Marry the Man Today Read online

“Because you own the Abigail Adams, my dear, and she was a member in good standing until yesterday morning when she vanished from the face of the earth.”

  She shrugged a shoulder lightly. “So?”

  “So, you withheld information from me. From Scotland Yard, from the Lord Mayor. I don’t like that.”

  “And I don’t like your tone. Are you accusing me of some nefarious crime?”

  Of being the most cunning woman he’d ever met. Along with the most beautiful.

  But he could hardly accuse her of that.

  “My dear Miss Dunaway, since I’ve been asked by the Lord Mayor to investigate the disappearance of Lady Wallace, it’s my duty to follow up on all clues. I’ve seen the hat shop where she disappeared. I’ve inspected the evidence found at the scene.”

  “And now you’re here to investigate me?” Her soft brows lifted toward her heart-shaped hairline. “Don’t you think you should be investigating Lord Wallace? After all, his wife has been abducted.”

  “I’ll ask the questions. You merely have to answer them to my satisfaction.”

  “Why? You’re not a policeman. You’re not from the press. Why should I have to answer your questions?”

  Because he was so deeply buried in the secret affairs of the government that he’d never be free.

  “Let’s just say that I’m lending my military investigative skills to the City of London.”

  “What’s a soldier doing investigating an abduction on Regent Street?”

  “I’m a sailor, madam. A commandant in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy, on loan to the Foreign Office. And, as such, I do whatever I’m asked to do by Her Majesty’s ministers.”

  “Stranded here on dry land. How sad for you.” She laughed lightly, as though protected from his office by the marble walls of the Abigail Adams. “But I can assure you, my lord commandant, I can’t help you. Now if you’ll excuse—”

  “I can interrogate you here in the foyer, madam, or in a private office. Or if you prefer it, we can take a trip back to Scotland Yard, where, I can assure you, if the press finds you this time, they won’t be interested in your thoughts on women’s rights.”

  She glared at him, then gave another irritated huff and stomped past him. “Very well, my lord. I’ll give you five minutes.”

  Or as many as he cared to take.

  He followed her lightly flouncing skirts through the foyer and into what must surely be the club room. Much like the club room at the Huntsman, only more delicately fashioned: with tall windows draped in gold-tasseled brocade, sheered lightly with laced curtains. A half-dozen rose-strewn wool carpets covered the polished wooden floor, with pairs of floral upholstered chairs, elegant legged tea tables. Portraits of powerful women, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth, the inimitable Abigail Adams above the marble mantel.

  “The club room, I assume,” he said as she waited for him at the door on the opposite wall.

  “We do all our club business here.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Where we vote on important issues of the day, such as Darjeeling versus China black for the tea room. Red petunias for the urns in the drive up, or pink.”

  If she wanted a piggish attitude, she could have one. “The gentlemen of the Huntsman talk about similar things. Reform Act, or no? War with Russia, or not?”

  “Single malt, or blended. Ah, the important issues of powerful men …” She gestured into the smaller room beyond. “In here, my lord, though I know little enough about your investigation. I’m sure you’ll be disappointed.”

  Alone, in a small room, with the beautiful Miss Dunaway and her flashing eyes? Disappointment was impossible.

  “I’ll wager that you know more than you think you do, madam. Clues often hide themselves in the midst of the faintest memories.”

  “I have an excellent memory.” She snorted lightly as she went directly to a large tidy desk, a daringly intimate sound between them.

  “I’m sure you do.” He was positive, in fact. “Have you ever met Lord Wallace?”

  She frowned and pulled open the knee drawer. “Once. Have you?”

  “Not yet.” Though he planned to as soon as possible.

  “When you do, be sure to ask him where he stashed the body.”

  “Body?” Ross tried to look nonchalant as he perched on the edge of the desk.

  “Husbands kill their wives all the time, my lord.” She sat down in the wooden desk chair and leaned back.

  “Is that so?” Though he already knew that the sorry statistic was true.

