'I am sorry to hear that. I do not wish to distress her, but I truly need to see the anteroom and the ballroom again.'
'You will,' Lady Breckenridge said, tone confident. She trailed her long-fingered hands down her arms. 'I will give you a bit of advice, however. If you wish to speak to courtesans by the pillars at Covent Garden Theatre, you should not speak so loudly or so obviously.'
Her face was very white, and I saw something flicker in her eyes. Hurt, I thought, and anger.
'Damn it all,' I said feelingly.
I had hoped that my conversation with Marianne would go unnoticed, but I ought to have known better. My face warmed. 'As I have observed before, you are a very well-informed lady.'
'Good heavens, Gabriel, it is all over Mayfair. I could not stir a step last night without someone taking me aside and asking me whether I knew that my Captain Lacey had been pursuing a bit of muslin under the piazza.'
'They should not have spoken to you of such a thing at all,' I said indignantly.
'Yes, well, my acquaintances are a bit more blunt than necessary. They seemed to believe that I would find this on dit interesting.'
'They ought to have better things to talk about.'
'I agree. I did tell them quite clearly to mind their own business.' She was rigid, her eyes glittering.
'Gossip is misinformed, in this case,' I said. 'She was not a bit of muslin. She was Marianne Simmons.'
Her brows arched. 'And what, pray tell, is a Marianne Simmons?'
'Hmm,' I said as I thought about how to explain Marianne. 'Miss Simmons is an actress. She occupied rooms above mine for a time, and made the habit of stealing my candles, my coal, my snuff, and my breakfast whenever she felt the need. I let her; she never had enough money. She is shrewish and irritating, intelligent and bad- tempered, and has fallen quite in love with Lucius Grenville, although I must swear you to silence on that last point. She has a habit of accosting me whenever she perceives something wrong between herself and Grenville, which, unfortunately, is often.'
As I spoke, Lady Breckenridge relaxed, and by the end of my tale she even looked amused. 'So you have become the peacemaker.'
'To my dismay. I do not know how effective a peacemaker I am. I generally want to shake the pair of them. I can hope the storm has died down for now, but I know better.'
Lady Breckenridge strolled to me. 'Poor Gabriel. Besieged on all sides. Your colonel and his wife; Grenville and his ladybird.'
'True. They resent my intrusion, but they also expect me to have answers for them.'
'That must be difficult for you.' She spoke as though she believed it.
'It is difficult. And my own fault. If I minded my own affairs, I would not get myself into half the predicaments I do.'
'No, you would sit at a club and play cards until numbers danced before your eyes. It is your nature to interfere, and you have done some good because of it.' Lady Breckenridge laid her hand on my arm. 'Besides, if you did not poke your nose into other people's business, you would not have journeyed down to Kent last summer.'
She did not smile, but her eyes held a sparkle of good humor. Last summer, I had gone to Kent to investigate a crime and had met Lady Breckenridge in a sunny billiards room, where she'd blown cigarillo smoke in my face and told me that I was a fool.
I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed her fingers. Her eyes darkened.
'Here is where things grew complicated on your last visit,' she said.
I kissed her fingers again. 'And I very much wish everything to be simple.'
She grew quiet. Slowly, I slid my arm about her waist. The lace cap smelled clean with an overlay of cinnamon. She always smelled a little of spice, this lady.
I truly wished that things were simple, that I could come here, as though I had a right to, and sit in her parlor and hold her hand. I wanted more than that, of course. I wanted to love her with my body and drowse with her in the comfortable dark. I wanted things to be at ease between us-no secrets, no jealousies, no fear. I leaned down and gently kissed her lips.
She allowed the kiss then smiled at me as we drew apart.
'You must continue prying into other people's business until you put everything aright, Gabriel,' she said, touching my chest. 'It is your way.'
'I wish I could put it aright. But this affair is a tangle.'
'You will persist.' Lady Breckenridge stepped from my embrace, but slid her hand to mind. 'Who are you off to see this afternoon?'
'Mrs. Harper. I must discover what happened to that piece of paper she and Brandon were willing to pay Turner for.'
'How exhausting for you. Go in my coach. No need to take a horrid hackney.'
'I had decided to walk.'
She gave me a deprecating smile. 'Your stay in the country has made you terribly hearty, has it? There is a dreadful damp. Take the carriage.'
I gave her a mocking bow. 'As you wish, my lady.'
She lifted her brows again, then she laughed. 'Oh, do go away, Gabriel. I will send word when I have smoothed the way with Lady Gillis. And remember not to speak to your Miss Simmons under the piazza again, or tongues will continue to wag.'
She mocked me as only she could, but as I departed, I thought only on how much I liked to hear her laugh.
Lady Breckenridge had apparently given orders to Barnstable to prepare her coach before she'd even offered it to me, because I found the carriage waiting for me outside the front door. Barnstable helped me inside, and Lady Breckenridge's coachman drove me straight to Mrs. Harper's lodgings.
However, when I reached the fashionable house near Portman Square in which Mrs. Harper resided, the lady was not at home. 'You may leave your card, sir,' said a flat-faced maid, holding out her hand. I put one of my cards into it, and she backed inside and closed the door. That, for now, was that.
I found myself at a standstill in my investigation, so I took care of more personal business on Oxford Street, such as paying some debts and purchasing a new pair of serviceable gloves. Lady Breckenridge's coachman obliged me in this too, saying it was her ladyship's orders to drive me about. I tried to call on Grenville, but he, too, was not at home. Matthias told me that Grenville had sent word he was be staying at the Clarges Street house. He winked knowingly.
I hoped that the news meant a closing of the breach between himself and Marianne, although I was disappointed that I could not speak to Grenville himself.
I told Lady Breckenridge's coachman to leave me there, seeing no reason for him to transport me across the metropolis to my appointment with Sir Montague Harris, and took a hackney to Whitechapel.
After Lady Breckenridge's cozy rooms and the luxury of her carriage, the room in the Whitechapel public office was a cold and austere place. The fire smoked and burned fitfully, and the wine Sir Montague offered me was sour.
I told him all I'd discovered since I'd last written, from Turner's funeral to my interview with Hazleton this morning.
'What you say about Bennington interests me,' Sir Montague said. He shifted his bulk in his chair, which had grown to fit him. 'If he is so clever, why does he tell his featherheaded wife to keep secret that he's changed his name to hers?'
'I cannot say. Either he is not as clever as he pretends to be, or he counted on Mrs. Bennington spreading around that secret, for his own purposes. Although what that is, I cannot imagine.'
'Why change his name at all?' Sir Montague asked.
'Fleeing from creditors?'
'Or the law. I will focus my eye on this Mr. Bennington. Dig into his past, find people who knew him in Italy, and so forth. I will enjoy it.'
