Page 3 of A Spy’s Guide to Seduction

Phil shook his head. “Not at all.”

“That’s what I like. She’ll do.” In truth Lynley had planned to remain hidden and seek the girl out later in a more conventional way, but Phil’s entry into the room had forced his hand, and he was not a man to let an opportunity pass.

“Well, that’s all right then. I think her parents will be pleased. You’ll like the old man.”

“I’ll call on him today.” Lynley clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Shall we see about those horses you’re thinking of buying?”

* * * *

Emily clung to the fragile teacup Roz had shoved into her hands as soon as the gentlemen left. A fragrant, reassuring steam wafted up as she tried to think how she had let a man claim her hand when she had set out with only the firm intention of thwarting her mother’s management of her life. He could not be serious. He must be making a joke. She didn’t like the idea of being a joke. He had not struck her as deficient in understanding, so he must have realized that she didn’t really want to marry. “He won’t actually put an announcement in the paper.”

Roz made no reply.

“He wouldn’t dare,” Emily said.

Roz shook her head. “I think he’ll do just what he says he’ll do. He’s like that, Em.”

“Who is he exactly, and how does he come to be such a friend of Phil’s that he can fall asleep on that sofa and you forget he’s even there?” Emily stared at the offending sofa. It was another instance of their mother insisting on shaping her children’s lives according to her plans. Gentle Roz, now married into a prominent family, was to be a great hostess with a dramatic flair for entertaining. Of course, their mother had tried to take over the decorating of Roz’s new townhouse. Roz had simply thanked their mother and gone on with her own scheme of pale blue and gold decoration.

“He’s Sir Ajax Lynley. He’s a baronet.”

“A baronet, the lowest title in the peerage.” Emily straightened up. “Well then, whatever Mother thinks, Father will put an end to his pretensions to the hand of an earl’s daughter.”

“Do you think so?” Roz had taken up the little book and was turning the pages, stopping to let her eyes pass over a passage here and there.

“No, you’re right. They will wash their hands of me.”

“He is rich, I think.”

“Oh, then they really will wash their hands of me.” Emily’s shoulders slumped again.

“But Em, you said you would marry the first imbecile you met.” Roz put the book down and took up her tea.

“But I didn’t mean him! I didn’t know he was lurking in the shadows behind that wretched sofa, waiting to trap me into marriage.”

“He and Phil have been friends forever. Phil consults Lynley whenever he buys horses from a private party. That’s what they’re doing today, going to look at a pair of...breakdowns, Phil called them.”

Emily couldn’t hold that against Lynley. She had no objection to a man who knew and appreciated horses.

“Em, you should talk to Mother. Tell her you appreciate her...thoughtfulness in giving you the book, but that you’ll find a husband in your own way. I’m sure Lynley will understand if you wish to cry off.”

“Will he?”

“You hardly know each other. There’s been no courtship. If you make your true feelings known...”

“I’ll look like a jilt.”

“But you don’t care, not much anyway, about others’ opinions. You’ve always said that.”

And she wanted to believe it was true, that it didn’t matter one jot to her that people thought her a joke or a jilt. She picked up the little book that Roz had put down, and opened it to the preface. The author proposed to help ladies find lasting happiness in marriage through following her guidance. Emily had no objection to happiness, but what if she studied the advice in the little book and then did the opposite? Wouldn’t she then force her unexpected suitor to withdraw his suit? Isn’t that what Roz had done with their mother? She’d accepted the wretched sofa, and then gone about decorating in the opposite way.

“You know, Roz dear, I think you’re right. I should thank Mother and start reading. Who knows what I may discover from this little blue book?”

Chapter Two

The chief task of the husband hunter is one of discernment. Among the many gentlemen she meets, she seeks one who is suitable in heart and mind. As she begins her search, she may imagine that the only man who will suit her is one whose tastes and ideas exactly match her own, who shares equally in her likes and dislikes. Indeed, there is a pleasure in discovering shared tastes and preferences that may blind the husband hunter to the true nature of the suitability she seeks. A common taste for Italian opera and the poet Cowper is no basis for marriage compared with shared principles of integrity and kindness.

—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London