"Yes?" I snapped, not fully myself.
"Are you all right?"
I must have looked frightful, face unshaven, hair rumpled, eyes bloodshot. I raked my hand through my hair. "Sleeping. I beg your pardon. Please come in."
He stepped into my sitting room and looked about him as though I'd just invited him into a grand palace in Saint Petersburg. Across the lane the curtains of my opposite neighbor, Mrs. Carfax, stood open to catch the last of the daylight, allowing us to see right into her always painfully clean parlor.
A table stood in her window in the same position it had occupied for the year and a half I'd lived here. A book rested in the precise center of the table, edges in perfect alignment. I had witnessed both Mrs. Carfax and her faded companion carefully dust this book, but I had never observed either of them lift it, open it, read it. Mrs. Carfax liked to leave the curtains open as long as possible, she had confided to me one day in the bake shop, because she was forced to be very frugal with her candles. She would have hated living downstairs from Marianne.
Grenville peered through the dusty panes until Bartholomew had bowed and departed, then he pulled a newspaper out from under his arm and handed it to me. "You have become famous, my friend. I congratulate you."
I stared at him, nonplussed. "Famous?"
"Fresh this evening."
I took the paper from him and looked where he pointed. A caricature of myself, or at least a cavalry officer in dark regimentals brandishing a cavalry saber, accosted a frightened-looking man who was backing hastily away, dropping pencil and notebook. The head of the officer was overlarge, the saber too long. A ribbon of words from his mouth proclaimed: "A flogging! I flogging, I say, sir! Forty lashes will teach you to keep a foul Tongue in your Mouth, sir!"
In the background stood a man who could only be Grenville. The artist had given him an exaggerated athletic body, a huge cravat, and a high hat. He was smiling and nodding to an audience of anonymous but obviously upper-class ladies and gentlemen. His ribbon read: "Excellent, excellent, Cpt. We're to Drury Lane next then on to Gtlmn J-'s."
Beneath this ran the words. "A soldier of Honor, who took to shooting his Fellow Officers when he felt peevish-is dead and gone. His widow grieves-and another Gallant Dragoon leaps to the side of this most Fortunate of Women."
More of this drivel followed, but I flung it away. "Good God." If ever I saw that fellow Billings again, I would thrash him good and hard, making certain I rendered him unable to write. "I am sorry. They had no right to drag you into it."
Grenville waved it away. "I have appeared in far less flattering cartoons, believe me. But this coming hard after your letter made me wonder very much. As you intended me to."
In the dim light of the dying day, his dark eyes glistened like pieces of onyx. His curiosity upon receiving my letter must have been insatiable, because he'd not been willing to wait for his carriage to convey me to him. I did not like him here, which was why I never invited him. My lodgings were pitiful in contrast to his sumptuous mansion, where every luxury imaginable was at his disposal, including hot water pumped in for his baths.
But there was nothing for it now, and besides, I truly needed his help. I would have to swallow my pride and live with the bitter aftertaste.
I gestured him to my wing chair. "Sit, then. I will fetch some coffee."
"No need," he said quickly.
I opened the door again. "There is need. My need."
I left him alone and made my way downstairs to Mrs. Beltan's bake shop. She saw me and bustled to get my coffee. She did not normally sell coffee to her customers, but she'd started doing so for me, learning that I craved the stuff. She made a few extra coins by it, and she gave it to me cheaper than I could have obtained it at the coffeehouses or from street vendors.
Today I asked to borrow a second cup so Grenville could share if he chose. I'd drunk coffee at Grenville's mansion, and I'd drunk Mrs. Beltan's coffee, and I would be surprised if he chose.
When I entered my rooms again, balancing pot, tray, two cups, and half a loaf of bread, Marianne and Grenville were facing each other across the space of my hearth rug.
Neither noticed me. Grenville was very red in the face, and Marianne was smiling at him.
I clanked the tray to my writing table. Grenville nearly jumped out of his skin. Marianne gave me a languid look, as though she'd known I'd been there all along. "Afternoon, Lacey. I came to ask if you'd share your dinner. I'm hungry and I already owe Ma Beltan for the last two days."
I motioned to the bread. "Take it." I was hungry too, but I had a pay packet, and Marianne's irregular income was far more meager than mine.
Grenville scowled at her. "I gave you twenty guineas."
"You did. Right gentleman you are." She reached for the bread.
Grenville seized her outstretched wrist. "She will not tell me what has become of it."
I poured coffee. What influence he thought I had with Marianne, I could not imagine.
"Was it drink?" Grenville asked, his voice strained.
I answered for her. "Not likely." I breathed in the welcome aroma of coffee, and the world brightened a bit. "She does not like it."
"Thank God for that."
"Gave it to my sick mum," Marianne said. "What do you think I did with it?"
Grenville's eyes were wary. "Did you give it to a man?"
She looked offended. "None of your business what I did with it. You're plenty rich enough to spare a girl twenty guineas without worrying about where it goes."
I took a sip of coffee. The rich bitterness rolled across my tongue, and suddenly, even Marianne's insolence became easier to bear. "It was an enormous amount of money, Marianne," I remarked. "A maidservant does not even make that much in a year."
She gave me a lofty glance. "I am not a maidservant."
Grenville released her. "No, Lacey, she is right." He drew a silken purse from his waistcoat. "I can spare it." He fished out a handful of gold coins.
Marianne shot me a look of triumph. She held out her hand, taking care to hold her fingers daintily-a woman receiving her dues, not a beggar desperate for coin.
Grenville dropped at least ten gold guineas into that slim palm. She smiled in a satisfied way and closed her fingers around them. "Mr. Grenville is a gentleman," she informed me. Her look told me I was not.
She reached again for the bread, her thin gown sliding across her hips. Grenville could not look away from her, though I saw him try.
I lifted the tray away. "Buy your own."
A final glare and curl of her lip, and she waltzed out. Downstairs, not up. Off to spend her newfound wealth.
Grenville stood looking at the door long after I'd closed it. "I cannot help it. She was hungry, Lacey, she trembled with it. I felt her trembling. But she would never have admitted it."
I sipped more coffee, my nerves finally settling. "She will trample you."
Grenville gave a little shrug, still staring at the door.
I offered him coffee and refrained from pointing out the folly of pinning his hopes on Marianne. She would use him until he refused to hand her money, and then dismiss him. I could not condemn her for being a parasite, because she had to survive, but I had the feeling that Grenville, though he'd traveled the world, had finally met his match.
He drank his coffee absently, and I began to tell him the tale. He listened, his eyes growing sharper as I told him everything, omitting only the fact that Westin had been murdered. I disliked lying to him, and I think he sensed I did not tell him the entire truth, but he did not remark upon it.
As I talked, my feeling of futility grew. Lydia Westin had compelled me to help her, but as I explained the situation, I realized that proving her husband's innocence might be nearly impossible.