Horrid possibilities churned in Emm’s mind.
Rose frowned. “Cal said ‘the Gorrie woman.’ Did he mean Sylvia?”
Emm nodded. “She was talking to Lily when we went into the garden. It was Sylvia who told us about the message, but she was very vague about it. Apparently Lily was talking with Sylvia’s cousin, but she didn’t notice where they’d gone.”
“Sylvia always was completely self-centered. Oh, I wish now I’d gone with Lily to the rout. I nearly did, but . . . That wretched duke of Aunt Agatha’s. Oh, do stop pacing, George. It’s very unsettling and it doesn’t help.”
“It helps me,” George said. “I hate doing nothing. I’d rather be out searching for Lily.”
“Me too, but where would we search? We can’t just rush out into the streets and run around looking. We need a starting point,” Rose pointed out. She sat on the end of the chaise longue and slipped her hand into Emm’s. “You don’t really think that she’s been abducted, do you, Emm? Not our darling, softhearted Lily.”
Emm gave her hand a comforting squeeze. “No, I’m sure it will be all right. It will just be some silly mix-up. Cal will no doubt arrive at the Mainwaring house and find Lily there, wondering where we’ve gone.”
But from the look in their eyes, Rose and George believed that as little as Emm did.
• • •
The Mainwaring rout was still in full swing, but Lily was nowhere to be found. Cal questioned the Mainwarings’ servants again, and this time he found a footman who thought—though he wasn’t sure—that the man Lily had left with had arrived earlier with a young woman dressed in blue. Lily had worn a dress that Emm had told him was in shades of peach. He decided that meant some kind of pink.
Cal then spoke to Lord and Lady Mainwaring, asking them, though without much hope, for discretion. For all he knew, Lily had just stepped out on some foolish escapade with a young man she fancied. It wasn’t like her, but in his experience, young women were unpredictable. He hoped it was something as simple.
“Can you recall any of your guests who wore a blue gown, Lady Mainwaring?” It was the slenderest of leads, but it was all Cal had.
“Good heavens, Lord Ashendon, I’m sure I couldn’t possibly remember such finicky little details, especially after everything I’ve had to organize today. My husband says I’m the veriest scatterbrain and I’m afraid it’s quite true,” Lady Mainwaring said with a little laugh. She gave her husband a fond look, then proceeded to list every woman who wore any shade of blue.
As she spoke, Cal noted the names, thinking that his friend Gil Radcliffe could use such a “scatterbrain” in his network of spies and informers.
“—and dear Libby Barker wore a pretty gown in sky-blue silk and blond lace. Such a nice girl. And I think that’s all. Oh, no,” she said on an afterthought, “I seem to recall that Mrs. Gorrie wore a rather commonplace blue dress with white trimming and—”
“Mrs. Gorrie?” Cal interrupted. “I don’t suppose she’s still here.” He should have pressed her harder earlier, but at that point they weren’t as worried about Lily.
“No, she left quite early, I think.”
“Would you have her direction?”
Lady Mainwaring made a vague gesture. “Heavens, no, but I’m sure my butler will know it.”
Cal went in search of the butler again, and got the addresses of every one of the women who’d worn blue that night. He started with Sylvia Gorrie.
The Gorries’ butler stood firm. “I regret, my lord, that Mr. and Mrs. Gorrie are not receiving. Please return at a more convenient hour tomorrow.”
“Nonsense. This is an urgent matter.”
“My sincere regrets, my lord, but I cannot—”
“What’s all the noise about, Barton?” an irritable female voice said from inside the house. “If my husband is woken there’ll be hell to pay.”
The butler turned and said in a hushed voice, “A Lord Ashendon is here, wishing to speak to you, madam.”
“Ashendon? Good grief, whatever could he want? Oh, well, I’m still up, so you might as well show him in. But quietly, I beg of you.”
Cal was shown into a sitting room. Sylvia Gorrie was standing in front of the fire, still wearing the dress he’d seen her in earlier, blue with white trim, though he’d taken no notice at the time. She was holding a note in her hand and as Cal entered she looked up with a petulant expression.
“Good evening, Lord Ashendon. Lord knows what you can want with me at this hour—nothing pleasant, I see from your expression—but it has become a night of nasty surprises”—she indicated the note in her hand—“so go ahead.”
Cal didn’t beat about the bush. “My sister Lily is missing.”
She frowned. “Still? Didn’t you find her earlier?”
“Obviously not. You said earlier she received a message.”
“Yes, a note from her sister, Rose. Of course poor Lily can’t read, so I read it out for her. I must say—”
“A footman said she left with a man—”
“Well, then—”
“A man who had arrived a short time earlier with you on his arm.”
She frowned. “With me? Are you sure?”
He wasn’t, of course, but he wasn’t going to reveal how little he actually knew. “It was you, definitely. So who was the man?”
Sylvia glanced down at the note in her hand and said in a puzzled voice, “I came with my cousin, Victor Nixon. But he disappeared on me. I thought at first he was in one of the gaming rooms—he has an addiction to piquet, you know—but he wasn’t, and then I realized he must have gone home with some tart—well, it wouldn’t be the first time—leaving me to get home by myself. But when I got home I found this note—”
“Where does this Nixon fellow live?”
“Paris.”
“Paris?”
She nodded. “He’s lived there for the past five years. He has a house in the—oh, I forget where. Near some gardens. But when in London he stays with us, of course.”
“Then where is he?”
“It’s as I was trying to tell you!”
