Amanda Scott Read Online Free PDF

cannot bear simply to go back home and wait to see if my plan has succeeded. I shall know by looking at him, but that is the only way. Don’t worry, the man hasn’t laid eyes upon me in several years. Even if he recognizes your livery, he will never suspect a page of being anything but what he appears to be.”
    “I suppose not, but if you haven’t seen him in so long, how can you be certain you will recognize him?”
    “Well, I shall take the message to his house, of course. He lives in Curzon Street.”
    “But he will most likely be out during the day, Sylvie. You would then have to seek him at his club.”
    “Well, I shall go there. And never fear, Joan. He was a man grown when last I saw him. He cannot have changed as much as I have.”
    The arguments did not rest there, of course, but Sylvia’s determination carried the day, and two o’clock the following afternoon found her upon Greyfalcon’s doorstep, her slender form attired in a loose-fitting gray page’s uniform, her long silky hair tucked mostly into the cap but cunningly arranged to look like boy’s hair tied back at the nape of the neck with a black silk ribbon. The cap itself was pulled low over her forehead, nearly to her eyes, its white feather curling near her right cheek.
    True to Lady Joan’s prediction, his lordship was found to be from home, but his man displayed no reservation about confiding his whereabouts. Having had the forethought to retain her hackney coach in the street, Sylvia gave the coachman instructions to set her down next at Brooks’s Club in St. James’s Street.
    “I’ll not be able to keep me ’orses standin’ ’ere in all this traffic, me lad,” the jarvey said when they had reached their destination. “’Sides, there be ’acks aplenty all about.”
    Sylvia nodded, paid him, and climbed the steps to the front door of the famous club with only a slight pang of trepidation. Her primary emotion was excitement. She was doing the unthinkable. No woman of quality would be caught anywhere on St. James’s Street except in a closed coach with a proper escort. Certainly no lady of quality would stride—in breeches, yet—up the front steps of Brooks’s Club and expect to gain entrance. A liveried servant pulled open the door for her and nodded toward the porter’s room.
    “May I be of service to you, lad?” inquired the stately gentleman behind the window there.
    “I’ve a message for Greyfalcon,” Sylvia muttered, keeping her voice as much of a growl as possible, lest he detect feminine notes in it.
    But the porter had other thoughts in his mind. “The Earl of Greyfalcon to you, my lad. I’ll take the message.” He raised his hand to signal one of several page boys standing against the opposite wall.
    “No! That is,” she added more carefully, “my orders are to see the message personally delivered into his lordship’s hand.”
    The porter grimaced and said in strong British accents, “A billet doux, no doubt. ’Tis only the ladies who insist upon such nonsense. Very well, here is a salver, for you’ll not hand it to him more personally than that upon my premises.” He handed her a small silver salver and nodded to the young page who had answered his summons. “Take this lad to the Subscription Room. He has a message for Lord Greyfalcon.”
    Sylvia followed the page, content now that she need worry no longer about anyone’s suspecting she was other than she appeared to be. As she crossed the black-and-white tiled floor of the front hall toward the green-carpeted marble staircase that swept up the right wall and then, from a corner landing, continued along the rear wall, she glanced about, paying little heed to the famous portrait of Charles James Fox that hung over the fireplace like a tutelary deity, but approving of the general atmosphere of the place. She had often wondered what a gentleman’s club would be like, and Brooks’s appeared to be elegant yet friendly and casual, much like her Uncle