Read Online A Body in Berkeley Square by Ashley Gardner - Free Book Online Page A

might
have done. The murderer could have quarreled with Turner, noticed
the knife, and in a fit of pique, snatched it up and driven it into
Turner's chest.
    "Louisa, your husband is being stubbornly
cryptic, but I will discover the truth," I said. "I will bring him
back to you. I promise you that."
    Louisa released my hands and walked away from
me, her eyes bleak. "Gabriel, have I been deceived all my life? I
stuck by him through thick and thin. Through everything he did.
Even after . . . When he came looking for me in your tent that
night, I went back to him. He tried his best to harm you over that
incident, and even then I stood by him."
    I remembered. Colonel Brandon had decided one
day soon after Vitoria that he no longer wanted a wife who could
not give him children. He'd told Louisa he would find some way to
annul the marriage so that they could be parted without scandal.
Then he'd left camp for who knew where.
    Louisa, her world crumbling around her, had
fled to my tent and told me the entire tale. I'd been furious at
Brandon and tried to comfort Louisa the best I could. Brandon had
returned the next morning to find Louisa sitting on my lap in a
camp chair, her head on my shoulder.
    He'd assumed the worst.
    Not long later, Brandon had sent me out with
false orders into a pocket of French soldiers, who had caught and
tortured me. I'd managed to escape and survive with the help of a
Spanish farmer's widow, who'd dragged me the long way back to
camp.
    I remembered lying on the bunk of the
surgeon's tent, hideous pain leaking through the haze of laudanum,
my body sweating with fever and infection. When Louisa had come and
discovered what Brandon had done, she'd shouted at him long and
hard. I had lain in my stupor and laughed.
    "I recall that you told him quite firmly what
you thought of him when you found out what he'd done to me," I
said.
    "Oh, yes, I was furious. You might have died
because of him. I could have left Aloysius, then. I should
have."
    "There was not much you could do, Louisa."
When a woman left her husband, she could only return to her family
or elope with another man--one was a recipe for shame, the other,
complete ruin.
    "I know. But I remained his wife, in all
ways. I wanted to prove, I suppose, that I had not betrayed him. I
saw the good in him, still. I loved him." Louisa lifted her arms in
a limp gesture. "This is my reward."
    "And it is decidedly odd," I said. "I am not
saying that your husband is guiltless in the matter of Mrs. Harper,
but the situation seems wrong somehow. I would think that if
Brandon were pursuing another woman, he would not be so bloody
obvious. He prides himself on being the perfect gentleman, the
perfect husband, the perfect officer."
    Louisa gave me a tired look. "Well, he isn't,
is he?"
    "But would he let the world see that? There
is something very wrong, Louisa. Can you tell me nothing more of
this Imogene Harper?"
    "No, I cannot. When I dared ask him, Aloysius
grew angry and told me to mind my own damned business. In those
words. He has never been that harsh to me."
    "No, he usually saves that for me. I ask your
leave, Louisa, to go through his desk and his papers. I want to
read what Mrs. Harper wrote, if he has not destroyed the letters.
She is key to this murder; perhaps she even killed Turner
herself."
    "She never went into that anteroom. At least,
not until she found Mr. Turner. Believe me, Lacey, I had my eye on
her. The only time she disappeared from view was when she went into
private corners with my husband." She trailed off bitterly.
    "And I am going to find out why she did," I
said.
    Louisa stood rigidly, her face gray, her eyes
holding exhaustion. "I have resigned myself to the fact that
Aloysius was having an affair with her. You do not have to try to
prove that he was not."
    I went silent a moment, then I said, "Do you
know, I believe I am the only person in London not happy to believe
in Brandon's guilt."
    Her eyes flashed. " Happy? Do you
believe I am happy