The Glass House

Chapter Thirteen

I met Grenville at the front door, where he had been barred from further entrance to the house. Once in the carriage, I apprised him in clipped sentences of what had occurred between Denis and me upstairs.

"So there exists a person who worries James Denis?" Grenville asked. "Good God. That is a bit unsettling."

"He seems confident that I can help depose her. Though I am not fool enough to trust everything he told me."

"No, of course not. But he claims to know nothing of Peaches?"

"Nothing whatever. He seemed a bit surprised that I asked."

Grenville fell silent, his dark eyes troubled. He believed I should tread more carefully where James Denis was concerned, and he was right, but Denis infuriated me. He wielded power over too many, and no one seemed disposed to stop him.

We proceeded to Clarges Street, as planned, to interview Marianne. Grenville's house there, round the corner from Piccadilly, looked much as I expected. Narrower than its fellows, the house had a facade of gray plaster with white pediments over the door and windows, and was one of the most elegant on the street.

The interior exuded the same quiet elegance. A polished staircase spilled into a tiled hall, and doors led to high-ceilinged, well-furnished rooms. The foyer smelled of beeswax and linseed oil.

A maid in neat black and white bustled to meet us and curtseyed to me and Grenville. Grenville divested himself of his greatcoat and hat and gave them to the stolid lad who had opened the door for us. "Where is Miss Simmons?" he asked.

The maid hesitated. She glanced at the footman who returned the uneasy glance. "We are not certain, sir," the maid said.

"Not certain? What do you mean, not certain? Is she not in the house?"

"She has not gone out, sir, no. Dickon is positive about that. He has not moved from the front door since early this afternoon, and she had dinner in her room after that."

"She might have gone down through the kitchens," I said.

"No, indeed, sir. She never came through that way. Cook has been down there all the day. We've been watching special."

"Well, she cannot have vanished," Grenville snapped. "She had dinner in her room, you say?"

"Yes, sir. At seven o'clock. I went to put her to bed not an hour ago, but I could not find her. She's not in her bed chamber nor in any of the other rooms."

"Hell," Grenville began.

I cut him off. "Will you allow me to try?"

The boy and the maid stared at me. Grenville's eyes narrowed. "If you believe it will do any good. She has done this before. Damned if I know where she disappeared to."

I was not listening. I moved past them to the stairs, cupped my hands around my mouth, and bellowed, "Marianne!"

My voice echoed up through intricate arches of the stairwell and rang against the painted ceiling, four stories above us. After a moment's silence, a door slammed open near the top of the house, and we heard the sound of light footfalls.

Marianne looked over the railing on the top floor, her golden curls tumbling forward like a girl's. "Is that you, Lacey?"

"What the devil are you doing up there?" Grenville demanded.

Marianne ignored him. "What do you want, Lacey? Have you come to take me home?"

"No, I came to ask you a question."

Marianne's hand tightened on the banister, but she nodded. "Very well. Come up to my chamber."

Grenville started up the stairs. Marianne backed away from the banister, poised to flee. "No. Captain Lacey only."

"This is my house!"

"Lacey alone. Or you can search for me all you like."

I had never seen Grenville so enraged. He rarely let his temper get the better of him, especially not in front of his servants. Now his face was nearly purple, and cords of his throat pressed his cravat.

"Grenville," I said quickly. "Please allow me. I need her help."

Grenville's eyes sparkled with rage. At that moment, I believe he hated me.

But Grenville had spent a lifetime mastering his emotions. His position as the top gentleman of society depended upon him keeping a cool head in every situation. I watched him deliberately suppress his anger, drawing on his sangfroid. His color faded and the alarming throbbing in his neck subsided.

"As you wish," he said stiffly.

He turned and stalked through double doors into the grand drawing room. He even managed not to slam the door.

I ascended the stairs. Marianne came down to meet me on the second-floor landing then led me to a chamber at the back of the house.

It was her boudoir. A sumptuous bed, Egyptian style with a rolled head and foot, reposed under a lavish canopy. Comfortable chairs in the same style stood about, and a bookcase with glass doors offered a fine selection of books. Landscapes of idyllic country scenes hung on the walls, and a dressing table piled with perfume bottles and brushes and combs stood near the warmth of the fire.

Marianne wore a silk peignoir, fastened in front with dark blue ribbons, a finer garment than any I'd ever seen her in. But her face was white, and her hands shook.

"Lacey," she said, her voice low and fierce. "You must make him see reason."

"Why? What has Grenville done?"

