The Glass House

by Jennifer Ashley

  I did not see Lord Barbury among them. Perhaps he truly was beside himself with grief, as both Grenville and Lady Breckenridge had indicated, and home.

  I wondered why this house had such an unsavory reputation. I saw nothing that I would not find in any gaming hell in St. James's, although perhaps the ladies enticing gentlemen to play cards here were a bit cleaner. Gentlemen regularly brought their mistresses to the hells, and the mistresses gambled as avidly as the gentlemen.

  "It seems rather ordinary to me," I said to Grenville in a low voice. "Why would Peaches want to come here?"

  "If she did like to come here, it does not say much for her character," Grenville said darkly. "Come, I will show you."

  I followed him to the first heavy curtain, which lay beyond the card players, who took no notice of us. Grenville raised the velvet drape. The window looked into a small lighted room, cluttered with chairs and sofas and tables arranged in no pattern I could discern. Other than the furniture, the room was empty.

  "Nothing there," Grenville said, and moved to the next window.

  Behind that curtain we found gentlemen gathered around a hazard table while a lady dressed in a corset, knee-length skirt, and riding boots retrieved the thrown dice and handed it back to the caster. Her face dripped perspiration, and the muscles of her shoulders played as she reached for the dice.

  Grenville dropped that curtain. "There is also a room for faro," he remarked, "and other more chancy games."

  "So, it is a gaming hell."

  "Somewhat." Grenville raised the next curtain. "They also have opium, if you like, and of course, this."

  He gestured to the window. The room beyond was small, and only a chaise longue and a chair reposed in it. A lady lounged in a bored manner on the chaise, an open book on her lap. She wore a wig of bright red curls, and had a pointed, but pretty face. "You choose your vice behind the glass," Grenville said, "then give the house master your bid. You may buy only one vice per night, so choose well."

  I didn't yet see the attraction. "Why not simply go to the usual gaming rooms? You can find hazard and willing ladies there."

  "Not ladies such as these," Grenville said, nodding at the reclining woman. "They are courtesans who once enticed Napoleon and the king of Prussia and the Austrian emperor. They are the highest of the high."

  "And Peaches was a second-rate actress. Why should she want to come here with such ladies present? Why should she want Lord Barbury here?"

  "I have no idea. Barbury told me that the proprietor provided them a private room. He and Peaches never came down to the windowed rooms. It is certainly a house her husband could never enter."

  "Hmm," I answered, not satisfied.

  Surely Lord Barbury could have found a better place in which to meet his ladybird. I knew that if I'd had a pretty young lady with whom I kept company, I'd want a cozy, private place to be with her, not a room in this rather seedy hell. But then, Peaches had craved excitement. Perhaps she'd not been satisfied with an ordinary nest.

  "The Glass House is a novelty," Grenville said, dropping the curtain. "It will wane, as all novelties do. For now, it is a place to see and be seen. Because I have come tonight, it will experience a new surge of popularity."

  He spoke in a matter-of-fact voice, without a trace of pomposity. But he was correct. Any place Grenville visited instantly became the height of fashion.

  Grenville lifted the drape of the next window to find the blank back of another drape behind it. He released it at once. When I looked a question, he said, "When a room has been taken by a patron, the curtains inside may be closed, or left open, as the buyer dictates. Some like to be watched."

  I frowned my distaste. We moved down the walls and looked into other rooms.

  Grenville hadn't exaggerated. Every vice was available. Some of the things I saw fueled my growing rage. I would be certain to mention this house to a reformer I knew; that is, if I did not begin breaking the windows myself.

  "Have you found something to your liking, gentlemen?"

  A small, plump man with a sharp nose and round brown eyes looked up at us, a salesman's smile on his face. His nose bore a scar from a long-gone boil, but his suit was fine and well tailored.

  Grenville regarded him with a look I’d come to recognize as true disdain. Grenville sometimes feigned the look for the benefit of his audience, but he genuinely disliked this man, whoever he was.

