manners when necessary, but when needled, your comments are clearheaded and most apt.'
'I would be flattered were I not in so much pain.'
'Let Barnstable help you, then. He is a wonder.'
'He certainly will be if he can stop this.' I had not hurt so much since the original injury. And I only had myself to blame.
She watched me with her dark, intelligent eyes. 'You shunned me in Kent last summer, Captain. Do you remember?'
'In Kent, you mistook my character.' She'd been predatory then, backing off in coolness when I'd rejected her advances.
'I did, I admit. I thought you a hanger-on of Grenville, eager to rub elbows with the peerage, of which my husband was so fine a representative. I never dreamed you'd come there to investigate the Badajoz murder.'
Over our billiards game, she had given me a warning against the wife of the man I was investigating, and she, unfortunately, had been right. I'd been angry with her, but I had been angrier, later, with myself.
'I'd be pleased to call a truce with you, Lacey. To be friends.'
I only half-heard her through a haze of pain. 'If you'd like,' I believe I said.
We pulled to a stop on South Audley Street, in front of the house now held in trust for the current Viscount Breckenridge, Lady Breckenridge's five-year-old son.
The facade was tasteful with fanlights on doors and windows, the door black and cleanly painted. I'd visited this house the year before during the Badajoz investigation and remembered the almost painfully modern decor-the floors inlaid with crosshatching reminiscent of Turkish screens, alcoves filled with alabaster statuary, and black and gold Egyptian-style chairs lining the walls.
Lady Breckenridge's footman helped me from the carriage and into the house. I leaned heavily on my borrowed walking stick as he half-carried me up the stairs to a little first-floor parlor where a fire had been stirred high.
I welcomed the warmth, but I was in a bad way. Spasms of pain nearly made me ill. The footman lowered me to a sofa, and I gripped my leg and tried not to rock in pain.
Lady Breckenridge leaned down to me, her breath smelling of mint and lemonade. 'I leave you in Barnstable's hands, Captain. You will be better, I promise.' She patted my shoulder and glided out of the room.
The butler bustled in with his accoutrements. Barnstable was a man of about forty, with jet black hair slicked back with pomade. He set a wooden rack before the fire then used tongs to lift steaming towels from a metal box, and laid them across the rack. Calmly, he knelt and removed my boots then told me to take off my trousers.
I unbuttoned and slid the trousers down over my hips to the floor, revealing wiry black hair twisting down my shins. My left leg looked little different from my right except for the cross-hatch of scars that puckered my knee. The innocent-looking leg at the moment was causing me devilish pain.
I sat down again, and Barnstable draped the first towel around my knee and pulled it tight. I sucked in a breath. He applied several more towels, handling each with the tongs. I closed my eyes as heat began to seep into my muscles.
'Let those work for a time,' he said. 'Then I'll rub in some of my liniment. Loosen you right up, sir.'
Already the scalding towels had eased some of the tension. The smell of mint on the steam reminded me of my nursery, of days I'd taken cold as a child. My nurse had used similar herbs in boiling water to clear my congestion.
'You are a fine man, Barnstable,' I said without opening my eyes.
'My wife had the rheumatics something terrible, sir. This always eased her.'
Barnstable let me soak up the heat for a while longer then, when the towels started to cool, he removed them. He opened a glass jar and scooped out a rather watery, white concoction that smelled of oil of vitriol, and rubbed it hard all over my knee and the muscles behind it. After wiping his hands, Barnstable replaced the towels with a fresh set, hot from the fire. He left me to steep, taking the used towels and liniment away with him.
I leaned back on the settee and let out breath. The throbbing had ceased, whether because of the liniment or the heat of the towels, I did not much care. I hoped Barnstable would share the recipe for his liniment so that I could use it myself the next time my knee seized up.
I found myself drifting in and out of sleep. In half-dreams I pictured Peaches lying on the bank of the Thames, dead and quiet, her body ruined with water. I had never seen her in life, but I imagined what she must have looked like-with her round, girlish face, bright gold hair, her smile that of a person intrigued by life.
She seemed to smile at me now. 'Take care, Captain,' she said. 'You are most impetuous.' I agreed. My impetuousness had led me to trouble many times before.
I came out of the dream, thinking of the real Peaches. She must have been a very charming young woman. She'd charmed Lord Barbury into loving her, had charmed the dour Mr. Chapman into marrying her, had charmed Kensington into letting her stay at The Glass House when she wanted peace from her husband. She'd charmed me, as well, into wandering about London looking for the man who'd killed her. The small hand with its too-large ring, the slender feet in pretty shoes had touched my heart.
Lady Breckenridge had called Peaches common. I recognized that Peaches was the sort of woman men liked and women did not. Peaches had not only liked men, she'd been content to live in their world. But a man had betrayed her, had killed her.
I doubted a woman had struck that blow; it had been vicious and thorough. Her husband, jealous of her lover? Her lover, jealous of someone else? Or Kensington, for some unknown reason?
I would find out.
I drifted back to sleep. I dreamed of Peaches again, but this time, it was Louisa Brandon's lifeless body on the bank of the Thames, and my heart was breaking. I knelt beside her, touched her cheek. 'I'm sorry, Louisa,' I whispered. 'I'm sorry I couldn't save you.'
I awoke to Barnstable shaking me, and found my face wet with tears.
Barnstable took me to a tiny bedroom painted Wedgwood green with delicate plaster moldings. The bed with green and gold hangings took up most of the room, leaving only a small space for a bedside table and a fantastic black and gold chair upholstered in leopard skin with gilt claws for feet.
Barnstable helped me undress completely in front of the fire and put me to bed. I found the bed cozy and drifted to sleep almost at once. When I awoke again, it was still dark, but I sensed daylight nearing.
I'd awakened because the door had opened. The intruder wasn't Barnstable looking in on me, but Lady Breckenridge in a dressing gown, her dark hair over her shoulder in a long, thick braid. She watched me from the threshold for a moment then closed the door, crossed the room, and climbed into the bed with me.
'Friends, you said,' I murmured.
'Yes, indeed.' She lay down next to me, slid her arm around my waist, and rested her head on my shoulder.
I liked her there. Her hair smelled of lavender, and her hand resting over my heart was light and soothing. It had been a long while since I'd felt the touch of affection from another human being, and I'd missed it.
'I ought to go home,' I said.
'It is raining.' It had been raining all night.
We lay quietly for a moment, listening to the water on the window panes. 'I see Barnstable has done well by you,' she said.
'Excellently well.'
She did not answer, but the hand on my chest smoothed the blankets.
Lady Breckenridge lay beside me for a long time. She did nothing but rest her head on my shoulder, her hair soft against my cheek. The situation was pleasant. This was what a man and wife might do, lie side by side in comfortable silence, listening to the rain and thinking separate thoughts. I could not guess what Lady Breckenridge meant by it or what she wanted, and I did not want to break the spell to ask.
I drifted into sleep again. When I awoke, she was gone.
Barnstable's cure worked wonders. When I rose from the bed, my knee hurt only a little, and my usual morning stiffness was much diminished.
Barnstable shaved me and helped me dress, took me downstairs and put me into a carriage. It was still dark,
