The Glass House (21 page)

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.