The Glass House (29 page)

He smile became sickly. "You will not kill
me, Captain. You are a man of honor."

"What I will likely do is haul you around the
corner to Bow Street and give you over to Pomeroy. My former
sergeant is not terribly scrupulous about how he obtains a
confession."

"No, you will not, Captain," Kensington said,
sounding too certain for my taste. "I am leaving England, and you
will keep your bullying Runner and magistrate friends from
following me."

"Will I?" I slapped the walking stick to my
hand. Ebony was a strong wood, good and solid.

Kensington's small, smug smile returned. "I
realize that you present a danger to me, Captain Lacey. I also very
much want my revenge. And I have it. I will leave unmolested for
the Continent, or a lady you care for very much will not return
home this night."

I went still, my blood turning to ice. Then I
was across the room, my hands at his throat.

Kensington yelped. "Strangle me and you'll
not know what becomes of her!"

I barely heard him through my berserker fury.
We struggled in the corner, he trying to get away from me, me doing
my best to throttle him. I was stronger, but he used his weight to
counter me. We grappled, he punched me with heavy fists.

I had never mentioned Louisa Brandon in his
presence, but it would not have been difficult for him to discern
my friendship with her. It was common knowledge that I and the
Brandons were close, and Kensington or his lackeys could have seen
me speaking to her at the theatre last night, riding with her in
the park today.

I would have killed him I think, and what
would have happened to her I scarce dare imagine. As it was,
Kensington kicked me hard in the left knee, a lucky shot but
effective.

I loosed him in a flare of pain. Kensington
ducked from my hold and raced for the door.

I shot after him. I could run on my leg when
I was afraid or enraged, and I was both. Despite his kick, I was
only five steps behind him on the stairs and closer still while he
fumbled with the door.

Outside, the stones were slick, but plenty of
people milled about, despite the dark and cold. Kensington wove
through the crowd, and I pounded behind. "Stop him!" I shouted.

The good citizens of Grimpen Lane and Russel
Street hastened to oblige. Unfortunately, too many of them did, and
they got in my way while trying to seize the elusive
Kensington.

My leg gave out with an abruptness that
paralyzed me. One moment I was running, the next, and I was on the
pavement. I caught my knee, moaning and cursing. More concerned
citizens stood over me, offering advice and sympathy.

"Did anyone catch him?" I ground out.

Heads were shaken. No one had. I sank back,
my head pounding, my knee throbbing in pain.

I had only one comfort. I did not need to
catch Kensington to find Louisa.

I dug in my pocket for a penny and thrust it
at one of the street boys. "Get me a hackney."

The boy caught the coin and bounced away. I
spent the intervening time crawling to my feet and leaning against
the wall, waiting for the arrival of the hackney.

I knew where Kensington had put Louisa--the
only place he could have. The Glass House might effectively be
closed, but Kensington would still have a key.

When the hackney arrived, the boy helped me
climb into it. I directed the driver to St. Charles Row, near
Whitechapel, and before the door closed, I gave the lad another
coin and bade him run to Bow Street and tell Pomeroy where I'd
gone.

*** *** ***

When I reached St. Charles Row, all was
quiet. The moon had moved behind a bank of rising clouds, rendering
the street nearly black. A candle or two shone in windows, but the
citizens of this neighborhood would not have the money to waste on
too many lights. Many of the hard-working ones had gone to bed long
ago.

The Glass House was silent, the scarred door
locked, possibly bolted. The windows too were barred, and high from
the street.

I recalled how the girl, Jean, had described
Peaches leaving the house through the kitchen. No scullery steps
descended from the street to a door below, so the kitchen must lead
out to the spaces behind the houses.

In Mayfair, back gardens led to mews, where
horses and carriages were kept for the masters of the grand
townhouses. In this area, where the inhabitants likely could not
afford their own horses, the passages would be only wide enough for
the nightsoil removers who crept in and out in their noisome
task.

