The Bride Wore Pearls by Liz Carlyle Read Free Book Online Page B

I’ll just get the ’42 and hang the money. Ruthveyn has the good taste to prefer it, and with any luck he’ll be back before it empties out again.”
    At that, the clock struck half past two. Abruptly, Lazonby jerked from his chair. “Your pardon,” he said. “I just remembered I’m wanted across the street at Ned Quartermaine’s.”
    He was out and down the elegant marble staircase before Belkadi could form a sufficiently scathing reply.
    Lazonby was bloody tired of decisions. He knew how to act, damn it. Thinking had never been his strong suit—which was, admittedly, the source of much of his trouble in life. And just now, he needed air, he decided, his hand seizing the massive brass doorknob. He needed Westmorland. The damned North African desert. Anyplace with some bloody space. London was going to choke him. He wanted only one thing from this godforsaken place .
    He wanted his life—and his honor—back.
    Yes, he believed in the Fraternitas —believed in everything they stood for, and had very nearly given his life for it on a couple of occasions. He understood, too, that the house—the St. James Society—was a critical front for the organization. He knew that some with the true Gift needed protection, especially the women and children, and particularly so when revolution was rife across Europe. But he hadn’t much use for ceremony or science. And he certainly didn’t give a damn about politics.
    A man more at ease sleeping in a tent and living in a pair of filthy riding boots, he found the constraints of London trying, and the prying eyes of society an interminable pain in his arse. But on this particular afternoon the pain had relocated to his head after a night of drunken revelry in the card room. He’d not wanted for company, either—for while the Fraternitas might be sworn to God’s service, not a man amongst them was bound for sainthood.
    Admittedly, however, Belkadi’s strong coffee had cleared the cobwebs. And now it was time to get back to the business of vengeance. It was time to call on Quartermaine. He wondered he’d never thought of doing so before now. The keeper of their local gaming establishment was a right royal sharper, but he was wise to the game—in every manner of speaking. A man like that, even young as he was, might well know where some of the old bodies were buried. Certainly he knew people who could uncover a few of them.  . . .
    That thought served to cheer him considerably, and Lazonby was already whistling his way down the club’s front steps when a black phaeton with ruby red wheels came tooling briskly round the corner into St. James’s Place. It splashed through what was left of the morning’s puddles, then drew up on the cobbles but a few feet away.
    The fine-boned, perfectly matched blacks stamped and shook their heads with impatience, but the driver held them easily. “Good afternoon, Rance,” Lady Anisha Stafford called down. “What a pleasant surprise.”
    He watched in mild stupefaction as the lady descended, all compact grace and vibrant energy, to toss her reins to the club’s footman, who had come dashing down the stairs to bow and scrape before her.
    Lazonby was taken aback to see her, though he shouldn’t have been. While it was true females were not permitted to join the Fraternitas —though an especially determined young lady had recently tried and been shipped off to Brussels with Bessett for her trouble—scientific-minded members of the public were often allowed to use the St. James Society’s reading rooms and libraries.
    But more importantly, Lady Anisha’s brother was a founding member of the Society. So, yes, she had every right to be here—no matter how uncomfortable it might make him. No matter how his breath might catch when he looked at her. They were friends, and dear ones at that.
    He forced his usual broad, good-humored smile. “Well, well, Nish!” he said, leaning on his brass-knobbed stick. “Fending for yourself now,