Chapter Six
T he Golden Griffin Bookshop and Circulating Library was Kitty’s refuge.
It was small and narrow, next to a teashop that always smelled delicious and across the street from a shop that sold enameled snuffboxes. Her mother’s family had run it since her grandmother’s mother was just a girl. They had sold plays, mostly Shakespeare then, with a brief foray into political tracts and travelogues.
Kitty was the one who had decided to focus on novels, especially those penned by women. With a secret side business of naughtier works readers would have been too mortified to ask for at the Temple of the Muses bookshop. The Temple might have several floors of tomes and novels and journals, more than Kitty could ever aspire to, as well as a very distinguished clientele, but she was fairly certain they did not have that.
Pity for them. It was great fun and paid her rent. And why shouldn’t women have their own amusements? She had no intention of floating through life like an angel or trapped high on a pedestal. People on pedestals could not save their sisters.
And they were not handed mysterious packages from the Spinster Society of “everything you might need for necessary mischief and mayhem.” With a farewell that consisted of a cheerful “Take no prisoners!”
She let the soothing, familiar smell of paper dust and vanilla soothe her. It was shadowy and quiet—a holy silence like inside a church, even as carriages jostled for space on the other side of the window and peddlers shouted of their wares, anything from baked potatoes to shoe polish and Pears soap. Here, she was safe. Here, anything was possible. Fae kings, dragons, krakens.
Freedom.
The shop was not particularly spacious, but there was a small reading room and she had painted everything a moody gray-blue and attacked every bit of trim with gold paint. When the candles were lit and the rain was at the window, it positively glowed. Gold griffins prowled over the ceiling, lurked in the back of bookshelves, peered from over the door like the friendly guardians she considered them to be.
Every time a pinched lady of the Ton or a vicar on a crusade decried the declining moral standards of the shop and of women in general, Kitty painted another griffin. When her own grandfather threw slimy vegetables at the window, she added a huge griffin on the outside wall, complete with his enormous walrus mustache. He took deep offense at how she handled the family business. But her grandmother had given it to her. Just as it had been left to her by her own mother, his very stubborn wife who chortled every time he bemoaned the fact that Kitty sold filth. No matter the strain in the relationship, the shouting or the disdain, the Griffin bookshop belonged to the Griffin women.
Her father deeply disapproved of Kitty being in trade, as a daughter to a baron, despite the fact that he had been granted a barony on the grounds of a bit of secret business gone fantastically—and accidentally—well.
And since that very same baron had squandered all of their money, he could keep his disapproval to himself. It would not buy tea. Or fish for supper.
Kitty pulled the curtains to let in the daylight and fell into the familiar, quiet bustle of the day. She sold the usual number of Byron’s poems, a steady supply of Pride and Prejudice by A Lady, and three copies of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women even after twenty-four years of being in print. She sold several more copies of Maria Edgeworth’s Letters for Literary Ladies because it was one of her favorites and she would not stop recommending it, along with the same writer’s novel Belinda .
After which three young ladies circled her desk, whispering to each other, eyes wide. Kitty waited, long used to the pattern. Another circumambulation of the shop, which did not take long. One of them opened a caramel sweet from the teashop next door for fortification. “Have you…” she whispered. She had a beauty mark at the edge of her mouth. “That is…”
Her friend huffed out a breath and puffed up her chest as though she was very brave indeed. Her blonde ringlets positively quivered with courage. “Oh, let me. We’ve come for the Nightingale stories.” Her tone was strident, her cheeks red.
“They are great fun. Come with me, if you please.”
They followed Kitty behind a bookcase set parallel to her counter. Behind was a cozy reading room, and the circulating library. Also, books in open trunks that could be locked at a moment’s notice. It was safer for her customers this way. Some of her more risqué books existed in a hazy unknown legality. She did not technically sell them. She left them out and a customer bought a sketch of a gold griffin instead. It was not a perfect system, but it had kept her relatively safe thus far. She had only been questioned once by a constable, and she had blinked at him innocently without a shred of comprehension until his own stammered explanations made him so uncomfortable that he left and never returned.
She’d added three griffins to the ceiling that day.
But Clara’s publishers offered a great deal of bribes to various members of Parliament and the courts to be considered merely “frivolous ladies’ novels.” It had allowed the Nightingale to become extremely popular. One still did not flaunt Ravished by the Rakehell , but it was safe enough to purchase, safe enough to sell or lend through the circulating library. Aside from that, Kitty also carried the widest selection of Minerva Press novels.