I left St. Charles Row for Aldgate, searching
for the narrow passage that backed onto The Glass House and its
neighbors. I stumbled upon it almost by accident; a darker space
between dark walls.

The passage when I entered it was so black
that I could find my way only by running my hand along the wall and
counting the gates. My boots sloshed through refuse the likes of
which I did not want to contemplate.

The gate of number 12 opened easily. In the
dark, I nearly fell down the short flight of stairs that led to the
kitchen door, catching myself with Grenville's walking stick at the
last moment.

The door was locked, but the lock proved to
be flimsy. I was angry enough that bringing the walking stick down
on the latch several times made it give way. If the neighbors heard
me and called the watch, so much the better.

The kitchen was cold and black. I tapped my
way across it like a blind man. My leg still hurt like fire, but I
was beyond caring. As soon as I got Louisa safe, I would let it
hurt, but not until then.

After a long time, too long for my patience,
I reached the far wall of the kitchen and groped along it until I
found a door. Hoping it led into the house and not a cupboard or
scullery, I pushed through.

My stick struck a stair. I climbed. My leg
hurt, and I had to pull myself up, holding onto the wall.

I emerged at last into the entrance hall.
Faint light shone through the fanlight above the door, glistening
on candlesticks on a half-moon table, candlesticks useless to me
because I had no way to light the candles.

I found the main stairs and groped my way to
the first floor above the ground floor. The house was silent, and
it had the feel and smell of desertion.

I wondered where Kensington had put her.
Would he have found it amusing to lock her into one of the windowed
rooms? In that case, I'd only have to break the window to get her
out.

Or was she lying unconscious behind the
glass, where the shards could cut her? I did not like that thought,
but my greatest worry was simply getting her out.

I went into the main room, where highborn
gentlemen had played cards and dice and sipped expensive port. I
could just make out the outlines of the tables and chairs in the
darkness. The gleam of glass led me to a window, but I could see
nothing inside.

I cupped my hands and shouted. "Louisa!"

The sound reverberated from the glass window,
the dark room, the empty tables and chairs.

I left the main room and made my way, slowly
in the near pitch black, to the stairs that led to the attics. I
climbed these painfully and emerged once more in the tiny hall
where I'd found the room in which Peaches had kept her most
precious things.

"Louisa!" I called.

I heard a faint cry, not from Peaches' room,
but from the one opposite, the attic room I'd not seen. I groped
for the door.

I heard footsteps on the stairs, a heavy
tread that shook the stairwell. I wanted to shout out,
Pomeroy,
she's here,
but I knew the next instant that it was not
Pomeroy.

I tried to turn and ducked when I felt the
whistle of the cudgel. It struck my knee, and I started to go down.
Then pain exploded in my head. I fell, sick and dizzy. I heard the
faint cry again, the voice behind the door asking what was wrong. I
tried to climb to my feet.

I was struck again. I fell back to the floor,
pain washing me.

Someone grabbed me beneath the arms. I tried
to twist away, but I could not get my weak leg under me to rise, to
fight. A sack was thrust over my head, cutting off my words and my
air, and I was plunged into darkness.

*** *** ***

A long time later, I heard a voice--low,
sweet, and urgent.

"Lacey. Wake up, for God's sake."

I opened my eyes. All was black and close,
and I could not breathe. I struggled.

After a time I realized that I lay face down
on a hard floor, a canvas bag firmly in place over my head. My
hands were bound behind me. I tried to draw a breath and
coughed.

The bag reeked of human sweat and other odors
that did not bear close examination. Its drawstring encircled my
throat, not tight enough to choke me entirely, but enough so that I
could not dislodge it. My hands were bound firmly behind my back
with chafing twine. They had not needed to bind my legs. Any
attempt to rise brought excruciating pain.

"Lacey?"

The voice was not Louisa's. The lady sounded
far from me, and I wondered why she did not hurry to my side and
help me.

I answered, but my words were muffled through
the bag.

"Thank God," she said. "Are you all
right?"

"Not really," I mumbled.

