everywhere.'
I smiled politely, but my heart was not in the banter tonight. I should have been happy sitting between a lady I considered a good friend and one for whom I bore increasing affection, but I was still too dazed from my encounters with Carlotta and Gabriella and preoccupied with the meeting tomorrow to enjoy myself.
I had contemplated courting Lady Breckenridge when I was free of my marriage, and in fact, had already gained her permission to do so. This summer, I would go with her to her father's estate to meet her family, and I looked forward to the visit. I was at last discovering the peace of being in love without drama.
Yet tonight, I could not be comfortable, and I knew that Lady Breckenridge sensed my distance. She behaved as usual, making acid comments about people she observed and blatantly watching Grenville's box through her lorgnette. She talked of a violinist she'd recently decided to sponsor-one of a string of unknown artists, poets, and musicians she prided herself on introducing to London society. This one was young, French, and difficult, but his playing had already wormed its way into the hearts of the right people.
I listened and made the correct responses, but Lady Breckenridge knew she did not hold my interest. She watched me from the corners of her eyes but asked no questions.
Lady Aline, on the other hand, leaned toward me, all eagerness. 'I heard from Louisa that Bow Street has asked you to look into another matter for them. Do tell us about it.'
Lady Breckenridge lowered her lorgnette and tilted her head to listen, letting black curls spill over her shoulders to mingle with the feathers. I glanced behind me, but the three ladies in the chairs in the back of the box had their heads together, nattering madly over something else.
'The matter does not seem important to the magistrates,' I said. 'Pomeroy thought to have me poke around. It is a rather sordid topic for ladies.'
'But we like sordid things, Lacey,' Lady Aline said. 'It makes us feel morally superior.'
Lady Breckenridge slanted me a smile, enjoying Lady Aline's joke. 'A corpse in a ballroom is also sordid,' she said. 'And yet we were quite interested in that.'
I protested out of politeness, because a gentleman should, but I knew that these ladies were not wilting misses and more resilient than any generals' wives I'd known. 'It involves street girls,' I said. 'A few have gone missing.'
Neither lady blushed nor grew horrified that I mentioned such a subject.
'You are correct,' Lady Breckenridge said. 'That is sordid, but not in the way you meant. Why should these ladies go missing?'
'Perhaps they've simply run off to seek their fortunes,' Lady Aline said.
'The men with whom they lived reported their absence with concern.'
'Poor things,' Lady Aline said. 'Their lovers often beat them, I do hear. Perhaps they ran away from them.'
'Or found better accommodation,' Lady Breckenridge, ever practical, said.
'Either may be the case. I will meet with one of the men tomorrow and ascertain what sort of person he is. That will tell me much about why the girl is gone.'
'Louisa said you asked for her help,' Lady Aline said. 'But she did not specify of what sort.'
Lady Breckenridge brushed at her skirt as though she'd found a stray speck of dust. 'I cannot imagine what Mrs. Brandon knows about street girls.'
'Oh, she takes them in, my dear,' Lady Aline said. 'They do not stay, but she's rescued a few urchins in her time, given them employment, and found places for the best of them. A few simply run off with the spoons, of course, but Louisa is not deterred. She has a good heart. Is it one of her strays you are after, Lacey?'
'A young woman I know who was formerly a street girl, yes. Black Nancy is now a most-respectable maid in Islington.'
Lady Aline nodded as though it all made sense. Lady Breckenridge's bosom rose with a sharp breath, but the only expression she made was to raise her brows the slightest bit. 'You know quite interesting people, Lacey.'
I kept my tone light. 'I have had an adventurous life.'
She did not answer but kept her gaze trained on me. Her good opinion mattered to me, and I did not want to sense it drifting away.
'I wish to ask this young woman if she knew any of the missing girls,' I went on.
Lady Aline nodded. 'Go to one of them. That is good logic.'
Lady Breckenridge said nothing. She raised her lorgnette again and scanned the crowd, slightly turning her body away from me.
Lady Aline pumped me for more information about the missing girls until she was satisfied she'd heard everything, then she moved on to other gossip. Lady Breckenridge made the occasional desultory comment but stayed rather silent, for her.
Near to midnight, the theatre crowd began drifting away. The ladies with Lady Aline had departed early, as it was Wednesday, and Almack's Assembly Rooms in King Street, St. James's, closed their doors at eleven, no exceptions.
I prepared to take my leave and return to Grenville's box, but Lady Aline stopped me. 'I am off home to host a card party for about a dozen friends. You will of course escort us, dear boy. You cannot let a helpless widow and spinster travel across London alone in the middle of the night.'
I wanted to laugh. Lady Aline had her own carriage and retinue of loyal servants, and any man fool enough to rob her would find himself at the business end of her thick walking stick. Likewise Lady Breckenridge was well looked after; her footmen were stronger and more agile than I.
But Lady Aline wanted me, for what reason I did not know, and so I answered, 'I will happily escort you to Mayfair, but I will not stay for cards. I have not the head for them tonight, and I have an early appointment tomorrow.'
'Pity,' Lady Aline said, struggling to her feet. I rose quickly to mine and helped her. 'You are such a splendid conversationalist, Lacey. You do not say only what everyone wishes to hear.'
'You mean I am rude.'
'I mean that you are refreshing. That is why Grenville favors you; you are nobody's toady, and the poor man must grow weary of toadies. He undoubtedly favors the unknown actress for the same reason. Difficult to find novelty in your life when you have everything handed to you. John, my boy, run and fetch my carriage.'
The youthful footman jumped and ran out to obey his mistress. Two maids entered a moment later with wraps for the ladies, and we made ready to leave.
I could not simply abandon Grenville, so I sent Lady Aline's footman when he returned around to say that Lady Aline had requested my presence. Grenville would understand. When Lady Aline commandeered a person, they stayed commandeered. She would have made a fine press-ganger.
Lady Breckenridge had traveled to the theatre with Lady Aline, so the three of us journeyed to Mayfair in Lady Aline's carriage, the two ladies facing forward, I facing the rear as a gentleman should. The carriage rolled north and west, leaving Drury Lane at Long Acre, then traveling through narrow byways to Leicester Square and beyond to Piccadilly, from which we turned north into the heart of fashionable London.
Lady Aline lived in Mount Street, around the corner from Lady Breckenridge's house in South Audley Street. Lady Aline's home was a typical London townhouse, brick with white pediments over the windows and an arched front door painted dark green with a brass doorknocker in its center.
As soon as we stopped, a footman hurried from the house to set a stool in front of the carriage door and assist us down. Another footman unrolled a rug from stool to door so that his mistress and her guests never had to tread on London's dirty cobblestones.
Relieved of wraps, we went upstairs to Lady Aline's opulent sitting room. She bustled out with her servants, bellowing orders like a sergeant-major as she chivied them in preparations for her card party. The servants hurried after her, leaving Lady Breckenridge alone with me, which, I realized, had been Aline's intention all along.
Lady Breckenridge pulled a gold case from her reticule and extracted from it a thin black cigarillo. She held the cigarillo loosely in her fingers, pointing it ever so slightly at me. I took the cigarillo, lit it with a candle in an elaborate silver candelabra, and handed it back to her.
'Thank you,' she said. She drew a long breath of smoke, as though she'd been wanting to do nothing but that all evening. 'The theatre is tedious,' she remarked. 'I long for country walks-or rather walks in the country garden. I am not one to tramp mannishly across wet meadows and scramble through hedgerows and think it
