“Mademoiselle LaChapelle,” Sybil tried again.
“Mes amours,” the modiste called out. “If you could show Miss Stamper to the door, I can begin taking orders.”
Waves of grasping arms surrounded Sybil at once, dragging her toward the door like a current at riptide. Before she could do more than gasp in protest, she found herself beached on the front step as the door unceremoniously banged shut behind her.
Sybil dusted off her skirts and glared up at the row of windows overhead. She couldn’t depend on Mlle. LaChapelle returning the stolen dresses in time—if at all.
Sybil would have to steal the gowns back herself. But this time, no maid costume was going to help her past a locked door and up a flight of stairs to a work room filled with a dozen laborers with a financial incentive to keep Sybil out.
No matter how intrepid they might be, she and her reading circle were not going to be able to resolve this on their own.
It was time to call on the Wynchesters for help.
Chapter 11
Six Wynchesters stood in the middle of the large salon where the reading circle met every Thursday: intelligence-gathering acrobat Graham, cartographer Tommy, sword-wielding Elizabeth, forger Marjorie, animal trainer Jacob… and Philippa, now a Wynchester herself, who had arranged the emergency gathering.
In no time, the salon filled with bluestockings, tea cakes, and clinking glasses of wine.
Unlike the usual format, instead of gathering round to discuss this month’s book, all two dozen members of the reading circle—minus Gracie, who was habitually late—positioned their chairs to face the Wynchesters siblings standing in their midst.
Philippa clapped her hands. “Silence, please! I call this meeting to order.”
“This meeting of the Heist Club,” Damaris called out.
“It’s not the Heist Club,” Philippa said. “We do not have a name.”
“We do have a name,” Florentia put in. “And that name is ‘Heist Club’.”
“Remind me again why we’re here and not upstairs in our Planning Parlor?” handsome Graham stage-whispered to his sister Tommy.
“Because the Heist Club won’t fit in the Planning Parlor,” Tommy whispered back.
“For the hundredth time, we’re not called Heist Club!” Philippa said in exasperation. “We’re—”
“—a gaggle of squabbling bluestockings fully capable of spending the next hour bickering over semantics,” Sybil finished. “Can we please get started?”
“I’m not a bluestocking,” said Elizabeth Wynchester. “I’m a bloodthirsty malcontent.”
“Also squabbling over word choice,” Damaris pointed out. “You fit right in.”
“Sybil,” Philippa said desperately. “Would you like to sum up the current state of affairs for the group?”
She glanced around. “Aren’t we missing a couple of Wynchesters?”
Graham made a never-mind-that motion. “Chloe and Faircliffe are at Parliament. They won’t be free for hours.”
“We cannot wait,” Sybil agreed. “The dresses are at Mlle. LaChapelle’s shop now, but once her clients leave, she may waste no time ridding herself of the evidence.”
Philippa frowned. “Will she? Mlle. LaChapelle believes she’s counteracted the threat by threatening you right back.”
“And if she’s making copies of Mme. Blanchet’s dresses, she won’t be able to destroy them,” Jacob said.
“Unless she took them apart to copy the patterns,” Sybil pointed out.
“No plan without a contingency,” Graham said. “We cannot assume Mlle. LaChapelle will hold onto the contraband any longer than absolutely necessary. She may have already sketched or traced the stolen gowns and no longer need the physical originals.”
“I have the contingency plan.” Elizabeth withdrew a sharp rapier from the barrel of her sword stick. “I’ll cut off her head.”
