Free A Regimental Murder by Ashley Gardner

Grenville had had no
trouble persuading the lady to allow him to bring me down with
him.
    I was not surprised. Any house party that
contained Grenville would likely be the most fashionable of the
summer. Other hostesses would gnash their teeth in envy. We would
leave on the morrow.
    I replied that I would gladly accompany him.
In happier times as a lad--which meant whenever my father was away
or I visited a mate from school--I had reveled in the country. I
remembered long, rambling walks through orchards and over gentle
hills, fishing barefoot in the streams between grassy banks,
following a buxom maid who would entice me with her smile before
her father ran me off with a stout plank.
    Retrospect made it more idyllic than it had
been, but even so, the English country evoked the happiest memories
of my life. I looked forward to sampling it again, even if I would
be cross-questioning two former army officers, and even if a buxom
maid's offerings would pale beside the cool, elegant beauty of
Lydia Westin.
    I also received a reply to the letter I'd
penned to Lady Aline Carrington. In it she told me that she knew
perfectly well where Louisa was, but had no intention of telling
me. She said that Louisa was fine and well and that I should leave
her the devil alone.
    I felt a little better upon reading this.
Lady Aline was a fifty-year-old spinster, a firm disciple of Mary
Wollstonecraft and who believed women should involve themselves in
politics and champion artists and writers. She had never married,
but she had many male friends--friends only; she preferred a good
gossip to any other activity. She had taken Louisa under her wing,
and I knew she would protect her like the fiercest mastiff. Though
it frustrated me not to know where Louisa was, at least I was
reassured that she was in no danger. If Lady Aline was looking
after her, all would be well. Probably.
    I wrote a polite note back thanking her then
wrote to Lydia, asking leave to call and look through her husband's
papers. She granted permission by return messenger. I gathered
shillings to pay for a hackney and set off for Grosvenor
Street.
    William the footman met me at the door.
Yesterday he'd watched me in cool suspicion; today, he readily
ushered me into the house and showed me into Colonel Westin's study
on the first floor.
    I did not see Lydia at all, to my
disappointment, but William gave me the keys to Colonel Westin's
desk and left me to it.
    I settled myself and for the next few hours
studied the recent life of Colonel Roehampton Westin. I learned two
things about him that day. First, the colonel had been a very
meticulous and careful man, noting in his diary the routines of a
cavalry officer, most of which were quite familiar to me. Second,
he had borne affection for his wife, but seemed to have regarded
her as a comfortable family partner, not as a lover. His letters
were warm, but never touched upon intimacy.
    He spoke only once of the Badajoz event.
    "I was sickened," he wrote, "as I have never
been before, even through the carnage I have seen since I began
soldiering. Spinnet was shot, poor fellow, in the face, by a
marauder in an English uniform. Breckenridge raised a toast to him,
which makes him a hypocrite; they had never liked one another."
    After Badajoz, Westin's mood became black,
and the letters for the remainder of 1812 were depressed. "I find
home and peace so far from me in these times. Why have I traded
walks through the dusk over the farms for this slaughter of men
like cattle?"
    He grew more hopeful later, as Wellesley and
the English army began to push the French from Spain, but his
letters still held formality: "Millar sends his respects. It is
hard for him, poor fellow, to be far from home--and he is French,
of course, which makes him the butt of many cruelties, though I try
to prevent them. You did right not to open the Berkshire house this
year. It is too much time and expense for only a few weeks. Give
dear Chloe my warmest regards and my