Page 21 of A Deal with the Devil

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.