The Glass House

Chapter Eight

Inglethorpe lay spread-eagled on the gold and cream carpet of the reception room, the same small, uncomfortable room had housed me yesterday while I'd waited for the footman to admit me upstairs.

Inglethorpe's expression was one of astonishment. The dead man's face was chalk white face, a thick rivulet of dried blood creased his chin. He was naked from the waist up, his white skin stark against the carpet. Below the waist he wore tight black pantaloons that buttoned at his ankles, silk stockings, and pumps. His stomach showed that he had slightly gone to fat, and his chest muscles were limp.

The sword from my walking stick stuck straight out of Inglethorpe's chest, the blade surrounded by a circle of dried blood. The handle, which doubled as a hilt, shone faintly in the candlelight.

I turned to Pomeroy, dumbfounded. "When did this happen?"

"Just an hour gone, sir, since he was found. I was sent for right away and arrived not much before you did. Butler last saw him at two o'clock this afternoon, upstairs. At half past, butler glances into this room and sees that." He gestured to the corpse.

I looked into Pomeroy's ingenuous blue eyes. He liked to lay his hands on a culprit, and I had the feeling that he would not scruple to arrest even his former captain on the slim evidence of my sword in the wound.

"You a friend of Mr. Inglethorpe, Captain?" he asked me.

"No, I met him for the first time yesterday."

"Lent him your stick, did you?"

"I left it behind," I said in a hard voice. "I was returning to fetch it."

"Yesterday, while you were calling on Mr. Inglethorpe. He'd invited you?"

I eyed him narrowly. "Yes."

"Butler says, too, that you were here with a gathering of Mr. Inglethorpe's friends. Butler says he saw you come in with your walking stick, that very one that's stuck in his master."

"I did not stick it there, Sergeant."

Pomeroy shrugged. "Sometimes you get into a rare temper, sir. I have seen what you are like when you're enraged. Ready for murder, sir, you are."

"If I had been that angry at Inglethorpe, I would have challenged him," I said.

"Not necessarily. I've seen you draw a pistol on a cove, and I've seen you knock a chap down, easy as breathing. No mention of duels then. Dueling would be too good for them, you said."

I held onto my temper. "I was not angry with Inglethorpe, and I was not here today. I barely knew the man."

"That's as may be, sir. But that is your sticker. You weren't his friend, but you looked him up yesterday. Struck with fellow feeling, were you, sir?"

"Do not question me, Pomeroy. I do not like it."

"Just following orders, sir, same as always. You came here yesterday. I want to know why."

I observed the room, trying to shut out Pomeroy's prying questions. Little had changed from when I'd paced in here the day before, except that a neatly folded pile of clothing now lay on the chair. I unfolded and examined each piece-a frock coat, a waistcoat, shirt, collar, and cravat. Fine materials, fine tailoring. The cravat smelled of lavender oil.

"The dead man's," Pomeroy said. "So the butler says. Neither of us can decide why he was standing bare-breasted in his reception room."

"What do the servants say?" I asked.

"Very little, sir. Inglethorpe was right as rain all this morning, then he came in here and that was that."

"Inglethorpe must have entered this room for some reason. To greet a visitor, most likely."

"Servants didn't open the door to anyone all morning, they say."

That did not mean no one arrived. Gentlemen of Inglethorpe's wealth let their servants answer the front door, but that did not mean he could not have admitted someone himself. Perhaps Inglethorpe had spied the person arriving and hadn't wanted to wait for his butler to open the door.

The removed clothing suggested a romantic liaison-I could think of no other reason for Inglethorpe to so tamely remove his coat and shirt. The visitor, then, might have been a woman, although I remembered Grenville in the Rearing Pony, his mouth twisted in distaste, proclaiming, "I honestly do not believe Inglethorpe cares which way the wind blows." A woman or man, likely a man, from the strength of the blow.

I had left my walking stick in the sitting room upstairs. Had Inglethorpe found it? Brought it down here with him, where his killer had used it as a convenient weapon? Or had the murderer been a member of yesterday's gathering, taken my walking stick away with him, and returned with it this morning?

