The Fire in the Glass Page 4

  Estelle sipped her vermouth.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, if there’s a murderer out there targeting mediums, perhaps now would not be the time to put your name in the papers. You never know how he’s choosing his victims.”

  “Or she.”

  “She?”

  “It could be a woman, couldn’t it?”

  Lily was momentarily taken aback. She thought back to the vision, the shadow rushing forward from the darkness over Estelle’s shoulder. It had been formless, featureless, and yet something about it had felt distinctly masculine to her, so much so that she had never even questioned it.

  Not that she was about to admit any of that.

  “Well, yes. I suppose it could be.”

  “Lord knows Agnes herself hasn’t been very helpful with settling the question,” Estelle complained.

  “Oh?” Lily asked, picking up her empty glass and twirling it between her fingers.

  Estelle sighed. “Every time I ask her about it—who was it that did you in, Agnes?—she just shows me a lamp.”

  “A lamp?”

  “A lamp,” Estelle confirmed.

  “What sort of lamp?” Lily asked, mainly because she was not at all sure what else she could say.

  “Built-in gas fixture,” Estelle replied unhesitatingly. She picked up the vermouth bottle and tipped some into the glass Lily was still holding between her fingers. “She’s dreadfully confused. It’s hardly surprising, given what she’s been through.”

  Lily looked at the brimming glass of unctuous liquor and realized she had no choice but to find a way to swallow it.

  She took a sip—a large one. That got it down faster.

  “I’m only saying that perhaps you ought to take some precautions,” she went on, once her throat had cleared enough to speak again.

  “Oh?” Estelle asked carefully.

  Lily could hear the sharp interest in her tone and knew she was treading closer to dangerous waters.

  She could navigate this. She would go just a touch further—hardly anything beyond what any sensible person might say, under the circumstances.

  “What I mean to say is, if there’s a killer out there somewhere stalking mediums, perhaps you ought to keep a low profile for a while. Check the windows are locked. Avoid hanging about the house on your own.”

  “I see,” Estelle replied evenly.

  Three sharp raps resounded through the room. They came from the ceiling, above which was Lily’s empty flat.

  The wind battered at the house again and the coals shifted in the hearth.

  “I can’t help but wonder,” Estelle began, twirling the delicate stem of her glass.

  “About the murders?”

  “About you,” she replied.

  An alarm sounded in Lily’s mind. She hid the tension by sipping the vermouth.

  “I’m hardly anything worth wondering over,” she replied, her voice just a touch hoarse from the liquor.

  Estelle set down her drink.

  “I think we should play a game,” she announced.

  Lily’s sense of danger increased.

  “I would love to, but it’s been a terribly long day—”

  “Oh, it won’t take very long. It’s just a little parlor amusement. You ask me a question and I tell you the truth. Then I do the same to you,” Estelle went on, ignoring her protest.

  There was no way out of it, short of rudely standing and saying goodnight—a maneuver sure to only increase Estelle’s interest. The prudent course of action was to brush it all off as a whim, play along, and then make her escape.

  “Fine. If you insist. But then I really must be off to bed before I become too stiff to move. What would you like to know?”

  “No. You first. Ask me a question.”

  Lily searched for an idea. Her eyes stopped on the green urn, which rested on the cushion of the armchair like a particularly reticent participant in their conversation.

  “How much did you pay for that?”

  “Four shillings.”

  “You were robbed.”

  “My taste is my own. My turn. Are you Deirdre Albright’s daughter?”

  The sound of the name dropped the room into an uncanny stillness. Lily’s heart thudded like a hare scenting a fox, deciding whether to blend into the landscape or bolt.

  “It’s the hair,” Estelle explained, not waiting for her answer. “That red so dark you could almost take it for brown until the light sparked off of it. I’m old enough to remember that there was once a woman famous for hair like that, and you’ve got the same name. You might have come off some other branch of the family, but I’ve never heard you mention any relatives—not so much as an irritating great-aunt. So one could not help but wonder—”

  “Yes,” Lily cut in quietly.

  Estelle beamed.

  “I knew it! I resisted for as long as I could. You must believe that. But I had to ask. I never saw your mother perform, but I know people who did. I heard she was quite extraordinary.”

  Lily waited for the rest of it—for the inevitable, if sympathetic, mention of “how terribly tragic it must have been for you.” Anyone who knew the name Deirdre Albright likely knew the rest of her story—how it had ended.

  Estelle did not mention it. Instead, she sipped her vermouth, shifting the conversation as though she hadn’t just brought up Lily’s brutally-murdered mother.

  “Your turn.”

  Lily did not like this game. She wanted it to be over. Perhaps if she could unsettle Estelle as well as she herself had just been rattled, it might bring things to an earlier close.

  She knew it was not a generous impulse, particularly with a woman she cared about—a woman who was destined to die before very long—but she was too tired and shaken to resist it.

  “Do you ever wonder if the spirits you talk to aren’t really spirits? That perhaps they’re just figments of your imagination that you take for something more?”

  “Not in the least,” Estelle replied easily. “My turn again. Who’s your father?”

