The Glass House (13 page)

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.