Brewster understood, and gave me a nod. “Ah. Wise of you, guv.”
* * *
Upon our return,I was pleased to find that Donata had not gone out on calls but sat in her boudoir, writing letters.
She looked up from the writing table when I entered, hesitant but no longer unwelcoming. I kissed her cheek then drew a chair next to hers and told her about the inquest and what Mrs. Morgan and then Captain Wilks had revealed.
“Are you certain Mrs. Gibbons was the woman in the cloak?” Donata asked once I’d finished. She toyed with the end of her pen. “Why would she lureyouto commit the deed for her? That would be most ungrateful of her, after you helped her in Spain. You paid her passage home, did you not?”
“Yes, but perhaps Marguerite did not mean for Isherwood to be killed. Perhaps she only wanted to hurt him or scare him, but killed him accidentally and fled. Or maybe I took Isherwood’s sword from him and ran him through in a rage.” I let out a sigh. “I simply don’t know.”
Donata regarded me with a keen eye. “You are a strong man, Gabriel, but Colonel Isherwood was hardly in a decline. Quite a robust gentleman. I am surprised anyone in his regiment believes that he took ill in the night and simply died. He was in the pink of health.”
“He lived in a private house on the Royal Crescent, not the barracks. How could the regiment know what truly happens there?”
“Major Forbes knows,” she reminded me. “It is only a matter of time before a man like that shouts the information from the rooftops. If he realized you were discovered by Isherwood’s body, you’d even now be in some filthy jail.”
“I quite agree,” I said, despondent. “The man loathes me. Isherwood was a god to him. Could do no wrong, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.”
“But perhaps the two had a falling out, and Major Forbesdidkill Isherwood, or at least arranged for you to be found over his body.”
“I’ve considered that. I doubt Forbes would be satisfied to have me found as the murderer—Forbes would kill me himself and claim he had been defending Isherwood. He’d be glad of the excuse to rid himself of me.” I shook my head. “Everything at the moment points to Marguerite.”
My wife sent me an impatient look. “I know you are determined that Mrs. Gibbons was the woman in the cloak, and she somehow convinced you to help kill her former husband. But consider how well acquainted I am with you. Mrs. Gibbons cannot be the only woman in all of England who would seek you out and ask for your aid on a dark night. I can name any number.”
I flushed. “Who happen to be in Brighton? Connected with Isherwood, who was stabbed to death that very night?”
“The cloaked woman might have absolutely nothing to do with Isherwood. The woman might not have sent the note at all, but you chanced to encounter her when you charged out of the pub, and the publican’s boy only assumed she’d summoned you.”
“Now you are introducing too many possibilities,” I said in exasperation.
“Because therearemany possibilities. The message said you should go outside and meet someone. No indication who, not even whether it was a man or woman. Printed, not written, so you could not judge whether it was a woman’s writing or a man’s, or whether you’d seen the writing before. A cloaked woman appears, or as Brewster pointed out, perhaps a man hiding in a large cloak. The publican’s son didn’t see this person well in the dark. Or he or she might have simply been asking you for the time or the direction to the Old Ship.”
“Unlikely …”
“I am only listing alternative explanations, so you will cease fixing on one. We will discover whether it was Marguerite Gibbons and why she wished to see you, if so, when we ask her.”
“I called at their lodgings on my way home,” I said. “She and her husband were not there.”
Donata widened her eyes. “Fancy that. In Brighton, by the sea, on a fair day. How very strange that they went out. If they’d packed their bags and fled, the landlady would have told you.”
“Unless they left their bags behind.”
“You do enjoy making difficulties. You left word that they should call, and if they have nothing to hide, they will.”
I regarded her a moment. “I would have thought you’d have leapt at the chance to pin all these troubles on Mrs. Gibbons.”
“Like a jealous harridan?” Donata gave me a pitying smile. “I admit, Iamjealous of her, but only because she had you at a time when I was so miserable. While you celebrated your victory at Salamanca, Breckenridge returned to London. To see his son, he told me, but he spent his entire month of leave trying to make me admit Peter was not his. Bloody man. He certainly would not take me at my word, and I grew terrified of being in the same room with him. Do you know what it is like to hope your husband never returns from battle?” Donata dropped her pen onto the desk and shivered. “But you once told me that Breckenridge had ways of making certain he was nowhere near the bullets, so that hope was in vain.”
I reached to her and cupped her cheek, trying to still her agitation. I wanted to apologize for some reason, to tell her I’d have shot Breckenridge myself if I could have.
Donata’s voice quieted. “You did not know me then, nor did I know you existed. Had I known about you, and what would happen between us … it might have been easier to bear. Even if you were with another at the time.”
“I hate the man every time I hear about him,” I said, my dark anger stirring.
“I hated living with him. Poor naive girl that I was, I could not discern a good man from a bad before it was too late.” Donata put her hand on mine. “Youare one of the good ones.”
“Am I?” I withdrew from her touch. “Then why would I have been so glad to murder Breckenridge for you? It makes me believe I could have killed Isherwood for Marguerite.”