"He has made me his prisoner, that is what he has done! He will not let me go out unless Dickon or Alicia stay close by my side. They are dull company, I must say. And I may go only to places he allows me to go."

I sat down without invitation, easing my hurt leg. "Perhaps he does not want you running off to another protector."

"Why the devil should I? There's not a gentleman in London who can give girl a finer house and better dinner than Lucius Grenville, and everyone knows it."

"Then what is the matter?"

She pointed a rigid finger at the door. "What is the matter is him. He will not cease bombarding me with questions. He wants to know why I want to go out and where I want to go and why the devil I want to go alone. It is my business, I say."

"He has made a considerable investment in you, Marianne."

"Lacey, you must take me out of here. Ma Beltan's place is at least respectable, and a girl can feel like she owns her own soul."

The blue ribbons trembled. Her eyes were wide, pleading.

"I would have thought you'd like living in luxury," I said. "This house is one of the finest I've ever seen, and he's showered you with whatever you could want."

"He has." She looked angry to admit it. "He has given me plenty of gifts. But he dogs my footsteps. I cannot bear it."

"You puzzle me, Marianne. I had it in my mind that you liked Grenville's attentions."

A flush stole over her cheeks. "I do."

"Then why not stay and enjoy what he gives you? You have always encouraged me to get as much out of him as I could."

"Because I- " Marianne stopped. I saw her rearrange her words. "I cannot be his prisoner. No matter how gilded the cage."

"Who is it you want to leave the house to visit?"

Her flush returned. "No one."

"Grenville deserves to know whether you have another lover. Or a husband."

She gave me a scornful look. "Do not be daft, Lacey. I would not let a husband live off me even if I had one. Or a lover."

"Then what did you do with Grenville's money?"

Marianne chewed on her lower lip. The previous year, Grenville had made her spontaneous presents amounting to thirty guineas in total, a goodly sum. The money had disappeared with no explanation.

"I told you before," she said. "I gave it to my sick granny."

"No, you said it was your sick mum. What happens to the money, Marianne?"

"Are you spying for him now?"

"No." I stopped before I lost my temper. "Anything you tell me, I will not impart to him, unless you give me leave."

"Oh, yes, I forgot, you pride yourself on your honor. But I will say again, it is none of your business. And none of his, either. The money was mine to do with what I liked, so I did what I liked. I did not give it to another man. I am not that foolish."

I regarded her quietly. "What do you fear he will do if you tell him the truth?"

She shrugged, but her gaze was uneasy. "Who knows? Even you do not know what he can do, do you? As much as he is your friend, you do not really know him."

I had to concede this truth. Grenville was a powerful man, and if he chose to patronize me, or Marianne, he did so for his own reasons.

"I will speak to him," I said.

"Tell him he has no right to keep me here, locked away. That I-"

I held up my hand. "I said I would speak to him. You might try being kinder to him, Marianne. I know from experience that you are a trial to live with."

She made a face at me, but she relaxed somewhat. "I do not live with him; he barely comes to see me. He has never even asked for what a gent usually asks for. I don't understand why not."

I had no wish to involve myself in that particular problem. "What you mean is, you cannot tease him like you do the others. You cannot control him."

She lifted her chin. "Well, I will not allow him to control me."

"That, you will have to fight out between yourselves," I said. "I will ask him to consider giving you a bit more freedom. I agree, you cannot give up your entire life for a few frou-frous."

She smiled, her beauty shining through. "You are a true gentleman, Lacey. I have always said so."

"Yes, when you are not calling me other names. But enough, I did not come here to argue with you about Grenville. I came to ask you a question."

"What sort of question?"

"I want to know whether you ever knew an actress called Peaches."

Marianne laughed suddenly, then spun around and plopped ungracefully on the chaise longue. "Even I have heard of you running about smashing windows at The Glass House. Be careful somebody does not bring suit against you, Lacey."

I rested my hands on the top of Grenville's walking stick. "They would get little from me in any case."

She quirked a brow. "So you want to know all about poor dead Peaches, do you? I never liked her, but it's sad that she came to such an end."

"You did know her then."

"Oh, yes, a long time ago, when she was fresh from the country. She was certain she'd take the public by storm." She grinned. "So many girls are like that, you know, certain they'll become the next Sarah Siddons. Peaches was no different. She'd come from a family of strolling players. Her father and mother had died of fever a few years before, and she decided London was the place to make her fortune. Her idea-she told me this, the silly chit-was that she'd appear on the stage in London, be raved over, and attract the attention of a man of great fortune who would marry her." Marianne shook her head. "The truth was, Peaches was a second-rate actress and the people of London didn't pay her much attention. Once the novelty of her wore off, she was more or less ignored."

