'Have you asked Lady Breckenridge her opinion? She is not the most conventional of women, you know.'
'She might draw the line at bigamy or perpetual adultery.'
'Possibly,' he conceded. 'Well, I will quiz my solicitor, thoroughly and at length. There must be a way to resolve this, without resorting to a trial for crim con.' He shook his head. 'This is precisely why I have never put my own head in the noose. What happens if you awaken one morning and realize you've both changed your mind? In my case, every debutante's mama wants her daughter to be called Mrs. Grenville. The young lady would not be marrying me for my excellent character, and we'd know it.'
'Marry Marianne,' I suggested, 'and let the ambitious mothers mourn. Dukes and statesmen marry actresses, why not you as well?'
Grenville's look turned a bit regretful. 'Dear Marianne has insisted I give her more allowance. I would upbraid her for extravagance, except that she does seem to practice good economy.' His brows drew together. 'Much as it pains me to admit it, Lacey, it might be time to let her go. Give her a large lump sum, since she enjoys money so much, and have done.'
'And I will ask you not to,' I said.
Grenville gave me a sharp stare. 'Why? Would you like to watch her slowly drive me mad? I had not thought you so cruel.'
Very aware of Matthias and Bartholomew avidly listening, I only shook my head. 'I promise that you will understand everything about her, as soon as I can arrange it.'
His eyes darkened, and his fingers tightened ever so slightly on his glass. 'I will be agog to learn all,' he said, his voice deceptively soft.
'For now, let us hunt for Nancy and her friend. I am anxious to interview this Tom, paramour of the missing Black Bess.'
Grenville gave me a chill nod, and we let the touchy subjects of Marianne and my divorce drop.
While we readied ourselves to leave, I told Grenville of my interview with the sailor and what he'd said about Mary Chester. After we spoke to Black Bess's gent, I said, I'd hunt up Pomeroy and quiz him thoroughly about Bess.
We stepped from the house into evening air that had cooled somewhat. It was eight o'clock, the sun just slipping behind tall London buildings. I liked this part of the evening, when the heat of the day abated, and the sky was azure, just barely streaked with gold.
As we neared Russel Street, where Grenville had left his carriage, I saw, to my astonishment, Carlotta dash around the corner to Grimpen Lane. She wore no hat and no shawl, her hair was mussed from the summer wind, and the hem of her skirt was muddy. She ran straight for me, shouting before she even reached me.
'Where is she?'
I stopped a moment in confusion, then I saw the stark anger and fear in her eyes. Alarm bit me. 'Do you mean Gabriella?'
'Of course I mean Gabriella. I know she came to find you. Everyone in Covent Garden saw her come this way, and they were eager to point me the way to your rooms.'
'I took Gabriella home,' I said, puzzled. 'I watched her go into the house with you.'
I was aware of Grenville and the two towering footmen behind me, looking on, but Carlotta seemed to neither notice them nor care. 'Yes, then, ' she snapped. 'She has gone again, without a word. I know she must have come to you, so where is she?'
'She is not here, Carlotta. Are you certain she did not simply stop to buy something in the market?'
She shook her head. 'I came through the market on the way. I never saw her.'
My alarm increased. 'What about Auberge? Did she go out with him?'
'My husband is waiting in our rooms in case she returns. He would not have taken her anywhere without telling me nor would he have left her behind somewhere.'
Her glare told me that she'd expect such irresponsibility from me, but never Major Auberge.
Grenville broke in. 'She might have gone into the bake shop. Perhaps she wanted to come upstairs but heard me in your rooms and decided to wait until I departed. She might be there even now, she and Mrs. Beltan having bread and a gab.'
He spoke lightly, but I heard the thread of concern in his voice. With girls going missing from Covent Garden, we could not simply shrug this off. I decided that Grenville had a good idea and led the way back to the bake shop.
Mrs. Beltan was there, but not her assistant, and not Gabriella. To my inquiry as to whether Gabriella had returned, Mrs. Beltan said, 'No one's been in, Captain, in the last hour. I've been back scraping ash from the ovens, but if someone comes in, they generally sing out.'
'She might not have wanted to sing out,' I said. I scanned the bake shop, but my daughter was not hiding in its shadows. The shop was small, a six foot by about ten foot rectangle with a counter from which Mrs. Beltan sold loaves of bread and seed cakes.
A door led from the shop into her parlor, but it was shut and, when I tried it, locked. 'No one's been in there all day,' Mrs. Beltan said. 'Not even me. I've been run off my feet with custom.'
I turned to Carlotta. 'Go back to King Street. I will ask about here and in the market. We will find her.'
Carlotta gave me a belligerent stare, as she had done of old. 'How do I know you have not hidden her upstairs?'
'Of course I have not,' I began heatedly, but Bartholomew broke in. 'She might a' gone there, sir. She might have slipped upstairs to the empty rooms above or even the attics while we were jawing in your rooms.'
I stifled my impatience long enough to agree that it was a possibility. Gabriella might have wanted to speak to me without Grenville or the two servants about, and decided to wait, as Grenville had speculated. Perhaps she'd fallen asleep and not heard us leave.
Mrs. Beltan came with us. The rooms above mine were locked, because they weren't being let at the moment, and she wanted no vagrants sleeping there. But a young girl with determination might have been able to find her way in.
Mrs. Beltan unlocked the door on the landing above mine with her keys. Stuffy, close air enveloped us when we entered, but obviously no one had been in the rooms since Mrs. Beltan had sent her assistant to sweep a few days ago. We found the broom the assistant had left behind, but nothing else.
The attics were likewise empty. One was dark and cool, the other, warm with sunshine from a skylight. Bartholomew slept in the warm one and kept his bed neatly made. His clothes were folded on shelves, his nightshirt and extra coat hanging from pegs.
Gabriella was nowhere to be seen.
By the time we'd emerged into the street again, Carlotta was beginning to panic. 'She was coming to see you,' she said, glaring at me again.
'Did she tell you that?'
'She said nothing to me. I never saw her go. But I know. '
'We'll look, sir,' Bartholomew offered. 'Could be she went round the wrong corner. Streets here can be a warren, you know.'
'What does she look like?' Matthias began, but Bartholomew beckoned him on. 'I'll tell you,' he said as the two of them loped away to Russel Street.
'My coach is at your service, madam,' Grenville said, in his smooth, polite voice. 'I will escort you back to King Street. Best for you to stay there and let my lads do the searching. It is likely she has already returned there on her own.'
Carlotta had not changed in one aspect; she responded well when someone with authority told her what to do. Her flush of anger receded, and she thanked Grenville with manners that reminded me of the debutante she'd once been. Grenville touched her arm and led her to his opulent coach, which waited for him at the corner.
His coachman sprang to his feet from where he'd lounged against a wall, drinking from a flask. Grenville nodded at him to open the door, and Grenville handed Carlotta in with as much aplomb as if he'd been escorting her to the theatre. He climbed in beside her and looked back out at me. 'I'll see her safely, Lacey.' He did not ask me to join them.
The carriage rolled off toward Bow Street, probably to take the roundabout route to King Street without
