Free Saving Persephone (The Haberdashers Book 4) by Sue London

was, fortunately, not the worst time to have been out of touch. Now here he was in his study, late into the night, parsing through the personal correspondence that had arrived in his absence. He set aside letters from Charlie and Sabre to read later, and flipped through the rest standing in front of the fireplace so he could simply burn the ones that were of no interest to him. The fifth missive stopped him cold. He tossed the remaining mail aside and brought this one to his desk, turning up the lamp so that he could study it more closely. He would need to examine it in daylight, but his immediate assessment included feeling the weight of the vellum, smelling it. French, if he wasn’t mistaken. Not that such a thing indicated the origin of the note, as this paper would be available to anyone who had the funds to acquire it. But it was expensive, far too fine to be wasted on such a short and cryptic message. The envelope had not been franked, thus had been delivered personally. Perhaps among a few hands, as it seemed a bit worn and grimy. Not overly so, but clearly enough on close examination.
    He spread out the note in the lamplight and leaned over to read it again.
     
    M. Bittlesworth,
    If you keep losing top hats you’ll catch your death.
    M. Amicus
     
    An innocuous enough text, on the face of it, signed simply with the word for “friend” in Latin. Innocuous to anyone but Robert Bittlesworth. He sat down heavily in his chair. His first major coup for the Home Office had been building a network of informants within Great Britain. He had given it a very particular structure, designed to keep those who actually supplied the information ignorant of how that information was used. It was a complex, highly guarded secret and there were portions of it that still only Robert himself knew about. The regional information aggregators were known at the Home Office as Top Hats. They reported to their Key. Since June there had been ten Top Hats that had turned up dead, most beaten to death. Prior to this, Robert assumed it had been a product of the unrest that had been rife throughout his country since the end of the Wars, as Top Hats were agents also charged with forestalling uprisings. Now he had to suspect that they were being targeted. But why? And if those men had been beaten to death to extract information, what information had they yielded? At least enough, it seemed, for this vaguely threatening note to be addressed to him personally. Top Hats shouldn’t know who he was, only the Keys knew that and all the Keys were still in place.
    Robert locked the note in the drawer of his desk and sat back to consider what he knew. His gaze, however, was on the desktop and he was soon distracted by memories. Miss Grant in her blue silk, bold and wild and lascivious. The lust that image inspired was welcome, but the thorn in his chest from wondering where she was, was not. He grabbed the bottle of scotch off his sideboard and the letters from his siblings and made his way to his bedroom in the early morning light.
     
    * * *
     
    Imogen had anticipated that she would be refreshed and relaxed from her illicit tryst. In some ways she was, but she was plagued with distracting thoughts. Upon waking she still missed having her lover’s hands on her. She tucked away the celestial blue gown at the back of her wardrobe, but couldn’t stand the thought of discarding it. She even, though she didn’t want to think on it too closely, took to wearing the lawn chemise he had given her, telling herself that it was more suited to the damp, cold British autumn approaching. While out shopping with Violetta, she would invariably encounter something that would make a clever gift for him, but would firmly set it aside. At times she wondered if a gift in thanks would be appropriate, but she doubted that he wanted anything from her.
    Meanwhile, she had to keep answering Violetta’s questions about her week with the duchess. Imogen was a careful