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“Oh, Phil said he left very early, somewhere he had to go.”

Emily dropped the bun, which landed jam first on her lap. Her heart beat with quick alarm. It was near eleven. A duel would have taken place at dawn. “Not to meet Ravenhurst?”

Roz looked up from her diagram. “Meet Ravenhurst?”

“Roz, Lady Silsden came to me this morning saying that it’s all over London that Lynley and Ravenhurst are to meet.”

“In a duel?” Roz frowned. She got up with an effort, one hand pressed to her back, and took a seat at Emily’s side. Emily grabbed a spoon from the tea tray and scraped at the jam on her skirt. Her hands shook. She had not expected to love or be loved. Over the years she had grown used to being dismissed by men as too bookish or too outspoken, a woman who wrote letters to the Times. She had resolved to be grateful to have her family to love, but she knew that loving them was easy.

Without warning Lynley had appeared in her life, demanding more of her than anyone else, more of her wit, her courage, and her trust. To think he might be gone from her life before she’d begun to spend her unused reserves of love, before she’d become the person she was meant to be, was a prospect so bleak, she did not know how she could endure it.

“Em,” Roz said quietly. “Lady Silsden can’t be right.”

“She can’t?”

“No.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Phil. Phil is upstairs at his dressing table. And Lynley would never meet anyone in a duel without Phil as his second. So, you need not worry.”

Emily stopped her futile scraping of the jam blotch. Her sister’s utter certainty, her confidence in her husband, was an aspect of marriage that changed the ordinary and familiar into something quite profound.

“Did you know that Lynley’s father was killed in a duel when his mother ran away with her Russian lover?”

“It must have been excessively painful for Lynley to lose both his parents in that way. That’s why I’m glad he has Phil, and now he has you.”

But he doesn’t have me, Emily thought. Not the way that Phil has you, not with utter confidence in each other. Even Emily’s parents had that.

Whatever had come over them for that brief interlude in the empty house, he had left her with no assurance of his feelings. There was only the exotic ring on her finger, like something a gypsy fortune-teller might wear, and a memory of kisses and touches that might leave her flesh aching and her heart quite confused.

“Em, I’ll have Phil send you a message. I’m sure he knows where Lynley went today.”

“Thank you, Roz.”

“And don’t forget, he has his aunt Silsden,” Roz reminded her.

* * * *

When Lynley returned to the club at four, an anxious Wilde greeted him. “The big man’s been looking everywhere for you,” he said, with a glance at the pistol case under Lynley’s arm and the valise in his hand.

“I’d best report then. Can you take these up to my room?”

“Done, sir.”

Lynley cast a brief, longing glance at his favorite sofa in the coffee room. He was weary after fighting his own inclinations all day. He headed up the stairs for the big man’s office.

If Goldsworthy had been looking for him, then the big man had no idea that Lynley had been to Lyndale and back. He had returned with Sultan and stabled the stallion at Phil’s, where the head groom had been more than willing to look after Sultan. Bringing the horse to London was breaking his promise to Goldsworthy, but Lynley thought the spymaster would overlook the transgression when they got results. Besides, Lynley and his horse would be on their way before dawn to find that empty parsonage.

He knocked and entered, and Goldsworthy looked up.

“Ah, lad,” the big man said. “Glad you’re here. I’ve had the devil of a time trying to reach you. You have to leave London at once. Take the fastest vehicle you can get. Wilde can go round to the stables for something.”

“Where am I going in such a hurry?”

“After Lady Ravenhurst. She’s run off.”

Lynley took his usual seat opposite the monumental desk.