The Glass House by Ashley Gardner Page A

spirits."
    "What time was that?"
    "Around four or so, I believe."
    He was a little off; Lady Breckenridge put
Peaches leaving Inglethorpe's shortly after four, and she could not
have reached here for another half hour.
    "When did she leave?" I asked.
    "As to that, I have no idea. I did not see
her go. Never saw her again after she went up to the room."
    "Which I would like to see," I said.
    Kensington looked distressed. "No one goes
above this floor, sir."
    "Except Lord Barbury, and Peaches, and you,"
I answered, my voice hard. "And now I will."
    Kensington opened his mouth to further
protest, then closed it. I must have looked quite angry, and
although Grenville's walking stick had no sword in it, it was made
of ebony, hard and strong. Kensington could always call for the
ruffians that every hell employed to keep order, but not before I
could swing the stick.
    Finally, he shrugged, produced a key, and led
us to a door behind one of the curtains.
    That door led to a dimly lit hall and a
narrow flight of stairs. At the next landing, Kensington unlocked a
door, lifted a taper from one of the sconces in the stairwell, and
ushered us into a cold chamber.
    The neat plainness of this room contrasted
sharply with the tawdry finery on the floor below. The chamber held
a bed hung with yellow brocade draperies, a dressing table, and two
comfortable-looking chairs. The room was dark now and fireless, but
I imagined it could be cheerful. Here, if Kensington spoke the
truth, Peaches and Lord Barbury had carried on their liaison.
    I moved to the dressing table and began
opening the drawers. Kensington looked distressed, but he made no
move to stop me.
    As I expected, I found nothing. Kensington
would have had ample time to remove anything from this room he
wanted no one to see. Grenville looked over my shoulder as I pulled
from the dressing table a silver hairbrush, a handful of silk
ribbons, and a reticule.
    I opened the reticule, but found little of
interest. A viniagrette, which a lady would open and apply to her
nose when she felt faint, a bit of lace, a comb, and a tiny bottle
of perfume.
    Grenville lifted the perfume bottle and
worked open the stopper. The odor of sweet musk bathed my nostrils.
"Expensive," he pronounced, then returned the stopper to the
bottle. "A gift from Barbury?"
    "Probably." I returned everything to the
reticule.
    We found nothing more in the drawers.
Kensington stood inside the doorway, watching us, looking more
curious than alarmed.
    "Why did she come here Monday?" I asked him
as Grenville closed the dressing table.
    Kensington shrugged. "Why shouldn't she? She
was probably meeting her lordship."
    "She'd made an appointment to meet him much
later that night," I said. "Yet you say she was here after four in
the afternoon. Why should she have come?"
    Kensington hesitated, and I watched him
choose his words carefully. "Gentlemen, as I told you, I'd known
Amelia Chapman a very long time. She was a young woman who found
life tedious, and it was no joy for her being married to a plodding
gent like Chapman. She did not like to go home, and I sympathized.
She'd retreat here when her husband grew too dull for her, and I
was happy to let her. I believe she had told her husband some
rigmarole about visiting a friend in the country, in any case, so
she would not be expected home. She had done such a thing
before."
    "Did she meet anyone else here that
afternoon?" I asked. "Someone not Lord Barbury?"
    "Now, as to that, I do not know. I told you,
I saw her, but I did not see her after she came up to her room, and
she was quite alone then. And I have no idea when she departed. You
may, of course, ask the footman who opens the door."
    I certainly would ask him.
    "Now, gentlemen." Kensington rubbed his
hands. "I have been very good natured, letting you rummage through
my rooms and ask about my friends. But this is a house of
business."
    Grenville gave him a look of undisguised
disgust. He opened his mouth to denounce him, to