The Glass House

by Jennifer Ashley

  Louisa fingered her cloak. "You and Aloysius have forced me to choose, and I have chosen. I came here to tell you."

  My panic threatened to overwhelm me. "Damn it, Louisa, seeing you, our friendship, that is what makes me live from day to day."

  Her eyes blazed anew, ingots in the cold room. "Do not dare blackmail me with guilt, Gabriel. And do not dare fall into melancholia to sway me back to you. Next time I will not come running."

  It cost her to say those words. I saw that. But she had forced herself to say them. She was tired of me and my temper and my melancholia. She had finished with me.

  And I could not bear it. "Louisa, for God's sake. I'll lick his boots if you want me to. I'll attend Sunday dinner and raise a dozen toasts to him. I will do what you want."

  Louisa regarded me sadly, the heat gone. "It is too late. Let it be done with."

  "Give me a chance to put things right, or at least make them better for you."

  "No," she said. "This entire rift was my doing from the beginning. Mine. So I am putting it right. You and Aloysius will have to live with it." I must have looked as anguished as I felt, because Louisa's expression softened. "I do not mean that I will cut you forever. We may speak when we meet. But nothing deeper than that. I cannot pretend any longer."

  She turned away.

  "What do you mean?" I said. My throat ached. "What do you mean you cannot pretend? Cannot pretend that you care for me? Tell me plainly."

  Louisa was at the door, hand on the door handle. "Any words I tell you, you will twist. I will not let you."

  She opened the door. The voices of Mrs. Beltan's customers came to us, riding on a scent of warm yeast and baking bread.

  I could not call after her. I could not beg her to stay. I could only stand there, my hands curling and uncurling, while the woman I cared for most in the world walked out of my life.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Twelve

  I lost track of the time I sat in Mrs. Beltan's parlor after Louisa had gone. I'd sunk down onto the pillow-strewn couch where she'd sat, unable to move, unable to think. Time seemed to forget about me, and I forgot about it.

  I could not believe I had been such a fool about a woman I cared for--again. I had loved my wife, Carlotta, loved her to distraction. And yet, I'd been impatient with her, brushed her aside with brusque words or snapped rebukes. All the while I'd think that, later, I would make it up to her, that I loved Carlotta so much I could explain and ask for forgiveness. She would understand, I was certain.

  I could not see that all that time I had hurt Carlotta, hurt her deeply. And then, when later came, she'd been gone.

  I'd been furious with myself when I'd discovered that Carlotta had eloped with her lover, knowing I only had myself to blame. I'd sworn that if ever I had another chance at happiness, I would be the kindest, most patient man a woman could ever know. I had learned my lesson, I'd thought, a hard and painful one.

  And what had I done? Louisa had stood beside me through every one of my troubles--when Carlotta left me, when Brandon got us nearly thrown out of the Army, and now in London when our lives were so different. I owed Louisa my very life.

  And, so, to repay her, I'd hurt her. I'd let my feud with Brandon blind me to the fact that I'd abused my friendship with Louisa and profoundly distressed her.

  I sat still, angry with myself, and also angry with Louisa. Why had she not told me I'd upset her before this? Why had she not told me so that I might stop, might make amends before it was too late?

  The answer, of course, was that she had told me. Since our return to London, Louisa had tried time and again to make me reconcile with Colonel Brandon, to put the past behind us. And time and again, I had refused.

  I was a blind, bloody fool, and in that little parlor, warm from the baking ovens of Mrs. Beltan's shop, I faced that naked truth.

  I was still there when Bartholomew came to fetch me for the supper with Grenville and Lord Barbury. Bartholomew informed me worriedly that Grenville's carriage had called for me, and I'd be late if I did not leave.

  I did not much care anymore, but I sighed, got to my feet, and let Bartholomew lead me out.

  The world was still dripping and gray when I arrived in Mayfair and Grenville's. We supped again in his ostentatious dining room at a table meant for a dozen. This evening, only three of us sat here, Grenville at the head of the table, I to his left, and his guest, Lord Barbury, to his right.

