A Spy's Guide to Seduction Read online

  “I will put Wilde on to watching the house. See who comes and goes, that sort of thing. Our man will try again.”

  Chapter Five

  So prejudiced is society in favor of a woman’s marrying that the sole measure of her worth is a paltry hoop of gold upon her finger. A single miss, however lovely, intelligent, and virtuous, whose hand remains unadorned by such a bauble within a Season or two of her first appearance in the fashionable world, is regarded as flawed no matter her merits, while the plainest girl with the least figure and only modest accomplishments may lord it over all her companions when once she wears a gentleman’s ring. To do so, however, is to fall into the grave error of supposing that a ring on one’s finger is a triumph or a victory. Such thinking must inevitably undermine the very happiness the husband hunter seeks in marriage.

  —The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London

  Lynley watched Emily Radstock apply a hoof pick to her mare’s near hind foot. Another woman would have left the task to a groom. He could find no fault in the practiced care with which she handled her horse. Her voice soothed the mare, and she plainly knew what she was about as she worked to dig out dirt and stones. Her dark blue habit was cut close to her figure with skirts full enough to allow her more than a fashionable walk in the park. A flush in her cheeks and loose curling strands of honey-brown hair around her face told him she’d had a good ride. He envied her that.

  It was the part of his agreement with Goldsworthy which chafed him the most that he had been required to leave Sultan at Lyndale Abbey. His black stallion was too easily recognizable as the horse that had figured in the recent exploits of the highwayman of the Aylesbury Road, as the constables had dubbed him.

  Emily had tied her horse, a chocolate-colored mare with a black mane, to a post in the open area of the mews between the rows of stalls. With the morning sun just peeking over the rooftops, grooms and stable boys went about their business, taking no notice of the lady in their midst. Lynley leaned against the wall to watch.

  She went about her work, oblivious of her surroundings, until he ventured a greeting. She started, turning toward him but keeping a secure hold on the horse’s hoof.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I couldn’t stay away.”

  She regarded him narrowly. “I should think you would still be abed.”

  “Not when I might see you.” The words sounded hollow in his ears. It was the sort of flirtatious thing his uncle might say to a tavern girl.

  “Fustian,” she said. Gently, she released the horse’s hoof and moved to the off side. “You’ve never come here at this hour of the day to pour the butter boat over my head, and you can’t imagine that I have any government papers on my person.”

  “You relieve my mind. I would hate to think that you made off with Lord Ravenhurst’s documents under my nose.”

  “Did someone make off with them?” she asked, coming around the horse to toss the hoof pick into a pail and pick up a dandy brush.

  “I came to ask if I might take you for a drive in the park this afternoon.”

  “I have a...a prior engagement.” She moved the brush across the mare’s back with short flicks.

  “I believe our betrothal ends your obligations to other gentlemen.”

  She shot him a quick glance. “I didn’t say I was meeting a man.”

  “Can you put this person off to another day?”

  She laughed. “Oh, he is always available for a visit. He’s in Marshalsea Prison for debt.”

  He had to admit she shocked him a little with her cheerful willingness to visit a notorious prison, but only a little. He’d read her letter to the Times. “Who is this gentleman in such uncongenial accommodations?”

  “The Reverend Arthur Broome. Do you know of him?”

  It was a test. She’d think more highly of him if he knew who Broome was, but he wouldn’t pretend. He shook his head.

  “He founded the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.” She moved from her work with the dandy brush to a currycomb.

  “A worthy cause. Are you a member of this society?”

  Her brow furrowed at the question, and she looked away. “Ladies are not yet admitted to membership status. We have a different role.”

  “You pour tea and provide funds?” Lynley suspected that a society with its founder in debt was little more than a scheme to prey on the tenderheartedness of rich ladies.

  “We write letters and pamphlets.”

  “Sounds safe...and...”

  The currycomb made a few passes. “And?”

  “Dull.”

  Her chin came up at that. “Easy for you to say.” She drew a deep, bosom-lifting breath. “Being born both female and of a certain rank, one is not permitted the full range of action in the world.” She shrugged. “So we do what we can.”

  “Much better to come with me then.” He pushed away from the wall and came around the horse to stand beside her. The mare cocked an ear his way.

  “What? So I can drop glassware down a stairwell?”

  “You have to admit that you enjoyed it.” He grinned at her.

  Her gaze dropped, but she didn’t deny it. “Why did you need me to do it, I wonder. What purpose did it serve?”

  He reached up to give the mare a scratch behind her ears. “What’s her name?”

  “Circe, and you didn’t answer my question.”

  “Didn’t I?” He let his hand slide along the sun-warmed flank of the horse. “Does she deserve a witch’s name?”

  “Sometimes.” She laughed and patted the mare’s rump. “She appears docile, but she will surprise you when she wants her own way.”

  “Is that what you’re doing? Trying to have your own way?”

  She faced him. They were closer than he’d realized. She tapped him on the chest with the currycomb. “What I would like is answers to some very reasonable questions about your actions last night.” Tap. “What were you doing when you disappeared from my side?” Tap. “How did you know where to find Lord Ravenhurst’s missing papers?” Tap. “Why did you return them?” Tap. “Why—”

  He caught and trapped her hand against his chest. The fine thread that had stretched between them from the moment he’d unfolded himself from Rosalind Villiers’s couch caught and held, a single shining filament of need.

