Chasing the Heiress (35 page)

Keep reading for a sneak peek at
the third book in the Muses' Salon series,

 

TEMPTING THE EARL

 

available in November 2016.

 

 

 

And be sure to read

 

 

available now from Zebra Shout.

 

 

The man was still behind her, on the other side of the street, tracking her. Olivia had been lucky to have seen him, or she would have led him straight to her hiding place. Now she needed to go somewhere else—a market, a crowded shop-—anywhere to give herself a chance to escape.

But the street was quiet, and the shops too small. Nowhere to hide. She looked in the reflection of a shop glass as she passed. Still there. She forced herself not to increase her pace. If she hurried, he would know she'd seen him.

Ahead at the end of the block, a carriage pulled to her side of the street, and two footmen carrying packages stepped out of a shop. Footmen and packages meant a woman shopping, perhaps more than one.

She looked at the shop's sign, hanging out over the sidewalk. An open book beside a stack of papers and a jar filled with quills. A bookshop and stationer. Her chance.

Olivia gauged the remaining distance between her and the carriage, estimating how long it would take for the woman (she prayed it was a woman) to leave the shop, step into the coach, and for the coach to pull away. The woman hadn't left the shop yet: that gave Olivia more time. Each moment the woman delayed was another moment Olivia had to reach the coach.

The footman opened the door to the shop, and two women, well-dressed and laughing, stepped onto the sidewalk. Olivia clenched her fingers on her worn reticule, holding it close to her belly. Inside, tucked in the lining, she'd hidden the instructions for meeting her informant. Usually she memorized the complicated dance of sign and counter-sign right away, but she'd been distracted, telling herself it wouldn't matter, this once. But if he caught her, if he found the paper, then it
would
matter—because people would die.

It had been six months since she'd penned an essay on the struggles of soldiers returning home and sent it off to be published in the fashionable newspaper
The World
. She hadn't really expected the editor to publish it. If she had, she likely would have chosen a better pseudonym than “An Honest Gentleman.” And she certainly hadn't intended to become the banner bearer for the rights of man. But her essay had struck a chord with the British, weary from the wars and the inflation that followed. She'd begun a correspondence with the editor, and soon her essays had started appearing every week. From corruption in Parliament to abuse on the docks,
An Honest Gentleman
brought it all into the light.

But there's no predicting the hand of fate, and soon she was receiving correspondence from all across the land, asking for her help—or rather,
An Honest Gentleman
's help—in revealing this or that wrong. From one informant in the London hells, she now had more than twenty from across Britain. She'd become—in the Home Office's estimation—the greatest threat to a peaceable England since Napoleon. But no one expected a short, softly rounded woman with a middle-class accent to wield the pen that caused MPs to shudder. And until recently she had thought that her anonymity would protect her.

She was still too far away from the carriage. The women stood outside the bookshop for a moment, their heads bowed in conversation.
Keep talking
, she willed the women,
keep talking
. But they moved slowly to the carriage. A waiting postilion handed each one in.

She glanced in the next shop window as she passed. He was still behind her, tall, menacing. She tamped down her welling panic, feeling her mouth grow wet with nausea. What would she do if he caught her? It was crucial that
An Honest Gentleman's
new essay be published before the next set of debates in Parliament. The information she'd been able to garner from her network suggested that a widely supported bill was being financed by a powerful group of criminals. Her informant tonight had promised to give her the name of the man behind the plot. But she'd never met this informant before—and if she missed their meeting, she might not be able to convince him to agree to another.

Before her, the door to the carriage remained open. The postilion had placed before it a stool with three steps. The footman remained there, waiting. Someone else was in the shop, she realized, and her heart rose.

Instinctively she quickened her pace, then slowed. But it was too late; he'd seen and increased his pace as well. With each long step, he narrowed the distance between them. But he hadn't crossed to her side of the street, not yet at least. The carriage still standing in front of the shop would hide her escape.

Only four more shops and she'd be there.

The footman opened the door again, and a young woman with a brightly colored feather in her hat moved slowly toward the open carriage door. At the carriage, the younger woman stopped before the steps, then held out her hand. The postilion placed it on his shoulder, and she stepped up, then up again. At another time Olivia would have wondered at the young woman's slow movements, but not today. No, all that mattered was reaching the group, the carriage, the shop. And she was so close . . .

The footman opened the shop door once more, letting a fourth woman out, then turned to shut the door behind him. Olivia almost leapt into the space of the closing door. As the door closed, she heard the coachman call out to the postilion to lash the steps on tight. For another minute or two, the carriage would hide her entrance into the shop.

Ranks of bookshelves circled the room, with tables in the middle. At the front of the shop to the right, two women stood on either side of the counter. Both faces were kind.

“I need . . .” She saw the carriage begin to pull away from the sidewalk, and past it, a man crossing the street to the shop. She turned back to the women, who waited for her to finish her sentence. “A man is following me. Can you help?”

Neither woman looked flustered. The one with the almond-shaped eyes pointed her hand toward the back of the store.

“Follow me.”

The aristocratic woman in front of the counter turned kind grey eyes to Olivia. “I'll give you time. Go.”

Olivia obeyed without thinking.

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Copyright © 2016 by Rachael Miles

 

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ISBN-13: 978-1-4201-4088-0
ISBN-10: 1-4201-4088-4

ISBN: 978-1-4201-4088-0