My heart went cold. Mrs. Danbury had been in the room when I'd gone off without my walking stick. I remembered her, flushed with the magic gas, staring at me in bewilderment as I hurried after Lady Breckenridge.

Lady Breckenridge had not taken the stick away with her; I would have seen it. That left Mrs. Danbury and the few gentlemen who'd still remained when I'd gone. I could not remember through the haze of the laughing gas which of the gentlemen still had been there, though Inglethorpe's servants would probably know.

I did not want to think of Mrs. Danbury returning this morning and stabbing Inglethorpe when he made advances upon her.

Common sense cut into this dire scene. Inglethorpe had removed and folded his clothes, not torn them off in a frenzy of passion. I doubted Mrs. Danbury would stand still and wait for him to undress before stabbing him in panic.

Also, I could see no reason for Mrs. Danbury to return to Inglethorpe's at all. If she had taken my walking stick, she could have had it delivered to my rooms or given it to Sir Gideon Derwent to give to me when I next visited him. Lady Breckenridge had said that Inglethorpe's gatherings were held on Mondays and Wednesdays only, and that Inglethorpe was most regular in his habits, which meant he would not have had a gathering today.

Why Mrs. Danbury had attended Inglethorpe's party the day before still puzzled me. She had not known how to breathe the air in the bag, which indicated she had not done it before. Had she, like Peaches, come to Inglethorpe's in search of a new sensation? Or out of curiosity? Or had she been Inglethorpe's friend, and he had invited her personally?

I felt cold again. She being a close friend of Inglethorpe brought me back to the possibility of her murdering him. I could imagine Inglethorpe eagerly hurrying to open the door for the pretty Mrs. Danbury without waiting for the servants. I certainly would have. I also would have been happy to pull her into the tiny reception room to speak with her alone. Perhaps Mrs. Danbury had come for a liaison with Inglethorpe, and they'd quarreled. No, I could not overlook the possibility that she had deliberately stabbed him.

I dropped the clothes back on the chair. Inglethorpe's death must be no coincidence-Peaches had come here the afternoon before she'd died. Had she told Inglethorpe something that the killer worried about? Had she been on her way to The Glass House to meet someone and had told Inglethorpe who? I'd planned to question Inglethorpe about Peaches yesterday, and of course had missed the opportunity through my own folly. I'd planned to ask him again today, and his death had put paid to that.

"Has Sir Montague Harris been informed?" I asked.

"Couldn't say, sir. I imagine he will be."

I walked out of the room with Pomeroy following. "Bloody hell, Sergeant," I said heavily.

"It's a nasty thing, sir, people sticking each other."

He sounded cheerful and confident. He'd never had a day of melancholia in his life.

"I did not kill this man, Pomeroy," I said. I took up my hat, clapped it back to my damp hair. "But I intend to find out who did."

"Probably in your best interest, sir."

"Thank you, Sergeant."

I strode out into the rain. Pomeroy said something jovial behind me, but I did not stop to respond.

I continued walking to Grosvenor Street, angry and worried, wondering what Inglethorpe had known-and what I had overlooked. I needed to know more about Inglethorpe's household and his friends, and I thought over ways in which I might find out.

When I reached Grenville's house, Matthias admitted me but told me his master was out. When I informed him and Bartholomew of the news of Inglethorpe, they both stared at me with stunned blue eyes.

"Lord, sir," Bartholomew breathed. "With your sticker?"

"Yes. It's a bother, that." I went over the plan I'd formed as I'd walked between Inglethorpe's and here. "Bartholomew, I'd like you and your brother to poke around Inglethorpe's a bit, get the servants to confide in you. Find out who was in Inglethorpe's house yesterday and this morning. Discover if any of the staff saw what became of my walking stick between the time I left it and the time it ended up in Inglethorpe's chest. I want to know any gossip about Mrs. Chapman-who she knew and what she did whenever she went to Inglethorpe's, how well she knew Inglethorpe, and what they talked about."

Bartholomew nodded, as did his brother. They'd both assisted me last year in the affair of Colonel Westin and looked eager to involve themselves in my adventures again.