  She stared at his mouth. Behind him a groom’s coarse shout and the rattle of carriage wheels broke the moment. He released her hand, and she dropped it to her side.

  He made himself answer lightly. “Suit yourself, but an hour in the park could get you the answers to your questions.”

  * * * *

  Emily had long understood that Hyde Park at the fashionable hour of five in the afternoon was not the park of her morning rides. As London society from the lowest to the highest ranks streamed through the gates in carriages, on horseback, and on foot, the park’s horizons shrank. One did not look up through the tracery of lofty trees, or out across rolling vistas of the faintest green. One did not hear the cries of birds, but the clatter of wheels and shouts of greeting. It was necessary to keep a sharp eye out for erratic drivers and the careless tide of humanity.

  She squirmed a little on the seat of Lynley’s neat curricle. With her mother away, she’d had her first chance to visit Arthur Broome in jail, yet she’d succumbed to the temptation to go driving with Lynley in the park. Curiosity about her fiancé was a character weakness she did not care to examine.

  She had to admit that Lynley was a neat driver with a light hand to which the horses responded readily. She could not help admiring a man who treated his animals well. And of course a tall, darkly handsome man must be observed. Heads turned and ladies fell into conversation as they passed. She could not repress a twinge of satisfaction at the expression on the faces of certain of her old friends when they saw Lynley and realized that he mus
t be the fiancé of whom they’d heard. To those ladies she gave a friendly wave.

  “Enjoying yourself?” he asked.

  “Am I so readable? It is the tallying hour.” She straightened her spine. “A time for chalking up points. Everyone is busily measuring his neighbor’s consequence in new equipages or horses or...”

  “Fiancés?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Anything I can do to add to your tally?”

  “If you must know, there is an art to the whole business of parading. One has to be seen without appearing to notice that one is being observed. It’s all a great strain on one’s neck.”

  With a slight movement of his hands he made the horses dance a little in their traces, setting the harness jingling. His whole attention appeared focused on driving, but heads again turned their way.

  When the horses settled back to a sedate pace, she was sorely tempted to poke him in the ribs with her parasol. “You know exactly how to draw attention without seeming to do so.”

  “And you apparently know how to court invisibility.” He gave her outfit a severe frown. She had dressed in a fawn-colored spencer jacket and plain chocolate velvet bonnet, lined with pale green silk. “Is tallying points only for ladies?”

  “At least I’m not wearing black.” Emily saw no reason to tell him that he would score no points for being seen with a woman who had been on the shelf for nearly five Seasons.

  “You were going to tell me what you were really doing at the Ravenhurst party last night,” she said.

  “Was I?” An approaching barouche caught his attention. The stately vehicle carried a petite iron-haired lady in a deep-wine-colored coat and hat, black feathers curling over the brim, with her hands stuffed into a black fur muff the size of small spaniel.

  Lynley tried to turn his team around, but traffic would not permit the maneuver. Instead the barouche, with its diminutive passenger riding in state, pulled up beside them.

  In courtesy Lynley was obliged to halt his team, his gaze fixed on the small woman. “My aunt, Lady Silsden,” he said to Emily.

  “Lynley,” said the woman. “Is that your new fiancée?”

  “Aunt, may I present Lady Emily Radstock.”

  His aunt waved a peremptory black-gloved hand, beckoning Emily to join her in the barouche. Lynley’s groom went to the horses’ heads, and Lynley jumped down to assist Emily in moving from their carriage to his aunt’s.

  “We’ll take a turn about the park, and I shall return her to you, Lynley,” Lady Silsden declared. She waved him away from the carriage.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He stood stiff and frowning. Emily had never seen him ill at ease. As the barouche jerked into motion, she turned to face the woman who had discomposed him.

  “Let me look at you, girl. You are Candover’s daughter?”

  “I am, Lady Silsden.”

  “And you’ve accepted my nephew?”

  “I have, ma’am.”

  Emily found herself subjected to an insolent scrutiny. For the second time in a quarter of an hour her fawn-colored jacket and plain bonnet provoked a frown.

  “You seem a sensible girl. What were you thinking?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “There’s no worse bargain for a lady of rank, and you must bear the brunt of the blame. Of course, your mother must answer for her part of this folly, too. To be away from home when a daughter faces a rogue like Lynley.” Lady Silsden shook her head.

  “Ma’am, do you truly suppose your nephew to be such a poor bargain?”

  “Don’t let that charming smile of his deceive you, miss. Lynley is an exceptionally lazy and wayward specimen of his sex. If you do not exercise all your will to curb his appetites and inclinations, he will be forever chasing after some freakish adventure in the name of...fun.” Lady Silsden shuddered.

  Emily looked down at her gloved hands to keep from grinning. “What do you recommend, ma’am?”

  “I don’t doubt he’s up to his usual tricks. Constables came to my door a fortnight ago with shocking inquiries about a highwayman holding up the common stage on the Aylesbury Road. The common stage!”

