'Forgive me,' I said, giving her a half bow. 'I ran away to the army before I was able to complete my upbringing and learn the gentlemanly art of entertaining letters. I was in a hurry.'
Lady Breckenridge did not smile. 'It was not so much the form of the letter, you know, as the request within it. If you wish to see me only in a matter of business, I hire gentlemen to take care of that for me. I can give you their direction.'
I'd offended her, I realized. Not long ago, in this very drawing room, I'd told her that I counted her among my circle of close friends, of which I had few. I realized that my hasty missive yesterday must have seemed brusque, demanding, and nothing to do with friendship.
'I beg your pardon,' I said, giving her another bow. 'Grenville admonishes me in much the same way. I get the bit between my teeth, and I forget that I am easily rude. I said 'business' because I hate to take advantage of friendship, and I find myself needing your help.'
Her dark blue eyes remained cool. 'Ah, you thought yourself softening the blow. I must say, you do not read your fellow creatures well.'
'I never pretended to.'
Lady Breckenridge regarded me a moment longer, then she uncrossed her arms, moved to a settee near the fireplace, and reposed gracefully on it. She sat in the middle, so if I tried to join her, I'd either crush against her or force her to move.
I chose a chair instead, one near enough to her to be conversational but not so close as to impose myself.
Lady Breckenridge was not a woman who flirted or was coy, and she did not like coyness in return. She asked for honesty and was somewhat brutally honest herself. Her marriage had been unhappy, her husband a bully. I suppose she had taught herself to trust cautiously.
'Well, then, what is this business?' Lady Breckenridge asked. 'If it is entertaining enough, I might consider forgiving you both the letter and the presumption.'
'It's to do with Lady Clifford's stolen necklace.'
Lady Breckenridge stopped short of rolling her eyes. 'Good God, I am bloody tired of hearing about Lady Clifford and her bloody necklace. The woman has a flair for the dramatic, always making heavy weather of something-her husband, her daughter's marriage, the hated Mrs. Dale, her losses at cards, her stolen necklace. If you ask me, she sold the damned thing to pay her creditors and professed it stolen so that her husband would not discover she is up to her ears in debt.'
'I wondered if she might game deeply,' I said.
'She has a mania for it. Sometimes she wins, mostly she loses. Lord Clifford has come to her rescue before, but I gather he has made it clear that she is to cease. Not that she has.'
I thought about the smaller necklace Lord Clifford had sneered over, declaring it one his wife had owned before their marriage. The pawnbroker had told me that a lady's maid had brought it in for her mistress who was 'down on her luck.' Lady Clifford selling her own jewelry to get out of debt explained the transaction, but Lady Clifford hadn't claimed that necklace to be stolen.
'Grenville and I and our footmen searched every jeweler's and pawnbroker's up and down the center of London,' I said. 'If Lady Clifford had sold the necklace, surely we would have found it, or at least heard word of it.' As I had with the smaller necklace.
'My dear Lacey, if I wanted to sell my diamonds and pretend them stolen from me, I wouldn't rush to flog it to a pawnbroker. I'd be much more discreet. There are gentlemen who do that sort of thing for you.'
'What sort of men?' I asked. I'd not heard this, but then I was not much of a card player. I preferred more active games of skill-billiards, boxing, horseracing.
'Oh, one can find them if one knows where to go,' Lady Breckenridge said, looking wise. 'Who, for a percentage, are willing to smuggle bits and pieces out of the country while you go on a tear about having them stolen. You pay off your creditors, your husband or wife or father never knows, and embarrassment is saved all around.'
'She might have done such a thing, true. But why then loudly point at Mrs. Dale? Lord Clifford tells me that Mrs. Dale was-shall we say, entertaining him-at the time the necklace went missing. Mrs. Dale would have to reveal that alibi to save herself, possibly in a public courtroom. The world knows that Lord Clifford is carrying on with his wife's companion, but would Lady Clifford wish to publicly acknowledge it?'
'Lady Clifford rather enjoys playing the wronged woman, I think,' Lady Breckenridge said. 'Much sympathy flows her way, though much disgust as well, I am afraid. The way of the world is such that when a man is unfaithful to his wife, it of course must be because the wife has not done enough to keep him at her side.'
I heard the bitterness in her voice. Lady Breckenridge's late husband had been notorious for straying. While Lady Breckenridge had professed she'd been rather grateful for his habit, because it kept the boorish man away from her, I imagined that she'd faced blame the likes of which she'd just related. Hardly her fault that her husband had been cruel and uncaring.
'I am sorry,' I said.
'I did not say such a thing to stir your sympathy, Captain. It is only the truth.'
I knew that when my wife had left me, no one had blamed me harder than I had myself. I'd blamed Carlotta as well, yes, in my rage and heartbreak. I could have behaved better toward her, but she ought to have told me how unhappy she'd been. And I'd never forgiven her for taking away my child. My girl would be quite grown now. I hadn't seen her in fifteen years.
The last thought hurt, and for a moment, there in Lady Breckenridge's sitting room, the pain of it squeezed me hard. I studied the head of my walking stick, the one Lady Breckenridge had given me, as I fought to regain my composure.
'Captain?' she asked. 'Are you well?'
Her voice was like cool water in the darkness. I looked up to find Lady Breckenridge watching me, her arms stretched across the back of the settee now, which made her more graceful and lovely than ever. The pose was practiced, probably trained into her by a ream of governesses and her aristocratic mother.
'I beg your pardon,' I said.
Any other lady might express curiosity about my thoughts and why I'd let my attention stray from her, but not Lady Breckenridge.
'You have not told me precisely why you need my help,' she said.
I did not know quite how to begin. This was the first investigation in which I'd found a place I could not go, people I could not question. I was generally accepted among Grenville's circle if not embraced, because my pedigree measured up even to the most snobbish. Additionally, because I took rooms over a bake shop in a genteelly poor section of town, I was able to speak to the denizens of Covent Garden and beyond without awkwardness. But an aristocratic lady's private rooms were beyond my sphere, and I doubted Lord Clifford would invite me to return his house, in any case.
'Say it all at once, and I shall respond,' Lady Breckenridge said. She sounded in no hurry.
'Lady Clifford's maid was released, absolved of the crime,' I said. 'But I know Pomeroy. He will harass the household until he finds another culprit to take to trial-a footman, another maid, even Mrs. Dale. I'd like to find the true culprit, and the necklace, before that happens. To do so, I will better need to know the layout of the Clifford house and what happened on the day of the theft. Unfortunately, Lord Clifford has made it clear that I am unwelcome, and I have no idea when I will be able to speak to Lady Clifford again.'
'I see,' she said after a thoughtful moment. 'And so you thought to ask me to speak to her for you.'
I could not tell whether she were pleased at the prospect or dismayed. Her tone was neutral, her look direct.
'Discreetly,' I said.
'By all means, discreetly. It would have to be. Lady Clifford and I don't exactly see eye to eye. Not a pleasant task you thought to set me.'
'You see now why I did not want to presume upon our friendship,' I said.
'Indeed. You do this sort of thing often, do you not, speaking to people whose conversations you would never dream to seek in ordinary circumstance. Such as when you played billiards with me at Astley Close while you looked into the Westin affair.'
I gave her a smile. 'Touche.'
