The footmen, who’d lined up behind Barnstable as he struggled into his frock coat, barely hid smiles. Donata glanced from her hopeful son to me, her gaze frosty.
“Very well. Barnstable, please have the cot readied in the captain’s chamber.”
She stalked upstairs, leaving the rest of us behind, back straight, poise unaltered.
Grenville touched my sleeve. “Why don’t you clean yourself up, Lacey, while Peter and I find some grub? Mind if we invade the kitchen, Barnstable? We’re too hungry to wait to be served, I think.”
Peter brightened at this chance to go down to the kitchen with the great Mr. Grenville. I knew Barnstable and the cook would minister to them both, and I truly was appallingly dirty.
I left them to it and ascended to my bedchamber. A footman brought me hot water and helped me peel off my clothes. Fortunately, some of my belongings had been left here, and I was able to dress in a fresh suit.
I was exhausted, my eyes grating, my legs too shaky to support me. I had kept hold of the walking stick Brewster had taken from Denis’s house, but I would ask Barnstable to return it when we made once more for Gloucestershire.
If we did. Donata might simply remove herself and Peter to Oxfordshire on the morrow and fetch Anne, uncaring what I did with myself.
I moved through my dressing room and entered Donata’s bedchamber, lightly tapping on her door before I did so.
I found her flung across the bed, sobbing.
“Love.” I sank next to my wife, my hand on her hair. I did not know if she wanted me to touch her, but I could not leave her distraught without offering comfort. “Peter’s home. He’s safe.”
Donata continued to weep. I leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll go, if you like,” I whispered.
Donata started up, nearly colliding with me, then she threw her arms around me. “Do not dare leave me. Do not dare.”
“No.” I soothed her. “I’ll stay.” Something inside me unclenched, though I knew we were a long way from reconciliation. “I agree that I am to blame. I have allowed Denis to pull me into his machinations, when I should have torn myself from him long ago, no matter what he threatened.”
Donata raised her head and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Even with her face splotchy and tear-streaked, she was beautiful. “You are not to blame. If you had defied him as you say, perhaps he might have threatened Peter, or me, to keep you tame. Denis plays his own games. In this one, you simply happened to be in the way.”
“I’d like to believe I have my own will,” I said with feigned indignation. “Though I am happy you are not angry with me.”
“Oh, I am angry.” The flash in her eyes told me that. “I will be for a long while. But I realized, as Grenville and I rode from Gloucestershire, that you were powerless. Mr. Creasey was a terrible man, and the blame rests squarely upon him.”
“It does. I am appalled at Denis’s methods, but I am glad I will not have to deal with Creasey again.”
“Mr. Denis was correct that it was the only way. Killing him, I mean.” Donata shivered and laced her arms around me. “Let us return to Gloucestershire, and Anne, and forget all this.” She rested her head on my shoulder, and my heart warmed. “Where is Grenville, by the bye?”
“Having breakfast in the kitchen with Peter.”
“Grenville is all a gentleman should be.” Donata raised her head, her faraway smile one that would have made me mad with jealousy before I came to understand her. “He is a reason I turned my rage from you to Mr. Denis and Mr. Creasey. He put forth a logical argument that you were coerced by both gentlemen, even one that reached through my worst fears.”
“I owe him much, then,” I said.
“You can thank him when we are back in Gloucestershire. His house is quite cozy. We’ll leave tomorrow.”
The commanding woman had returned. “Will you give me time to find Eden again? I want to locate Warrilow’s killer, and I am certain Eden can tell me much more than he is saying.”
“Perhaps one more day,” Donata said. “I can do some shopping.”
She’d give me no more, I knew. I gathered her against me, my lips in her hair, and we rejoiced that Peter was safe and well.
I SLEPT A LONG TIME, all through the night and into the next morning. Peter was curled up on a cot at the foot of my bed, the boy worn out. I’d feared he’d have trouble sleeping or experience nightmares once he did, but Peter had dropped off quickly and was still asleep when I rose. I bade a footman watch over him while I went down to find a meal.
Grenville, who had accepted Donata’s invitation to be a guest here so he would not have to open his own house, had gone out, Barnstable informed me.
“Mr. Grenville slept only a little,” Barnstable said as he served me coffee and a light breakfast in the dining room. “He is a most energetic gentleman. He said he had things to see to this morning.”
I ate hungrily, agreeing with Barnstable. Grenville suffered only one malady, motion sickness, but he quickly recovered from it once he was on his feet again. I admired him for bringing Donata from Gloucestershire in one go. He must have been in a bad way on that journey.
I’d have little time in London, and I must make the most of it. I would find Eden and shake out of him what he was keeping from me. It might have nothing to do with Warrilow’s murder, but I had a feeling it had everything to do with it.
Now that the threat of Creasey had been removed—even if he’d survived the blast, he would not likely be in position to retaliate right away—I had time to think about Eden’s conundrum.
I called for pen and paper and listed out my thoughts as I ate.
My theory was that Warrilow knew about the smuggling—both the guns and Fitzgerald’s artworks. He was apt to dig into everyone’s business and upbraid them for it. I suspected he tried to blackmail both Laybourne and whoever had killed him. If Warrilow had been an upright man, he’d have gone straight to the Thames River Police or a magistrate or the customs men with his knowledge. Instead, he’d hidden the gun and admitted a late-night visitor to his rooms, getting himself murdered for his pains.
I had thought the carbine a key to the murder when Brewster found it, but there was another possibility. The gun had been in pieces, well hidden. The killer obviously hadn’t known it was under the floorboards, or he would have taken it away with him. In that case, perhaps Warrilow had been struck down because he’d known about the art.
I could imagine Fitzgerald, smiling and agreeable, calling on Warrilow, perhaps making an appointment to meet him that night. Warrilow would not be on his guard with Fitzgerald, as he sneered that he knew all about Fitzgerald’s smuggling. I could also imagine Fitzgerald, a large and strong man, silencing Warrilow with one blow of the washbasin’s heavy pitcher. There had been no blood on the pitcher that Mrs. Beadle had noticed, but perhaps he’d cleaned it and replaced it carefully before he’d gone.
Fitzgerald would have no need to search the room for the missing carbine, because he was only interested in smuggling his artworks. He’d have gone, dusting off his hands.
Why then, would he have killed Laybourne? I made another note.
For the same reason, I imagined. Perhaps Laybourne, while offloading his contraband weapons, had found Fitzgerald’s pieces. Laybourne had been waxing nostalgic about returning to the affluent spa town at the edge of the Dales. Had the threadbare man been paid handsomely by Fitzgerald to look the other way? And Fitzgerald, fearing Laybourne would not keep silent, killed him.