“Give me five minutes, and I will meet you along the road in Grosvenor Square…”
It was slightly more than ten before she emerged from the house, dressed without ostentation but at least as though she could be a duke’s daughter.
“I think you should be someone from his office,” she said briskly when she had climbed back into the cab. “A cousin of mine, perhaps, sent to bring some important papers to Whitehall.”
“I could almost believe you had done this before.”
“Oh, no, I’m doing lots of things I hadn’t done before I met you. Though I find myself hoping Mr. Gabriel is guilty now, or this would be an entirely unforgivable invasion of his privacy.”
For a while, as their hackney negotiated the traffic in Piccadilly, she sat gazing at her hands, deep in thought.
“You don’t have to come,” he said abruptly. “I can barge in on my own. In fact, it would probably be best. I forgot these people are all known to you, friends even.”
“Which is why I should be there,” she insisted. “If we are wrong—though I have to say I don’t think we are—then I shall apologize to him with great and humble sincerity.”
“I won’t,” Dragan said. “I don’t like the man, and I don’t like his work.”
She found she was frowning and smoothed her brow. “Does the same go for Horace?”
“For the work, yes. For his person…” He shrugged. “I have yet to exchange more than a bow with him, but I can’t imagine he cares much for me either. What do you know about Gabriel’s lodgings?”
“Bury Street,” she said. “I can’t recall the number, but it has a blue front door, and his landlady is called Mrs…Dashet!”
His eyes smiled, causing an inconvenient flight of butterflies in her stomach. “Is that her name or an exclamation of annoyance?”
She put out her tongue in a most unladylike gesture, and his gaze dropped and lingered, leaving her flustered.
The hackney dropped them at the corner of Jermyn Street and Bury Street, and they walked along the road in search of a blue door. Sadly, there were three. One Griz was sure was on the wrong side of the road. The second was opened by a stern woman who frowned at them and said no Mr. Gabriel lived there.
The third was opened by a clearly flustered woman of faded beauty, who fitted perfectly with Mr. Gabriel’s occasional funny stories.
“Oh, you must be Mrs. Dashet!” Griz exclaimed, reaching for her blustering character. “Mr. Gabriel has told us all so much about you! Oh, forgive me, this is my cousin, Mr. Niven.”
Mrs. Dashet looked bewildered for a moment, though the name clearly meant something to her, for she murmured, “Oh! Oh indeed! Mr. Gabriel is not… How may I help you?”
“Mr. Gabriel sent Mr. Niven to collect a document he’d left in his rooms,” Griz explained before Dragan could open his mouth and reveal his accent. She laughed. “I am only here cadging an escort to Bond Street. Grizelda Niven,” she added, thrusting out a commanding hand, which poor Mrs. Dashet took with a flustered curtsey.
“Oh, well, do come in, ma’am…my lady. Perhaps you would care to step into my sitting room while Mr. Niven fetches…”
“Oh, no,” Griz burbled with a laugh as she entered the hall. “I am most curious to see his rooms! You must know he is quite a family friend, is he not, Christopher?”
Dragan nodded and grinned and bowed Griz upstairs before him. Mrs. Dashet hastily led the way in a welter of breathless half-sentences and finally threw open a door on the first floor.
“Can I help you find anything?” she asked.
“Oh, no, Christopher knows where to find it, don’t you, Chris? Oh, you wouldn’t be a darling, would you, and bring me a cup of tea? I swear I am totally parched!”
“Oh, goodness, yes, of course, my lady! Just give me a few minutes.”
Dragan exchanged speaking glances with her. “She is worse than the creature who sprang me from the police.”
“Yes, she’s vile,” Griz agreed, striding across the room to the large desk that seemed a large part of his sitting room. “But at least she won us a few minutes in privacy. You look in his bedchamber.”
There were no documents or even personal letters left on Mr. Gabriel’s desk. The drawers were not locked, though they revealed little more. A few letters from Miss Derryn, which she did not read, another couple from distant family members. Of course, he was an only child, and