Page 46 of A Spy’s Guide to Seduction

“Do you recognize the scent?” he asked.

She sniffed again, and shook her head. “A woman’s perfume.” He obviously recognized it.

“Shall we get you home and out of your ruined gown?”

She shot him a quick, searching glance. “Oh no. You’re not leaving me behind while you go off with those papers. Open them.”

Chapter Eighteen

It may be that a particular gentleman comes straight to the husband hunter’s side directly he enters a room. With him she falls into easy conversation. A tacit understanding exists between the husband hunter and this gentleman that reserves to him the last set of the evening. No declaration has been made, and yet he will confide in her as to the size of the park at his estate, and the sad state of the drawing room furnishings there since his dear mama’s death. In such a case, the husband hunter may be pardoned for assuming the conquest of his heart complete. But she must pause, for she and her charming beau are as yet untested in love.

—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London

Lynley gave her an approving look as Emily drew off her gloves.

“What do we have?” she asked. He removed the packet from his waistcoat. An unexpected puff of breeze ruffled the scraps of paper in his hand, and he pinned them against his thigh. Emily slipped the top scrap from the pile. “What is it?”

“A note of hand, an IOU.”

“Not missing government papers?”

He shook his head. “But hidden. Walhouse did not want these papers discovered.”

Emily collected the little notes, carefully shuffling through them. Each had a sum, a date, and Lady Ravenhurst’s name. The largest sum, fifty guineas, made Emily gasp. Over the winter Lady Ravenhurst had played deep and lost badly at least eight times. A gentleman was obliged to pay his debts of honor promptly and without complaint. A woman, a wife at any rate, unless she had control of her money, would have to apply to her husband to pay such sums as Lady Ravenhurst owed.

She looked up at Lynley. “Is this what she and Ravenhurst argued about the night of the party? Does she owe Clive Walhouse this much? It’s staggering.”

The breeze had begun to rise, making them huddle together on the curricle’s bench, sheltering the papers.

“Take them,” he said. She tucked them in her reticule. He unfolded the larger pages that formed the packet and spread them on his leg.

“What is this one?” she asked.

They leaned together, shoulder to shoulder to read the thing. “It’s a lease in Walhouse’s name on a terrace house off the Marylebone Road.”

Even with the legal terms of the document, Emily could see that Walhouse had leased it for the Season. “Could he be living there, hiding in the midst of London?”

Lynley shook his head, frowning.

Emily could see that he was thinking, putting information together in his head. “You haven’t told me, by the way, what you know of his disappearance.”

“You think I know something?” he asked.

She raised a brow. “Of course you do.”

He laughed and told her briefly about Walhouse’s connection to Malikov and the Foreign Office and the problem of the timing for his involvement in the loss of the Ravenhurst papers.

“So he was gone or in hiding before the Ravenhurst papers disappeared,” she said. “But his sister says he was forever leaving things with Lady Ravenhurst, gloves, hat, cloak. So he clearly had a connection with the lady. What troubles you?”

His mouth was a grim line. “It’s not a hiding place. Look where it is. Think of the terms of the lease.”

Emily turned back to the document. She read again the description of the furnished rooms, the starting and ending dates of the lease, the discreet address. She was conscious of Lynley, like a tutor, waiting for a slow pupil to understand some obvious concept.

“Oh,” she said, “it’s the sort of house a man takes for his mistress.” As soon as she said it, she turned to him. “Lady Ravenhurst and Clive? What about the IOUs? Could they be...lovers if she owed him so much money?”

“I don’t know. It’s possible. When Ravenhurst challenged me, he accused me of exposing his wife to embarrassment in that gaming hell.”

“You think it may have been Clive Walhouse?” Emily had a reticule full of notes that suggested just that.