“How does he know, if he just got here? Are other lords required to submit their receipts to him?”
“He’s had her on the line for years, apparently. Mistresses count on gifts as much as wages, and since Uppington is gone so often, he can’t be showering her with jewelry, so he pays her an exorbitant stipend instead.”
“I’ll wager the mistresses he keeps in Demerara don’t see a bloody penny,” Viv muttered.
Quentin glanced up sharply. “What?”
“Nothing. Keep reading. I’m almost done washing up.”
“The rest of the news is boring. Some lady snubbed some lord at Almack’s. The Prince Regent is remodeling one of his palaces yet again. And… oh, this is interesting. A politician in the House of Commons was burgled last night.”
“Why is that so interesting? What did they steal?”
“He refuses to say, which is intriguing enough. But apparently, the robbery involved balloons, shepherd’s pie, and a whooper swan. What in the world is a whooper swan?”
Viv stopped cleaning dishes. She turned around slowly, wiping her hands on her apron. “Anas cygnus, as described by famed zoologist Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 tome on natural systems. You’re certain the robbery utilized those specific items? Balloons, shepherd’s pie, whooper swan?”
“Mad, isn’t it? Who would even come up with something like that?”
Vivwould have. And did. Last week she’d finished a comedic play in which the malefactors stole an ancient scroll in just that manner. But it hadn’t fully been her idea.
Instead of the usual domestic concerns, one of the more preposterous letters sent to her daily ask-me-anything advice column had enquired how to steal a treasure map from an aristocratic Mayfairtown house. Viv never responded to such ludicrous queries, but she did use their absurd contents as fodder for future manuscripts.
Well, bollocks. Now theater managers would think she’d copied the idea from the real-life case, rather than believe her imagination had come up with these twists on its own.
Except… had she?
“Gah.” Viv slumped her hips against the wet sink. “Now I’llneverbe able to sell that play.”
Sometimes unique ideas seemed to float in the air, occurring to multiple people at once. However, these unlikely crimes were too similar to be a coincidence.
Perhaps she and the thief had both been inspired by the same source material. Or perhaps what had happened was—
“You wrote about a robbery?” Her cousin reached for Viv’s notebook on the table.
“Quentin, no!” She tried to snatch her journal out of the way, but she was too late. A perfect blackberry-preserves-stained thumbprint now marred the bookmarked page she had been revising. “How many times do I have to ask you to wash your hands before touching my things?”
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. Quentin rose from his chair and trudged over to the sink, where the wet bar of soap shot from his hands and nearly whacked Viv in the eye.
She caught it with her left hand seconds before impact and handed it back in silence.
When his hands were clean, Quentin consulted his pocket watch. “I must hurry. The club is waiting on me. Don’t worry, I already collected the new advice column responses from the table. Anything else you need me to post for you whilst I’m out?”
“That’ll do.” She glanced toward tall stacks containing copies of the play she’d finished the month before. “I have to pen the perfect letters to accompany my latest script.”
“You’re absolutely brilliant, cousin.” Quentin seemed his sunny self again. Perhaps her overactive imagination had exaggerated the earlier tension. “Someone will recognize your genius soon.”
“I certainly hope so,” she muttered, dipping her hands back beneath the sudsy water. “I’m getting tired of—ow!”
His eyes went wild with panic. “What? What happened?”
“Nothing.” She held up her finger, upon which a single bright red bubble of blood protruded. “Nicked myself on the paring knife.”
Quentin’s eyes went glassy and his knees buckled.
Viv wiped the blood on her apron and dashed forward just in time to catch him. “You haven’t changed a bit. What kind of would-be Wynchester faints at the sight of blood?”
“Can’t let anything happen to you,” he mumbled. “Don’t scare me.”
