The Fire in the Glass

by Jacquelyn Benson

  “I will instruct Simon to receive you and to answer any questions you wish to put to him.”

  “He won’t do it,” Lily blurted, surprised into honesty by his announcement.

  “Yes,” the Earl of Torrington replied. “He will.”

  There was no threat in his tone, no anger, but it carried with it a weight of iron, something that reminded Lily that this man routinely bent the most powerful names in the realm to his will.

  He turned from the photograph.

  “I have taken up enough of your morning. I apologize again for disturbing you unannounced. If there is anything more I can do to aid your efforts, please inform me.”

  “Should I write through your solicitors?”

  The retort slipped out before she could stop it, laced with bitterness. It galled her, as she would far rather have kept that emotion hidden. Bitterness implied hurt. Hurt implied that he still retained some capacity to wound her.

  He stopped, his hand brushing the wool of his coat where it hung on the stand.

  She sat frozen in her chair, waiting for his response, wondering what form it would take. Courteous indifference, perhaps? Or would she finally have broken through his calm to unleash some ill-will or resentment?

  His hand withdrew, falling back to his side. Something came into his posture, a weight she had not seen there before. It made him look more the age she knew he must be, the lines seeming to deepen on his face.

  “I wish you knew . . .” he said, his voice rough with something that sounded very like grief.

  He went no further. He stood lost on her threshold as the clock continued to tick on the mantle.

  The words struck her, leaving a terribly vulnerable opening in her carefully-wrought defenses.

  I wish you knew . . .

  She remained silent, holding herself forcefully still.

  He straightened, repairing himself, the decades of aristocratic training coming back into his bearing.

  He turned back to her and bowed.

  “I apologize for disturbing your morning.”

  She remained perched on the unforgiving cushion of her terrible chair long after the sound of his footsteps had finished echoing down the stairwell.

  THIRTEEN

  LILY WOKE TO THE sound of the clock in the parlor chiming three.

  Three in the morning? She wondered why she was awake. The weight in her bones told her she was still exhausted.

  She rolled over to go back to sleep, her face settling into a pile of orange fur.

  Lily sneezed and pushed herself up out of Cat, who opened a single green eye to glare at her before settling back into a fat feline puddle.

  The sun was filtering in through her bedroom window. It was not three in the morning. It was three in the afternoon.

  Which afternoon?

  Memory flooded back to her. She was wearing her chemise, lying on top of the blankets. She had been too tired to change or bathe, managing only to strip off her filthy clothes and toss them onto the floor before collapsing into bed.

  That had been after her father left.

  Her father.

  I wish you knew . . .

  She needed to focus. She had to consider what came next. Lord Deveral—Torrington had said he would admit her next time she called and answer any questions she asked.

  She could imagine how happily her half-brother would comply.

  Her best hope of moderating his viciousness lay in having respectable company with her when she called.

  Lily could think of only one such person who would be willing to join her on the errand.

  Strangford had demonstrated his level of commitment to their cause clearly enough last night.

  He had been so uncomfortably quiet as they left Abney Park.

  It felt like a scene out of a dream—the midnight graveyard, white tombs rising up out of the tangled darkness, the dead woman in her coffin. It had smelled worse than any dream had a right to.

  Lily sniffed. It still smelled.

  What she truly needed was a proper bath—the enameled tub filled all the way to the top with steaming hot water in which she would soak until someone booted her out.

  It was already three o’clock in the afternoon. If she was to take advantage of her father’s intervention with Lord Deveral, she had better do it sooner than later, when her half-brother might have mustered the courage to turn her away and damn the consequences.

  An hour later, after an unsatisfactory wash at her basin, Lily was ensconced in another hackney, rattling toward Bayswater.

  She gazed out the soot-fogged window at the elegant townhouses. The white Georgian facades looked the same. They were all unremarkably fine, accented with perfectly trimmed bay laurel hedges and washed granite stairs.

  The carriage stopped to wait for a turn to pass a newsman’s wagon. Lily spotted a cast iron pug crouching incongruously on the steps of one of the houses just ahead of them. It was an absurd piece of decor, quite out of place in the midst of all that clean-swept, fresh-painted respectability.

  The carriage stopped directly opposite the fat metal animal, the driver informing her they had reached their destination.

  Strangford had mentioned a sister, she recalled, one who possessed a sense of humor whimsical enough to result in a gelding named Beatrice. She sensed the woman’s influence. It at least reassured her that she might very well be at the correct address.

  She climbed out.

  “Shall I hold for you, miss?”

  She hesitated. Perhaps Strangford’s silence the night before hadn’t been the lingering after-effect of a nightmarish experience. It was possible he had withdrawn because of a new resentment toward the woman who had suggested the business in the first place. If the latter, her call here today might be much briefer than planned.

  She would chance it. There were other cabs in Bayswater.

  “That won’t be necessary, thank you.” She paid the fare and the hackney departed.

  She contemplated the steps. The pug looked back at her, iron tongue lolling stupidly out of its mouth. It was singularly unhelpful.