Kitty left her customers to peruse and whisper together. It was some time later when one of her regulars floated into the shop. There was no other word for how Lady Winthorpe entered any space—she meandered . She could have been on fire and Kitty was fairly certain she would still meander like a bit of dandelion fluff.
“Good afternoon, Lady Winthorpe,” Kitty greeted her.
“Miss Caldecott, good afternoon to you.” Lady Winthorpe had blue eyes like faded flowers and a disconcertingly direct gaze, plus moon-white hair. And a great love of racy novels. And gossip. “Any news, dear?”
“I’m afraid not.” I almost fell to my death off a roof this morning. My father tried to sell my sister. I stole from the very last man in all of Britain one should steal from, including the king and all of his dukes.
Lady Winthorpe frowned at the sound of other customers invading her little corner. She had brought her own padded stool and insisted on keeping it there so she could peruse comfortably. “How long will they be?”
“Not much longer, I shouldn’t think.” There was no way of knowing with new and nervous customers. “Would you care for some biscuits?”
“I always care for biscuits.” Which was precisely why Kitty always had them on hand—lavender-sprinkled crescents, wafers dipped in chocolate, butter biscuits topped with strawberry meringue. She offered Lady Winthorpe the plate as her footman backed out to wait on the sidewalk. “Thank you, dear. Has that nasty vicar been back?”
“Which one?” Kitty asked drily.
“Oh dear, there is that pack of them, isn’t there?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“And the Ladies’ Society Against Any Kind of Amusement Whatsoever.” More usually known as the Ladies’ Society for Moral Standards. She shook her head, looking terribly dismayed. “They must lead very dull lives indeed.”
She glanced at the corner again and let out a mournful sigh, followed by a much more irritated one for good measure. Kitty bit the inside of her cheek against a laugh. She knew what was coming: a hurricane of soft hints and gentle threats. No one stood against Lady Winthorpe. Mostly because she so often wandered away when one tried to fight back.
“Dears, I should like to sit down.” She settled herself like a partridge, if partridges wore bonnets trimmed with roses and what looked like a cabbage made of emeralds. Perhaps Kitty ought to introduce her to Sir Reginald. “Oh no,” she continued breathily. “You don’t want that one—that man has clearly never touched a woman. Try this one. And this one. And don’t forget my favorite!”
Honestly, she was better at this than Kitty was. The ladies were gently banished with their pile of books so that Lady Winthorpe could browse without interruption. They paid for their purchases and left, the one with the beauty mark lingering. She swallowed awkwardly, toying with her glove. She had the haunted and hunted shock that Evie had had when Priya confirmed that Kitty was not overreacting over Portsmouth’s cruelty. “I heard…” She trailed off.
Kitty waited. She knew from experience that if she said the wrong thing, or even the right thing too fast or too forcefully, the girl would bolt.
“I… Someone said you knew how to…run. Where to go.”
Kitty wanted to ask a hundred questions. “Yes. Are you in trouble?”
She nodded mutely.
“Do you need a safe place or a safe doctor or something else entirely?”
“I don’t know. You must think me silly.”
Kitty shook her head. “Definitely not. You can go to the Spinster Society,” she added. “On Bolton Row. Believe me, they will help.” She did not mention any of the Spinsters by name.
“The Spinster Society? In Mayfair? Oh, I couldn’t. I’m not a fine lady.”
“They would still help you. But I understand.” Priya was equipped to handle the peerage and their particular types of power. Shop girls and innkeeper’s daughters did not always have the same problems. Though power was always at the rotten root. “There’s another house in Covent Garden—”
The door burst open, slamming into the wall.
The girl jumped like a scalded cat.
“Depravity!” Vicar Andover shouted. He huffed angrily, like a bull—or like an old, portly man who had walked too fast.
His wife slipped in beside him, just as starched and vinegary as if she had come from a pantomime. Mrs. Andover’s tightly pinned hair did not detract from her beauty, all chiseled bone structure. But her eyes were shrewd, hungry. She was a devoted—and very loud—member of the Ladies’ Society for Moral Standards. She attended weekly meetings to learn how to best harass those she thought were contributing to the downfall of society. Kitty knew because the woman had started shouting it at her on a regular basis over the past couple of weeks.
It made Kitty tired just to look at her.
Also vexed. So very vexed.
