Page 12

Lady Ravenhurst’s gaze returned to Emily’s gown. “Betrothed, are you? How fitting that you wore black. I can’t imagine a worse fate for a woman than gaining a husband.” She turned away but stopped as Ravenhurst and Lynley emerged from the library.

“No need to search the guests, after all, Pamela,” Lord Ravenhurst declared. The anger had gone out of his voice, replaced by a puzzled tone. He shrugged. “Lynley found the missing papers.”

Lady Ravenhurst started and directed a searching look at Lynley. “Thank you.” She recovered some of her composure. “I did not care to have our guests treated like common thieves.”

“Of course, Lady Ravenhurst. Easiest thing in the world for papers to get out of order. Mine do so all the time,” Lynley assured them affably.

Emily watched her fiancé. His expression was cheerfully blank, as if he did not see his hosts’ misery. She recalled his words in the dark about seeing backstage at the play. What they had overheard together was only part of the story. The other part was a mystery. To Emily his disappearances over the course of the evening now appeared connected, and missing papers, not a broken marriage, seemed to be the heart of the matter.

“Lady Emily?” He crossed the hall and extended a hand to her. “Shall we take our leave?”

Without apparent hurry, he wrapped Emily in her cloak and led her out to their waiting carriage. His servant leaped to open the door and let down the step. Lynley helped her inside, tucked a rug over her skirts, and stepped away. He held the carriage door open with his back, watching her, making no move to enter.

“Lynley,” she said, “are you going to tell me what you were really doing at that party?”

“Dancing with my betrothed, sharing our happy news with the world.”

Emily shook her head. “You managed the return of those missing papers. Why? Not out of a deep concern for the state of the Ravenhursts’ marriage.”

“Anyone who knows them must be concerned,” he said. “I must take my leave of you.”

“What? Am I missing something?”

“Yes. This,” he said. He pulled her forward to the edge of the seat and kissed her with an almost ruthless fierceness. He pulled back, and Emily tried to recover her breath and wits.

“Changes everything, don’t you see?” He shut the carriage door and signaled the coachman to drive, and Emily fell back on the seat, her senses in a flurry, her thoughts in turmoil.

* * * *

Lynley returned to the club near three. He handed his hat and coat to a yawning Wilde, who relayed Goldsworthy’s request for a report.

“Does he ever sleep?” Lynley looked at the beckoning couches of the coffee room.

Wilde shook his head. “He had a message from Chartwell at midnight, sir. Woke him right up.”

With a last look at his favorite couch, Lynley headed up the stairs to Goldsworthy’s office.

Inside the big man’s lair, the air was cold and the lamps, dim. A desk the size of a Thames barge dominated the room with a pair of green leather chairs facing it like bits of flotsam floating in the great barge’s wake. Canvas from the supposed renovation project draped two of the walls. A third was covered in maps of London and the surrounding country. The last was lined with cabinets of various sizes and many drawers.

“Lad, what news?”

Lynley had a fleeting thought that the drawers contained information the spymaster was reluctant to share. He took one of the chairs opposite and had the satisfaction of seeing Goldsworthy straighten in his own chair so that they sat eye to eye.

“I take it Ravenhurst and Chartwell intended to bait a trap with some minor document.”

“Did they get their man?”

“There was a complication when Lady Ravenhurst objected to having her guests searched as they left the party.”

“Ah.” Goldsworthy moved a pile of papers from one side of the vast desk to the other. “Did this fellow slip through the trap then?”

“The ‘bait’ is back in Lord Ravenhurst’s library.”

“What?” That got the big man’s attention.

“In the coat closet I found two pages rolled up and stuffed in a finger of a man’s glove, tucked in the outer pocket of a greatcoat.”

“Our man’s glove? How did he slip through?” Goldsworthy frowned.