“Can you?” I asked as Brandon sipped his coffee. “Louisa has only finished convincing me he would never stoop to such a thing.”
Brandon shot us both a dark look. “He was always a charmer, was Eden. A good man in a fight. But I noticed he never did anything that did not benefit himself in some way. Saved men in battle—then earned a medal, a promotion, more pay. Volunteered to join the regiment in Antigua, then left when drilling for nothing became dull. I correspond with the colonel in charge there, and he was disappointed in Eden. Eden found nothing in peace for heroics, so he bought a plantation and rescued the slaves working there. But if Eden was so adamant about saving the enslaved, he could work to ban slavery altogether, as others have done. But he does not. When he could not make a fortune in the islands, he came home—obviously. Perhaps he discovered the gun smuggling along the way and decided it was dangerous enough to interest him.”
“That is possible,” I had to acknowledge. Eden had always enjoyed charging into bad situations. I noted that when I’d first gone to see Creasey, Eden had immediately leapt in beside me to face him.
However, he’d vanished for my second encounter with Creasey, and I still did not know why.
“The murders were rather cold-blooded,” I said. “Not like Eden at all.”
“Were they?” Brandon asked. “Or were they the result of quarrels? A man refusing to … what? Give Eden his share?”
“Or, he was crusadingagainstthem,” I said slowly. “Stopping the smugglers the most daring way he knew how—by confronting and killing them. Though I still believe Warrilow was a blackmailer, not a smuggler. He seemed to pride himself discovering the faults in others.”
“Ibelieve you both cast Major Eden in the wrong role,” Louisa said. “I knew him as well, remember. If he wished to crusade, he’d have talked you into joining him, Gabriel. You also see yourself as a champion of the weak. I simply do not think Miles Eden has it in him to smuggle weapons and murder others to keep them quiet about it.”
Brandon remained unconvinced, and I reluctantly admitted I shared his skepticism.
“I will have to find Eden,” I said. “And persuade him to tell me what he is up to.”
“Please leave him unscathed,” Louisa said. “You were once very good friends, and he might be innocent of all this.”
“I will be most happy if he is.”
Louisa frowned at me, then she deliberately turned the topic to innocuous things—my upcoming journey to Oxfordshire and the subsequent one to Gloucestershire. Brandon expressed interest in Grenville’s horses, speculating he’d have the best on the field. Which brought the conversation back around to his new hunter.
As we conversed, I recalled long evenings in the Brandons’ tent in Portugal and Spain, when we’d recount the happenings of the day and speak of what we’d do in the faraway time after we’d retired. We’d been excellent friends, inseparable and devoted. It had been unthinkable that I’d have any time in my life when I’d not be with Louisa and Colonel Brandon, laughing and sharing troubles. They were the pair who’d helped me find an escape from my miserable upbringing, taught me to discover my talents, stood by me when I’d lost my wife and daughter.
Then Brandon had destroyed our complacent happiness with his jealousy and rage, and I’d destroyed it with my temper and frustration.
Much had happened since the day he’d sent me out to die and I’d returned to spite him. I believe now Brandon had been much relieved to see me, or at least had come to regret those rash orders.
We’d recovered our friendship somewhat, but as we chatted in Louisa’s warm chamber, I knew the tension hadn’t quite eased. Beneath our conviviality was a strain that might always have been there, though I’d been too absorbed in my own troubles when younger to notice it.
I had a feeling that tension always would be present, though I was glad that we could at least chat about inconsequential events and part cordially when the coffee was finished.
I’D HADno word from Eden, I discovered when I returned home. I took a small meal in the dining room, hungry after my truncated breakfast, trying to ignore the chaos into which the house was erupting.
We were vacating for several months tomorrow, possibly until after New Year’s. Boxes, bags, crates, and baskets had sprung up in the halls and on the stairs, with servants dashing up and down to make certain we left nothing behind.
I had once expressed amusement at this procedure, as we usually traveled to furnished homes, such as Donata’s father’s, where they had plenty of bedding and foodstuffs. This had received disparagement from everyone from my wife to the boot boy. His little lordship and his mother could not travel like rustics with all their worldly goods in a small pack.
I’d decided not to explain thatIcould, but bowed out and left them to it.
Once Brewster had taken some food and ale in the kitchen, I resumed my quest. A footman began hammering a crate closed, the thunderous banging following me out the door.
Another hackney took us back to St. James’s, but Eden had not returned. I chewed my lip, not happy with his absence. If Eden had nothing to do with the smuggling or the killings, then the true murderer might regard him as a threat who knew too much. That person had not shied from murdering the sickly Laybourne.
“Lambeth,” I told the coachman. “A parish church near the Archbishop’s Palace.”
The driver stared down at me. Between his high hat and scarf over his face to keep out the rain, I saw only glittering dark eyes in a belligerent gaze.
“That’s not an address, guv,” he barked.
“Try St. Mary’s,” Brewster, a child of South London, said behind me. “Near Bedlam.”
CHAPTER 19
The driver shook his head at the follies of gentlemen who wanted to go anywhere close to Bethlehem Hospital, but he waited for us to climb aboard, and we started off.