"I do not understand what happened," Her
voice was thick. "I was leaving the theatre in Drury Lane. On a
sudden, a large man was beside me, and he had hold of my arm. My
servants were nowhere in sight. I believe I fainted, which is odd,
because I never faint. Then I woke up here, bound hand and foot. I
do not even know why."

I could not tell her, muffled as I was.

I found that if I used my chest and
shoulders, aided by my right leg, I could move across the board
floor about an inch at a time. The exercise was tiring and the bag
stifled me, so I only progressed about half a foot at a time before
having to rest.

She ceased talking, but I heard her hoarse
breathing. Sick and dizzy from the beating, I could only make for
her at a snail's crawl.

A few feet along, I came, surprisingly, to
the edge of a carpet. I smelled dust and wool through the cloying
bag. The raised lip of the carpet was about an inch high.

I began my arduous climb to the rug, then
stopped, frustrated, when the carpet caught on the bag and pulled
it tight against my head. I fumed for a few moments, until my
buzzing brain made me realize that if the carpet could pull the bag
one way, it could pull it another.

I leaned my cheek on the carpet and inched
backward. The carpet held the bag in place, and my chin came hard
against the cord. I continued to wriggle and work at the edge of
the bag with my jaw, until all at once, the cord came loose and the
bag rose halfway up my face.

Luckily, my assailant had not tied the cord,
only pulled the drawstring tight. I wriggled some more. The bag
caught on the corner of the carpet, and at last I was able to
withdraw my head.

I lay for a moment, simply breathing, the
stale air as sweet to me as that of a spring morning. I smelled a
thick, spicy perfume as well, very different from the lemony scents
Louisa Brandon wore.

The room was nearly pitch black, but for the
faint glimmer of starlight through a window high in the wall. I
rolled myself into a sitting position on the carpet. "Where are
you?"

"Here."

Her voice was weak. I managed to move my
right leg under me, but I could not stand.

"Talk to me," I said. "I will find you."

"Lacey." She sounded tired. "Why the devil am
I here?"

"It has to do with me and my meddling. I am
sorry."

She gave a faint laugh. "I ought to have
known. Where am I, by the by?"

"The Glass House."

"Truly? How interesting. I had thought it
would be a bit more lurid."

"We are in the attics. The lurid rooms are
downstairs."

"I see. What a pity."

I was happy to hear the acid in her tone. Any
other woman, Mrs. Danbury, say, might have been in hysterics. Lady
Breckenridge was frightened, but not defeated.

"The house is closed, out of business," I
said.

"I take it that somebody is displeased about
that."

"Mrs. Chapman owned it," I said as I
struggled to crawl across the carpet. "But the man and woman who
ran it are not happy with me, no. Kensington threatened me with
revenge. He did not say he would drag you into it as well."

"Sordid men think of sordid solutions."

"He will not have it. Once I get myself free,
we will go."

"Will they kill us?" Lady Breckenridge asked
it in a matter-of-fact voice, a lady requesting information, just
as she would turn to me at the theatre and ask if I thought there'd
be an acrobatics act between plays. "Perhaps dispose of our bodies
in the Thames, as they did with Peaches?"

"Such optimism," I said. But I could not
argue with her. I had no idea what Kensington planned.

At long last, I reached her. Lady
Breckenridge lay on her side, facing away from me, her hands and
feet bound. Her long hair spilled over the carpet.

The cords about my wrists had loosened a bit
from all my crawling about. I knelt and continued working my hands.
The twine cut my skin, but little by little, the bonds
slackened.

My position, half-raised on my knees, my
hands frantically working, was not stable by any means. My left leg
gave way in a sudden wash of pain, and I fell over, on top of Lady
Breckenridge. It was a fine, soft landing place, but I feared
hurting her.

She gave a grunt, and her eyes gleamed in the
darkness.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"Not quite. You must weight twenty
stone."

"Untrue. It only feels that way having it
fall on you all in a heap."

She did not laugh. "I would be happier if I
had use of my hands."