of my private affairs.'
With that, he turned his horse and spurred it cruelly. The horse leapt away, ears back, gravel flying from his hooves.
Grenville was breathing hard. 'Damn the man. He is an ogre. He doesn't care that Lady Clifford might have died, only that her troubles have disrupted him.' He removed a handkerchief from his black coat, brushed away the dust Clifford's horse had kicked up, and carefully folded the handkerchief again. 'I will have to do something about him, I think.'
'He is not wrong,' I said. 'Our interference, especially mine, did lead to her distress of mind, but something does not quite ring true. I spoke to Lady Clifford last evening. She told me she'd changed her mind about Mrs. Dale being the culprit, and that she no longer wanted me to pursue the matter. She was agitated about it, but hardly in a state to go home and take too much laudanum.'
'Unless she did not administer it herself,' Grenville said. 'You did say that Lady Breckenridge believed Mrs. Dale drinks laudanum for pleasure. She'd have a bottle close at hand.'
'Possibly, but why she'd want to kill Lady Clifford is unclear to me.' I told Grenville the theory about Lady Clifford and Mrs. Dale being lovers, or at least former lovers, without implying that the idea had come from anywhere but my own head. Any mention of Marianne would likely turn this conversation in an uncomfortable direction.
'You might be right,' Grenville said. 'It's a very insular household, and something like that would be kept quiet. But does it have that any bearing on the lost necklace?'
'I have no idea,' I said. 'I hoped to speak to Lady Clifford today, but…' I broke off. 'I will try to find out.'
'I for one will be pleased to be quit of Clifford and his family. They are devilish melodramatic.'
While Grenville, I realized, disliked personal drama of any kind. No wonder Marianne drove him distracted.
'My boyhood home could be as melodramatic,' I said. 'Histrionics seemed to be the sought-after state, in my father, the housekeeper, the staff-anyone he controlled. My father was a bit like Lord Clifford, in fact.'
Grenville straightened his hat, his face still red, but he regained his composure as I watched. 'Well, I am pleased you turned out as well as you did, my dear fellow. My boyhood home was devoid of emotion at all. We were calm and careful from sunrise to sunset, sunset to sunrise. My father tolerated no dramatics of any kind. I'm not certain which is more devilish uncomfortable-too many emotions or none at all.'
'Perhaps that is why you and I rub along well,' I said. 'I find your coolness restful, you find my volatility interesting.'
Grenville raised his brows. 'I do hope our friendship has progressed beyond that. Shall we ride on, Lacey? It is a fine afternoon, the park is not yet crowded, and I dislike to waste the opportunity simply because Clifford put me off.'
He turned his horse and guided it onward, and I followed.
I admired Grenville's ability to brush aside bad encounters and continue serenely with his day, as though no one could possibly upset him. Perhaps he was practiced because he'd been raised to it, but I'd never learned the art of it, and doubted I ever would.
I received word from Lady Breckenridge the next morning that I could call on her, but when I arrived at her house in South Audley Street, the lady she had in her front sitting room was Mrs. Dale.
Annabelle Dale was much as Lady Breckenridge had described-red-rimmed eyes, past her first youth, thin and pale. She regarded me calmly, though her fingers twitched in her lap.
I was introduced, Lady Breckenridge and I sat down, and Barnstable brought coffee with cakes-an innocuous gathering. When Barnstable departed, Mrs. Dale set aside her cup and lifted her gaze to mine.
'Well, Captain Lacey. What did you wish to ask me?'
'I wanted to express my regret for the harm this incident has done,' I said, 'and to ask after Lady Clifford. Is she well?'
'She will recover. She has done this before, unfortunately. Living with his lordship is a great trial to her. He does everything to set us against each other.' She smiled, and I could see that once, Annabelle Dale had been quite pretty. 'It piques him that he cannot, not forever.'
'But you and Lady Clifford must have had a bad quarrel,' I said. 'She was willing to accuse you of stealing her necklace.'
