“Eva was happy to have another woman here.”
“We probably bore her.”
Lance fingered his glass, then looked over. “Did you know Miss Belvoir has been living in a chamber at the top of Mrs. Lavender’s house?”
Ives almost choked on cigar smoke. He cleared his throat. “Who told you that?”
“Susan. She is the young lady who entertained me there. She had all kinds of revelations.”
“You were chatting? You were supposed to be fucking.”
“We chatted between fucking. Have you never done that? Do you just lie there, silent, while you recover?”
“I am mostly astonished to learn you spent all that time with one of them. I assumed that you intended to spread the ducal favor far and wide.”
“It was my plan, but when Susan let me know she was not averse to ignoring many of Mrs. Lavender’s fussy rules, I thought I would do best staying the course, as it were.”
Ives trusted Lance would now lose himself in waxing nostalgic about his visit to his youthful haunt. Alas, it was not to be.
“She said that Miss Belvoir introduced herself to all of them. Sat to a meal with them. Said her father was a partner, and she was now too. I am not a fastidious man, Ives. It is not for me to lecture—”
“I’ll say.”
“However, is it a good idea to bring her here when Eva is in residence? For someone who never let his women near the family, your blindness to basic propriety with this madam is troubling.”
“She is not a madam.”
“So Susan had it wrong?”
Ives puffed away.
Lance waited, all curiosity.
“It is very complicated,” Ives said.
“Take your time. I have all night.”
“I don’t.”
Lance glanced to the ceiling. “Ah. Of course. The dinner was only the prelude. The symphony has yet to play. Well off with you then, to lead the tempo with your baton. You can explain it all tomorrow.”
“I have nothing to explain to you.”
“But you do. Our breaking into that building, for example. We stole something. You stole something else. All of it is important, I am sure. All if it has to do with Miss Belvoir. I think another adventure is going to occur as well, because it all smelled of a job unfinished. Do not even try to leave me out of the denouement, when it comes. I will make your life hell if you do.”
Ives stubbed out his cigar. Lancecouldmake his life hell. He managed to do that without trying. If he put his effort to it—
“Out of curiosity, how did you pay Mrs. Lavender, Lance?”
“With a twenty-pound note.”
“She gave you notes back, then?”
Lance laughed. “Many. There isn’t a whore in London worth more than two or three.”
“Do you have any of those notes on you now?”
Lance thought about it, then rummaged in his pockets. He deposited several crumpled banknotes on the table beside him. “I expect those are them. They were on my dressing table. I must have thrown them there when I came back.”
