For a moment Kensington rasped in panic then the angry light returned to his eyes. 'You are a bloody fool, Captain. I came to offer you a bargain. If you will not help me, then I cannot answer for what happens to you.'
'Don't threaten me. You tell me you are incapable of murder, but I do not claim to be so.'
Kensington paused, fear lighting his eyes again, then the defiant look returned, and he clapped his hat to his head. 'You will regret that you did not help me,' he said. 'Oh, yes, you will regret it.' He glared at me one last time before he turned and marched down the stairs.
I slammed the door and stood in the middle of my chamber, seething with anger. Needing release, I picked up the ebony walking stick that Grenville had lent me and hurled it across the room. It made a satisfying crash against the wall, but the strong shaft remained whole.
I was still seething when I walked to the Covent Garden Theatre at the end of Bow Street not long later. I had wanted Kensington to fall to his knees and confess that he'd killed Peaches and Lord Barbury, had wanted it badly so I could grab him by the neck and drag him off to Pomeroy and punishment.
Marianne's story had portrayed Peaches as a starry-eyed girl, certain that happiness and good fortune lay in London. Luck seemed to be with her when an aged relative had died and left her a place to live. And then she'd met Kensington. Peaches must have trusted him at first, wanting the fame and fortune he promised her. But he had drained innocence from her. Kensington had made her into a grasping woman who'd think nothing of owning a bawdy house or of cuckolding her husband when she was tired of him, a woman who wanted and needed excitement and sensation to make her life livable. I hated Kensington and wanted to hurt him.
My emotions roiling thus, I was therefore in no mood to be cut dead by Louisa Brandon.
I saw her just inside the theatre, after I'd strode past the grand columns and its usual collection of ladies in flimsy silks and rouged cheeks. I saw her in her long-sleeved matron's gown of dull maroon, its lighter pink trim matching the three feathers in her headdress.
She'd said something to her maid and had turned to make for the stairs to the boxes. Our gazes met for an instant. I saw, even around the substantial number of people between us, her color rise. Recognition-and dismay. Just as I was about to bow to her, Louisa abruptly turned and walked away.
I lost my temper. I strode through the crowd, never minding the pain in my leg, reaching the doorway to the stairs before she did. I planted myself in her path and waited for her to act.
She, of course, had to stop. I made a formal bow and said, 'I remember you promising that you would not cut me entirely.'
A spark of anger flared in her eyes. 'I do beg your pardon, Gabriel. I did not see you.'
She lied. She had certainly seen me. 'It is of no moment.' My lips felt stiff. 'Shall I escort you to your box?'
'There is no need.'
'It would be rude not to.'
She gazed at me frostily, and I gazed back. I remembered us in a similar situation, once upon a time, at a regimental colonel's dinner. Louisa had been furiously angry at me for some fault or other, but because we'd been in the colonel's tent with the other officers and their wives, she had not been able to shout at me, nor I to retaliate. We could only glare at one another and offer strained politeness. Later, of course, she had dressed me down, and I'd shouted back until we'd cleared the air and become friends again.
We faced another restraining situation, her glare now twice as angry as it had been at that regimental supper. But we could not afford to make a scene, and she knew it. Louisa silently slid her gloved fingers under my arm, and we proceeded up the stairs, neither of us speaking.
I led her to her box and inside. She let me, both of us now determined to go through the charade. I settled her in a chair, draped her shawl over her shoulders, and sent for coffee, just as I would any other time, but my movements were deliberate, my questions cold.
I hoped, very much hoped, that she would at burst out laughing and say, 'This is nonsense, Gabriel, do sit down.' But Louisa remained stiff, her responses terse.
I handed her coffee, asked her if she'd like anything else. She lifted the cup to her lips and said clearly, 'No. Go away, Gabriel.'
'Louisa.'
Her eyes hardened. 'I do not wish to speak to you. Go.'
I looked down at her, my anger undimmed. 'You have been my friend for twenty years,' I said. 'I will never be able to simply go.'
But I picked up my walking stick and departed. Several ladies who had spied Louisa entering slid into her box past me with cries of greeting, barely noticing me.
I hardly felt my sore knee as I stamped around the perimeter of Covent Garden Theatre to Lady Breckenridge's box. Louisa and I had quarreled before, but this felt very different.
She was tired of me. I did not blame her. And yet I did blame her for being cruel. She was cutting me off from a thing that gave me joy-speaking to her. Later on, I would hurt. Now, I was simply angry.
In such a mood, I entered Lady Breckenridge's box on the upper tier.
Chapter Sixteen
Lady Breckenridge's theatre box rivaled Grenville's for elegance. A gilt-embellished door led to a small outer room with a dining table where guests could take a meal before the performance. An oriental carpet covered the floor, and a crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling to illuminate the satinwood furniture. A double door beyond this room led to the box itself, through which sounds of laughter and conversation drifted from the theatre proper.
The lackey tapped on the inner door for me, then opened it and ushered me through.
Six chairs stood in a row overlooking the stage below. Lady Breckenridge occupied the chair in the middle in a gown of lavender that left her shoulders bare. Her dark hair was threaded with diamonds.
Next to her sat a gentleman I did not know, and on her other side, with an empty chair between them, was Lady Aline Carrington. The gentleman returned my nod when Lady Breckenridge introduced us, but without much interest.
I took the seat between the two ladies. Lady Aline, stout of frame, had her gowns made cleverly, so that the dress neither pointed out nor hid her rotund figure. She rouged her cheeks red, outlined her eyes in kohl, and had coiled her white hair around a feathered headdress.
'Lacey, my boy, I am pleased to see you,' she said warmly.
'And I you, my lady.'
'I will forgive the lie. I hear you have been haring about town again, solving crimes like a Bow Street Runner. Disgraceful.'
I took her admonishment good-humoredly. Lady Aline liked me, and I her.
'Was that Louisa Brandon I saw you speaking to?' Lady Aline went on in her booming voice. She waved her lorgnette, indicating that she'd spied us through it. 'I had not thought she was coming tonight.'
I responded that she had indeed seen Louisa and hoped my tense anger did not betray itself.
'I shall have to call on her tomorrow and have a good chat,' Lady Aline said. She seemed in no hurry to rise and round the theatre to speak with her now.
I had no idea what the opera was below. The players seemed not to have much idea either. The audience laughed at the tragedy and shouted at the comedy, and a group of tall lads, who each reminded me a bit of the lanky Mr. Gower, sang along at the tops of their voices.
Lady Breckenridge wore a thick perfume tonight that smelled of eastern spices. She made little movements with her fan that sent the scent into my nose.
The gentleman on her other side was called Lord Percy Saunders, and that his father was the Duke of Waverly. Lord Percy, somewhere between forty and fifty, with gray hair at his temples, said little, and occasionally wiped his nose with a handkerchief. When he did speak, he confined his remarks to Lady Breckenridge and ignored me and Lady Aline.
When the opera wound to an interval, Lady Aline gathered her things and rose. 'I've had enough of this