  As I'd noted at the funeral, Barbury had aged since Grenville's soiree, his face thin and wan. He wore three rings, large and loose on his bony fingers.

  As I pretended to eat, I grew annoyed again at Louisa for choosing this of all evenings to tell me to go to the devil. Grenville's chef Anton was the finest cook in the land, but I could barely taste his food.

  I sat slightly removed from the luxury I'd been invited to partake in, attempting to keep my mind on the conversation. Grenville was talking to Barbury about inconsequential things, and it was damned hard to concentrate. Why could not Louisa have left the task for another day?

  I sipped from the heavy, cut-crystal glass and tried to pay attention. The table's centerpiece was a small, black stone obelisk, its base covered with Egyptian picture writing. I knew full well this had come straight from Egypt, not from a shop on the Strand that specialized in Egyptian-style objets d'art.

  I idly traced the hieroglyphs as he and Lord Barbury murmured about some scandal at White's. I wondered what the writing said. French and English scholars were busily working to translate it based on finds they had brought back from Napoleon's somewhat disastrous campaign in Egypt. They had already discovered that the little pictures were representations of sounds rather than actual pictures, a writing like Greek or Chinese. I wondered if those scholars, with their heads down in their texts, had even noticed that the war was over.

  I came out of my reverie to find the table being cleared of the final course, a chilled sorbet that I'd barely touched, and Grenville turning to our purpose.

  He bade me report on what I had found at The Glass House, and I roused myself enough to tell them of the attic room and my conversations with Kensington. I had given Lord Barbury his letters upon my arrival, plus the one that Peaches had begun to him. He'd looked at them with great sadness.

  When I finished, Barbury declared, "Kensington is a brute. He always has been."

  "He claimed that he brought about Mrs. Chapman's start on the stage," I said. "Can we assume that he was more than just her mentor?"

  Barbury shook his head. "She never explained about him fully. If you wish to ask me whether Kensington had ever been Peaches' lover, I do not know. She never told me. I suppose he must have been."

  "How did he react when she married Chapman?" I asked.

  Barbury studied his port. "He tried to stop her. God help me, so did I. I wanted to keep her to myself."

  "You could have married her," I said.

  Barbury looked up, flushed. "I know that. I did not for many reasons, none of which seem important now. Yes, I realize that if I had defied convention and married her, she would be alive today."

  He closed his mouth with a snap. I was angry enough to be pleased he felt remorse. I had become irritated with Lord Barbury when I'd stood in the room Peaches had inhabited. He'd had a treasure and not realized it. He'd had a chance to have what I'd thrown away, and he'd carelessly tossed it aside.

  "At the risk of being indelicate," Grenville said, "why did Mrs. Chapman continue to live with Kensington after she met you? Is it not usual to find a ladybird a house of her own?"

  Barbury nodded, not looking offended. "I did find her a house, but she told me she preferred living where she did, at The Glass House. I cannot imagine why."

  Because Peaches had not wanted to be caged, I realized. Like Marianne, who would rather live in poverty in the cheap rooms above a bakeshop than in a gilded cage provided by Lucius Grenville. Peaches must have had a freedom to come and go at The Glass House that she knew she'd not have w
ith Lord Barbury. I remembered thinking that the attic room had not felt like a prison; Peaches had stayed there by choice, and she'd kept the key herself.

  The fact of the key made me wonder anew about the relationship between Peaches and Mr. Kensington. Exactly who'd had a hold over whom?

  "I read the letter she wrote to you," I told Lord Barbury. "Mrs. Chapman sounded excited about deceiving her husband into thinking she would be in Sussex, but she did not elaborate upon the deception. Did she tell you her plans?"

  Barbury shook his head. "She sent me a message on Sunday, asking me to come to The Glass House. When I arrived, she told me that she'd tricked her husband into letting her leave for a fortnight. I was pleased. She begged for us to attend Inglethorpe's gathering the next day, but I said I could not." He drew a sharp breath. "I'd already set an appointment to meet Alvanley at White's to talk about a horse I wanted to buy from him. And then I planned to attend Mr. Grenville's soiree. I told her I'd meet her after that. I thought-- " Barbury broke off, pressing his hand to his eyes. "I thought we'd have plenty of time."