Before I departed, I pulled out a bank draft I'd made to Grenville for three hundred guineas. "Give this to your master," I said to Matthias. "And do not let him tear it up or put it on the fire. He'll likely try."

Matthias raised his brows, mystified, but he took it and promised.

I returned to Grimpen Lane, impatient and depressed. Thompson was busily investigating Peaches' murder, of course, but everything was moving too slowly for me. I preferred the Army method of spotting the enemy and charging him, rather than the slow process of asking questions and piecing together what had happened, while the killer had the opportunity to flee. Or strike again.

Inglethorpe's death worried me greatly. Peaches's death had seemed almost simple; she had likely been killed by one of three men: her husband, Lord Barbury, or Kensington. Inglethorpe's death opened more possibilities. Any of the three men already mentioned might have stabbed him, or any of the gentlemen at the magic gas gathering might have, or Mrs. Danbury, or even Lady Breckenridge. While I had some difficulty picturing the ladylike Mrs. Danbury wielding a the sword, I had less difficulty picturing Lady Breckenridge doing so. Lady Breckenridge was a woman of determination, who'd viewed the death of her husband with relief, who retained her independence of thought in a world in which a woman was not encouraged to do so.

I remembered her lying against me, her head on my shoulder, how comfortable that had been. Had her motive been comfort, or duplicity? She had been kind to me last evening, in her own way, but I still did not trust her.

I tried to sit still and write everything out, but I was too moody to concentrate and pushed away the feeble notes I'd begun when Mrs. Beltan brought up my post.

One letter was from the Derwents, reminding me of my dinner with them Sunday next and assuring me that young Jean was doing well. She was an orphan, they said, and Lady Derwent was looking into what sort of employment for which she might be trained.

I was pleased that at least the little girl would do well out of this tragedy. I knew the Derwents would be diligent in looking after Jean and make certain she came to no harm.

My second letter set my teeth on edge. It was from my former colonel and invited me to dine at his Brook Street home that very night.

Last summer, Colonel Brandon had gotten himself caught up in one of my adventures and had acquitted himself well, helping me catch a killer. After that, he'd pretended to thaw toward me. All through the autumn, he'd invited me to his house to dine or for cards, to talk of our campaigns in Spain, Portugal, and India. He would drink plenty of port and pretend that the uglier incidents between us had never happened.

As autumn waned, however, the air between us became more and more strained, and we had returned to stiffness and veiled insults. By December, Brandon had had enough of me. He'd taken Louisa with him to a shooting party in the north, without sending me his good-byes.

Now this invitation. I did not doubt it had something to do with the fact that I'd become involved with yet another Bow Street problem. Brandon still regarded me as his junior officer, the man he'd made.

But I was no longer his man. I was on half-pay, semi-retired. I could perhaps get myself transferred to another regiment, if another captain were ready for half-pay or wanted my place in the Thirty-Fifth Light Dragoons. But the long war was over, I had little to offer another regiment, and there were plenty of half-pay captains wandering about at loose ends. Also, cavalry nowadays was used to put down riots, a practice I disliked. Firing at enemy soldiers doing their best to kill me in battle was one thing, firing at women and children, no matter how unruly they might be, was something else.

Additionally, the regimental commander of the Thirty-Fifth Light had made it plain to Brandon and me on that last day in Spain that we had better take our feud away from the Army. I could have brought charges against Brandon for what he had done, but I had not wanted his wife to face that shame. Our commander had snarled at Brandon and me as though we'd been recalcitrant schoolboys and called us a disgrace to the regiment. Brandon had taken the reprimand hard.

So here we were in London, both of us fish out of water. We were alternately painfully polite and boiling furious with each other. Louisa bore the brunt of it. She tried her best to heal the breach, because she blamed herself for the breach in the first place.

I could have told her that the rift would have come anyway. Though I'd much admired Brandon when I was younger, we no longer saw eye to eye. On the night when Brandon had made clear his intention to divorce Louisa, the break had come with a vengeance.

With all this in mind, I descended at the Brandons' Brook Street house at eight o'clock that night, on time. My breath fogged white in the January air, and the cobbles were slick.

