Mistress - Amanda Quick [84]
The door of the library opened.
Amelia walked into the room. “Iphiginia? Mr. Manwaring reminded me that we must—” She broke off, flushing, when she saw Iphiginia in Marcus’s arms. “I beg your pardon.”
“It’s quite all right,” Marcus said. He looked down at Iphiginia. “We will finish this conversation some other time. As it happens, we were just about to leave, weren’t we, Iphiginia?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, we were.” She stepped quickly away from him and gave Amelia a shaky smile. “We’re off to the Wycherley Agency to see what we can learn from Mrs. Wycherley.”
“Do not bother to give my regards to Constance Wycherley,” Amelia muttered. “I never did like that woman.”
It had been a near thing. Much too close for comfort.
Twenty minutes later, after a silent, brooding carriage ride to a small lane just off Oxford Street, Iphiginia was still feeling the effects of the quarrel.
She was in a desperate fix because of Masters’s Rules and it was her own fault, she thought as she was handed down from the black phaeton.
She should have known that Marcus would likely feel compelled to marry her were he ever to discover that she was not a widow. But she had deliberately allowed herself to believe that she could deceive him.
She had convinced herself that she could fool Marcus, just as she had fooled Society. She ought to have known better.
Now she had to find a way to convince Marcus that he was not obligated by his own rigid code to wed her.
It would not be easy, Iphiginia knew. He was too much like her in too many ways. The man was too bloody stubborn and determined for his own good.
“This is Number Eleven.” Marcus frowned at the darkened windows of the Wycherley Agency. “The agency appears to be closed for the day.”
“How odd.” Iphiginia studied the drawn curtains that blanked both windows and the door. “It is not yet four in the afternoon.”
“Perhaps Mrs. Wycherley was forced to close the premises early for some personal reason.”
“One would think that she would have staff to keep the office open.”
“True.” Marcus walked to the door and twisted the knob experimentally. “Locked.”
Iphiginia looked up. The two stories above the agency premises were also dark. “I wonder if Mrs. Wycherley lives above her place of business.”
“Very likely.” Marcus stepped back to survey the upper stories. “But if she is at home, she is definitely not receiving visitors.”
“She may be ill.”
“Manwaring told you that he spoke with her yesterday. Did he mention that she appeared to be ailing?”
“No. But that doesn’t mean she did not fall ill during the night,” Iphiginia said. “Perhaps she left for a visit to the country.”
“In which case,” Marcus said with a speculative expression, “the shop and the rooms above are very likely empty.”
Iphiginia gave him a sharp glance. “Are you about to suggest what I think you are about to suggest?”
“You know me so well, Iphiginia.” Marcus took her hand. He glanced both ways up and down the street to be certain that no one was paying any attention to them. “Come. There is no harm in our taking a quick look ’round back.”
Iphiginia did not protest as he led her to the end of the short street and around the corner into the alley. “But what do you hope to find?”
“Who knows? One of the first rules of scientific inquiry is to ask a great many questions.”
“What questions are you asking right now?”
“Why a successful, long-established business would close so early in the day.”
Iphiginia got a distinctly uneasy sensation. “Especially the day after my man of affairs interviewed the owner and asked her about one of her former clients?”
“Precisely.”
Marcus led the way down the alley behind the row of shopfronts. He stopped in front of the back door of Number Eleven and knocked softly.
There was no response. He reached for the doorknob and tried it carefully. “This door is locked also.”
Iphiginia looked at the small-paned windows that flanked the door and saw that the one on the right was ajar. “Look, Marcus.”
He followed