Free Bound by Your Touch by Meredith Duran

there you have it: we are both quite perverse."
    The name brought her up short. Carnelly was the importer who handled her father's antiquities shipments. Good Lord. "Did Carnelly tell you these lies?" It didn't square. Carnelly was rough-kempt and poorly spoken, but he was not dishonest.
    "No," he said. "Carnelly showed me the packing lists for your fathers shipments, and kindly pointed out where my fraudulent stela had been entered."
    Dear God. "Excuse me," she said, and darted past him, down the hall.
    The next morning dawned cold and wet. In the carriage, Lydia pulled her shawl over her mouth to dull the bite in her lungs. No matter the season, the air in the dingy, narrow lanes around Carnellys warehouse tasted acrid and thick, a mix of coal smoke and urine, rotting fish and open sewage. As the vehicle slowed to negotiate a narrow passage, stray dogs leaped from the gutter to yip, their hair hanging in dirty, matted ropes over the visible architecture of their ribs. The footman who rode across from her tightened his hand around the gun in his lap. It occurred to her that the denizens of the East End posed less of a threat than the chance of the pistol misfiring. When they finally drew up at the warehouse, she exited with a sigh of relief.
    But inside, her spirits sank abrupdy. "It's true enough, miss," Carnelly told her, and handed over a sheet of paper. "The forgery's listed in your father's shipment, I'm sorry to say."
    Her throat tightened. It was her fault, then. She had overlooked a conspicuous fake. How would she ever explain this to Papa? "How did it get in there? My father would not overlook such a thing."
    He shrugged. "Perhaps someone broke into the shipment in Port Said—or Malta, even. Switched out the real piece for that shoddy number."
    "Yes," she murmured. That was the only viable theory. She set it aside for the moment to consider her immediate course of action. The viscount would have to be dealt with. "I did not know Lord Sanburne was one of my father's clients." This, too, bespoke an embarrassing carelessness on her part. "Who is his agent?"
    Carnelly had been sucking on his teeth; now he released them with a wet, popping sound. "Well, that's the thing, miss. None of that shipment was ever intended for his lordship. I generally sell him Colby's stuff. He's not very interested in the cheaper pieces." At her look, he flushed and shrugged. "I mean the less expensive pieces, miss, which your father usually trades in."
    "He trades in the pieces that the Egyptian government permits him to sell," she said. "He is not a looter, sir; he is a legitimate scholar. You know this."
    Carnelly cleared his throat. "Yes, miss. Point is, there was a mix-up. The stela was never meant for him." Sheepishly he nodded toward the paper in her hand.
    The script on the packing list was familiar to her— the backward-slanting hand of her fathers secretary in Cairo. But the descriptions did not ring a bell. "This is a shipment for Mr. Hartnett," she realized. He was an old friend of Papa's from university, and purchased pieces sight unseen.
    "Aye, that's right."
    Relief flooded her. The forgery had not slipped by her, then. Thanks to Mr. Hartnett's arrangement with Papa, she was not required to examine his items. "But why were these pieces in circulation? I told you to hold them—the gentleman passed away two weeks ago."
    He sighed. "Aye. It was Wilkins that did it. He messed the whole thing up. And your father's pieces weren't the only things he got muddled, miss. Overton's stuff went to Colby's buyers."
    Overton was a pig, still sulking over the defection of his best client to Papa's services. "Do not expect sympathy on his account."
    "Well, I wouldn't. It's Colby I'm worried about. He's furious, he is. Threatens to pull his business over it. I'm like to give Wilkins a paddling."
    Mr. Camelry's nephew was a terrible trial to him, and the boys blunders had become something of a long-running joke. But she could muster no