  The man's dark eyes glittered with a cold light even as he fawned at us. "My name is Kensington. Emile Kensington." He held out a hand.

  His palm was warm and dry, though his handshake was a bit limp. "Room number five is quite intriguing," he said.

  I expected Grenville to say something, to go along with our pretense. Instead, Grenville stared at the man with cold annoyance. He was angry, as angry as I was, but I needed to keep to my purpose.

  "I am interested in a woman called Peaches," I said.

  The man jumped. I swore I saw his feet leave the ground. He pondered his answer then fixed on a simple truth. "She is not here."

  "I know that," I said. "She died two days ago."

  Kensington's mouth dropped open. For a moment, pure astonishment crossed his face, then his glittering stare returned. "Died?"

  "Found in the river," I said. "She came here often, I am told. Was she here on Monday?"

  Kensington's eyes narrowed as he looked me over again. "Who are you, a Runner?"

  "An acquaintance of Lord Barbury. He is, as you can imagine, deeply distressed."

  I watched the thoughts dance behind his eyes. A woman who came here regularly, dead. Her lover, a powerful man. Trouble for The Glass House?

  "I am sad to hear of his loss," Kensington said.

  "Indeed," I said, unable to keep the chill from my voice. "Had she come here Monday?"

  "I don't think so. I don't remember."

  "But she did used to come here?" Grenville asked. "I believe you provided her with a private room."

  Kensington looked back and forth between us and wet his lips. "There was no harm in it. She wanted somewhere to meet Lord Barbury, safe from her husband."

  "And they paid you well for it, I'd wager," I said.

  Kensington looked offended. "Not at all. Amelia--Peaches--and I are old acquaintances. I knew her when she was a girl, just come to London to make her fortune. She wanted to bring Lord Barbury here, and I was willing to oblige. They enjoyed it."

  I wondered about that very much. If the house had been Peaches' choice, because she knew this Kensington, why on earth had Barbury gone along with it?

  Kensington's gaze shifted again as though he'd argued with himself and at last reached a conclusion. "Ah, I remember now, gentleman. She did come here Monday. In the afternoon."

  His memory was very convenient, I thought. "Are you certain?"

  "Yes. I had forgotten, what with one thing and another. She must have been at the laughing gas again, because she was in high spirits."

  "What time was that?"

  "Around four or so, I believe."

  He was a little off; Lady Breckenridge put Peaches leaving Inglethorpe's shortly after four, and she could not have reached here for another half hour.

  "When did she leave?" I asked.

  "As to that, I have no idea. I did not see her go. Never saw her again after she went up to the room."

  "Which I would like to see," I said.

  Kensington looked distressed. "No one goes above this floor, sir."

  "Except Lord Barbury, and Peaches, and you," I answered, my voice hard. "And now I will."

  Kensington opened his mouth to further protest, then closed it. I must have looked quite angry, and although Grenville's walking stick had no sword in it, it was made of ebony, hard and strong. Kensington could always call for the ruffians that every hell employed to keep order, but not before I could swing the stick.

  Finally, he shrugged, produced a key, and led us to a door behind one of the curtains.

  That door led to a dimly lit
hall and a narrow flight of stairs. At the next landing, Kensington unlocked a door, lifted a taper from one of the sconces in the stairwell, and ushered us into a cold chamber.

  The neat plainness of this room contrasted sharply with the tawdry finery on the floor below. The chamber held a bed hung with yellow brocade draperies, a dressing table, and two comfortable-looking chairs. The room was dark now and fireless, but I imagined it could be cheerful. Here, if Kensington spoke the truth, Peaches and Lord Barbury had carried on their liaison.

  I moved to the dressing table and began opening the drawers. Kensington looked distressed, but he made no move to stop me.

  As I expected, I found nothing. Kensington would have had ample time to remove anything from this room he wanted no one to see. Grenville looked over my shoulder as I pulled from the dressing table a silver hairbrush, a handful of silk ribbons, and a reticule.

  I opened the reticule, but found little of interest. A viniagrette, which a lady would open and apply to her nose when she felt faint, a bit of lace, a comb, and a tiny bottle of perfume.

