Page 7 of The Worst Spy in London (The Luckiest With Love #2)

A nnette wondered exactly how much Damaris knew about Holywell.

She knew it primarily sold pornography and political pamphlets, but did she understand exactly what that meant?

Annette herself had never been here, though the seamstresses passed around tattered copies of Justine and Fanny Hill , whispering this was where they came from.

Annette had also come across some illustrations someone left behind in the front room that must’ve come from here.

It was of two women kissing, their skirts hiked high as hands delved in places not even the illustrator detailed.

“Damaris,” she said quietly. “Do you know what a monosyllable is?”

Damaris looked at her, her eyes so innocent and sweet. “A word with one syllable?”

Annette bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. “Yes, but, um, the vulgar definition is a woman’s…sheath.”

It was remarkable how realization dawned slowly over her face. Damaris’s eyes widened first, then her mouth dropped open. Crimson blotches appeared on her neck, then traveled up to her face until she was as red as an apple. “Oh,” she whispered. “That’s why Beecham…”

Annette nodded. She watched as Damaris marshaled herself. The blush took the longest to disappear, as Damaris was pale. She barely held back a smile, watching the young woman grapple with her education.

“There it is.” Annette pointed three shops down, the only way she could stay calm.

Damaris marched forward, all prim and proper again. Annette had to hasten her stride to keep up with those long legs.

The shop’s two small windows had broadsheets plastered up to the glass, illustrations of the Prince Regent and his latest mistress in an intimate position. Another broadsheet was a popular ballad for sale, and a third was the front cover of a catalogue for what Annette thought might be brothels.

The door opened inward. An old, worn mark the size of a mezuzah pressed into the doorframe, a remnant of when Holywell was filled with Jewish businesses decades ago.

Annette shut the door behind them, allowing her eyes to adjust. A thin, older man stood at a counter, flipping through broadsheets. He glanced at them over the rims of his spectacles, which balanced on the very tip of his nose.

“How can I help you?” he inquired, still thumbing through broadsheets.

Annette opened her mouth, but Damaris’s gasp made her look sharply at her companion.

“Oh my goodness. This is interesting .” Damaris surged forward, reaching for a rough painting tucked halfway behind a bookshelf. Even Annette could tell it was done with hasty brushstrokes, likely made not for high art, but to titill?—

Damaris pulled the canvas out and held it up. “Oh my goodness,” she said in an entirely different tone.

Annette crept closer to peer over Damaris’s shoulder.

The painting was done in the classical style of curvy, naked women reclining with breasts bared and a Mediterranean background, very similar to what Annette had seen in the Montagu House Museum. What wasn’t similar, however, were the acts the women were engaging in.

The two women in the foreground were fondling one another’s breasts, while the couples in the background frolicked together with embraces and kisses.

Annette blushed despite herself. Seeing something so…

so explicit while in Damaris’s company made her body run hot.

It was all too easy to imagine them together, draped in nothing but diaphanous gauze, pleasuring one another under the lazy afternoon sun.

She stepped to Damaris’s side and chanced a quick look at Damaris’s face.

She was frowning in concentration, turning the canvas this way and that. “Women…some women do these things with their friends?”

Annette choked. “I think some women prefer intimacy with other women rather than men.” Images of Damaris’s pale, slender limbs tangled around Annette’s body filled her mind. What she wouldn’t give….

“Well I can’t blame them there,” Damaris muttered, squinting. “Marriage to a man sounds unpleasant indeed.”

Annette choked again. “I heartily agree,” she got out once she could breathe.

“Is she…is she using her mouth on that other woman’s… cunny ?” Damaris whispered.

Based on how sheltered the Dunhams had kept their daughter, Annette was shocked Damaris knew the word.

“Er, yes. It’s a most enjoyable— I’ve heard it’s a most enjoyable experience.

” Annette had had two torrid romantic friendships with fellow schoolgirls that all ended dramatically with weeping and adolescent vows against one another.

A couple of years ago she’d grown close to one of her mother’s seamstresses, but the girl had moved on to another position.

Annette hadn’t been with anyone since meeting Damaris, and oh how she burned.

“Hmmm.” Damaris reluctantly set the painting back on the floor.

“If you’re looking for that sort of material,” the proprietor said, slipping from behind his counter. “I have a book of limericks, like the Two Kissing Girls of Spitalfields , as well as selected portions of Fanny Hill for a few pennies.”

“Thank you, but no.” Annette held up a hand. “We’re here to find someone. Philippe de Morand said he’s renting a room above this shop. Is he here?”

The man gave her a disappointed look, then glanced around the small shop at his wares.

Annette sighed. She could read his face. He didn’t want to tell them anything until they’d purchased something from him. She opened her reticule to withdraw a penny or two.

“Oh, my,” Damaris gasped loudly, darting to a shelf that displayed printed illustrations of all sorts of people entangled with one another. She plucked one pamphlet up and opened it, then made a face. “This is terrible.”