  “A wife gets in the husband’s way, makes a few too many demands on his time or his money, starts forming thoughts of her own, and off she goes to the country, or to her aunt’s, or to their villa in Spain, never to be seen again. Who would ever know if a man killed his wife in a fit of anger and buried the body in the stall of his favorite racehorse?”

  “You have a very pessimistic view of marriage.”

  “A practical view of the facts as I see them.”

  “Murderous husbands and annoying wives, madam?” Damnation, he liked the outlandish, unafraid byways of her mind. He nearly laughed. “Do you mean to say that you suspect Lord Wallace of kidnapping his own wife and then doing away with the evidence of her murder?”

  She raised her shoulders and tented her fingers, judge and jury all rolled into a single efficient package. “Just that I’ve heard gossip in the tea room.”

  “What kind of gossip, madam?” At times it was far more reliable than direct evidence. At least as a jumping off point. Smoke and fire and all that.

  “That his lordship has the temper of a grizzly.” She shrugged. “I can just imagine your interview with him, if you should decide to speak with him.”

  “Can you, now?”

  “He’ll be very dramatic. Declare undying love for his dear, devoted wife. Demand that you find her immediately, before scandal erupts and he finds himself embarrassed in the press and in Parliament.”

  “No comment, madam.” Because God only knew what she would do if he confirmed his own suspicions. Take up an investigation on her own, or with her little gang. “Now, the sooner you answer a few of my questions about Lady Wallace herself, the sooner I’ll be off your property and out of your life.”

  A thought that stopped him cold in his tracks. He liked standing here in her presence. She filled him up with something raw and exciting.

  Made him want to kiss her soundly. Just to see what she would do or say.

  “Go right ahead, my lord.”

  Bloody hell! Had he spoken aloud?

  “Right ahead and … ?” He trailed off, hoping the woman would fill in the sudden blank spot in his brain.

  “Go ahead and ask your questions, sir.”

  Ah, that. “Yes, yes. Uhm …” He cast about for the subject and recalled that someone’s wife had gone missing. “Lady Wallace!”

  “What about her? And hurry please. I have a class to prepare for.”

  “Are you studying for a class?”

  “I’m teaching one. Is that your question?”

  “Not quite.” Completely off track now, Ross yanked his notepad out of his jacket pocket and flipped through to the scribble of notes he’d taken so far. He cleared his throat and turned away. “When exactly did Lady Wallace become a member’ of the Abigail Adams?”

  “Exactly?” She considered the question for a moment, focusing on his mouth and then his eyes, before breathing out a sigh. “I suppose I have that here somewhere.”

  By the looks of the office, the woman doubtless could put her finger on the least important piece of information in the blink of an eye.

  “Of course, she couldn’t have been with us very long. The club’s only been open since February.”

  “How often did she come?”

  “If I recall correctly, two or three times a week at the beginning.” She went to a bank of file boxes lined up neatly on the tall bookshelves against the wall, scanned the labels, pulled down a box and went back to the desk with it.

 
“And after that?”

  She looked up at him from across the desk as she propped open the box lid. “Well, as you can imagine, his lordship didn’t approve.”

  Ross decided to stay put on the edge of the desk instead of standing at her side and blatantly staring at the open file. He could read upside down easily enough. That way she wouldn’t suspect he was doing it.

  “Wallace didn’t approve of what?”

  “Of anything his wife did that took her out of his immediate sphere of control.” The very thing that the hat clerk had implied. “Ah, yes, here it is, my lord. A copy of Lady Wallace’s letter accepting our offer of membership.” She held up a single sheet of fine onionskin paper. “She joined us at the end of April. The twenty-seventh to be exact.”

  “And her last visit?”

  A flicker of memory creased her brow as she stumbled around for an answer. “Ah, well… it’s been two weeks. Perhaps three. Members are encouraged to come and go as they please at the Adams. I make a point of not noticing.”

  “But you would have noticed had anyone outside Lady Wallace’s family come to pick her up?”

  “Outside her … ?” Her eyes brightened considerably. “Oh! You mean a secret lover?”

