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The scandal sheets called her Lady Danger. She’d survived multiple knife attacks, venomous snakebites—the lady patronesses of Almack’s.
One overzealous porter was child’s play.
“Now see here, I don’t like this delay one bit.” She infused her voice with aristocratic disdain. “Sir Malcolm will surely hear of your insolence. Uncle sent word that I was coming.”
A letter she’d forged—yet another punishable offence.
Her own father was dead and her brother was now the powerful Duke of Banksford, but even he might not be able to save her if she were arrested today.
Men tended to take their rules very seriously, especially the ones that kept women submissive, subservient, and on the wrong side of doors.
“Wait here, sir.” The porter disappeared into the arched doorway of Somerset House, leaving Indy standing on the Strand. Carriages rattled past. A man attempted to herd sheep across the avenue. A rattrap vendor demonstrated his wares by shaking cages filled with live rats in the startled faces of passersby.
Had the porter noticed something odd about her appearance?
A quick check of her makeshift whiskers assured her the paste was holding... for now.
Blue-tinted spectacles covered her telltale grayish-purple eyes, and a short brown wig hid her long dark hair.
She’d bound her bosom with linen to achieve the illusion of a young buck dressed in the first stare of fashion: blue greatcoat over a frock coat of black superfine, gold-embroidered waistcoat, buff-colored trousers, and polished black boots.
She looked quite dashing, if she did say so herself.
Indy’s mother loved to remind her that she displayed none of the pleasing traits of femininity. She never simpered or flirted, abhorred frills and furbelows, carried a dagger at her hip and knew how to use it, and had once been told that her gait resembled that of a swaggering tomcat.
Her one feminine indulgence was a bold, sensual French perfume, but today she’d remembered to douse herself with a masculine scent.
Every detail’s in place. There’s nothing to worry about.
Soon she’d cross the threshold of the most exclusive antiquities society in the world. And none would be the wiser.
Not even Ravenwood. Even her rival wouldn’t notice her because she planned on being entirely unexceptional. For once in her life she’d stay silent, suppress her flair for the dramatic, speak only when spoken to, and attract absolutely no undue attention.
Wouldn’t her mother be proud? Her etiquette lessons put to use at last.
What was taking the blasted porter so long?
Indy leaned on her ebony-knobbed walking stick and whistled a popular air, her breath visible in the cold October air.
A mother and her pretty marriage-aged daughter passed by and Indy tipped the brim of her beaver top hat with the knob of her walking stick. The daughter giggled and cast a flirtatious glance over her shoulder.
The poor thing looked as though her arms were lost in little hot-air balloons and she might lift off and float away at any moment, airborne by her sleeves. Women’s sleeves had widened to outrageous proportions of late. And the millinery. Don’t get her started on the hats. Monstrous straw bonnets the width of Viking shields, bristling with plumage and stiff satin bows.
They were weapons, those hats. Men had to move out of their path for fear of being blindsided, she’d found out today.
Indy flexed her shoulders, enjoying the comfortable fit of her custom-made coat.
Strutting the streets of London in male garb had been astonishingly freeing. Why hadn’t she done it before? The city had spread itself before her boots, whispering of untasted pleasures.
Smoky pubs where she could order a haunch of beef and a brandy without causing an uproar or being forced to deflect boorish advances.
Boxing establishments, clubs, and gaming houses... every door thrown wide.
The door of Somerset House opened again. “Apologies for the delay. Right this way, Mr. Pomeroy,” said the porter with an obsequious bow.
“Well it’s about time, my good fellow,” muttered Indy, striding through the arched doorway into the vestibule as if she owned the place.
They passed under an archway crowned by a bust of Newton, signaling that the Royal Society of scientists and philosophers shared this wing of Somerset House with the antiquaries.
