept my supply of snuff. She'd caught up her yellow ringlets in a ribbon, a la greque, a style a little out of date, but one that suited her childlike face. Her prettiness made her liked on stage and popular with gentlemen offstage. And she was certainly pretty. Even I, who'd come to know her well, could still appreciate her round bosom, her wide blue eyes, and the slender turn of her ankle.

But I'd come to see that behind her prettiness lay the hardness of a woman who had looked upon the world and found it unkind. Where Black Nancy bantered with her mates and faced her hardships with good nature, Marianne Simmons could be hard and cold and ruthless.

Knowing I was poor, she spoke to me only when she wanted to borrow coal and tapers or a few pence for tea. That is, when she did not simply help herself. She also considered me a convenient supply of the snuff she was addicted to but could not afford.

She pulled out the ebony box. "If this Grenville is so rich, why does he not simply give you money?"

When Marianne had discovered that the famous Lucius Grenville had taken me under his wing, she'd pestered me with questions about him, although she seemed to know more about him than I did. I imagined that the gentlemen she took up gossiped heavily about him.

"A gentleman does not offer money to another gentleman. "

"Bloody inconvenient for you." She clutched the box to her chest. "I suppose he does not take up with actresses?"

"He does." In fact, I'd seen him the night before at the theatre with Hermione Delgardia, the latest sensation on the Continent, who was visiting England for a time.

Marianne wrinkled her nose. "None who dance in the chorus, I'd wager. No, he sets his sights loftier, does he not?"

I ushered her out the door without asking for the box back. "I couldn't say."

I shut the door and locked it with a key. I did not miss Marianne's disappointed look that she would not be able to creep back downstairs and filch candles while I was out.

As it turned out, I would not be able to query Grenville that night about either his taste in actresses or his opinion of Josiah Horne, because he never appeared at Arbuthnot's. The party there consisted of a duke, another actress of considerably more note than Marianne, several other people I knew only slightly, Lady Aline Carrington, and a very pretty young widow called Mrs. Danbury. The latter mostly ignored me, though I attempted to include myself in any conversations around her.

I waited most of the night, but Grenville never arrived. The painting hadn't much to recommend it either.

Tired, annoyed, and at the last of my resources, I took a hackney as far as I could afford the fare and ended up in St. James's. I strolled along, hoping I'd chance upon Grenville arriving at or departing from one of his clubs, but the man remained elusive.

I'd walked slowly down to Pall Mall and onto Cockspur Street, making my weary way back toward Covent Garden. As I approached Charing Cross, a man hailed me.

"Captain Lacey, is it? It's me, sir, remember? Sergeant-major Foster?"

I looked down into a leathery face and twinkling blue eyes. I hadn't seen the man in three years, but he'd been a mainstay of the Thirty-Fifth, rising through the ranks quickly until he attained his final one of sergeant-major. I knew he'd gone to Waterloo but had heard nothing of him since.

"Of course." I held out my hand.

He grinned at it, then took a step back and saluted. "Can't get used to civilian life, sir, that's a fact. Once a sergeant, always a sergeant. And you, sir? I heard you'd hurt yourself bad and came home to convalesce."

I smiled faintly and tapped my left boot with my walking stick. "I did. Still a bit stiff, but I get around all right."

"Sorry to hear it, sir. You were a fair sight on the battlefield, you were, riding hell-for-leather and screaming at us to stand and fight. An inspiration you were." His grin widened.

"I suspect 'inspiration' was the kindest of the words used."

Foster chuckled. "You always were a sharp one, sir, begging your pardon. Ah, here is someone else you might remember. Mrs. Clarke, here's our Captain Lacey."

The plump young woman who'd been peering into dark shop windows a little way away from us turned and stepped back to the sergeant-major. The polite smile I'd put on my face in expectation of a half-remembered acquaintance froze.

I hadn't known her as Mrs. Clarke; I'd known her as Janet Ingram, and seven years ago, she'd briefly been my lover. I hadn't seen her since the day she'd left the Peninsula to return to her dying sister in Essex. She smiled into my eyes and I felt the years between us slide away, as if the pain, the betrayal, the empty ache of them, had never existed.

She looked little different now than she had all those years ago and all those miles away in Portugal when she'd been a corporal's widow. Her waist was as plump, her arms as round, her hair, now adorned with a flat straw hat, as richly auburn. Her brown eyes sparkled as they had of old-the sparkle of a woman who faced life on her own terms, whatever it dealt her. Our affair had lasted only six months, but every day of those months was sharp and clear in my memory.

I don't know if Sergeant-major Foster remembered the circumstance of our acquaintance. He stood by, beaming and grinning, as if he'd played a joke on me. My throat was paper dry, and I did my damndest to smile and politely tip my hat.

"Mrs. Clarke."

She bypassed my stilted politeness with a smile that took my breath away. "Gabriel." She ran her gaze from the dark brown hair at my forehead to the tops of my boots. "I am pleased to see you, though you do not look the same. What happened to you?"

"That," I said, "is a very long story."

Sergeant-major Foster rubbed his hands. "Well, well, quite a reunion tonight. How's the colonel, Captain?"

I dragged my gaze from Janet back to Foster's tanned and smiling face. "I beg your pardon?"

"Bless me, he's forgotten already. Our commander, sir. Colonel Brandon. Your best mate."

I flinched as the truth wanted to come out, but I masked it in politeness. "The colonel is in good health. As is his wife."