Page 34 of To Steal a Kiss

Although she’d visited Layton and Shear’s frequently with her mother, she had never permitted Alice to walk into Covent Garden proper, and now she could see why.

It was marvellous.

Scents beckoned her on all sides, teasing and intriguing. Flower stalls, their gaudy blooms arrayed like jewels, infused the air with such perfume it made her head spin. Fruit stalls flanked her on both sides, with exotic wares like pineapples and juicy melons cut in two, their succulent flesh bared to the slavering onlookers.

Jostled on all sides, Alice held tight to her reticule, remembering stories of cutpurses and thieves in this enticing place. She glimpsed snatches of another world as she walked, a world she’d been sheltered from and guided past without being given so much as a peek. Now, though, she drank it in.

Down the side streets, old ladies lined the buildings in rows, shelling peas and gossiping as they sat on upturned baskets. From the apothecary shops drifted both the strange and familiar smells of herbs and spices and concoctions for gout, pastilles for putrid sore throats, creams and ointments, and possets and infusions. The coppery tang of meat and the stench of livestock reeked in the poultry market where fowl of every variety hung with their heads arrowing down. Glassy eyed ducks and geese swung gently in the breeze as it ruffled feathers no longer fit for flight. Here and there, dogs snuffled and snarled, growling over a discarded scrap and scenting the air with hopeful noses.

The fishmongers made her nose wrinkle as she stared at creatures so large, she couldn’t imagine how they’d ever been caught at all. Alice stared at the lobsters and marvelled at their blue shells, having only ever seen them pink and cracked open on a plate. Daring to reach out and touch one vicious looking claw she leapt back with a shriek as an antenna flicked, the movement making her realise the creatures were not yet dead.

Drawing a roar of laughter from the owner of the stall, Alice flushed the colour of the boiled variety of his wares and hurried on her way.

Despite enduring a few leering stares and some very lewd comments shouted in her direction, Alice was entranced and wished she could investigate further. Perhaps Nate would show her around, she thought. That would be a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon. Though she supposed much of the market would be gone soon.

At last, Hunter’s came into view. Once the site of an old theatre, Nate had relocated here two years ago when Hunter’s had finally gained its reputation as the place to be for those who could afford to frequent it.

During daylight hours it appeared shuttered up and sleepy, and Alice rapped upon the main doors to no avail. Refusing to give up now, she worked her way around the side of the building and discovered a back door. Here, she was more successful. After a solid minute and a half of pounding her small fist against the glossy black paintwork, sounds of movement reached her ears.

The sliding back of bolts accompanied a deal of muffled muttering and cursing and the turning of a key, and finally the door swung open. A man stood in the entrance. Not Nate, sadly, but still, it was a start, if an intimidating one.

The fellow glared at her from under thick, bushy, black eyebrows. Alice stared at them in consternation. Eyebrows were not usually so disconcerting but these, paired with a head as smooth and shiny as an egg, were rather remarkable.

“Yes?” the fellow said, giving Alice a look of deep suspicion.

Possibly a hard expression to avoid with eyebrows like that, Alice supposed, deciding she’d not hold it against him.

“I have an appointment with Mr Nathaniel Hunt,” she said, wondering from where she was dredging up this ability to lie through her teeth. She hadn’t even stuttered.

The suspicious look deepened.

“Oh, aye?” The doorman, or… whatever he was, looked her up and down in a manner Alice took exception to. “He never said he had a woman calling today, and he told me nothing about no appointment.”

For a moment, she quailed. The old Alice would stammer and flush and turn tail now, an urge which was tugging at her right this minute.

No.

She took a deep breath.

“Well, I’m very sorry about that, but he did tell me,” Alice said, standing as tall as she was able and doing her best to smile sweetly, a little discomforted as the extraordinary eyebrows drew further together and met in the middle. It looked as if a large, furry insect was travelling across his forehead.

“And who might you be?” he demanded.

With difficulty, she tore her gaze from the fascinating spectacle on the man’s face and met his gaze. Alice’s stomach pitched as she forced the words out.

“His fiancée.”

Chapter 11

I seem to have bought three yards of the ugliest lace I’ve ever seen in my life. I haven’t the first idea what to do with it.

―Excerpt of a letter from Miss Alice Dowding to Miss Jemima Fernside.

Noon. 25th June 1814. Hunter’s, Covent Garden, London.

Nate sighed, and then cursed himself for sitting about sighing. He should get up and do something. Anything. Except he didn’t know what.

Surely there were a dozen or more things needing his attention? He knew damn well there were, there always were. Yet he couldn’t summon the energy to discover them, or to care. The place could burn down around his ears and he suspected he’d find himself too apathetic to go to the bother of saving his own skin.