Page 61 of A Spy’s Guide to Seduction

“Back to Ravenhurst,” she said in a small voice. It was an admission of defeat, and Emily had no comfort to offer.

“Thank you,” Emily said, and turned for the door. She no longer envied Lady Ravenhurst her fragile beauty.

“Wait,” said the lady. “You should know. One of Barksted’s men shot him.”

Everything stopped for a moment. Emily’s lungs forgot to take their next breath. Her heart forgot to beat. Her hand refused to turn the doorknob. “Is he dead?” she asked.

Lady Ravenhurst shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

* * * *

Emily knew that the distance to Longfield would be counted nothing on a fair day with a decent pair of horses and a well-sprung vehicle, but melting snow and gnawing worry made the way long and tedious. Goldsworthy made his displeasure known that she had not asked Lady Ravenhurst about Walhouse. At a crossroads Wilde jumped down to ask directions of a passing farmer, and then they were there, driving past a stand of chestnut trees onto the gravel sweep, pulling up to the plain yellow house.

No one answered Goldsworthy’s call when they entered. The house smelled of damp and cold fires. Emily glanced at the empty rooms as she passed toward an open door at the end of the passage. A walled garden and a small field lay between the parsonage and a sort of barn, its doors hanging open. Behind her Goldsworthy tramped about while Wilde bounded up the stairs. She lifted her skirts and descended into the garden. A squat stone church with a square Norman tower stood off to one side. In the trampled grass at the base of the garden wall she found a pistol and a smear of blood in a patch of snow.

“Lynley,” she shouted, scanning the field.

From within the little barn, a horse whinnied, and Emily took off at a run. The snow had retreated, making islands of white in a sea of green. She stumbled her way over the rough ground, her skirts growing wet and muddy. She stepped through the open barn door, peering into the gloom and feeling the deeper cold where no sun had penetrated. The little barn smelled of neglect, of rank hay and old dung. Three stalls lined the wall to her left. Dust-covered tools and tack hung on the wall to her right.

At first she thought she’d imagined the horse’s whinny. Then a magnificent black head rose above the second stall. The great black horse shook himself all over. He was saddled and bridled. For a heart-wrenching moment she could not breathe. Lynley would never leave a horse untended.

“Hello,” she said, approaching slowly, wishing she had an apple or some hay. “Hello, Sultan.”

The horse’s ears flicked toward her at the sound of his name. “Where’s Lynley?” Emily asked. “Where’s your master?”

She slipped into the stall and extended her hand to let the horse know she offered no danger. She stroked the long neck. “You’ve been here too long, haven’t you, Sultan? Let me find Lynley, and I’ll see to you.”

She stepped back from the horse, trying to gather her wits. Lynley had not returned to the house. She had seen no sign of him in the field. Her mind raced with plans to retrace her steps through the grass and call Wilde, when glancing down, she saw a long, low heap of black clothes, lying like a mound of turned-up earth in a field, from which a pair of muddied boots protruded.

She ducked around the front of the horse and dropped to her knees in the old straw. Lynley lay rolled in a black cloak against the side of the stall, his eyes closed, his face drawn and white, a thin line of dried blood at the corner of his mouth. She put a hand to his rough cheek. He shivered but did not open his eyes.

She leaned down and kissed his cold lips. She whispered, “Later, my love, I will be very angry with you.”

She pulled herself up, offered the horse a reassuring word and a stroke on the silky neck, and strode for the house.

Goldsworthy stood in the back doorway. “Well?” he shouted.

“I found Lynley. He’s hurt, and we need to get him to the house.”

“Did he get the papers?”

“He’s wounded,” Emily replied, governing her temper.

Wilde appeared and squeezed past Goldsworthy. In the barn the youth and the horse regarded each other warily. Emily moved Sultan to a second stall. With Wilde’s help, she roused Lynley. His eyes fluttered open. He looked straight at Wilde. “Walhouse has the papers. Cannot have got far. Winged him,” he said.

Emily reminded herself that she could berate him later for his single-mindedness. “Where are you hurt?” she asked him.

“Em?” He seemed baffled by her presence. “Shot. Arm,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Then let’s take care of that,” she said. “Mr. Goldsworthy can go after the papers.”

Lynley gave her one more puzzled look, then nodded. Together, she and Wilde got him to sit upright and offered him coffee from a flask Wilde carried. The journey across the field, through the garden, and into a wingchair in the cold parlor at the back of the house further tried Emily’s patience.

She set Wilde to work making a fire and searching the house for anything of use like bedding, candles, and water, while she helped Lynley out of his heavy cloak and mud-caked boots. His stockinged feet were icy cold, and she wrapped them in her cloak. The room warmed as they worked, and whenever Mr. Goldsworthy grumbled at the delay, Emily reminded him of her letter. She made Wilde promise to stop at the first inn they passed to send for a doctor.

When, at last, though it could not have taken long, Emily had what she needed, she let them go.

She looked around the small parlor with its once cheery red sprig wallpaper, somewhat battered white wainscot, and bare plank floors, and laughed. Of all the places for a woman to be compromised by her lover, this one was woefully lacking in the elements of a successful seduction. A sadly banged-up copper kettle simmered on the grate. An overturned box held a pair of chipped cups and a tea jar with a few faint leaves. Slanting late afternoon light came through the north-facing windows. It was no love nest where she and Lynley could fall into a sumptuous bed hung with silks and piled high with soft cushions.