How To School Your Scoundrel Read Online Free PDF

screeching, over and over. Eventually the proprietress had swept through and sorted out the bedlam, arranged for a discreet visit by a friendly pair of police inspectors, apologized profusely to the new Earl of Somerton and hoped he would continue to favor Cousin Hannah’s with his custom.
    He had.
    In fact, Cousin Hannah sat before him now: a different and younger Hannah, in the way of things, but just as efficient. Her violet skirts pooled on the chair about her, and her copious bosom was buttoned up to the throat, because it was daytime. By some miracle of corsetry, her waist appeared almost as narrow as her neck.
    She released the stopper of a slim bottle of brandy, allowed a luxurious splash into the teacup below, and stirred with a dainty spoon of well-polished Sheffield plate. She motioned the bottle in Somerton’s direction. He shook his head patiently.
    “To answer your question, sir,” said Hannah, though not before taking a sip of tea, “his lordship has frequented my humble establishment a number of times in the past fortnight, but never in company with your wife.”
    “You have examined all his companions? She would, of course, have disguised herself.”
    Hannah sent him a look of patient indulgence, a look he particularly loathed. “Yes, sir. As I did the previous fortnight, and the one before, and all the others.”
    Somerton’s cup of tea sat untouched before him. A last thin gasp of steam rose upward from the surface and dissolved into the air. He leaned forward. “Obviously she’s been too clever for you.”
    “With all respect, sir, she hasn’t.” Hannah returned his gaze squarely. She spoke firmly and slowly, as she always did, taking care to avoid the telltale pronunciation of her East End roots. Before taking over the business from the original Hannah, she’d been the best girl in the house, a true good-natured whore who actually enjoyed her work, gentle with newcomers and abandoned with regulars, dropping her haitches and her knickers with equal enthusiasm. Now she only slipped a consonant after her third glass of sherry, and only took on a customer if he was a virgin. (Defloration of the young and nervous was her particular specialty.)
    Somerton smacked the table with his open palm. “She must have! What about the other houses?”
    “Nothing, sir. Now, Penhallow, he makes his round about the bawdies, regular as clockwork, sometimes two or three houses a night. But he hain’t . . . he
hasn’t
brought a lady with him in ever so long. He brings his friends and takes his pleasure with the girls here, like any honest gentleman.” Just as she finished the last sentence, her eyes dropped to her tea. She lifted the cup and took a studious sip.
    The air sharpened in Somerton’s ears. He had interrogated hundreds of people—usually in far less amicable circumstances than this—and he knew when his opposite number was hiding an important fact.
    Or rather,
attempting
to hide. Because Somerton always ferreted out the truth.
    One way or another.
    He stretched out one long leg and adjusted the razor crease of his trousers until it peaked precisely in the center of his knee. Every sense was alert; every muscle relaxed with latent power, ready for use. “Brings his friends, does he? Takes his pleasure with the girls here?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Every night.”
    “Not every night,” she said hastily. “P’rhaps three or four in the week.”
    “Regularly, then. Regularly enough that he’s a good customer, isn’t he? A customer you wouldn’t want to lose.”
    Hannah shrugged. “I has enough customers.”
    Somerton’s brain fastened for an instant on that telling grammatical slip. “But I suspect a generous youth such as Lord Roland Penhallow pays better than most, doesn’t he?”
    “He pays well enough.” Hannah’s mouth formed a tight line, as if straining to contain something inside. She grasped the teapot and tilted it over her cup.
    A half second before the liquid appeared from