Letters to a Lady Read Online Free PDF Page B

the attorney generalship. “I daresay,” he agreed. “Probably five thousand guineas—something in that neighborhood.”
    Diana gasped at the sum. “Have you no gumption, Harrup?” she asked angrily. “You’re going to be bled by a lightskirt! After setting her up in such high style, probably showering her with diamonds and giving her five hundred pounds besides, you’re going to sit idly by while she demands more?”
    “I can’t allow any scandal at this time.”
    “No, gudgeon, but you can try to get your letters back.” Harrup blinked to hear himself described so bluntly but didn’t object. “I don’t see how. You don’t even know who took them.”
    “Peabody got a look at the man,” she reminded him. “She’d recognize him if she saw him again. You know Peabody has eyes like a lynx.”
    “She’s not likely to see him, is she?”
    “He must have taken the letters back to Whitby. You’ll have to break into her house. And furthermore, did you know she’s coming to London soon? She told us to tell you she’d be seeing you here soon.”
    “I knew she was coming back. There’s nothing for a woman like Mrs. Whitby in Hitchin.”
    “She’ll bring the letters with her. She won’t give them to you, but you can steal them.”
    Harrup stared in frustration and swore off an accomplished oath. “That wouldn’t look good if I were caught—the aspirant to the position of attorney general breaking into a woman’s house ant stealing her letters.”
    “Reclaiming your letters—you’ve already paid for them.”
    “No, I can’t risk it,” he said after a brief consideration. “When I gave them to her, they ceased to be my property.”
    “Well, I can, and I shall.”
    “You?” he asked, and gave a dismissing smile. “Why should you put yourself to so much trouble?”
    “Because I have a favor to ask of you. I shan’t bother you with it now, but if I get the letters back, you must promise to give my request very generous consideration.”
    He leaned across the table and gave a satirical smile. “If you could get those letters back, my lass, I’d gladly buy you an abbey.”
    “You really do strike dreadful bargains, Harrup. Such largess as that is not a promise that will be kept. My request is more reasonable.”
    “Then just ask it. It’s not necessary for you to pitch yourself into the fray. I shan’t require a young lady to rescue me.”
    “I want to do it,” she said simply. “I won’t take any foolish risks. Peabody and I shall look around town and see if we can find the thief. I expect he’ll hold the letters till Mrs.  Whitby comes to town. She said she’d be here soon.”
    “It’s worth a fly,” Harrup agreed. He thought the chances of success were very thin, but any chance was worth pursuing.
    “This affair will take a few days,” Diana said. “Can you lend Peabody and me some money? I mean above the ten pounds you’re going to repay her. Hotels are so expensive, and there are the horses…”
    “Stay here,” he offered.
    Diana looked up, startled. “You don’t want provincials here, lowering the tone of your establishment.”
    “My establishment’s reputation is not so precarious as that. Stay. We want to be in close touch. I’ll be more likely to learn who Laura’s cohort is than you. I can finger the scoundrel and have Peabody identify him. My servants might be some help to you as well. Your father’s groom won’t be comfortable driving in London.”
    “That’s true,” she said. “He allowed himself to be run off the road on the way here.”
    Harrup’s worried face softened in a smile. “Quite a day you’ve had, eh, missie? All my fault, and I apologize most humbly.”
    “Quite a day, and as if to receive an extremely cool reception at the end of it weren’t enough, you have to call me missie, as though I were a child. Actually, we didn’t just come to London to deliver Whitby’s love notes. Ronald is setting up an apartment, and we came to help