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Lynley didn’t answer right away. “You know there’s an uglier possibility here.”

“What?”

Lynley looked out over the horses’ heads. The chill wind was growing stronger, blowing the animals’ manes and rattling their harness. “It’s possible that Walhouse paid her debts in exchange for...”

“Her favors.” Emily completed the thought. She remembered Lady Ravenhurst’s profound unhappiness the night of the party, her inability to congratulate Emily on her engagement. She took a deep breath. “We’re speculating, aren’t we? We don’t know the truth. We should not jump to ungenerous interpretations without more evidence.”

His face remained hard and closed. He had withdrawn into himself to some memory or association. From their first night together, Lady Ravenhurst had been a figure in the background of every scene, and Emily was no nearer to understanding what the lady meant to Lynley than she had been that first evening.

Emily thought of all she’d seen and heard. Most likely Archer’s wager had been about Lady Ravenhurst and Walhouse, but perhaps he had got it wrong. The wager had been that an unhappy wife would take a lover. It was the way of the fashionable world. A woman constrained to marry a man of her family’s choosing could take a lover once she had produced the required heir. Lady Ravenhurst might be pleasing herself through an affair with Clive Walhouse, or she might be caught up in something not of her choosing.

The wind had become brisk and cold. Clouds of tarnished silver piled up above them, darkening the day. The mud had hardly dried on Emily’s skirts. She would ask her maid to brush them later, though she was not sure the gown could be saved. But it was a gown after all, not a marriage. “In any case, Lady Ravenhurst’s unhappiness, her gaming debts, those are not our concern. We’re after missing government papers.” As she said it, she looked up and met his gaze.

“Willing to risk a soaking?” he asked.

She glanced at the heavy sky. They weren’t going far, just beyond the Marylebone Road. Her bonnet and cloak had no great pretensions to fashion. She nodded. “Is your groom willing?”

Lynley looked back at the young man.

“Then we investigate the house,” he said. His grin returned, and she felt once more that she understood him. There was a risk to be taken, and he was happy to take it. She looked down again at her ruined skirts, to hide how pleased she felt at that we.

* * * *

The sky, which had been so bright and sunny at one, was nearly black when they reached the quiet, out-of-the-way street named in the lease. The buildings were new, part of the grand architectural schemes of the king when he had been regent. The park named in his honor was supposed to open to the public one day. The crescent where Clive Walhouse had rented a place was three stories of white stone. Each small but elegant apartment had a tall, narrow entry that jutted out from the building, iron railings around the ground floor and a balcony off the first-story window.

“How are we to get in?” she asked Lynley as they approached.

He glanced up and down the street. A few pedestrians hurried past as the sky blackened and the wind shook the trees. He escorted her to the little covered entry and told her to wait while he found a way in through the back. She stood under the roof, out of sight as he drove off.

Between the heavy dark clouds and the ground, the sky took on a violet hue. The air waited, charged and squeezed between cloud and earth. A closed carriage passed slowly down the street, the driver on the box turning to stare at the house, and Emily shrank further into the shadow of the little roof.

Finding missing papers was the sort of game she and Frederick and Roz had often devised for a summer’s afternoon at Candover. Mother would take some treasure from the attics to hide in a hollow tree trunk or a crumbling stone wall, and they would follow the clues she set until darkness or rain sent them back inside for cakes and lemonade. But the papers for which she and Lynley searched mattered to some clever, ruthless enemy who would kill to possess them.

Abruptly, lightning flashed and vanished. The street disappeared in blackness. Emily held her breath. The world returned, thunder boomed, and rain fell in a straight gush.

Behind Emily the door opened. Relieved, she turned and started forward, recoiling as she met not Lynley, but a stranger in a rough coat with a round-crowned felt hat pulled low over his bearded face.

“Hah,” he said, grinning at her. “I know you.”

Emily shook her head. “You most certainly do not.” She backed out of the little porch. The rain hit her, and plastered her bonnet and cloak to her person. She whirled and dashed for the street, but the closed carriage she’d seen earlier pulled up at the end of the walkway, trapping her between the iron railings and the stranger. He grabbed her cloak and yanked hard. She staggered and reached for the iron railing. Her captor put his arms around her waist, trying to shake her loose. Her bonnet fell forward, obscuring her vision. Rain pelted her, soaking her gloves and sending cold trickles down her nape. Her captor smelled rank and sour. He heaved her up off her feet, and she lost her hold on the slick iron.

“Look what I found, Dicky,” he called to the carriage driver. “Wager we’ll be well paid to give ʼer back to ʼer husband,” he said, wrestling her toward the carriage.

Emily clawed at the arms around her waist and tried to plant her feet. “Let me go.” Her skirts clung to her legs.

“Ye need to learn not to run off...” The words ended in a high-pitched yelp. Emily was free, and the man was down on his side on the flagstones, curled in a ball, Lynley standing over him.

The driver of the carriage shouted something that was lost in another crash of thunder.

Lynley grabbed her hand and hauled her after him down the walk and into the house. He shut and bolted the door and pulled her into his arms.

“I’m so-so-so—” she started to protest, then the shivering took over. She thought she would come apart with the shaking, but Lynley held her. Their breath sounded ragged in her ears.

They stood dripping on the entry stones. Beyond them a narrow, carpeted hall extended through the gloom the length of the building. The flickering light of the storm entered from a stairwell at the midpoint of the hall. Thunder rumbled and crashed above them.

Lynley removed her bonnet and tossed it aside. He tucked her hands inside his coat against his ribs. She wanted to thank him, but could not keep her teeth from chattering.

“You know,” he said amiably, “we have to get you out of these ruined clothes.”