  Secret lover, indeed. The brazen young woman shouldn’t know of such things.

  “I didn’t mean exactly that, madam. But perhaps someone had been paying her a great deal of attention—”

  “Because her husband wasn’t?” She put the file box back on the shelf and turned to him with her flashing eyes. “Let’s just say that I hope it’s true, my lord. I hope Lady Wallace has flown the coop with her handsome, doting lover. That she’s left all her cares on her husband’s front stoop.”

  “You hope?” Damnation! Had Wallace’s wife been cuckolding him? And had the innocent Miss Dunaway known about it all along?

  “Yes, my lord, I hope that her lover swept her off her feet with his raging passion and sailed with her to the clear blue waters of the South Seas where they will live out their lives on torrid passion, coconuts and bananas—”

  “Torrid .. . ? Coconuts … ?”

  “In the warm trade winds.”

  “What are you saying, madam?”

  “Making naked love on the beach whenever they like, in the silvery moonlight and under the blazing bright sun—”

  “Excuse me, what?” Ross found himself standing over her at the bookcase, staring into her wildly smiling eyes. Surely not hearing right.

  Making naked love on the beach?

  Is that what the brazen woman had just said?

  Naked love?

  Or was he going slightly mad with the scent of her? With the sound of her.

  “I’m afraid you’ve lost me, madam.” Or found me. He leaned as close to her as he dared. Taking in her scent. A little dizzy, a lot stunned.

  “I only meant, my lord, that I haven’t the faintest idea where Lady Wallace is at the moment. But that wherever she is, I hope she’s found her heart’s delight.”

  He still wasn’t sure he’d gotten this right. Should have jotted it down for proof.

  “So, Lady Wallace had no paramour who might have spirited her away? You merely plucked these plans for the South Seas out of your dreams.”

  “Oh, my dreams are nothing like that, sir.” Her smile became wry and soft.

  “Not”—naked love—“escaping to a beach with a handsome lover?”

  “Good heavens, no!” She drew her brows together, her eyes twinkling up at him. “I think the sand would be quite uncomfortable for lovemaking, don’t you?”

  “The sand?”

  “Abrasive, I would imagine”

  Bloody hell!

  “I’d prefer a waterfall and a sun-warmed pool—”

  Bloody hell! He was about to do something very foolish. Kiss that bold invitation right off her glistening, upturned mouth.

  Or take his leave through the window.

  Or douse himself with the pitcher of water that was sitting on the sideboard.

  But he was saved from certain doom by a knock at the door. A rat-a-tat-tat that seemed to shake the brazen lunatic from her enchantment.

  The rap again.

  “Excuse me, Miss Elizabeth. Are you in there?”

  “Oh, yes! I’m coming.” The woman blinked up at him, then dashed away, straightening her skirts and her hair before throwing open the door.

  “Skye! What is it?”

  The young woman’s eyes caught his in a worry and caused a deep frown. “Well…”

  The rest of the exchange was a lightning fast tangle of whispering, tight gesturing, ending with Miss Dunaway turning back to him.

  “Ah, you’ll have to leave now, my lord. Something’s come up.”

  Damn right it had. Hard and throbbing. And he hoped to hell she hadn’t noticed. “I can wait here, madam.” Cool down.

  “I’m afraid you can’t. This will take some time.” She hooked his elbow with hers and drew him out of the room, the young woman trailing after them. “I’ll be quite happy to answer any more of your questions later today or tomorrow. Just not right now.”

  His thoughts had slowed to mush and his head seemed to wobble drunkenly on his neck as she breezed him through the club room, into the foyer, and then right to the front door, where she offered her enthralling smile.

  “Until later, my lord,” she said.

  “Good day, madam.” He took his hat from the footman, gave Miss Dunaway and her assistant a generous bow, and left the Abigail Adams while he still had all his faculties.

  At least he’d gotten a few answers out of her. The fact that Lady Wallace had been a member since April twenty-seventh, and .. . and that the missing woman didn’t have a lover.

  Or did.

  Or wanted to.

