Page 3 of Dallying with the Diamond

“Whitcombe’s? The Duke of Chelmsford’s brother, Whitcombe? He’s the leading purveyor of filth in London.” Sythe subsided onto the end of the settee once more.

CB strolled to the sideboard and filled four glasses with brandy. He handed each of them a glass and lowered himself back into the horsehair chair. “Then the journal landed in the right place, didn’t it? Do continue, Ath. There’s more, isn’t there? And it’s worse, or you wouldn’t be standing there staring at your brandy instead of drinking it.”

Ath gazed at the libation a moment longer and then took a long sip. “According to Cheddars, Whitcombe divided the journal into four parts. Mine and CB’s parts of the journal have already been loaned out or sold to subscribers. Yours, Sythe, and Col’s have been sold into the private library of a certain lady.”

“What?”

“Shite!”

“Bloody hell.”

Best to press on, especially as he had a plan, of sorts. “We have to fetch them back.”

“Fetch them back?” Col’s incredulity was unmistakable.

“CB and I will persuade Whitcombe to give us the names of the subscribers, and we will find a way to relieve them of our parts of the journal.”

“Steal,” CB said after he finished off his brandy. “By any means necessary.”

“I didn’t hear that,” Sythe said.

“I’ll tell you what I didn’t hear,” Col said once he’d unfolded himself from the arm of the settee. “I didn’t hear in whichcertain lady’slibrary our parts now reside.”

“Not your best parts, I hope.” CB apparently could not stop himself from digging at Col even in the face of imminent disaster. Just as Col could not resist hurling a stray book at their friend’s head.

“They are in the private library at Goodrum’s.” Ath rattled the words off so quickly he wasn’t sure they understood. Then he studied their faces. Oh yes, they understood. The fire in the hearth hissed and creaked. Somewhere on the floor below them a door slammed. Col kicked the glass he’d dropped earlier and watched it roll off the rug and across the bare polished floor.

“Goodrum’s on Duke Street,” Col finally said. “The private club. You expect us to invade the most exclusiveclubin London and steal—”

“To reacquire,” CB suggested.

Sythe downed his own brandy and then took a startled Col’s and made quick work of it as well. “Goodrum’s. As in Captain Eleanor Goodrum, the Pirate Queen of Algiers.” He stood, walked to the sideboard and picked up the bottle of Ath’s best brandy. “Gentlemen,” he said after which he unstoppered the bottle and took a long swig. “We’re not buggered. We’re dead.”

2

No scent created within the exclusive walls of Jermyn Street’sFloris, London’s finest perfumery, could compare to the aroma of a bookshop, any bookshop. Lady Honoria Eveleigh suspected her opinion was a singular one, especially amongst the young ladies of theton.Not that she concerned herself with the ideas of most of the women of her acquaintance. Some might see her presence in this particular bookshop as testimony to her utter contempt for the rules of society. Not that she would ever allow her presence on Holywell Street, let alone in the most scandalous bookshop in London, to ever become known. Over the years, Honoria had become an expert at guarding her reputation, one of the few marketable attributes her father allowed she had.

“Is there a reason you didn’t send a footman or some other servant to make your purchases from the purveyor of the most filthy books in London?” The voice of her closest friend puffed out the ridiculous heavy black veil she wore with every word. Widowed just a year ago, Julia Amherst had protested the entire way from Honoria’s home on Upper Brook Street, but she had refused to allow Honoria to come tothat part of townalone.

Honoria placed the book she’d been perusing onto thedecidedly notstack and picked up the next tome the bookshop’s owner, Lord Daedalus Whitcombe, had chosen for her. Ensconced at the very back of the shop at a table in an upstairs alcove forspecialcustomers, she and Julia were hidden by towering shelves of books and pamphlets and other naughty ephemera on all four sides with a door behind them that led down a flight of stairs into the back alley where Honoria’s carriage awaited them.Forbidden Pleasures – Wicked Books and Naughty Novelsconsisted of several floors packed with illicit materials in multiple languages. The floor where their little alcove was found also housed the owner’s offices. The top floor held the printing presses and other creative machinery with which Lord Whitcombe produced his endless stock of sinful merchandise.

“Would you send a servant to choose a lover for you, Julia, dear?”

An indelicate snort was her friend’s only reply.

“Lord Whitcombe knows what sorts of books I prefer, but his choices are not always…useful. I prefer to see what he has to offer and make my own choices.” The gentle ringing of the bell over the door and the rumble of male voices had Julia glancing over her shoulder like a cornered fox. “They won’t come up here. We are perfectly safe.”

“Then why are you wearing that ship’s prow of a bonnetanda veil?” Julia picked up a book, opened it to the first illustrated page and immediately slammed the thin volume shut.

“Youare a rich widow, or you will be once you start behaving as one. I am still the virginal daughter of a duke up on the sales block until the end of this season. I am daring, not reckless.”

“You are as virginal as my late husband’s mistress.”

“Which one? And I’ll have you know one brief event of sexual congress at the age of sixteen does not make me a whore.”

“One?” Julia pushed an open book across the battered table and tapped a detailed illustration. Honoria picked up the book and began to flip slowly through the pages.

“Very well,sixevents before the head groom discovered us and had the poor boy shipped off to the Americas.”