  Grenville tactfully sipped port, and I studied the hieroglyphs again.

  Once Barbary had recovered himself a bit, I asked him, "Did Mrs. Chapman speak of planning to meet anyone else for any reason that day? At The Glass House, or elsewhere?"

  Barbury shook his head again, his eyes moist. "No. She chattered on as usual but of nothing significant. She did not mention anyone else."

  I traced a hieroglyph that looked like a horned snake. "She wanted to go to Inglethorpe's, you say. Do you know why? Did she mention someone she wanted to speak to there?"

  "No. I tell you, she said nothing. She enjoyed Inglethorpe's laughing gas, that is all."

  "Did she ever speak much to, or about, the other gentlemen who went there?" I named the five who had attended Inglethorpe's gathering the same day I had. "Or Lady Breckenridge?"

  "Never. We kept ourselves to ourselves, Captain. Peaches found Lady Breckenridge rude and a bit stuck up. But she liked Inglethorpe. She talked to Inglethorpe, and she talked to me, and that was all."

  "You made an arrangement to meet at The Glass House after the soiree," I said, thinking it through. "Mrs. Chapman went to Inglethorpe's by herself then returned to The Glass House, alone, by all accounts, at sometime after four o'clock that day. She was heard arguing with Kensington--or at least he was shouting at her--then she departed by the back door, never to be seen again."

  "Lacey," Grenville said quietly. Barbury's throat worked as he studied his port.

  "I beg your pardon," I said to Barbury. "I am only trying to decide what happened."

  Lord Barbury looked up at me, a spark of anger in his eyes. "I know you must believe I killed her, Lacey. That I met her in my carriage near The Glass House and took her to the Temple Gardens to murder her. But I swear to you I did not. I would never have hurt her, gentlemen, never. I loved her dearly. She was my life."

  He bowed his head again. I wanted to question him further, but Grenville caught my eye and shook his head, and I fell silent.

  In my mood tonight, I squarely blamed Lord Barbury for Peaches' death, whether or not he had struck the fatal blow. He had treated her carelessly, and she had suffered for it. I knew, watching him, pale and wretched, that Barbury realized that truth as well.

  *** *** ***

  After Lord Barbury departed half an hour later, Grenville blew out his breath.

  "Poor devil," he said. "I am certain he did not do it, Lacey. Alvanley and several others put him at White's between three and six o'clock that day. He certainly was nowhere near The Glass House or Middle Temple."

  "I agree that he was at White's," I answered. "But powerful men can hire others to do work that would soil their hands. Remember Mr. Horne of Hanover Square."

  He grimaced. "Yes, he was sordid enough. I suppose your Thompson or Pomeroy are trying to discover whether Barbury or Chapman hired a man to kill her."

  "Thompson is thoughtful and thorough. If there is such a connection, I imagine he will find it, eventually." I drank some port and pushed the glass aside. "There is one more person I would like to speak to, who might have known Peaches. An independent witness, if you like."

  Grenville looked puzzled "I can think of no one. Whom do you mean?"

  "Marianne Simmons," I said.

  Color suffused his face. "I see."

  "Is she still in your house in Clarges Street? Or has she legged it?"

  Grenville's flush deepened. "Oh, she is still there. At least, as far as I know." He rotated his glass, catching candlelight in the tawny liquid.

  "Marianne has been on the stage ten years at least," I said. "She is bound to have known Peaches at one time or other. She might be able to tell me something about Peaches' past--who she knew, what her connections were. Something we might have overlooked."

  "Yes, I understand," Grenville said, his voice strained. "Very well, let us visit her. We will go on the moment if you like."

  I did like, and so we finished off our port and left the dining room.

  *** *** ***

  I ought to have known, of course, that Lucius Grenville could not simply shrug a greatcoat over his evening clothes and dash out to his carriage. The suit he wore was meant for dining indoors, and he had to redress to go out into the rain.

  I accompanied him upstairs, and he summoned his valet, Gautier, who began to dress him with exquisite care. As I watched Gautier help Grenville into a new frock coat, Bartholomew came looking for me. He handed me a folded and sealed letter.