  The room got smaller.

  “You know who he is. That much is obvious. He’s also clearly still around. It’s in the little signals you don’t know you’re sending when Gwen talks about her dad plowing over that Iron Age ring fort in his barley field, or when I try to get your opinion about rearranging the family portraits again. And there were rumors, of course, though some were rather wild. One never can be sure quite how much stock to put in—”

  “The Earl of Torrington,” Lily cut in flatly. She finished the vermouth and set the glass down on the table with a sharp rap.

  “Of course,” Estelle replied softly. “How did I not see it before? It’s in your nose, the cut of your jaw. And the eyes. That Torrington gray. So distinctive.”

  There was no hint of disapproval in her tone, no subtle sense of poking at someone’s inferiority. Nothing indicated that Estelle thought any less of Lily, knowing that she was a bastard.

  The daughter of a notorious actress and the earl who made her his mistress, who had enjoyed her company on lazy afternoons before returning home to his countess and brood of well-bred heirs.

  She should have been surprised it took Estelle this long to pry it out of her. She had lived upstairs for the better part of three years and some scandals were too wicked to properly fade with age.

  There was no reason for her to be angry. Her hackles were up regardless, leaving her feeling as defensive as a cornered dog. She fought not to let it show.

  “I was unaware you were acquainted with Lord Torrington,” she said evenly.

  Estelle waved dismissively. “We’re not acquainted, darling. We don’t exactly move in the same circles. I’ve just seen him here and there. He’s the sort of person one notices.”

  He was, indeed, the sort of person one noticed. The Earl of Torrington was one of the most powerful men in the kingdom, head of an ancient, noble house with vast holdings in Sussex. A tall man, well-built, with brilliant s
ilver hair and a sharp, patrician nose, he was also a political player who, though he held no official position beyond that granted by his title in the House of Lords, was known to be the moving force behind a great deal of what actually got done in Parliament.

  She remembered when that silver mane was peppered rather than all salt, when those elegant hands had tousled her hair or tossed sweets to her from his pockets as he passed by. She had not known him as a peer of the realm and man of influence then, but simply as an occasional, distantly affectionate presence in the house.

  Until the house was empty.

  “Is it my turn, then?” Lily demanded, unable to keep a slight edge from her tone.

  “By all means,” Estelle offered with a gracious wave of her hand. “Last round, though, so make it count.”

  Lily searched for a question. She knew the clever thing to do would be to simply throw one away, perhaps asking Estelle where she got the cupid or when she was going to replace those terrible curtains.

  Her friend had riled her, though admittedly the questions she asked weren’t entirely inappropriate. After all, how impertinent was it to ask a woman you’d known for years about her parents? Lily’s reactions had been outsize, but there they were, and she found the result was an urge to engage with the stakes of the game, to find a question that would make Estelle feel as caught off-guard as Lily had been—which was no easy task.

  Mentioning the Earl of Torrington had a way of doing that to her.

  “If I told you that you were in danger,” she asked, her voice carefully and deliberately even, “Would you believe me?”

  Estelle stopped twirling her glass. She fixed Lily with that studying, penetrating look, but Lily could see that she was genuinely surprised. It gave her a small burst of satisfaction.

  Then something in Estelle’s expression shifted. Lily had the sense of some analysis being completed, a conclusion being drawn.

  Estelle set down her glass, her movements graceful and poised.

  “Tomorrow morning, I would like you to pay a call with me.”

  “I’m not sure that I’m—”

  “Of course you’re available, darling. You never have appointments before eleven o’clock. I’ll arrange for a hackney at nine.”

  “Isn’t that rather early?”

  “Not where we’re going.” She stood and extended her hand. “I’ve been terribly selfish. You must be exhausted. I can’t begin to imagine what sort of a day you’ve had, and here I am tying you up with chatter when I’m sure all you want is to climb into bed.”

  Lily accepted the hand and Estelle hauled her to her feet. She walked her over to the door, handing her the walking stick.

  As much as she wanted to go, Lily hesitated for a moment, unable to resist her own curiosity.

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “We’ll chat about it tomorrow.”

  “But you still have one more question of your own.”

  “Then why don’t I ask it, and we’ll both sleep on our answers?”

  “Fine,” Lily agreed. She was still rattled and the tiredness was settling more firmly in, dragging at her. She was ready to be done with this day, with every troubling minute of it.

  “If I were in danger, would you tell me?” Estelle asked.

  The sense of threat flared up again, the abrupt jump in her pulse as though she suddenly looked down to find she was standing on the edge of a terrifying precipice.

  “Off to bed, then, before you fall over,” Estelle finished cheerfully. “Watch out for Cat on the stairs. I’ll see you at nine.”

  She slipped back into her rooms. The door slammed shut, leaving Lily alone with her ghosts in the gloom of the hall.

  THREE

  ESTELLE KNOCKED AT LILY'S door promptly at nine in the morning.

  Lily had been half-hoping she would sleep in. Nine was ungodly early for Estelle, who kept similar hours to the dead, yet there she was, her caftan covered with a warm wool overcoat that made her look almost ordinary.

