Free The Glass House by Ashley Gardner Page A

bade him fetch one
of his own. I accepted with neither protest nor thanks, uncertain
of Grenville's mood.
    Not until we were inside his opulent coach,
alone, did I open the subject I sensed he did not want to discuss.
"What have you done with Marianne?" I asked.
    Grenville shot me an angry look. "Do not
worry, she is well. I have a house in Clarges Street. She is
reclining there in the lap of luxury with plenty of sweetmeats to
eat."
    "She must be pleased." Marianne liked her
comforts.
    "Not really. She let me know what she thought
of my high-handedness. But dear God, Lacey." His expression turned
troubled. "I found her in your rooms, eating the leavings of your
breakfast."
    "I told her she might have the bread."
    Grenville’s diamond cravat pin flashed as he
turned his head. "She was shaking with hunger. If you had seen her
. . . She was furious that I'd caught her eating like a starved
mongrel. I cannot understand it. I've tried to help her, and yet,
my charity seems to do no good."
    "Marianne takes what help she likes and
disdains the rest," I said. "That is why I leave my door unlocked.
She pretends to put one over on me."
    "Why the devil does she accept your charity
and not mine?"
    I shrugged, having no idea. "She has her own
code of right and wrong."
    "You are good to her, and good to worry about
her. I have put her in a house where she might eat well and rest
for a time, and she looked bloody indignant about it."
    "Rather like caging a feral dog," I said.
"Taking care of it might be best for it, but it still bites."
    "Very apt. May we change the subject?"
    I nodded, and he looked relieved. Grenville's
motives were good, but I believed he'd met his match in Marianne.
She liked luxury and money, but she also valued her freedom. I
wondered how long she'd trade one for the other.
    During the rest of the drive to Whitechapel,
I told Grenville about Inglethorpe's gathering--who I had seen and
what I had observed, and what Lady Breckenridge had related to me
about Peaches and Lord Barbury. I omitted that fact that I had
capered about like a fool with Mrs. Danbury.
    I asked Grenville about the gentlemen I had
recognized at Inglethorpe's, and we discussed them until we reached
The Glass House, although Grenville could not tell me much. He knew
them from his clubs, but not much deeper than that. He agreed it
worth investigating whether they'd known Peaches and where they'd
been when she died.
    Rain still beat down as we drew up in St.
Charles Row. The sun had long since descended, and early winter
darkness swallowed the street.
    We waited in the warm carriage while Matthias
hopped down and darted through the rain to rap on the door. The
same man I had seen before peered out, but this time, the reception
was different. Matthias spoke to him, and the door was opened, wide
and inviting.
    Grenville descended, and I followed more
slowly. Inglethorpe's concoction had definitely worn off, leaving
me slow and sore and more fatigued than before.
    I entered the house behind Grenville, and the
doorman gave me a measuring look. I pretended to ignore him as I
stripped off my greatcoat and hat. Matthias took charge of our
things, not the doorman, who only watched in silence.
    The few candles in tarnished sconces threw
off a only a feeble light, and the gloomy evening made the
dark-paneled front hall darker still. The doorman led us up a
staircase that twisted round on itself to a wide hall containing
one double door.
    Laughter and voices poured from behind the
door--talking, querying, pontificating--nothing I would not hear in
any club or tavern. Our guide pushed open the doors and ushered us
inside, and at last I understood why the ordinary looking building
was called The Glass House.
    We stood in a well-furnished, softly carpeted
room as dark as the hall below, its walls lined with drapes, brown
velvet and heavy. One curtain stood open to reveal a window, but it
looked into another room, not outside. The room beyond was dark,
the glass