Her Quicksilver Lover: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 6 by Lynne Connolly Read Free Book Online Page A

paused and glanced behind her. Amidei ducked, bending so his height was not so obvious, but she did not pay any particular attention to him. Instead, she pressed on the latch of a door and went inside.
    Amidei crossed to the other side of the street, dodging the piles of horse shit. Presumably the vails for street sweepers were not so generous in this part of the city. He walked past the place before crossing back and returning up the street.
    A small, shiny brass plaque at one side of the door she’d entered gave him the information he sought. “The Argus ,” it proclaimed. “The Truth Will Be Told.” It looked new.
    Shock arced through him. She was part of one of the muckraking journals that thronged London? How could that be? How had she slipped past his guard?
    Perhaps she lodged upstairs from the journal. But no, when he dared to glance through the window, he saw her. She’d taken off her hat and was busy untying the strings of her unlovely cap, talking to an older man of broad build, almost bull-like in his stance.
    A lover? Husband? He was old enough to be her father. She’d told him she had a sick father, but that man didn’t look sick.
    His head still spinning, Amidei stepped away from the window before they saw him, and walked farther up the street, where he found a small coffeehouse still open for business.
    He stepped inside. He needed to think, and also to discover more. Coffeehouses were the places to go to hear gossip. Business was conducted in them all day, so the customers would think nothing of a few enquiries directed at the right place.
    “Good evening, sir.”
    He glanced at the woman sitting at the desk just inside the entrance, and bestowed an absent smile on her. She blinked, her eyes widening before she returned the smile. Flattering attention probably got her better vails.
    The place was about half full. Lights gleamed over well-worn and polished oak tables, the benches and wooden chairs set before them not uniform in style, but certainly in their age, shown by the softened edges and the depth of polish. The floors were bare, uneven and although swept clean, showing signs of age, the boards dented and shrunk, leaving sizeable gaps for the wind to whistle through.
    Amidei took a seat at the long table in the centre of the room. The murmurs of conversation paused, so he touched his hat in greeting. He received a few nods in return.
    Some men had notebooks in their hands, and made notes as they chatted. Business was typically done with a handshake, the formal contracts being drawn up later. Anyone who saw those notebooks would discover all they needed to know about their owners, the business they were conducting, and with whom. This was an area devoted to journals and publishing. They could be discussing stories and scandals, or selling the gossip they’d uncovered. Amidei shivered.
    He lifted his finger and accepted a muddy cup of coffee from the waiter, but refused a long-stemmed pipe. He had never taken to tobacco, not even snuff. End of the day coffee, he discovered when he took his first sip, made the eyes boggle and the heart race.
    He waited politely for a lull in the conversation. A large man, with a face that was so wrinkled that it could have been passed through a mangle by an inept laundry maid, glanced in his direction and let his attention linger.
    Amidei took his chance. “Do any of you gentlemen know the proprietor of the journal the Argus ?”
    The man kept his stare fixed on him, while three of his colleagues did the same. “The offices are close by,” Amidei added helpfully.
    One gentleman, a younger one, cleared his throat. “Might do,” he offered.
    “I heard it had a poor reputation. Otherwise I might have gone in.”
    Their faces hardened. “It’s one of the better papers,” the younger man said. He twitched his neckcloth, not changing its appearance at all. The knot was still too tight, and tilted to one side. Pulling at it all day would do that.
    Amidei sensed