How to Handle a Scandal by Emily Greenwood Read Free Book Online Page B

discretion, saying she’d gotten Nancy’s name from a friend of a friend, she had worried that the woman might look like, well, a prostitute.
    “There are always new girls coming through, and all the girls will be wearing masks,” Nancy said, “so your friend won’t stand out. That’s what makes Madame Persaud’s special—every night, the women all wear masks at the start of the evening. The clients like the mystery.”
    “Do the men wear masks?”
    Nancy shook her head. “And none of the gents can choose a lady to go upstairs with until the choosing time at ten o’clock, which sometimes leads to bidding wars.” She gave a husky chuckle. “Madame Persaud loves it when that happens.”
    This was even better than Eliza could have hoped! It had occurred to her that in trying to pass herself off as a prostitute, she might attract the attention of a client, but it seemed that even if she did, all she had to do was leave the brothel before ten.
    Though an insistent little voice demanded that she recognize this whole idea was beyond foolish and that sneaking into a brothel would be returning to her outrageous old ways, she silenced it with the knowledge that what she would be doing was for a very good cause.
    Nancy told Eliza about the layout of the house, what Eliza’s “friend” should wear to blend in, and the location of the back entrance where she could enter the brothel unnoticed.
    Nancy smiled. It was not a sweet smile, but Eliza supposed, considering the life Nancy must have led, that she had grown rather cynical. “Maybe your friend really just wants to see for herself what goes on. Maybe she thinks it’s exciting.”
    “No, she doesn’t,” Eliza said, not sure why it mattered what Nancy thought. Perhaps, after she understood more, Eliza might find a way to help Nancy. Though the woman’s confident, tough manner didn’t suggest someone needing help.
    Their business concluded, Nancy left the travel section. They could not depart together, which would defeat the purpose of meeting in this neutral environment, so Eliza meant to wait a few minutes and then be on her way to meet Meg at a coffee shop nearby.
    Lingering among the travel books, she had just picked up Travels through Venice by Mr. Thomas Jones-Thomas when she heard the sound of a now-familiar voice.
    “I’m sure it must be here somewhere,” Tommy’s disembodied voice said from the other side of the bookshelf next to which she was standing.
    Damn.
    She shrank back against the slim space of wall at the rear of the travel section, as if that would help should he appear at the end of her aisle.
    A quivery woman’s voice said, “I know it must be around here somewhere. I put it down when I was talking to Mr. Hannay earlier.”
    Eliza knew this speaker as well—it was Mrs. Dombrell. A woman of about sixty, she was an impoverished spinster who spent a good portion of her day sitting on benches in the local parks and talking to birds. Not because she was insane, though she was certainly odd, but because she was kind and she liked birds.
    She also loved to read and talk about books, which Eliza knew from having sat with her on more than one occasion, and Eliza had a soft spot for her. But many people regarded Mrs. Dombrell as a nuisance. She was known to scavenge near bakeshops, looking for crusts to feed her beloved birds, and she was not averse to talking to herself. And, with her cloud of loose white curls and her musty, threadbare frocks, she was a bit disreputable.
    Mrs. Dombrell sighed. “I’m afraid”—she lowered her voice—“that the shop owner won’t be very happy with me. There was already that trouble about the bird that came in last time on my hair—really, I didn’t know it was there!—and made a bit of a mess on one of the books.”
    “Never fear, dear Mrs. Dombrell,” Tommy said kindly. “We’ll find it.” How did he know her? He’d barely been in London two weeks, and Mrs. Dombrell was hardly the sort of person