Page 5 of The Scandalous Spinster

“Any trouble?” Priya asked from where she waited in the foyer. She wore her thick gardening apron over her dress even at this time of the night.

“You know Sybil,” Clara murmured, handing her the letter. “Is she not back yet?”

“No, she—”

“Here I am,” Sybil crowed, sailing through the front door, disheveled and thoroughly pleased with herself. There was mud on her neck and leaves in her hair. Her dress was utterly ruined. “That was fun.”

“And you, Clara?” Priya asked. “Any trouble?”

Clara smiled. “Yes. Finally.”

Chapter Two

London, one month later

The Spinster Society headquarters looked like any other house on a street that looked like any other street in Mayfair. Only those who knew what to look for saw it for what it brought. Sanctuary. Justice.

Revenge.

Though Clara could respect all of those things, she was not here for any of that. Today, she was here to pour tea.

She demonstrated the proper way to offer cream or honey or lemon, how to stir without striking the edge of the cup, how to put down a spoon without spattering the tablecloth. Important things. Useful things.

Dull things.

It was her own fault, really. One night clinging to the outside of a building would not change her entire life. This was who she had constructed herself to be: a painfully proper lady. This was how she was of use to the Spinster Society.

She might have snored if snoring were a thing ladies could do. Instead, she served another cup of strong black tea.

Priya smiled, her dark eyes shining. “Thank you, Clara.” She turned her cup in its delicate saucer. Miss Cunningham watched with rapt attention, perched on the edge of a cushion embroidered with unicorns wielding bloody horns. Clara knew Meg Swift, now the Duchess of Thorncroft, was no doubt behind the needlework. Everyone she knew, however peripherally, was interesting.

“Did you catch that?” Priya asked after a moment.

Miss Cunningham frowned. She was their newest member—recruit, really. She was a white woman with delicate features and still young to be a spinster, but her dowry had been spent by a drunk aunt. Her options had declined to nothing when word got out. And it always got out.

Priya lifted her hand, gold bangles, a gift sent from her mother in India, tinkling prettily. “This ring only looks like a locket for a lover’s keepsake. In reality, it flips open on this tiny hinge, based off Tudor poison rings.”

Miss Cunningham stared at the identical ring Clara wore. All of the Spinsters had one. “I knew there was something about this ring,” she said. “How does it open?”

“There is a little indentation, just there,” Priya explained. “I loosened mine earlier and then tipped my hand to drop the herbs in the cup. In tea brewed strong enough, the taste is undetectable. The effects, however…”

Miss Cunningham leaned forward eagerly, bloodthirsty enough to be a proper member of the Society already. “What does it do?”

“It causes an affliction of the bowels. Quite quickly.”

“Brilliant.”

“And I added laudanum drops to the teapot,” Clara added drily. Much less flashy but just as effective. Priya had not asked her to, but sometimes you had to take matters into your own hands.

Miss Cunningham put down her cup hastily. The rattle of porcelain shivered through the room. “I do not care for laudanum.” She blinked. “Pardon me, but you did that?”

Clara nodded tightly, reminding herself that she should feel vindicated at the surprise, not resigned. And it definitely should not sting. She knew why she was here: for deportment and etiquette and every dry societal rule necessary to navigate Mayfair. Not for poisons and espionage and all of the real reasons Priya had created the Spinster Society.

Priya had originally purchased the house next to her own in order to take over yet another greenhouse. She then proceeded to open the house itself to help defend the ladies of the ton against fortune hunters, and lords with too many suspicious dead wives, and parents willing to sell their daughters to any gambler or drunken lout with a title.

Not everyone had a powerful duke for a godfather, the way Priya and Clara did. They were known as the Cinderellas, mostly because he did delight in trying to marry them off. It was Priya’s ability to collect secrets the way beachgoers collected seashells that had brought them here to this house with the Gorgon door knocker and the bottles of wine and whiskey on the sideboard. No lemonade or weak ratafia for the Spinsters. They had seen too many battles on the ballroom floor and in drawing rooms and picnics along the Thames. They had earned a stronger, less ladylike drink.

Clara knew that the others thought her too acerbic, too proper, and far too concerned with deportment. Manners were her king.