Late for the Wedding Read Free Page B

hear the knock and grow curious.
    Grasping her sword, shield, and mask in one hand, she tried the doorknob. It turned easily in her fingers. Casting one last glance down the passageway to make certain that she was not being observed, she opened the door.
    The sight of the couple locked in a close embrace in front of the fire brought her up short. The man had his back to her. He had removed his jacket and cravat and unfastened his collar. There was something very familiar about the strong line of his shoulders. She could not see his face, because his head was bent intimately toward a woman with long black hair, who had her arms around his neck.
    “I beg your pardon.” Mortified, Lavinia quickly averted her gaze and retreated back into the hallway. “Wrong room. Dreadfully sorry to disturb you.”
    “Lavinia?” Tobias’s voice crackled across the short distance.
    No wonder the set of those shoulders had looked familiar. She spun back around, aware that her mouth had fallen open in stunned shock.
    “Tobias?”
    “Bloody hell.” He disengaged himself from the woman’s arms in a single swift motion. “Come in and close the door behind you. I want you to meet someone.”
    “Oh, dear.” The woman stepped away from Tobias and surveyed Lavinia with cool amusement. “I do believe that we have shocked poor Minerva.”
    Feeling as though she had just been caught in some dark magician’s spell, Lavinia moved a short distance back into the room and shut the door very carefully.
    Tobias, looking very grim and dangerous, crossed to a small, round table and picked up a cut-glass decanter. “Lavinia, allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Gray.” He poured himself some brandy. “She came here tonight to see me in regard to a professional matter. Aspasia, this is my, uh, associate, Mrs. Lake.”
    Lavinia recognized the cold, uninflected tones. Something was very wrong in this room. She turned back to Aspasia. “I assume that you are one of Tobias’s clients, Mrs. Gray?”
    “I believe I have recently become one.” She gave Tobias an unreadable glance. “But, please, you must call me Aspasia.”
    Lavinia could see that she was very sure of herself and of her place in Tobias’s life. These two had formed a connection long ago, she thought. There was a bond between them that excluded her.
    “I see.” A chill went through her. She turned back to Tobias, fighting to keep her voice even. “Will you be needing my assistance on this case?”
    “No,” Tobias said. He took a swallow of the brandy. “I will handle this matter by myself.”
    That flattened her spirits as nothing else could have done. Perhaps she had presumed too much, she thought. After the successful completion of the affair of the mad mesmerist a few weeks ago, she had found herself slipping more and more often into the habit of thinking of herself as Tobias’s full-time business partner. But that was not how things stood and she would do well not to forget that fact, she thought.
    In truth, their business arrangements more or less mirrored their personal relationship. They sometimes worked together, just as they sometimes made love together. But they each maintained separate careers, just as they maintained separate households.
    Nevertheless, Tobias had not hesitated to involve himself in her last two cases, and it came as a decidedly painful surprise to discover that he did not welcome her assistance in this one.
    “Very well.” She pulled herself together, summoned up what she hoped was a polished, businesslike smile, and opened the door. “In that case, I will bid you both good evening and allow the two of you to return to your private affairs.”
    Tobias’s jaw hardened in a telltale warning sign that she had come to recognize. He was not in a good mood. Fair enough, she thought. Her own mood at the moment was not what anyone would describe as sunny.
    His powerful hand tightened around the neck of the brandy decanter. For an instant she thought he might