purest torture. I had been lucky that Louisa had been there to help.
But I sympathized only so far. If Barbury had truly loved Peaches, he would have married her and cared for her, damn her origins.
'Tell us about it tonight,' Grenville said to me. 'I've invited Lord Barbury to dine at my house. We'll begin at eight.'
I nodded. Barbury looked at me again, his agony evident. I touched my hat to the pair of them and hobbled after the disappearing figure of Mr. Kensington. The damp was playing hell with my knee.
Chapter Eleven
The Glass House by day was a depressing place. Silent and lit by gray daylight, it was a place holding its breath. The only inhabitant was the doorman, who gave me a hostile stare when he let us in.
Kensington took me up two flights of stairs, past the room he'd showed me before, and up into the attics.
Two doors stood on either side of the low-ceilinged stairwell. Kensington still claimed he did not have a key to Peaches' chamber, but the door he pointed out was a bit flimsy. I applied my boot heel to the latch, and on the third kick, it gave way, the wood splintering. Kensington looked startled, as though he'd believed me feeble, despite having seen me throw a chair through a window.
The room beyond was a bedchamber, but in contrast to the stark stairwell, the room had been made quite a cozy. A thick rug covered the floor, plenty of pillows had been scattered on the bed, and the bed hangings were of a thick, blue brocade. Peaches had collected an odd jumble of furniture, but each piece had been chosen for comfort-a deep wing chair, a low writing table with cushioned stool, a settee with a side table piled with books. Feminine touches were everywhere, from the lace on the cushions to the hair ribbons on the dressing table. A fireplace held the ashes of a fire not many days cold, the brass fender shone brightly, and the coal bucket was full.
'She did like her little luxuries,' Kensington said.
'She did,' I answered. 'Now, go away.'
Kensington laughed, his pudgy belly moving. 'I admire your cheek, Captain. Watching you fall will be most pleasurable.'
Still chuckling, he left the room and made his way noisily down the stairs.
I was alone. And in that room, in the gray silence of the house, I found Peaches.
I found her in the clumsily embroidered pillows on the bed, in the silver pen tray engraved with her initials- probably gift from Lord Barbury-in the dresses in the wardrobe that were all silk, all daringly cut, all too ostentatious for a respectable barrister's wife.
In the drawers of the writing desk were torn-out pages of newspapers dated six years ago, each page containing an article about a play. In on, the name 'Miss Leary' had been circled with charcoal pencil.
The articles gave the highest accolades to the principle actors. When they mentioned Peaches at all, it was at most one line. 'Miss Leary gave a fine performance as Bianca,' was the lengthiest notice she received.
Another drawer held Lord Barbury's letters to her. Peaches had kept them from the night they'd first met, after a performance one evening in Drury Lane. Barbury had written many letters during their first year as lovers, stopping only at her marriage. He had written her every day, whether they'd met or not.
I skimmed through them, feeling like a voyeur. Lord Barbury's letters were loving and passionate, but when Peaches had decided to marry, his tone turned resigned.
I wish only happiness for you, my darling, and if this is the kind of happiness you wish, I will not stand in its path. A woman wants to be mistress of her own household with her own children… Nights will be long without you, but I am grateful for what joy you've lent me over this twelvemonth, which has been the happiest of my life.
They'd met again several years later, and I found Barbury's letter about it: Seeing you was like sunshine breaking through the greatest of storms, my sweet Peaches. You ask if we can meet again, and I say, my darling, that a hundred times I have thought of contriving to meet, and only great strength of will has kept me at home. Name the place, name the time, and I will fly there with the greatest joy, if only to touch your hand, to look upon you, to hear your voice once again.
His next letters had been euphoric. Later missives spoke of Peaches' unhappiness with Chapman, of Chapman's jealousy, of her sorrow when she realized that she would never have children.
Most of all, Barbury's letters expressed his great happiness that he and Peaches were together again- monotonously so. Occasionally, he admonished her about her craving for excitement, which would get her into trouble some day, he warned. Sadly, he had been correct.
All Barbury's letters had been addressed here, to number 12, St. Charles Row. She had used this place as a home away from home, a place to which her lover could send letters, in which she could dress herself as Peaches the lovely actress and meet her Lord Barbury. Her husband would likely never find this place, and Peaches probably had paid Kensington handsomely for the privilege.
I refolded the last letter and sat lost in thought. Suppose Chapman had discovered this place and his wife's duplicity-would it have driven him to murder? He would certainly have had reason to be incensed. Peaches and Barbury had been conducting a most intense affair.
True, Chapman had produced a witness to swear that he was dining during the hour his wife met her death, but I could not cross Chapman off the list of suspects yet. Of anyone, he had the greatest motive, and Peaches had been thrown into the river very close to Middle Temple Hall.
Likewise, I still could not dismiss Lord Barbury. Like Chapman, he'd had witnesses to his presence at White's at the time in question, but he could have hired someone to carry out the murder. When Peaches had turned from Lord Barbury the first time, his letters had been sad but understanding. However, other letters had shown a fiery, hot-blooded man-a man who very much desired a woman and was almost ill with despair when he could not see her.
If Peaches had told him she wanted to end their relationship a second time, could Barbury have been provoked to murder? Possibly. Many murders were committed out of jealousy and anger; the newspapers were full of such stories.
I stacked the letters together, laid them on the desk, and opened another drawer. I found there another letter, unfolded and unfinished, lying atop a neat stack of blank paper.
This letter was in a different hand and addressed to 'My dearest, funny, sweetest Bear.' Peaches had called Barbury 'Bear,' Jean had said. Not the salutation of a woman to a man she planned to leave.
We will have two delicious weeks together, she wrote, when we can pretend that we belong totally and completely to one another. Oh, my darling, my heart beats faster with thought of days and nights in your presence, where you may touch my hand or my cheek any time as though I was yours forever and ever. And nights-how I long to be with you in the dark all night long, without fearing the clock and the dawn.
She went on for a few paragraphs in this vein, excitement and desire pouring from her pen. She never mentioned Inglethorpe, or her husband, or her method for deceiving Chapman. Why she'd never finished the letter nor sent it, I didn't learn from her words.
The clean papers beneath the page were smooth and free of indentation. I toyed with the idea that Kensington had come in and removed a second page of the letter, one that incriminated him of her murder, leaving only the top page for me to find.
If he had, he'd removed any blank sheets that might have been under it to catch the indentation. The letter stopped a good two inches above the end of the page. Peaches likely had only written that much, then tucked the paper into the drawer to finish later.
I folded it over on itself, hiding the excited, happy words, and laid it with the rest of the letters.
I found nothing else in the writing desk or in my continued search of the room. Finishing, I seated myself on the upholstered bench at the foot of the bed, my hand on my borrowed walking stick, and looked about me.
Peaches had lived here and loved here. Had she died here?
Again, I had seen nothing that obviously pointed to her murder, but Kensington could easily have removed any evidence. I still did not much believe he did not have a separate key.
I found it strange that the house had this one oasis of calm, where Peaches had found refuge. I had expected
