Page 14 of Marry in Scandal

“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. “Withme? 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 hedisappeared 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!” Sylvia exclaimed crossly. She brandished the note. “He says he’s gone back to Paris—in the middle of the night, and without so much as a thank-you or a by-your-leave! What sort of a houseguest is that, I ask you? My husband will be furious! Victor owes him money—they played cards the other night—oh, it isn’t much, but my husband is the sort of man who counts every penny and—”

“May I see that note?” Without waiting for her permission, Cal plucked it from her grasp and read it.

Dear coz,