Annette’s heart sank. She didn’t even realize she’d been hoping for anything.

Damaris turned the pamphlet to show Annette.

“Do you see how wrong the dimensions are? I’ve never seen naked women together, but I’m quite sure no one’s arms are that long.

And for goodness sake, does that poor woman even have a spine?

How can she even—” She whipped it back around and pulled the page up to her nose.

“How can she even reach the other woman’s, um, bits, if she’s twisted around the chair? ” Her voice was muffled by the paper.

Annette had the sudden, hysterical urge to laugh. She fought for composure. “We’ll take that one,” she said, handing over one copper penny.

Damaris whipped the page down and stared at Annette. “You cannot be serious. The inferior quality of this alone!”

The shop owner straightened, smoothing his waistcoat and glaring at her. “It is perfectly adequate for people’s uses. I don’t suppose you could do better?”

“I could indeed,” Damaris shot back, her cheeks pink and her eyes bright. “My art instructor said I’m the best he ever had.”

Annette adored Damaris, but even she didn’t think that was resounding praise. “Damaris, did you draw erotic material?”

“Of course not. But I know I could do better than this .” She rolled the pamphlet up and stuffed it in her reticule.

Annette blinked. “You’re…taking that home? To your parents’ house?”

Damaris grimaced. “Maybe you should take it. Your mother’s French.”

“My…mother?” Annette was so confused and amused by the twists in the conversation she couldn’t keep up with it anymore. This was something she could remember at night in her bed. Annette turned her attention to the shopkeeper, trying with all her might to focus. “Is Philippe staying here?”

He nodded. “Stairs to the room are behind the curtain there. But he’s not here at present.” Then he scowled. “Are you family? Friends? Tell him when you see him that I’m ousting him in two days. I don’t like his friends and I don’t like the odd hours he keeps.”

Annette nodded. “We’ll go upstairs just in case.” She tucked her hand through Damaris’s curled arm and dragged her away from the inferior artwork.

They climbed the rickety stairs together, the air thick and warm. Annette knocked on the door at the top of the stairs. She held her breath, watching dust motes gather at the bottom of the rickety steps, where the sunlight ended.

Damaris was silent again, and Annette was too nervous to ask what she was thinking.

No one answered the door.

She sighed. “Well, it was worth a try.” He’s not a spy. That was a ridiculous notion.

The door creaked open.

Annette and Damaris looked at one another.

“Did…did you push it open with your foot?” Annette asked.

Damaris’s face went suspiciously blank. “No. Why would I do that?”

Annette stared at her.

“And if I did—which I didn’t—that means the latch wasn’t closed properly.” Damaris began to straighten the fingers on her gloves. “But of course he’s your cousin.”

Annette rolled her eyes. Who was this woman? She’d always known Damaris had something bold and bright hidden beneath all that wool and unfashionable bonnets, but this was more than she had expected. And heaven help her, she liked it very much.

Damaris made a little movement with her hands that Annette took as encouragement. She stepped into the room, pushing the door open.

“Hello?”

Silence greeted them.

The room looked exactly like Annette expected it to: a single transient man renting a single room from another man above a shop that sold pornography involving all genders. Not clean.

The looking glass above the stand with a wash basin had a crack running through it, and the one lone window, bare of any curtains, faced the wall of the next building.

An old bed with mussed, dirty sheets sat in one corner and a low table filled the center of the room.

An oval rug lay beneath it, one end curled up as if Philippe had kicked it and never smoothed it back down.

Annette resisted the urge to tidy the place. She could not abide such disarray.

“Look at that.” Damaris tiptoed inside and pointed at the table.

Following, Annette peered at the crumpled papers, bowl, and fine black powder scattered across the flat surface.

Damaris swiped a trail of glistening black powder with one gloved finger, then brought it to her wrinkled nose. “It’s gunpowder. I can tell by the smell. I was right.”

Her French cousin. With gunpowder. Asking for details about a ball where foreign diplomats were supposed to attend.

“Damaris,” she said quietly. “I’m going to say something that sounds like I belong in Bedlam. Please… let me speak.”

Damaris nodded, eyes fixed on Annette.

She sighed. “I think…I think my cousin is a scoundrel and is planning to do something horrible. With this gunpowder.”

“Why do you think he would do such a thing? Does he support Napoleon?” Damaris whispered.

Annette put a hand to her forehead. “I don’t think so. He’s from the Ancien Regime, like my mother. He supports the Bourbons’ right to the throne. No one in my family would lie about that—it’s a matter of honor, from what I understand.”

Damaris blinked in confusion.

“Back in France, before the Reign of Terror, my father was a chevalier and a baron.” Annette held her breath. She rarely brought up this history. Her mother wouldn’t speak of it except on the anniversary of when they fled.

Damaris’s mouth opened in a perfect, pink O . “You’re French aristocracy?” She laughed in disbelief. “My mother keeps talking about meeting nobility and moving in ton circles. And our modiste is a baroness?”