Sweat beaded the vicar’s upper lip. He pointed to the girl, who looked as though she was ready to vanish into the floorboards. “Run! Run from this sinful place!”
The girl fled.
Kitty could have cheerfully murdered him. There was no telling when or if the girl would find the courage or simply the opportunity to come back for the information she clearly needed.
The vicar and his wife stared at Kitty, who raised an eyebrow. “Have you come for the latest issue of Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies ?” The list was a guide to the prostitutes of Covent Garden and their…specialties. Kitty did not actually have any copies on hand—they were mostly purchased by the men of the Ton , who did not often frequent her shop.
But the offer made the vicar and his wife choke. He sputtered, looking as though he might faint. His wife was made of sterner stuff. “This is no good work for a spinster,” she said in strident tones.
Kitty’s shopkeeper smile did not falter, mostly because she knew it infuriated them. “As the only spinster here, I’ll be the judge of that, thank you very much.”
The vicar sucked in an offended breath. And then he gagged.
He had just remembered he was holding a bag of eggs. Anyone could see they were not fresh.
Kitty tensed. If the contents of that bag even grazed any of her books, especially the rarer ones, she absolutely would murder him. The damage would be impossible to fix.
The moment grew brittle. Mrs. Andover’s eyes went positively gleeful with violently righteous indignation.
And then Lady Winthorpe toddled out from her corner with a handful of books. She blinked at the vicar. He blinked back at her. “Sir, there is something wrong with your eggs,” she said.
“Erm.” It was the best response he could muster when faced with a dowager countess. Even Mrs. Andover froze for a moment before stiffening her spine. She elbowed her husband in the midsection. Hard. Kitty saw the exact moment when they thought they had a new weapon in his arsenal.
She leaned back and ate a lavender biscuit. It tasted like a garden. She should have gone for the chocolate wafer. “Your ladyship, you cannot know this, but you have stumbled into a den of iniquity,” she said. “Or was it depravity? I can never remember.”
“Goodness,” Lady Winthorpe said mildly. “I could see how your luncheon might make one think that. You really ought not to eat those eggs.” She waved over his shoulder, summoning her footman. “Miss Caldecott, if you could wrap up my books. I would rather not get that odor in my new bonnet ribbons. Not elegant in the least.”
Mrs. Andover did not take that well. Her lips puckered.
“Of course, Lady Winthorpe.” Kitty wrapped them in her best paper, adding a ribbon tied in a large bow. The vicar’s eyes bulged out of his head the entire time. Mrs. Andover continued to vibrate with outrage.
Lady Winthorpe’s footman paid Kitty, without even hinting for credit, which she appreciated more than just about anything at the moment. Getting even the wealthiest members of the Ton to actually pay for their purchases could be somewhat of a challenge. Just ask her father.
Lady Winthorpe wrinkled her nose. “Do take those away, vicar. They are making my eyes itchy.” Her footman loomed, perfectly able to project ominousness even with the old-fashioned uniform and curled wig his employer required of him.
But it was her lady’s maid who thoroughly discombobulated the already discombobulated Mr. and Mrs. Andover. She entered the shop, took one sniff and one look at them, and her spine turned to steel in a way that Mrs. Andover would surely envy for the rest of the day. “Absolutely not,” she snapped at him. “Get out this instant. That is a countess. ”
Flustered, the vicar turned on his heel and left. His wife lingered, curled her hands into fists, and eventually stalked out.
Kitty ate another biscuit. “Well done, Beth.”
“Hmph. That one will be back.”
“Of that, I have no doubt.”
“And I told your ladyship not to come in here,” Beth scolded the dowager countess. “I know perfectly well what you read and could have shopped for you.”
“And ruin my fun? I think not.” Lady Winthorpe patted her maid’s arm distractedly and meandered away without a farewell.
It was quiet for the rest of the afternoon, until evening began to fall, the light turning blue, then gray. Kitty still felt a tiny bit smug that the Andovers had been sent running.
Until she stepped outside.
They had clearly returned while she was in the back room. And they had done more than throw eggs. They must have had help. The Ladies’ Tiresome Society for Moral Standards and Double Standards, no doubt.
Kitty kept two brooms for this very reason. One to sweep the dust and mud from boots off the floor and one for the splatters of truly disgusting things she found on her doorstep on a regular basis. Moldy lettuce, old fish, rotten fruit. Potatoes that had turned deeply noxious. Green things dragged from the Thames that she had no interest in further classifying.