  "Fellow delivered this for you."

  The paper was heavy, expensive, and had no writing on the outside. "Why was it brought it here?" I asked in surprise.

  "Don't know, sir. The fellow scarpered before I could find out."

  Grenville watched me in his cheval mirror, his arms stuck straight out while Gautier brushed off the coat. The mirror had one rectangular pane of glass that moved up and down with counterweights, depending on which part of himself Grenville wanted to view.

  I broke the seal and unfolded the paper. Something that had been inside it fluttered to the floor. I leaned down and picked up what had fallen, then stared at it, my fingers growing numb.

  I dragged my gaze back to the letter. Only one line was scratched across the page.

  "Damn," I said fiercely as I read it. I crumpled both papers in my fists. "Damn it all to hell."

  Grenville, Bartholomew, and Gautier stared at me in surprise.

  The paper that had fallen was my note of hand with the moneylender. It had been paid, all three hundred guineas of the debt cleared.

  On the other sheet had been written in careful script: "With the compliments of Mr. James Denis."

  *** *** ***

  Grenville tried to stop me racing away to confront Denis on the moment, but I would not be swayed.

  "Lacey," he said hurrying down the stairs after me. "You cannot burst into Denis' house and wave your fist under his nose."

  I did not care. James Denis had been playing a game with me for nearly a year now, devising tricks to draw me more and more under his obligation.

  He wanted to own me, he'd said, because he saw me as a threat to him. Denis had located Louisa when she'd gone missing, learned the whereabouts of my estranged wife, given me information that had helped me solve not one but two murders, and now had paid my creditors.

  Grenville at least persuaded me to let him accompany me, along with Bartholomew and Matthias. We rode in silence to number 45, Curzon Street, and I descended before Denis' tall, elegant house.

  I thought that Denis' minions would stop me at the door, but I was admitted at once. Grenville and his footmen, on the other hand, were told to wait. Grenville began to argue, while Bartholomew and Matthias bulked menacingly behind him.

  I left them to it and strode up the stairs after Denis' footman, who stood taller than Bartholomew and had a face like a pitted slab of granite.

  The footman did not take me to the study in which I
usually spoke to James Denis. He led me instead to a small, empty sitting room coldly furnished with blue and gold French chairs. The window was covered with heavy blue draperies that gave the room a somber air and cut out all noise from outside.

  The footman informed me he'd tell Denis I'd arrived. He smiled, showing me that his canine teeth had been filed to points. He looked like a coachman turned pugilist, which was no doubt exactly what he was. He left me alone.

  Although a small fire burned on the hearth, the room was chill. No paintings adorned the walls, which were covered in ivory silk fabric marked with fleur-de-lis. It was an elegant room in which no expense had been spared, but the effect was cold and unwelcoming.

  James Denis kept me waiting for the better part of an hour. I had no idea what had become of Grenville. He might have been thrown onto the pavement, for all I knew. The window in the little room faced a bare and dark garden to the rear of the house, so I did not even have the privilege of looking to see if Grenville's coach still waited for me.

  At long last, the large minion opened the door and told me to follow him. He led me, not to Denis' study, but to, of all places, the dining room.

  No meal had been laid here. The long Sheraton table was bare, and an unlit chandelier hung ponderously from the high ceiling. A few sconces twinkled between the long, green-draped windows, but again, the room gave the impression that a visitor was not to become too comfortable.

  I wondered what Denis' private rooms were like. Did he retain the cold elegance of the rest of the house or had he made them warm and personal?

  James Denis was seated at the end of the table with the firelight behind him. He was a youngish man, perhaps thirty, with dark hair and dark blue eyes. His face was not unattractive, though it was thin. He always dressed in well-cut clothing that was not too ostentatious, rather like Grenville, who kept a subdued wardrobe of obvious expense.

  Outwardly, Denis looked little different from any other gentleman of Mayfair--young, wealthy, fashionable. His eyes, however, told a different story. The cold in them ran deep, like a river beneath layers of ice. Whatever human warmth had ever dwelled in this man had long ago vanished.