Page 20 of A Spy’s Guide to Seduction

“Phil, do you know Lynley’s aunt Silsden?”

Phil shuddered. “Terrible woman. Best to avoid her. Didn’t like Lynley going to school. She had to let him go, of course. His father’s will and all.”

“Well, I met her today in the park. What did she mean by the disaster? What happened to Lynley?”

Phil shook his head, his hand hovering over a tart. “Can’t tell you, Em. Don’t worry about Lynley, great tall fellow like him will always take care of himself.”

“When did he get his height, Phil?”

Phil appeared to consider the question, though his gaze was still on the tart. “Always taller than me.”

“And Spain? Why did he go to Spain?”

“You know, Em, you should ask Lynley these questions.”

“I will. I just don’t want to be wholly ignorant.”

“Lynley’s uncle took him to Spain, straight out of Cambridge. We’d just begun, but the uncle said college was no education for a man of the world.”

“So what kind of education did the uncle want for him?”

Phil shook his head. “Don’t know. Lynley never talks about Spain, except about sherry and horses. Marvelous horses, the Andalusians. Did you know monks bred and trained them before Napoleon tried to steal them, and these brothers, the Zamoras, hid a herd?”

“Monks?”

“Yes.” Phil chose the tart he wanted from the plate. “Lynley has a stallion from Spain. Can’t bring him to town though. Keeps him at Lyndale Abbey.”

The tart disappeared, and Phil’s gaze returned to the plate. “Thing is, Roz has been eating so little, we haven’t had...”

“Cake, Phil?” Emily wanted to keep her brother-in-law talking about his friend. The big mystery remained the “disaster” that had put a fourteen-year-old boy in the care of a censorious aunt and then a profligate uncle. Obviously, part of the disaster was the death of Lynley’s father. No mention had been made of his mother.

In the park Emily had not wanted him to know how shocking she’d found his aunt’s revelations. She had made light of what he’d endured for the four years he’d been in Lady Silsden’s care, but the harsh regimen of scolds and restrictions could not have been easy for a young man of spirit to endure.

Emily tried to reconcile the two different pictures she had of him. On the one hand was the man who appeared utterly imperturbable, the sort who would face cannon fire with a quip and a perfectly arranged neckcloth; on the other hand was the boy who must have suffered at the hands of relations who had used him as a rope in a tug-of-war for family power.

“When did Lynley return from Spain?”

“Must have been several months back. Didn’t see him until he came to town a fortnight ago.” Phil brushed cake crumbs from his mouth. “You two are hitting it off, are you?”

“Perfectly,” said Emily. She glanced at her fiancé. Once again he stood watching the golden beauty in the opposite box.

* * * *

Lynley caught Phil just as his friend stepped out of the Candover box.

“Not staying for act two?” he asked.

Phil shook his head.

“Coward.”

“Don’t care for opera. Just came to check on Em for Roz. Don’t want Roz to worry. In her condition and all.”

“Very proper, Phil. And should Roz worry?”

Phil’s smooth brow wrinkled. “Em says you two are getting along perfectly and that she did nothing...indelicate in the park today.”

It was another lesson about London. Inevitably, one’s smallest indiscretion was observed. What happened in the park in the afternoon became the evening’s gossip.