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“Why? What’s happened? What do you know?”

He grinned at her. “You haven’t heard? Mr. Stryde was taken up in a police raid of a shop on Babylon Street.”

“What? Oh my! I knew they were planning something of the kind. They told Lady Melforth that it was their duty to assist the police. Mr. Stryde claimed that his evidence alerted the authorities to the publisher.”

Newberry offered her a grin. “He may have been overzealous in collecting it. He stuffed his pockets with a very different sort of guide from the one you and her ladyship are writing. I believe it’s called The Swell’s Night Guide to London’s Bowers of Venus. Illustrated, one shilling. The police thought he was a regular customer and another witness claimed to have seen him in the shop before.”

“How embarrassing for him.” Viv could picture him sputtering and protesting his innocence. She wanted to tell Lark. It was almost a habit now, the desire to tell him things. She carefully placed her teacup on the table, afraid that if she met Dr. Newberry’s gaze, he would see where her thoughts had strayed.

“It gets worse,” he said. “Mrs. Stryde was with him.”

Viv could not help looking up at that.

“She whacked a constable over the head with her umbrella and was taken up, too.”

It was too much. For a minute, they just laughed until he rose to take his leave.

“There’s a letter in the Chronicle, describing their mistreatment at the hands of the authorities and expressing the Society’s outrage that their members in the pursuit of duty should be so mistreated.”

“Oh dear, the Strydes will be furious with me.”

“With you?”

“I encouraged them to do the raid.”

“Ah,” he said. “Well, best to deny them Lady Melforth’s company for a few days if they do call. And watch out for them, Viv. They would see you sacked.”

“I know.”

With a quick bow he was gone, back to his busy rounds.

*

Hours after Dr. Newberry’s visit, Viv returned to her desk. Outside the rain had subsided to a drizzle. Lady Melforth was sleeping peacefully while Viv was anything but at peace. The dinner party was going forward. Without consulting Viv, Lady Melforth had drawn up a small guest list including Viv’s aunt Louisa and her uncle Sir Oswald, the inevitable Strydes, and ambitiously the Duke and Duchess of Wenlocke. While Viv had been working to complete their guide, Lady Melforth had turned to Haxton and her maid Sarah to send invitations for the following Wednesday. Viv was to turn the final draft over to Dodsley, and they were to celebrate.

She needed to consult Lark. It was the prudent thing to do. She had no idea whether in his vague position with the duke, Lark would see the invitation. Surely, if they worked together, the duke would speak of it. But if, as the Strydes reported, the duke was not in London, how would the invitation reach Lark? She had discouraged his visits to Henrietta Street with a note delivered to him by Haxton, when Lark had stopped by the day after their kiss. As far as Viv knew, he had not called again, and she still didn’t know where he lived. If he did not know what they faced, how could they carry on their charade in company with the Strydes? If they were exposed, she did not know what would happen to her part in the book. She really had to find him.

He must have a bachelor set of rooms somewhere, not in the most exclusive sort of place like the Albany, but somewhere not far from Henrietta Street. She realized he was always on foot. To her knowledge he didn’t keep a horse or a carriage or a groom. He had never offered to take her up in even a hired carriage. He didn’t pretend to great wealth though he looked as fine as any other gentleman of taste, finer than many. His mode of dress had alerted her to the excesses of others.

The kiss remained a problem. His name remained a problem. Those things had troubled her even as she bent her mind to working on the guide. He had changed her approach to writing. With him she discovered more on each of her walks. She wrote with him in mind as well as those female readers who were to be inspired by their book, those readers who were to be shown how not to be cowed by London, by its history and grandeur, its rowdy, boisterous streets, its fondness for male privilege. She had discovered living women who acted in the assumption that men might be superior in their circumstances but not in their character.

She looked at the pages piled up on her desk. Each walk was numbered, and each had its own set of notes plus any questions she still had about the route and the places to see along the way. She wanted to go back over those early entries with what she had learned since meeting Lark. She had worked their river adventure into the walk from Green Park to Westminster Abbey. And she thought perhaps there was a walk into which she could fit the Haitian woman leaving flowers for her queen. She went back to her notes on the walk from Regent’s Park to Marylebone.

Her notes were thin. The rain, Lark’s kiss, and the visit from the Strydes had driven the woman’s image from Viv’s mind. She needed more details. She needed a real story to tell before she could put the absent queen’s former house on the route. A point in her notes abruptly struck her. The woman had known Lark, and of course, Viv remembered, he was used to seeing the woman leave her floral tribute. She closed the little notebook. If she found the woman again, she could get her story, and she could ask about Lark. It was possible that he lived in the neighborhood of the Haitian queen’s house.

Outside her window, shafts of sunlight were breaking through the clouds. Rain drops sparkled on everything. Viv stuffed her notebook and pencil into her favorite bag.