  Lily mounted the stairs and knocked briskly at the door.

  She heard the sound of footsteps, then a pause. Quick, whispering voices filtered through to her.

  Nothing happened.

  Lily waited. Uncertainty rapidly replaced by irritation, she knocked again.

  After another rush of whispers—which now sounded more distinctly like an argument—the door opened.

  A young man in footman’s livery stood in front of her. Lily guessed he was about eighteen, with dark hair and freckles and a touch more softness about the middle than most footmen she had seen. The ton tended to like them trim and pretty.

  “Yes?” he asked. Lily’s ear picked up a hint of country in his accent.

  Behind him, a housemaid of about the same age darted her head out of one of the rooms lining the hall.

  “Miss Lily Albright for Lord Strangford.”

  He looked at her without answering. He glanced back at the maid, clearly uncertain how to proceed.

  It would not surprise Lily to learn that Strangford received few callers, but his footman should still have had some notion of how to handle an unannounced guest at the door.

  Something was off.

  It was not simply that Strangford was out or unavailable. There were simple procedures for handling that. Even a boy fresh from the country would have learned them quickly enough upon taking up his position in the household. The confusion she sensed here went beyond that. It was clearly shared by the housemaid, who ought not to have even been within view of a guest.

  The scowling girl made an urgent gesture then disappeared into the bowels of the house. The footman awkwardly cleared his throat.

  “I’m afraid that his lordship is . . . er . . . not receiving.”

  He glanced back over his shoulder nervously.

  “I see,” Lily replied evenly.

  “Would you care to leave a card?” he asked
, as though just remembering the more basic aspects of his duty.

  “I do not have one with me. If you would let him know that I called?”

  “Oh! Yes. Most certainly. Just as soon as . . .” He trailed off, at a loss for how to continue. “As soon as he asks. Who has called,” he finally finished, lamely.

  He looked back down the hallway again.

  “I see. Thank you.”

  She turned and began walking down the steps.

  The door slammed shut behind her before she had even reached the pavement.

  She was so startled by it, she turned back to look. It was as though the footman had flung the thing closed and run from the threat that Lily posed.

  What would make a casual caller such a terrifying prospect?

  Only a situation so unusual a footman’s training didn’t even begin to touch upon it.

  An empty hackney clattered down the lane. Lily did not hail it. Instead, she walked to the end of the street, turned the corner, and stepped into the mews that lead to the carriage houses behind the grand buildings.

  She picked her way around a pile of horse droppings. They were fresh and the mews were otherwise clear of them. In posh Bayswater, even the alleys were routinely swept.

  She counted the gates as she passed, then stopped when she reached the one which led into Strangford’s garden.

  A pair of stablemen called to each other from somewhere nearby.

  Lily tried the door. The latch did not budge.

  The gate looked as though it had not been maintained in some time, the iron of the hinges rusting, the boards gray and weathered.

  She heard a door close at the far end of the narrow way, followed by the clatter of carriage wheels.

  There was only a moment to make her decision.

  If her instinct was right and there was something amiss in Strangford’s house—well, it was likely related to their visit to Abney Park last night.

  That meant Lily might very well be responsible.

  She felt the conflict of it pull at her, that sharp feeling of unease fighting against the utter impropriety of the act she was considering.

  She remembered the moment the watchman had moved past them, the long minutes where she had deserted Strangford in Sylvia Durst’s grave.

  A healthy dose of guilt settled the matter.

  She leaned her walking stick against the brick wall, lifted up the purple skirts of her afternoon dress and kicked sharply at the door with her good leg.

  It popped open with a crack.

  The remains of the latch hung from the frame, bits of rotted wood still clinging to the exposed ends of the screws that had held it in place.

  Lily stepped inside, closing it behind her.

  She stood next to a carriage house and stable, clearly unused. A tall yew hedge blocked her view of the house.

  She followed the narrow path around it and entered the garden. It was little more than a square of lawn framed by tall brick walls covered in ivy. A riot of untrimmed shrubs and perennial beds would lend color in the summer, but the space looked brown and leafless now, bedded down for winter.

  A white wrought-iron table stood on the flagstone patio, along with two chairs. It was the sort of spot she could imagine a gentleman sitting with his lady wife on a warmer day, enjoying breakfast al-fresco.

  One of the chairs was crossed with a large cobweb.

  She walked across the dying grass toward the house. There was little point in trying to appear inconspicuous when clad in eggplant-hued satin.

  The windows of the first floor were just low enough for her to see over the ledge. She peered into the room on the left. It was a dining room. The maid stepped inside and Lily slipped out of her view.

  She moved to the room on the right. There was a bit of frost on the windowpane. Lily rubbed it away to look inside.

  It was a gentleman’s study. Through the fogged glass she could make out the dark expanse of a bookshelf, the uncluttered surface of a desk. Bolder splashes of color were visible on the wall. Her attention was quickly drawn to the fireplace, where she could see that someone sat in one of the two chairs that faced the cold hearth.