Bookselling was not for the weak of stomach.
Not that she imagined for one moment that the other bookshops in London had to deal with any such thing. Irate customers, theft, spills of tea, certainly. But not this. No one kept eggs in a basket until they turned rancid in time for a visit to the Temple of Muses. Even Mrs. Andover would not dare.
Actually, she might.
Kitty indulged in a cross sigh, making sure no one saw her. She did not know if the Andovers or the Ladies’ Society or any of her other critics lurked about to watch her get upset, but they would go away disappointed every time. Every. Single. Time. It was a point of pride.
And honestly, at this rate, she was used to it.
It barely registered as a problem when one’s sister had been sold into marriage to a murderer in exchange for forgiving a gambling debt.
Light the lamps, pull the curtains, tidy the shop. Scrub the front step, scrape paint off the window, tally the ledgers. Order more chapbooks. Wash refuse from the door. It was all part of her day at this point.
Anyway, she had a system. A bucket of sand, a broom, and sometimes an extra sixpence for one of the street-sweeping boys if she simply was not feeling up to the mess. Fortunately, this evening’s offering looked to be nothing but regular produce, malodorous but nothing like a basket of old fish after a sunny day at market. Another sigh, and she got to sweeping. It left smears on the pavement. Eggshells cracked under her shoes.
“What the hell is this?”
Kitty jumped. The shop window reflected Devil standing behind her, summoned as if from the darkest depths. Those intense, arrogant eyes that saw everything. His scowl was evident, even in the murky glass. She would have to wash it as well. The window, not Devil.
Washing Devil. Suddenly all she could think about was hot, soapy water, a bare chest, that half-smile.
He made her stupid.
Unfortunate, but true.
She turned, her heart thumping in her chest in that way only he seemed capable of eliciting. Hopefully he chalked it up to fear or guilt, which he was no doubt accustomed to. Not lust. Which he was also accustomed to.
Never mind that, Kitty Caldecott.
She was a clever, red-haired spinster who was accused of being fierce and immoral and an upstart. She ought to bloody well act like it. “Can I help you?” she asked as calmly as her body would allow.
“You’re wearing shoes, which is an improvement,” he replied. “But you are standing in… What is that, exactly?”
She glanced down. “Cabbage and rotten strawberries. Someone must have been giving it away from a stall at Covent Garden. Definitely eggs. And that might be a fish bone. By your left boot.”
He moved his foot and narrowed one eye at her as if he did not know what to say.
Twice now she had flummoxed the Devil. She felt more than a little bit proud about that.
“My mistake—it’s an eggshell.”
“Powerful smell,” he said.
She couldn’t argue with that. And she refused to consider the kinds of expensive perfumes the women he knew would wear, ensnaring him with subtle amber or lilac or gardenia.
Kitty Caldecott and her Eau of Rotten Cabbage . Parfum de Poisson .
“Why exactly are you painting the sidewalk with this mess?” he asked when she stood there staring at him like a startled frog on a log. He did not touch her, but his voice did—it wrapped around her arms, her waist, her throat. It was sharp, dark. Seething. “Did someone do this to your shop?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “The hazards of a bookshop.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“Fine, the hazards of my bookshop, then.”
“That, I can more easily believe. Why exactly this mess?”
“Oh, you know. Books written by women sold to women by a woman? Moral corruption, lewdness, etcetera.” She sounded bored, even to her own ears. It had taken her some time and effort to develop that particular trick, she did not mind admitting.
“Ah yes,” he said. “I am familiar. I am particularly fond of being called licentious . It has a certain flair.”
Kitty would not smile. This was not a moment. This was a soft attack, a first volley.
“You probably should not be seen here,” she added, much more cheerfully. “Can’t be good for your reputation. Good day, Lord Birmingham.”
“Nice try,” he returned mildly. “Inside. Now , Catherine.”
How did he know her real name was Catherine? She rarely used it. And why did the sound of it in his mouth shiver through her? Her thighs actually trembled.
Unacceptable.
Thrilling, but unacceptable.
And then Devil took a step closer, and another, a tall, sinfully handsome earl who could command the king himself, closing in on her until she was being backed into her own shop without even realizing it. Past the shelves, under the gold griffins, over the crooked, uneven floorboards. And right into the edge of her desk. She gasped a little, without meaning to. His gaze dropped to her mouth at the sound, then lifted again. “You have something of mine.”