Brandon was in full lecturing mode. The death of Simon Inglethorpe, via my sword-stick, was already the talk of Mayfair. As the footman served the meal, Brandon related how he'd been accosted at his club today by men asking him what had his captain got up to now? Louisa said nothing, keeping her golden head bent while she toyed with a thin bracelet on her wrist.

I explained the Inglethorpe business over the stuffed pheasant, mushroom fricassee, onion soup, and sole. Brandon glowered his disapproval when I talked of the magic gas and leaving Inglethorpe's so abruptly. He berated me for my carelessness in leaving behind the walking stick, clearly blaming me for Inglethorpe's murder.

He'd dropped all pretense of civility and this autumn's strained politeness. Brandon's blue eyes glittered with suppressed anger, and after the footmen had cleared the last plates, he abruptly told Louisa that he wished to speak to me alone.

Louisa, who had been uncharacteristically silent throughout the meal, rose obediently. But her eyes, too, sparkled with anger. I stood when she did, and she came to me and kissed my cheek. Brandon's sharp gaze remained on me until Louisa said a quiet goodnight and left the room.

"Good God, Lacey," he said the instant the door had closed. "I have been hearing the most sordid stories about you."

His color was high, his eyes fiery. Brandon had always been a very handsome man, tall and broad-shouldered, with crisp black hair and cold blue eyes, his face still square and strong.

"It is damned embarrassing," he went on, "to be approached at my club every day with some new tale of your exploits."

"Stay home, then," I said, my own anger rising.

"The latest offense I cannot even mention before my wife. I have heard gossip that you disported yourself wildly in a bawdy house, broke the furniture, and ran off with one of the women. For God's sake, Gabriel, what were you thinking?"

"Gossip has it wrong," I said in clipped tones.

"How can you deny you were there? People saw you. They told me that even Mr. Grenville was shocked at your behavior."

"I was at The Glass House, yes."

"The Glass House." Brandon spat the name. "That you were even in such a place speaks ill of you."

"Have you been there?"

He looked outraged. "Of course not."

I believed him. Brandon was stiffly moral. "It is a place in which fine gentlemen think nothing of raping a twelve-year-old girl," I said. "She was the lady with whom I fled into the night. I took her away from that place and to the Derwents to care for her. I regret I had time to break only one of the windows."

The tale of my heroics did not soften him. "Why the devil did you go to such a place at all?"

"Because a woman might have died there," I said.

His eyes narrowed. "The woman from the river?"

"Yes."

Brandon frowned. I could tell he did not like the brutal murder any more than I did, but he merely gave me another look of disapproval. "You involve yourself unnecessarily."

I knew that. I always had. Even in the Army, a puzzle or incongruity could intrigue me, even if it were none of my business. Maybe if I'd been a happy man with wife and children to take up my time, I'd have been less interfering.

"If you had seen the dead woman, you would understand," I said. "I want to find the man who did that to her."

"That is Bow Street's business," Brandon snapped. "Let your sergeant investigate crime, and keep your hands out of it."

"Had I kept my hands out of it, a twelve-year-old girl would be raped again tonight."

He gave me a dark look. "You are evading the question."

"I no longer need to report to you, sir. We are civilians now. What I do is not your business."

"It is my business when your name and mine, not to mention the name of my wife, are spoken together. I do not blame gentlemen for cutting you. If not for Louisa, I would do the same."

I rose, my temper fragmenting. "Do not stand on ceremony. I would be most relieved not to have to sit through these tedious nights while we pretend to be friends."

Brandon sprang up as well. "Don't you dare turn on me, Lacey. I took you in when you were nothing. You would have had no career and no standing but for me."

He was right, and I knew it. It angered me that Brandon still had the ability to hurt me. "You are correct, sir. Had I not followed you, I would be buried in Norfolk, poor as dirt with a wife and children to support. Now I am poor as dirt in London, and all alone. I suppose I do have you to thank."

"Go to hell."

"Gladly, if there I do not have to watch you pretend to forgive me."

His eyes flashed. "I've done with forgiving you, Gabriel. I have tried and tried and you've spit in my face every time. By rights I should have shot you for what you did."