  Grenville lifted the perfume bottle and worked open the stopper. The odor of sweet musk bathed my nostrils. "Expensive," he pronounced, then returned the stopper to the bottle. "A gift from Barbury?"

  "Probably." I returned everything to the reticule.

  We found nothing more in the drawers. Kensington stood inside the doorway, watching us, looking more curious than alarmed.

  "Why did she come here Monday?" I asked him as Grenville closed the dressing table.

  Kensington shrugged. "Why shouldn't she? She was probably meeting her lordship."

  "She'd made an appointment to meet him much later that night," I said. "Yet you say she was here after four in the afternoon. Why should she have come?"

  Kensington hesitated, and I watched him choose his words carefully. "Gentlemen, as I told you, I'd known Amelia Chapman a very long time. She was a young woman who found life tedious, and it was no joy for her being married to a plodding gent like Chapman. She did not like to go home, and I sympathized. She'd retreat here when her husband grew too dull for her, and I was happy to let her. I believe she had told her husband some rigmarole about visiting a friend in the country, in any case, so she would not be expected home. She had done such a thing before."

  "Did she meet anyone else here that afternoon?" I asked. "Someone not Lord Barbury?"

  "Now, as to that, I do not know. I told you, I saw her, but I did not see her after she came up to her room, and she was quite alone then. And I have no idea when she departed. You may, of course, ask the footman who opens the door."

  I certainly would ask him.

  "Now, gentlemen." Kensington rubbed his hands. "I have been very good natured, letting you rummage through my rooms and ask about my friends. But this is a house of business."

  Grenville gave him a look of undisguised disgust. He opened his mouth to denounce him, to tell him we would not stay another moment, but I forestalled him with a look. Another woman of the house might have seen Peaches that day, might know who she had met. Peaches had died here, or very soon after leaving here, and I wanted to speak to anyone who had seen her.

  "Please," I said to Kensington. "Choose a room for us."

  Kensington smiled. It was not a nice smile. "I have just the thing, Captain. Allow me to prepare." He gave me a little bow and glided away, leaving the door open behind him.

  Once we heard him close the door at the bottom of the stairs Grenville turned to me. "Why on earth did you tell him that? I'd have thought you'd want nothing more to do with this place."

  I explained, but he looked skeptical. "Such a lady may know nothing or be paid to know nothing."

  "Perhaps, but it is worth a try. Now, while we have the chance, shall we see what else this room can tell us?"

  "Kensington would not have left us alone if it could," Grenville pointed out, but he turned his hand to the task.

  We went over the room again, looking under the bed covers, through the dressing table, behind curtains, under the bed. I examined the tools at the fireplace, studied the heavy brass grating. I finished my search, finding nothing. The room was neat, well-dusted, impersonal.

  Grenville found nothing either, but I knew that Peaches could very likely have been killed in this room.

  We found no evidence that she had been, of course. Her killer would have had time to tidy up behind themselves or he had paid Kensington to do it. Or perhaps Peaches had left with her killer and met her death somewhere between here and the Temple Gardens.

  Kensington was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs when we came down. He told me that he'd chosen Room Five for me and that he wanted three hundred guineas for the pleasure.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Seven

  I nearly told Mr. Kensington exactly what I thought of his three hundred guineas. Grenville, on the other hand, coolly handed it over. "I will wait for you," he said.

  He returned to the front room, while Kensington bade me follow him. I wondered what vice Kensington had decided a man like me would want.

  We did not return to the main room but entered the front staircase hall. Kensington produced another key from his pocket and took me to a small door a little way along the gallery that encircled the stairwell. He opened the door, gestured me inside, and closed and locked the door behind him.

  We stood in a narrow corridor lined with doors on our left. I realized that this hall ran behind the main room and the small rooms that encircled it. I wondered briefly what the builders brought in to alter the house had thought about the bizarre floor plan.

  Kensington led took me to a door in the middle of this hall and produced another key. He had put the key in the lock and turned it, when I heard a cry. A child's cry.