  “Come along, darling. Our carriage awaits,” she announced.

  Lily was ready for her. She had made sure she was up and dressed, just in case Estelle decided to follow through on the promise—or was it a threat?—of the night before. The only thing she did not have ready was an excuse plausible enough to get her out of this appointment. It was rather difficult to come up with plausible excuses when she had no idea where she was supposed to be going.

  She reminded herself that whatever unusual social waters Estelle planned to sail them into, Lily was perfectly capable of navigating the current. She would almost certainly have managed odder circumstances before.

  She was stiff but less sore than she had been last night. Before dressing, she had examined her stitches. They appeared to be quite neat and well-placed, the wound showing no sign of infection. The scabs on her face were also healing up well enough, though they made for a rather obvious and ugly presence in the meantime. She considered wearing a hat with a veil, but rejected the idea. She would take the occasional stare from passers-by over not being able to see where she was going.

  She plucked her walking stick from its place by the door and followed Estelle down the stairs.

  Miss Bard met them on the landing, pulling the door to the flat she and Estelle shared closed behind her.

  “Are you coming too?” Lily asked.

  “Coming where?” she asked, smiling. Miss Bard always reminded Lily of a plump brown wren.

  “She’s off to watch a bunch of men dance around in funny hats,” Estelle explained.

  “It’s a mummer’s dance in honor of the feast of St. John the Saxon, thank you very much. Where are you two off to?”

  “Nowhere special,” Estelle replied shortly.

  Miss Bard raised a knowing eyebrow.

  “Our hackney’s waiting. Come along, Lily,” the older woman ordered, hauling her down the stairs.

  The carriage was an unusual indulgence for Lily. She generally viewed hackneys as an unnecessary expense. She knew this was a hangover from a time when her finances had been more severely limited. She could afford the ride now without any trouble.

  “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” she asked, once they were settled in and rolling down March Place.

  “I told you. To meet a friend.”

  Lily waited for more information. Estelle did not offer it. They rode on in silence. The carriage swayed around a turn, then came to an abrupt halt as traffic jammed the narrow street. Ahead, a pair of police constables blocked the road, waving and whistling everyone to a stop. The road beyond the policemen was broad and empty. Why weren't they moving?

  Then the answer came rolling into view—the gleaming line of a royal motorcade. As annoyed as she was at being trapped in the carriage with Estelle’s insatiable curiosity, Lily supposed she couldn’t entirely regret the delay. It was thanks to that shining bronze motorcar that she had awoken that morning in a comfortable if modest attic flat and not a cramped room shared with a pair of chorus girls.

  Lily had fled finishing school at sixteen, using her last few coins to get the train to London. Once there, she had gone to the only place she knew she stood a chance of making a living on her own—Drury Lane.

  Lily was not an actress. She hated the attention of being on stage and had too much of her father in her to be considered the same sort of beauty her mother had been. “Striking” was how her appearance had been described on more than one occasion. Still, she had spent enough time exploring the maze-like world behind the stage while her mother drank sherry and gossiped with old friends that she understood the inner workings of a theatre.

  It was also a world where no one judged Lily for the unusual circumstances of her birth.

  Of course, it had not been strictly necessary. There were other funds at her disposal, deposited with clockwork regularity every month.

  Lily never touched that account, not even when she lacked three pennies to scrape together for supper.

/>   Five years later, when Lily’s circumstances were verging on desperate, a trim, elderly solicitor had shown up at her door and informed her that—as it was her 21st birthday—she was now the sole heir of her mother’s trust.

  It consisted of a small fund from a starring role at the Theatre Royal which Deirdre had invested in a startup company by the name of Daimler . . . a company that later secured exclusive rights to provide automobiles to the royal family.

  Deirdre Albright’s little nest egg had grown to over 100 times its initial value and now paid a tidy dividend every month with occasional bonuses like the one that had purchased her Triumph. It was enough to provide Lily with a modest but entirely decent living.

  It was still a lonely living. The woman beside her in the carriage was one of the only people to penetrate Lily’s longstanding defenses, and now she was going to die.

  The long line of shining Daimlers finally passed. The policemen waved the traffic back into motion.

  “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about him,” Estelle said.

  “About whom?”

  “The man involved in your accident.”

  Lily made no reply.

  Estelle smiled, leaning back comfortably. “You know I’ll get it out of you eventually.”

  The carriage rolled around another corner, then rocked to a stop.

  “We’re here,” Estelle announced cheerfully, hopping out.

  Lily lingered for a moment behind her, surprise rooting her to the seat. Were it not for the motorcade, they wouldn’t have been in the carriage more than five minutes.

  The hackney was waiting. She stepped out.

  “It would’ve been faster if we walked,” she said as Estelle handed a few coins to the driver.

  “I will never understand your insistence on wearing out perfectly good pairs of shoes. Besides, you’re wounded.”

  Lily looked around as the carriage pulled away. She recognized where she was. This was Bedford Square, a posh garden park located just behind the British Museum. Though nearby, it was several steps up from the middle-class respectability of March Place.