With a muttered curse she sat up again. She needed to find Dudley and try and talk some sense into him before he did something even more stupid or hurtful.

She threw on some clothes, took the first jacket that was hanging in the closet, picked up her bag, checked her purse and keys and went out. Down in the foyer, Jason looked up from the desk with a frown between his brows.

“I’m going out,” Lizzie said, then felt annoyed with herself. Since when had she had to explain herself to everyone? Was that another habit she had somehow got into, accounting to Bill and Kat and everyone else for her life, ostensibly the one in control, definitely the one earning the money, and yet dancing to their tune?

“You’re a perpetual child...”

She knew that Dudley’s words had been intended to sting because she had rejected him and wounded his pride. She wondered if he really cared for her or whether his suggestion that they should be together was just another way for him to use her. Suddenly nothing seemed certain any more. When had her judgement become so faulty?

The taxi dropped her directly outside the discreet members’ entrance of Mackenzie’s Bar and a doorman came forward to meet her. It was raining now, the London lights reflected in streaky patterns on the wet roads and pavements. Music pulsed from the building. As she ducked under the proffered umbrella and reached the slightly damp red carpet, she saw Arthur Robsart was in the doorway. Great, his massive disapproval was all she needed to make the evening even worse.

“I’d be grateful if you could let me in,” he was saying. “It’s an emergency. I need to find my brother-in-law urgently—”

Arthur was looking for Dudley? Lizzie felt a trickle of anxiety down her back. Dudley had said that he’d reported Johnny to the police only the day before. She couldn’t imagine that Arthur would be looking for him to thank him.

She realised there was a way to find out.

She touched Arthur’s arm very lightly. This time she was braced for the shock but she wasn’t sure Arthur was. He spun around as though he’d been burned.

“I’m sorry, sir.” The doorman was deferential even when he was refusing entry. “Members only—”

“He’s with me,” Lizzie said. She steered Arthur inside and after a second felt the rigid tension in his arm relax a little. The door closed behind them, cocooning them in the warm opulence of the hall. Arthur leaned close to her. His breath stirred the tendrils of hair against her cheek.

“You’ve got to stop doing that,” he said.

“I was trying to help,” Lizzie said. “You said it was an emergency.”

Arthur’s gaze searched her face. It was odd; when she wasn’t touching him she couldn’t read his thoughts at all. He had inscrutability down to a fine art. The contrast between the intimacy of reading him and the true distance between them was deeply disconcerting.