  It did not come from the room Kensington was opening for me but from the one next door. I turned to Kensington, my countenance frozen. "Let me in there." I pointed to the blank door to the right.

  His pleased smile sealed his fate. "That room is taken."

  "Nonetheless."

  "The bid for that room was considerably higher than yours," he said, giving me a patient look. "It has already been spoken for."

  Every spark of rage that had been building inside me since I'd seen pretty Peaches dead on the riverbank surged and focused on the small man with the oily smile.

  I had Kensington against the wall in a trice, the handle of Grenville's walking stick pressed against his throat. My leg ached and throbbed, berating me for the punishment I'd given it that afternoon. It was likely that Peaches had either met her death in this house or met her killer here, and Kensington knew that too. He might be the murderer himself.

  Kensington eyes held fear but also a deep glint of confidence. "You do not know what you are doing, Captain."

  "On the contrary, I believe I do."

  He had mistaken me for a weak man. I was not. I pressed the handle of the walking stick harder into Kensington's throat, cutting off his air. I could kill him. I saw him realize that.

  "If you insist," he said. His voice was still icy, if hoarse.

  I eased the walking stick away. Kensington gave me a long look as he cleared his throat, reassessing me. Straightening the cravat I'd put askew, he unlocked and opened the door of the second room.

  What I saw within made my previous anger at Kensington seem as nothing.

  A girl who could have been no more than twelve stood against the wall on the other side of the room. Her cheeks and lips were red with rouge, and her hair had been died a dull yellow. She resembled the girls that prowled the environs of Covent Garden, the younger ones in the shadows of their older colleagues. I always grew angry when I saw them, and angry at the gentlemen who exploited them, thereby teaching them that they could earn money at so early an age. This girl was locked in, unable to leave, lacking even the feeble protection the street girls gave one another.

  The infantryman I had seen in the outer room was with her, now in shirtsleeves and trouser
s, his coat tossed over a chair. He looked up in surprise when I banged in, and opened his mouth to protest, but closed it and rapidly backed away when I came at him.

  The drapes to this room stood open. Two gentlemen peered in through the window, enraging me further. I lifted a chair and threw it at them. The glass in the window broke with a satisfying shatter, and the casement splintered.

  The infantryman swore. The girl watched silently. Kensington merely looked on, as though resigned to my tantrum. His lack of worry puzzled me, or would have puzzled me had I not been so furious. This place was vile, and knowing that it had played a part in Peaches' death made me angrier still.

  I grabbed the girl by the arm and dragged her out of there. She came silently, her eyes round with fear, but she did not fight me. Neither did Kensington. He simply watched me with that knowing look and stood aside to let me pass.

  I took the girl to the main staircase, down, and out of the house. The doorman tried to stop me, but I slammed the walking stick into his midriff, and he fell away with a grunt, arm across his belly.

  The night outside had turned bitterly cold and was still wet. Matthias blinked when he saw me charging at him with the wretched girl in tow, but he opened the carriage door and quickly helped us in.

  Grenville ran from the house and sprang into the carriage, shouting at his coachman to go. We moved out into the street, and Matthias slammed the door and jumped onto his perch behind.

  "Good lord, Lacey," Grenville said, breathless, then he chortled. "You ought to have seen their faces when that chair came flying through the window. It was most gratifying." He switched his gaze to the girl.

  She stared back at him, her kohl-rimmed eyes wide.

  I wondered what to do with her now that I'd rescued her. I had taken a Covent Garden girl to Louisa Brandon last spring, though Black Nancy had been a few years older than this mite in grown-up clothes. I did not like to continue inflicting Louisa with my rescued strays, though I certainly could not take the girl home with me, nor could Grenville.

  Then I remembered that I knew a family who would be both sympathetic to the girl's plight and able and eager to help her. Sir Gideon Derwent was a philanthropist and a reformer, and though I hesitated to impose upon him, I could think of no other solution. I asked Grenville to take us to Grosvenor Square, and he gave his coachman the direction.