Marry the Man Today (8 page)

Miss Dunaway's eyes lifted to his again, her mood deeply serious. As though the stakes in this issue were far beyond the understanding of the women who surrounded her with their eagerness.

"I'd love to, ladies. But I've got so much work to do this afternoon." Which obviously included evicting him from her presence.

The group sighed as one, happily satisfied with their antics.

Mrs. Niles grinned broadly, casting a wry glance at Ross. "Then we'll see you at the meeting tomorrow night, Miss Elizabeth."

"Indeed." Miss Dunaway smiled at the group as they gossiped their frothy way across the foyer then disappeared into what he assumed was the tea room beyond.

She then turned her attention on him again, that deceptively soft gaze, lighting his senses to the marrow, lulling the unwary.

It was a damn good thing he was as wary as hell of the woman.

"You're not supposed to be here in the lobby, Blakestone. The Adams is a club for ladies. We have a visitors' parlor for your type."

"You mean for men? Afraid I'll learn your secrets?"

She waved a dismissive hand at him. "Believe me, my lord, if I had any secrets, you'd never get anywhere near them."

"Indeed." The woman was a bundle of riddles and canards.

"After all, what if I pushed my way past the footman at your club and planted myself in the foyer like a toadstool? Your members would scream bloody murder and have me thrown out on my ear."

Ross had to chuckle at the truth of that. At times the men of the club acted just like a gaggle of old ladies.

"I'm sure you wouldn't have made it past the front door of the Huntsman."

"In that case, you understand the sanctity of one's private refuge and won't mind if I insist that you leave. You've sent my entire staff into a muddle." She started past him toward the entrance, as though she believed she could actually convince him to leave when her falsehoods had brought him right to the front steps of the Abigail Adams.

Miss Dunaway was waiting for him at the front door, her impatient hand resting on the latch. "Please, my lord, don't make me throw you out."

Ross stood his ground and caught back the smile of triumph that was beginning to bunch up inside his chest. "One question first, madam, before you attempt such a feat."

She gave an exasperated little huff. "Make it quick, Blakestone."

"Why didn't you tell me yesterday that you knew Lady Wallace?"

She opened her lovely mouth, whether in shock or to launch into an outright denial, he wasn't sure. But then she closed it again, doing a bad job of hiding her discomfort behind a placid smile.

"What makes you think I know Lady Wallace?"

"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 excus
e
—"

"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 go
l
d-tasse
l
ed 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."

A
h
, that.
"Yes, yes. Uh
m
..." 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 ta
l
l 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, wel
l
. . . 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 attentio
n
—"

"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 banana
s
—"

"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 su
n
—"