Free A Body in Berkeley Square by Ashley Gardner

its
secret drawers. He'd made me try to discover the drawers myself,
while he'd hovered gleefully at my side, watching.
    I had found two, but he'd showed me four
others that I'd missed.
    I lifted the small drawers out of the middle
of Brandon's desk and felt the recesses behind them for catches. I
found one rather easily, which extruded a drawer from the left side
of the desk. Rather obvious, I thought. Many desks had such
drawers.
    I found no letters in the drawer, only a
stray button. Perhaps Brandon had no use for secret drawers, and
perhaps he'd simply burned Mrs. Harper's letters.
    I found a second secret drawer that again had
nothing inside it. I searched for the catches that Grenville's desk
had, but either I missed them entirely, or the designer of this
desk had given up after he'd created two.
    I slid the main drawers back in place and was
about to shut the first secret drawer, when I noticed that its
bottom did not fit correctly. I picked up the button and found that
its shank just fit into the slight gap. I worked the button back
and forth, and suddenly, the entire bottom of the drawer lifted
away.
    Three letters lay inside it.
    I lifted unfolded each of them. Written in a
woman's hand, they were signed Imogene Harper .
    The letters were not dated, but I made sense
of the timing as I read them. The first was hesitant, as though
Mrs. Harper had been timid about contacting Brandon after so many
years.
    I learned your direction from Colonel
Singleton, whom my husband also knew during the Peninsular
campaign, and I make so bold to write to you. Perhaps I am the last
woman on earth from whom you wish to receive correspondence, but I
find it necessary. If you would speak to me, I will be riding in
Hyde Park at five o'clock on Wednesday next. I will wait near
Grosvenor Gate for you to come. I have need to see you, my dear A.
Please come.
    She'd signed without any closure.
    The second letter opened with relief. How
glad I was to see you! You are a gentleman of honor, and I have
always known you to be. To see you riding to me, as tall and strong
and handsome as you were four years ago, brought pleasure to my
heart. I did not know how much I longed to see you again until that
moment. The friendship we shared returned to me, with a warmth I
will never forget. I hope that when we meet again on Saturday, I
will have good news for you. Until then, God bless you..
    The tone of the third letter was quite
different. My dear A. What shall you do? You refer to your wife,
but shall I suffer alone? If I must pay, then you must. We are both
guilty, and I cannot take the blame alone. He said he would be at
the Gillises' ball on Saturday night, and that he would ensure that
you were invited--with your wife. I have played upon my connections
of friendship and wheedled an invitation for myself from Lady
Gillis. We will meet there and decide what to do. He must not
reveal all. And if he does, he will reveal your sins as well as
mine. You know this. You must come.
    This letter was signed simply, Imogene.
    Who was he? Henry Turner? Had he
threatened to reveal Mrs. Harper's affair with Brandon? In any
event, Brandon had betrayed his guilt at the Gillises' ball; he'd
not needed Turner to do it for him.
    The letters read very much like those of a
woman wanting to rekindle an affair, then growing angry when
Brandon indicated he did not want the relationship to resume. The
threat in the last letter was blatant. Mrs. Harper refused to face
Turner alone. If she were to be exposed, she would expose Brandon
as well.
    Had Mrs. Harper killed Turner before he could
go through with the blackmail? Mrs. Harper had gone into the
anteroom and found Turner's body. She'd gotten blood on her glove,
and according to Grenville, it was a minute or two before she
screamed. Time for her to snatch up the knife--which Brandon might
have left for her--stab him, then rush out and begin her fit. Her
horror at the blood on her glove had no doubt been real.
    Was it that