The affair of The Glass House began quietly enough one evening in late January, 1817. I passed the afternoon drinking ale at The Rearing Pony, a tavern in Maiden Lane near Covent Garden, in a common room that was noisy, crowded, and overheated. Sweating men swapped stories and laughter, and a barmaid called Anne Tolliver filled glasses and winked at me as she passed.

I first learned of anything amiss when I left the tavern to make my way home. It was eight o'clock, the winter night outside was black and brutally cold, and rain came down. A hackney waited at a stand, white vapor streaming from the horse's nostrils while the coachman warmed himself with a nip from a flask.

I walked as quickly as I could on the slick cobbles, trying to retain the warmth of ale and fire I’d left behind in the public house. My rooms in Grimpen Lane would be dark and lonely, and Bartholomew would not be there.

Since Christmas, Bartholomew, the tall, blond, Teutonic-looking footman to Lucius Grenville, had become my makeshift manservant, but tonight he had returned to Grenville's house to help prepare for a soiree. That soiree would be one of the finest of the Season, and everyone who was anyone would be there.

I too had an invitation, and I would attend, though I much preferred to visit Grenville when he was not playing host. Grenville was the most sought-after gentleman in society, being the foremost authority on art, music, horses, ladies, and every other entertainment embraced by the London ton. He was also vastly wealthy and well-connected, having plenty of peers of the realm in his ancestry. His manners, his dress, his tastes were carefully copied. In public, he played his role of man-about-town to the hilt, employing cool sangfroid and a quizzing glass, one glance through which could humble the most impudent aristocrat.