  Damnation, he hadn’t really learned a single thing for his efforts.

  Except that Miss Dunaway was a cunning opponent.

  And a beautiful woman.

  The most dangerous combination in the history of mankind.

  ******************

  “Where did you put her, Skye?” Elizabeth’s heart was still slamming around in her chest. Still juggling the threat of Blakestone’s investigation against the new crisis that had arrived on her doorstep.

  “She’s upstairs in your sitting room,” Skye said, heading toward the back staircase. “With his lordship wandering around here so freely, I didn’t think you wanted him finding her and then asking questions.”

  Indeed, the earl was very good at asking questions.

  Very good at answering his own.

  But she couldn’t let him ask this one.

  “Did she give her name?” Elizabeth followed on Skye’s heels, terrified of what she would find this time.

  “Lydia, I think she said. She was shaking so that I didn’t get any more of her name than that.”

  “You did perfectly, Skye. As ever. Thank you, sweet.”

  They sped up the backstairs, down the corridor into the easterly wing of the club. Elizabeth’s own quarters, her home. And so recently a refuge for the heartbroken.

  Skye stayed well out of sight in the corridor as Elizabeth peered through the half-open doorway, expecting the worst and finding plenty of it.

  The woman was sitting in an armchair in the pale light coming through the sheer curtains. Her back ramrod straight, her gaze fixed on the floor. She clung to her cloak with white-knuckled fingers, as though she still expected its fine cashmere to be a shield against the world.

  Not wanting to violate the woman’s silence or to threaten her obviously tattered nerves, Elizabeth took a single step into the room, just to let her know she wasn’t alone, then waited to be invited farther in.

  Her own heart throbbing against her chest, tears threatening the composure she would need to help the woman through the trauma, Elizabeth finally spoke softly.

  “Lydia?”

  After a very long time, the woman raised her wary, weary eyes, and Elizabeth knew the rest of her story. />
  The bruises were already darkening around her left eye. Shadows turning to evidence that would never be allowed to stand in a court of law against the brutal man who had done this to her.

  Not when a husband had an inalienable right to his property.

  She saw the plea in the once-bright young face, the hopelessness, even before she heard the harrowingly familiar words spill from Lydia’s shattered soul.

  “They said …” Her tremulous pause was long and so courageous. “… you could help me. …”

  Elizabeth cleared the sob from her throat and put on her most hopeful smile.

  “Oh, my dear Lydia, you’ve just taken the first step toward helping yourself to a new life.”

  And a new chance at happiness.

  Just like Lady Wallace had done.

  Chapter 7

  Women are like tricks by sleight of hand,

  Which, to admire, we should not understand.

  William Congreve, Love for Love, 1695

  “How to Seduce Your Own Husband Without Giving Him Apoplexy’ has been such a popular class, ladies,” Elizabeth said from the podium of the crowded club room, “that we’ve added another session.”

  The room erupted into applause at her announcement, and Eloise Barnes waggled her hand in the air. “Beginning when?”

  “Please, Miss Elizabeth, the sooner the better!” Bonita Deverel said in an unusual burst of eagerness. “From what I’ve heard from a few of the other ladies who have actually taken the class, well… it’s rather eye-opening. Even for a woman who’s been married a long time.”

  “Especially for a woman who’s been married a long time, Mrs. Deverel!” Lady Maxton was quick with her usual wit, always so elegant and poised.

  Elizabeth smiled at the woman and pointed to the calendar propped against the easel. “The new session will start two weeks from today, and will run for the following three Mondays, seven to eight in the evening.”

  “And what of the Abigail Adams Tatting Consortium?” Renata Garrison asked from her familiar perch in the most comfortable chair in the room. “Will we still meet on Mondays at eight as well?”

  “Absolutely, Mrs. Garrison.” Another program that was becoming increasingly popular.

  “That’s a relief,” Vita Sayers said with an air of keen conspiracy, “because though my dear husband is in full support of me tatting away one night a week, he just wouldn’t understand that I’ve actually been learning the secrets of investing funds from my new bank account on the open exchange.”