Free The Glass House by Ashley Gardner Page B

reflecting the light of the front room, much as Lady
Breckenridge's carriage window had reflected only her own face. I
assumed that the other curtains hid windows, the room surrounded on
three sides by them.
    Men lounged on Turkish couches and armchairs,
talking, smoking, drinking brandy or claret, passing snuff boxes
back and forth. Card tables occupied one half of the room, where a
dozen gentlemen played whist and piquet, no doubt for high
stakes.
    A smattering of women roamed the crowd. They
were, to a body, beautiful of figure, and wore their expensive silk
gowns with grace. Their jewels had been chosen with taste, their
hair carefully dressed. They were nothing like the painted girls of
Covent Garden or even actresses like Marianne. These were
courtesans of the highest order--experienced, well-bred,
beautiful.
    I'd met a few of the gentlemen here before,
including an infantry officer, but I did not really know them. All
recognized Grenville. He glided languidly into the room, embracing
his man-of-fashion persona.
    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