'It is nothing we have not weathered before. I've known Marguerite since we were girls. She feels things too deeply and can become so easily jealous. She sought to punish me for… well, let us just say it was jealousy. And hurt. She sought to punish her husband, as well. Two in one blow.'
'Then she felt remorse when Waters was arrested,' I said. 'But she was still angry at you, which is why she accused you to me. I think she hoped that I, with my reputation for running down criminals, could find an outside party on which to pin the crime. A known housebreaker or jewel thief. That person would be arrested, and you and Waters would be cleared.'
Mrs. Dale pulled a handkerchief from her pocket, but she only clutched it between her fingers. 'You have the right of it. Marguerite can be a fool sometimes. When you spoke to her at the musicale, she realized that you were unraveling her lies, and she panicked. She drank enough laudanum to make her dangerously ill, and of course Lord Clifford went to shout at Mr. Grenville. Mr. Grenville would tell you to leave it alone, and all would be finished.'
Lady Breckenridge, who sat with her elegant legs crossed, her cup held daintily, broke in. 'Lady Clifford does not understand the captain, then. He is like a bulldog-does not let go once he sinks his teeth in. He will have the answer to the problem, no matter who does not wish him to find it.'
I winced a little at her assessment, and she raised her brows at me over her cup.
'I realized that,' Mrs. Dale said. 'And so I felt you deserved the truth. Please understand, and leave Marguerite be, Captain. She was silly to approach Mr. Grenville in the first place, and now she is paying for her foolishness.'
'I understand,' I said. 'Lady Clifford is a most unhappy woman, and she is lucky she has you to look after her.' I leaned forward, resting my arms on my knees. 'The necklace was never stolen, was it?'
Mrs. Dale glanced quickly at Lady Breckenridge. 'I can hardly answer that.'
'I have no interest in telling Lord Clifford,' I said. 'Neither, I am certain, has Lady Breckenridge. Yesterday, Clifford went so far as to try to assault Mr. Grenville in the park. My loyalty was never to him. It was Lady Clifford who asked for my help, and to Lady Clifford that I answer.'
'And I am most discreet,' Lady Breckenridge said. 'You may tell Lady Clifford that she will remain on my guest list, no matter what happens. Clifford is a brute and a bully, and she deserves more than being her husband's creature.' Which was one of the most generous things I'd ever heard Lady Breckenridge say about another woman.
'I am right, am I not?' I asked. 'If the necklace truly has been stolen, then I will find it and the culprit. If not, I will leave it alone. But no search of your house, not by you and your servants or by Pomeroy and his patrollers has turned up the necklace. What became of it, Mrs. Dale?'
Mrs. Dale pulled bit more on the handkerchief, and her face burned red. 'I threw it into the Thames.'
I stared at her. Lady Breckenridge quickly set down her porcelain cup. 'Dear heavens,' she said. 'Why?'
'Marguerite asked me to. She hated the thing. She loves the little strand of diamonds her mother left her, but Lord Clifford has forbidden her to wear them, saying they are not prominent enough. Marguerite decided that if she pretended the large necklace had been stolen, she'd never have to see the bloody thing again. She had no way of knowing things would escalate into such a mess, that her husband would be goaded into hiring a Runner who would arrest poor Waters. Marguerite gave the necklace to me, and asked me to drop it into the river. So I did.'
'Good Lord.' Lady Breckenridge lifted her cup and took a large swallow of tea.
De la Fontaine's legacy, swimming in mud at the bottom of the Thames. 'Mrs. Dale, you do know those diamonds were worth thousands of guineas, do you not?'
Annabelle Dale shrugged. 'What is that compared to peace, Captain Lacey? Thousands of guineas well spent, I think.'
Her voice was calm, her hands quiet around her handkerchief. Mrs. Dale, stuck in the Clifford household, too poor to live on her own and subject to Lord Clifford's unwanted attentions, could have hidden the necklace, planning