I could imagine a very young Peaches watching, frustrated, as the premier roles and the accolades went to others, while she was lost in the crowd. I remembered the newspaper articles she'd saved. They had mentioned her in passing if at all-usually, her name was printed only as part of the supporting cast.

"But she met Lord Barbury," I said.

"Yes, Barbury, the poor fool. She quite threw herself at him. She did have a sweet smile and a pretty face, but most gentlemen simply wanted a night with her. She'd refuse them-saving herself for something better, she'd say. The result was that the gentlemen began to ignore her, as well."

"Except Lord Barbury."

Marianne rolled her eyes. "Barbury was besotted. He was the one who gave her the name Peaches. She was certain he would marry her, but Peaches was always a bit blind. Barbury was in love with her, yes, but he had no intention of taking a nobody actress to wife. He's the kind who, if he marries at all, will find the perfect society lady who knows how to give hunt balls and run fetes and put blue-blooded heirs in the nursery. Rather full of himself is Lord Barbury. Peaches was too. Imagine, she had her own man of business."

"Did she? What for?"

"I haven't the faintest idea. Like as not, she made it up, or the man handled simply her parents' will, or something."

"Did she mention his name?"

Marianne shook her head. "If she did, I do not remember. She probably invented him, as I say. She was prone to inventing things about herself, to make her seem better than she was. Poor thing, she did not have much."

"And so she decided to marry Chapman."

Marianne wrapped a strand of her long hair around her finger. "She began working for another acting company just before she met Chapman, and after that I did not see much of her. But rumor had it that Peaches had met Chapman by chance while walking in Hyde Park. Two months later, they'd married. She probably knew by then she would never be anything more to Lord Barbury than his mistress. Chapman at least made a living, even if he wasn't lofty."

"Yet, she went back to Lord Barbury after she married."

Marianne snorted. "Of course she did. Once she had Chapman for security, why not run back to a rich, handsome lord was madly in love with her?"

"I've been wondering why she married Chapman at all," I said. "Lord Barbury gave her money and gifts and loved her desperately. She seemed equally besotted with him. Surely she was happy, even without marriage."

Marianne gave me a dark look. "You are a man, Lacey. You cannot even begin to understand. A gentleman who is not your husband can be wild about you one day, weary of you the next. And, once he is weary.." She opened her hand, as though dropping something to the carpet. "If the lady has saved no money, if he takes back everything he has given her, she is destitute, her character ruined. Marriage is much safer by far for a woman, even if it is not the happiest state."

"I have not noticed you pursuing it," I said.

Marianne gave me a smile. "I prefer scraping a living for myself to being a man's slave, no matter that the law says he has to take care of me. I've seen far too many wives beaten regularly by their husbands to want that."

I had too, unfortunately. "Peaches was willing to risk it."

"Peaches was always starry-eyed, and not very intelligent. She thought marriage would fulfill her dreams, even if she had to settle for much less than she'd hoped."

And marriage had not saved her from being brutally murdered. Neither Chapman nor Lord Barbury had been able to prevent that.

"What about Mr. Kensington?" I asked. "Did you know him?"

Marianne wrinkled her nose. "Nasty little chap. I still see him at the theatre now and again. How and where Peaches met him, I do not know. He hung on Peaches, acted as though he'd cling to her skirts and be taken to riches with her. She despised him, but he looked after her, and he introduced her to Lord Barbury. In return, she paid him."

I wondered what other hold Kensington had had over her. Not every odious connection is easy to break, especially if one person has an emotional tether to the other.

I also wondered about the man of business Marianne had mentioned. I'd found no letters to or from such a person in Peaches' rooms. The man of business might be a thing of the past, but he was worth pointing out to Sir Montague or Thompson.

Marianne smiled again. "You are always stirring up trouble, Lacey. It is a bad habit of yours, that."

"I agree," I said. "I would like nothing more than a holiday from it."

"You would not know what to do with yourself if you did. But I will give you this advice for nothing. I hear you stayed a night in the house of Lady Breckenridge. Have a care of her, Lacey. She can be a viper."

My face grew warm. "You are well informed for a lady being kept prisoner."

She shot me a pitying look. "I hear things, Lacey. I also hear that she can be rather ruthless."

"Do not worry about me. I do not imagine she has any interest in me whatsoever."

