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."
"So would I. I am almost free, I think."
I worked madly at the thin rope. My wrists were raw, pain in the darkness.
"I suppose after this," I said, "I cannot expect you to speak to me again." I kept my tone light.
"We shall see. If you manage to free us, I shall be most grateful to you."
My bonds came loose. My hands, wooden, fell forward. I pushed myself away from Lady Breckenridge and landed heavily beside her. I lay like a drowning man who has just found shore, breathing hard, willing the circulation back into my hands.
"It would be rude of me to cut you after you saw me home safely," Lady Breckenridge said. Her tone was also light, but her voice hoarse, as though she'd wept.
She was trying to put a brave face on it, the English upper-class bravado that remained calm in the face of danger. Panic was for lesser beings.
I had known a lieutenant in Spain, who, when unhorsed and facing four French cavalrymen, he having nothing but a single-shot pistol with which to defend himself, had said to the lead horseman, "Move to the right a bit, there's a good fellow. I want to at least get one of you." He'd shot, and then they'd cut him down where he stood.
I wanted to hurry, to get Lady Breckenridge far from this place, but my body was tired. The pain in my head had not subsided, my leg still hurt, and I could barely feel my hands. But we had to leave quickly. I had believed Kensington when he said he was not a killer, but that did not mean he would not hire someone to kill for him.
I had realized, when speaking with Lady Jane, that Kensington had not murdered Peaches himself. He might have wanted to, but he had not. I had decided the truth after rowing up the Thames with Grenville, after learning that Peaches had had no money in her attic room, and after discovering that Lady Jane sometimes lent Peaches her private coachman.
Most of it had come to me as I'd lain in bed this morning, listening to church bells and enjoying a clarity of mind I'd not had in a while. I had written Sir Montague about my last witness, and could only hope he would pursue said witness if I did not survive.
But I wanted to survive. I was angry, and I determined to see this out. Nor did I want Lady Breckenridge to come to harm because of my slow stupidity.
"I will try to untie your hands," I told her.
She nodded, her hair rustling on the carpet.
An investigation of my pockets showed me that Kensington's man had relieved me of the small, sheathed knife I usually carried. I groped for Lady Breckenridge's hands, my own aching and clumsy, and found the cords at her wrists.
For a long time I tugged and picked at the bonds. Hurry, my mind urged. But I was fumbling and slow, and beneath my touch, her fingers were like ice.
"I could wish for your butler just now," I said, trying to keep up our blithe conversation. "My leg hurts like fury."
"Barnstable would certainly be useful," she said. "I imagine he and my servants are searching for me by now. Not that they'd think to look here."
I worked for a while longer, striving for something to say, something witty and funny that would put her at ease. But Lady Breckenridge was an intelligent woman, and I could hear her fear in her intake of breath. She understood that our odds for survival depended on being free and gone by the time Kensington or his brute returned, and that the odds of our being free and gone were slim.
"How was your leg hurt, Lacey?" she asked. "Not tonight, I mean, but in the Army? It was in the war, was it not?"
I picked at the knots. "French soldiers amusing themselves."
Led by a grinning, leering ensign, who'd been delighted to have captured a lone English soldier. He'd decided to take out his frustration over the recent French defeats by torturing me.
I remembered his rather fanatical laughter, the worried look on his sergeant's face, the glee in the voices of the men who'd decided to follow their officer's example. I remembered gritting my teeth against the pain, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of hearing me scream.
"They shattered the leg with cudgels," I said. "After which, they hung me up by the ankles for safekeeping."
"Good God," Lady Breckenridge said in shock.
I said nothing, and the memories faded. The French soldiers had gotten their comeuppance when an English patrol had blundered by. The tiny ensuing battle had killed the French ensign and most of the others. The English had not found me and had ridden off, leaving me with the dead. I had stolen the ensign's pistol and water bag and crawled away.
"You are making me feel rather sorry for you," Lady Breckenridge said.
"It could have been worse. The surgeon did not have to amputate." When I'd heard this verdict, I had nearly wept with relief.
Lady Breckenridge's bonds at last gave way. I slipped the ropes from her wrists and began rubbing them, trying to restore the blood to them. Once she began to weakly move her fingers, I moved to untie her ankles.
Another quarter of an hour passed before I at last got the bonds around her ankles loose. Then I had the devil of a time climbing to my own feet. I sought the wall behind me, leaned there, and tried to catch my breath.