The Sudbury School Murders by Ashley Gardner

consequence, I had more invitations to events in
the ton than did other hopeful nobodies.
    Grenville was everything to the polite world.
And yet, he faced me now, caring that he had my disapproval.
    "I am concerned for her well-being, Lacey,"
he began.
    "She is a resourceful woman and survived long
before you knew she existed," I said.
    His eyes darkened. "If you can call it
survival."
    Marianne and I had lived in identical rooms
in Covent Garden, hers above mine. "I do," I said stiffly.
    "Damnation, Lacey. If I defend myself, I
insult you. You are making this bloody difficult."
    "If you had read my letter, you'd know I
advised you to let her go."
    "I did read it," he growled.
    We regarded one another again.
    After a time, I said, "I should not interfere
in your business."
    "You are making it your business," he
snapped. "The devil if I know why."
    "Perhaps because you like to stride over
people, and I understand how that feels. Your intentions are always
benevolent, of course."
    "Of course? What would you have me do, Lacey,
cease bestowing money on the London poor? Because they might take
offense? Or fear that I am interfering in their business?"
    I shook my head. "The situation is not the
same. When you give money to the poor, you hand it to the parishes
to use as they see fit. You do not enter into each person's life
and tell him or her how to live it."
    "And you claim I am doing so with
Marianne?"
    I tried another tack. "Marianne has survived
on her own for a long time. She has had other protectors, some of
whom did not treat her well. You cannot blame her if she has
learned to distrust."
    Grenville thumped the arms of his chair. "The
pair of you will drive me mad. I am not an evil villain of the
stage. I have given her a house to live in and clothes to wear and
money to spend. A woman with those amenities should be content to
stay at home."
    I smiled dryly. "It is apparent that you have
never been married."
    "I have kept mistresses in the past, Lacey.
Even the most greedy and extravagant of them lived quietly in my
houses."
    "Because those ladies stood in awe of you.
Marianne never will. She's been knocked about most of her life,
many times by wealthy gentlemen. Why should she trust you?"
    He looked offended. "I have shown her nothing
but kindness."
    "Perhaps, but also great irritation when she
does not do exactly as you like."
    He threw up his hands. "I have never
attempted as benevolent an act that tried me as much as this one.
So you would like me to cease looking for her? Cease wondering
whether she is with a brute who is even now beating her because she
will not give him the money that I handed her? Cease wondering
whether in her haste to run away she did not fall among thieves who
abandoned her somewhere along the Great North Road?"
    I felt suddenly cruel. I knew good and well
that Marianne was safe. But I could not tell him this; I had given
her my word.
    I wished she had told me her secret so that I
might know whether holding my tongue helped or hurt. I wished still
more that she'd simply confide in Grenville herself. I would be
saved much trouble, and so would they.
    "If you will trust me," I said, "I will make
certain she is restored to you."
    He stared. "How?"
    "You must dismiss the Runner," I answered,
"or you will make a muck of things."
    "But how can you-- " He broke off, and his
eyes went black with anger. "You know where she is."
    I said nothing. I turned my brandy glass in
my hands, not looking at him. I sensed his rage grow.
    "Damn you, Lacey."
    "I will see that she returns home," I
interrupted. "You must not ask me to choose which view I will take
in the matter. I choose no views. Trust me to restore her to the
Clarges Street house, and then the two of you may come to your own
arrangement."
    I had rarely seen Grenville angry, and never
this angry. He remained still, his fingers white upon the arms of
the chair. His dark eyes were sharp, tense, regarding me with
fury.
    The mantel clock chimed nine, notes