"You would be wrong, Lacey. But have a care. You are lonely. When one is lonely, one does foolish things."

We looked at each other. I wondered how many foolish things Marianne had done and how many more I would do.

I thanked her for her information and asked her to inform me if she thought of anything else. I took my leave, admonishing Marianne once again to try to be kinder to Grenville. She made a face at me.

As I departed, I heard Marianne close the boudoir door behind me and the click of the key as she locked it. I sighed. She and Grenville would have a long battle ahead.

Grenville was still furious with me when we retreated to the carriage, though he strove to mask it. He looked, if anything, embarrassed. Grenville, I had come to learn, was not a man who shared himself lightly. He valued his privacy above all else.

Nonetheless, I decided to approach the matter head-on and told him, rather bluntly, that if he did not let Marianne off the tether, she would snap it altogether.

He grew offended, of course. But at last, as we approached Haymarket on the way to Covent Garden, he heaved an exasperated sigh. "Blast it, Lacey, look what she has reduced me to."

"It is your business," I said, "and I will stay out of it. But my warning is fair. If you do not trust her, she will never trust you."

Grenville didn't answer. He looked away for a time, studying the passersby as we bumped slowly toward Covent Garden.

"Tell me what you learned from her, at least," he said after a time. "Unless you discussed only me."

"Not at all. She proved to be most helpful." To cover the awkwardness between us, I related to him everything Marianne had told me about Peaches. By the time I'd finished, Grenville had softened at bit.

"The poor woman," he said. "She probably would have done a great deal better remaining a strolling player in the country. Married some actor chap and had a passel of children who'd tread the boards as soon as they could walk."

Thus spoke a romantic-a man who would never know what it meant to be cold and hungry and not know whether the next town would provide enough money for food or shelter for the night.

"By the by," Grenville said. "What do you intend to do for the rest of the winter, once this problem is cleared up, I mean?"

"Do?" I raised my brows. "What I always do."

Which was damn little. Thanks to Grenville, I had his library available to me, and reading through the winter months kept me occupied at least. I had the Derwents to visit once a fortnight, an event I always looked forward to. Grenville would likely invite me to dine or to his club or to Tattersall's every once in a while. At least I now had things to occupy my time and keep my melancholia at bay.

Grenville studied me. "You know, Lacey, you do not need to live alone. I have an enormous house. I will give you rooms of your own, and you can pay me rent to soothe your pride. We can be two lonely bachelors together."

I looked at him in surprise. "You enjoy taking in strays, do you? First Marianne, then me."

"Touche, Lacey."

"I could not pay you the worth of the lodgings, and you know it."

He gave me a critical look. "You know, Lacey, your difficulty is that you spent most of your life with overwhelming tasks to undertake. Push back the Tippu Sultan in Mysore, push back Boney in Spain. Now, nothing so dire engages your attention. I have had this in mind for several weeks, and in fact, it was the news I wished to tell you at my soiree before you interrupted me to tell me you had found a ring on a poor dead young woman."

He stopped as though assessing my mood, and I gestured for him to continue. "What?"

"I have an old school friend in Berkshire, a widower and a gentleman of means, now head of the Sudbury School there. He is in need of a secretary. I saw him at Christmas, and he asked me in passing whether I knew of any gentleman he could take on. I thought at once of you. How about it, Lacey? Live in Berkshire and write letters for a dull headmaster? Hot meals by night and a servant to light your fire in the mornings?"

I sat still for a moment. Grenville was offering me what I wanted, a way to earn a living, a way to leave London and its smoke and grime and loneliness. Perhaps a way in which I could leave behind my melancholia and uncertainty, perhaps again find my own respect.

I wondered what Louisa would think of the offer. She would doubtless encourage me to take it. If I were out of London, she would no longer have to watch me bait her husband.

"It was good of you to think of me," I said.

"Not at all. It seemed the perfect solution."

"I might well be interested," I said. "I will think on it. Thank you."

Grenville nodded and we ended the discussion.

His coach dropped Bartholomew and myself at home then clopped away into the night. I went to bed, sending Bartholomew up to the attics to do the same. The next morning, Bartholomew fetched a newspaper for me as well as bread and coffee from Mrs. Beltan's shop.

I ate bread and leafed through the newspaper, and then I stopped, my blood freezing.

On the second page, in the middle of the column was a notice that a member of the peerage, Lord Barbury, a baron, had been found outside his house the night before, shot through the head, a pistol clasped in his hand.