"Instead, you sent me to die as David did Uriah."

It was a mean shot, but my accusation was true. Brandon had sent me off with false orders straight into a pocket of French soldiers. I had survived afterward only by crawling away across country, alone. Half-alive, I had at last been found by a Spanish woman named Olietta, who'd eked out a living on her tiny farm after her husband had been killed in the war. I murdered the French deserter who had more or less held her hostage, and she nursed me through the worst of my nightmare pain. At last, at my insistence, she'd dragged me back to the Thirty-Fifth on a makeshift litter, with the help of her six- and eight-year-old sons.

Later I'd regretted the decision to return at all. I might have stayed with Olietta, hidden away in the woods, while Wellesley and the English Army pushed on to France and left Spain and me behind. Brandon and Louisa and everyone else had thought me dead. Why should I not have simply remained so?

But I had been too damned anxious to return, too anxious to let everyone know I was alive. And when I'd got back, I'd learned that Brandon would have been quite happy to think me dead.

"Was I not justified?" Brandon snarled.

This was the first time he'd ever admitted, out loud, his guilt in the matter.

We were fighting about Louisa, of course. When Brandon had declared he would divorce Louisa, she had come to me. On a wild and rainy night she'd fled to my tent, seeking comfort. Brandon had forgiven Louisa, but never me. No matter that he claimed he'd repeatedly offered forgiveness, he never truly had. He hated me now, and all the pretense in the world would not change that.

"No," I said. "You were not justified. I wake up every morning knowing that."

Brandon rarely let his rage show naked in his eyes, but he did so now. I thought he was going to come for me, but suddenly Louisa was there, between us, having stormed into the room while Brandon and I were busy shouting at each other.

I looked down at her, swallowing my anger and what I'd meant to say to Brandon. Olietta had been dark, with deep brown eyes and brown skin. Louisa's hair was as bright as the Spanish sun.

"Stop this," Louisa snapped. "Gabriel, go home."

I controlled my response voice with effort. "Your husband is displeased with me yet again. It is a wonder he let me into the house at all."

Louisa's eyes flashed. "Blast you, Gabriel, why can you not simply bow your head? Is your neck so stiff with pride?"

Her anger stung me. It was like a whiplash, to feel that anger. Her husband could hurt me, but Louisa could hurt me ten times as much.

"I cannot," I said to her, "because his idiocy hurts you."

Brandon raged. "How dare you speak so in my own house! Do you try to turn my wife from me before my eyes?"

I was so tired of these rows with Brandon, tired of Louisa looking at me with hurt in her eyes. The three of us could not occupy the same room without the old accusations, old anger, old sorrow bubbling to the surface.

I made a frosty bow. "I beg your pardon, Louisa. I will go. Thank you for the meal."

Louisa merely looked at me, angry, unhappy, unable to answer. I walked out of the room, my heart sore.

At the door, I looked back. Brandon and Louisa watched me, like two statues frozen in anger. We had been bound to each for many years, but the love and friendship we had once shared had dwindled to this. We were forever hurting one another, forever regretting. We would continue to do so, I realized, until we learned to let go. And I knew that day would be long in coming.

I left the Brandon house for the icy night, swearing under my breath. Brandon could wind me into anger faster than any man alive, and it always took me a good while to cool down.

I knew bloody well that Brandon would never be able to provoke such anger if I hadn't once loved him. He'd been good to me when I'd needed his help, and he'd used his influence to benefit me many times.

I had not realized at the time that in return he'd wanted unconditional love and unquestioning obedience. And I had ever been one to question my betters.

A boy darted into the street, sweeping horse dung from the cobbles, clearing a path for me. I tossed him a penny for his trouble as I made my way across the slick street.

I was not far from Grosvenor Square, and I walked there, making for the home of Sir Gideon Derwent. It would the height of rudeness to arrive without invitation, but I was restless and annoyed and very much wanted to ask Mrs. Danbury a few questions. I could not tamely return home and brood; I wanted to push on with the investigation, to do something.

I regretted my impulse, however, because when I arrived at the Derwent house, I learned that Lady Derwent had taken ill.