  “And you think Lynley might have been involved?” That did sound like Lynley. Emily could imagine his aunt’s horror at their adventure of the previous night.

  “It is exactly the sort of freak he’d be up to, and with that black horse of his.”

  “A black horse, ma’am?”

  “That Spanish horse of his, Sultan. Don’t let him fool you with his driving in the park. He knows nothing of duty or dignity. A baronet must be seen to live like a baronet. Not like a gypsy.”

  “How fortuitous to meet you, Lady Silsden. I can see that I must learn from you if I am to help Lynley maintain his credit as a gentleman in London. What do you recommend?”

  Lady Silsden sighed. “I spent years after the disaster trying to curb his dangerous proclivities, and I might have succeeded had not my wretched brother-in-law intervened and taken the boy to Spain.” She shuddered again.

  Emily tucked the intriguing word disaster away in her mind. Instinctively, she knew Lynley would resent her hearing about it from his aunt. “And you feel thwarted in your efforts, ma’am?”

  “I do. Horribly.”

  “What do you recommend I do to curb Lynley’s dangerous tendencies toward...”

  “Wickedness. There is no other word for it.”

  “Shall I take him to the Chapel Royal? Or do you recommend more extreme measures?”

  “I don’t mind telling you, Miss Radstock, for you seem to appreciate the situation, but in my view, no measure is too extreme. I confined the boy to his room at Lyndale. I restricted all foods that might inflame the passions. I hired tutors to read him the most powerful tracts on moral behavior. I surrounded him with the inspiration of the most saintly figures art has produced.”

  “I see,” said Emily. Again she had recourse to staring at her hands lest she give away her feelings on Lady Silsden’s program of moral improvement. “You have spared no effort to reform his character.”

  “Not as long as he was in my care.”

  “And how long was that, ma’am?”

  “From the time he was fourteen until his eighteenth year. Sadly, in spite of all my efforts, he remains...volatile and given to behavior quite beneath the dignity of a baronet.”

  “Lady Silsden, thank you for confiding in me. I will give your counsel some thought and only hope that I may have some good effect on your nephew’s character.” That, at least, Emily could promise. She certainly had no intention of harming Lynley’s character.

  They had nearly completed their circuit of the park at a pace designed to put even Lady Silsden’s placid horses to sleep. Emily could see Lynley, standing with a group of gentlemen around a woman holding court in another carriage. As they drew closer, she recognized Lady Ravenhurst, her golden beauty set off by a pale lilac pelisse and white muff.

  Lady Silsden’s barouche came to stop.

  “I suppose, Miss Radstock, that you feel bound in conscience to continue this engagement you’ve formed.”

  “I do, ma’am.”

  “Well, do not worry. Look at him.” She stared pointedly at the group of laughing gentlemen around Lady Ravenhurst. Lynley appeared as rapt in admiration as the others.

  Lady Silsden harrumphed. She nodded to her footman, who lowered the steps and opened the door for Emily. Then Lady Silsden offered her last words of comfort. “I daresay this whim of Lynley’s will pass soon enough, and you’ll find yourself released.”

  Chapter Six

  The husband hunter must be particularly on her guard when a new acquaintance, whether a lady or a gentleman, appears most open. The new friend who freely unfolds his or her history of misfortune and grievance, while entitled to polite sympathy, must be regarded with wariness. It is an easy step from engaging
the husband hunter’s sympathy to asking her to open not only her heart, but also her purse and her person.

  —The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London

  From across the carriageway, Lynley spotted his aunt’s footman handing Emily Radstock down from the barouche. He stepped away from Lady Ravenhurst’s carriage. Emily said nothing as he took her hand, her alert gaze on Lady Ravenhurst’s admirers. In silence Lynley handed her up to the curricle seat, leaped up to take the reins, and set the carriage in motion.

  He guided the horses, avoiding other vehicles and riders out of habit, surprised at her silence. In the two days they’d been acquainted, he thought he could count on her to tell him what she was thinking. Beside him she closed and unclosed her gloved hands.

  “Was my aunt Silsden sufficiently frank to put you off our engagement?” he asked.

  She tugged at one of her gloves, freeing the hand that wore his ring and stretching out her arm to look at the stones, the diamonds flashing around the great square amethyst.

  He kept his hands easy on the reins, waiting for her to pull the thing off and slap it in his hand. It would not matter to his happiness, of course. He would pocket the ring, return her to her family, and find a different cover for his movement in society. Their brief engagement would be a bit of tittle-tattle for a few days before another scandal displaced theirs.

  Abruptly, she turned to him, her eyes flashing. “Your aunt would make a fine elephant keeper. She appears well versed in the techniques of confinement and deprivation, and she would not hesitate to shoot you if you got out of line.”

  “So I’m an elephant?” he said.

  “Hardly, but you must have towered over your aunt even at fourteen. She probably mistook that height of yours for power.”

  His jaw tightened. “What did my aunt say to you?”

  She grinned at him, a defiant look in her eyes. “You’d like to know, wouldn’t you?”

  Then she dropped her bare hand with the ring and let it dangle over the side of the carriage for all to see.