  He was so still, she nearly overlooked him.

  Lily moved to the other window for a better angle.

  Strangford was a mess.

  He slumped in the chair, still wearing the clothes he’d had on in the cemetery. They were stained with filth. His coat and neckcloth were gone, his shirt open at the throat. He still wore his boots, which were caked with grave dirt. She could see the trail of mud they had left on the floor—one trail, leading from the door to the chair and nowhere else.

  He was not asleep. He stared into the cold ashes of the fire, eyes darkly ringed with exhaustion.

  She heard the sound of a door closing, voices speaking somewhere deeper in the house. Seizing the moment before she could think better of the idea, she strode to the back door and tried the knob.

  It opened. She let herself in.

  The hall was sparely furnished. A carpet ran along the floor, tending towards threadbare. The paper on the walls had likely been the height of fashion seventy or so years ago, but was now faded. The dated furnishings were still well-polished and a spray of fresh flowers brightened the entryway.

  She heard a creak of footsteps on the stairs and quickly slipped through the door into the study.

  The sight of the room stopped her in her tracks.

  It was not simply some glorified gentleman’s smoking room. It was a gallery. Art covered the walls from waist-level all the way to the high ceiling. These were not the dull scenes and portraits one might expect in a typical aristocratic home. The paintings were remarkable, canvases splashed with vibrant colors, conflagrations of brilliant line and shape.

  Mordecai Roth’s assessment of Strangford’s taste in art had not been exaggerated.

  They called for Lily to delve into them, to explore Strangford’s unique selections with rapt attention, but this was not the time.

  She closed the door quietly behind her. It clicked softly.

  Strangford spoke from the chair, his back to her.

  “I told you not to disturb me.”

  The words were ground out with uncharacteristic sharpness.

  “If you did, I’m afraid I missed your message.”

  He didn’t rise.

  “Miss Albright.”

  “My lord.”

  She came into the room, moving around the chair to face him.

  He looked worse up close. His skin was pale, drained like that of a man in the midst of a long illness. He was sweating despite the chill of the room. She could see the damp of it on his brow and around his neck. He didn’t meet her eyes.

  “I am discomposed. Roderick should have said . . . I am not receiving visitors.”

  “He did. I broke in.”

  His response came slowly, the words seeming to move through mud.

  “Am I in need of a new window?”

  His slow-motion attempt at humor gave her a palpable flutter of relief, which in itself revealed how concerned she was about his current state.

  “Perhaps a replacement latch,” she replied. She knelt down before him, forcing him to meet her eyes. “Tell me what is wrong.”

  “I feel unwell. I would prefer to do so in private.”

  “You’re ill?”

  “I am trying to ask you to leave.”

  Lily stood. She studied him, her gaze moving over the earth staining his sleeves, the pallor of his skin.

  This wasn’t some sudden fever. Something else was the matter, something far more serious.

  A piece fell into place—his hands, clenching the arms of the chair, fingers digging into the wood.

  They were bare.

  She wasn’t family. She could barely call herself a friend. He had asked her to go and every social rule said she should respect that—that she never should have come inside in the first place.

  Well, she and social norms had never had more than a pa
ssing acquaintance.

  There was danger here. She could feel it.

  “Perhaps I should go,” she agreed. “Perhaps I should proceed directly to Bedford Square, where I should inform Mr. Ash and Sam Wu and Cairncross and Dr. Gardner and anyone else within earshot that you are sitting here in front of a cold fire in clothes covered in grave dirt. Which is exactly what I will do if you do not tell me precisely what is the matter.”

  He laid his head back, closing his eyes. She could see the pulse throbbing at his throat and felt a stab of deeper alarm. It was too fast, too shallow. She wondered for a moment if this standoff was only a waste of time better spent running for a physician.

  “The reading stuck.”

  The room was silent save for the regular ticking of the clock in the corner, the muffled hum of the city outside the walls.

  “Last night’s reading?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he confirmed with some effort.

  Lily sank into the chair across from him.

  She thought back to the carriage ride when he had first told her of his power.

  There are occasional anomalies . . .

  “Tell me what that means.”

  His hands clenched against the arms of the chair.

  “I’m still there.”

  “Still where?”

  “With Sylvia Durst.”

  The implication came clear with a wave of horror.

  Strangford’s reading of Sylvia Durst’s corpse had not ended in Abney Park. Somehow, he had become trapped in it—trapped inside the experience of a dead woman rotting in the ground.

  She remembered the sensations he had described as he crouched in the grave—the suffocating darkness, the rot and the cold.

  He had told her before that his readings weren’t just observations, something happening at a safe distance. They were completely immersive, enveloping every sense—his taste, his touch.

  He had spent the last several hours buried alive in someone else’s corpse.

  “It’s been like this since last night?”

  He nodded. She could see the tension in his jaw, his shoulders.

  “Why didn’t it stop when you let go of her?”

  “It’s like that. Sometimes.”

  “It’s happened before?”