Free A Gentleman's Guide to Scandal by Kathleen Kimmel

Phoebe, who had the corner of her lip held between her teeth.
    Finally, Phoebe nodded. “Answers,” she said. “And the destruction of whatever damaging evidence he has. That’s all. No maiming.” She paused. “Unless the opportunity presents itself.”
    â€œThen the question remains: how do we get to him? And how do we extract information from him once we do?”
    â€œWe could use that fellow,” Phoebe said. “The burly one. Your brother’s pet detective.”
    â€œMr. Hudson? No, I don’t think so,” Elinor said. “He’s too familiar with your brother, not to mention mine.”
    â€œYou’re right. The boys use him for everything these days. He’s bound to tell one of them, or they’ll spot him and put it together.”
    Elinor shook her head in amusement at her use of the term
boys
. Colin now had three decades to his name, and Martin had a child of his own on the way. They could hardly be called boys. Which reminded her more forcefully than she preferred that she, too, was well beyond the years of youth. She would be thirty years old in a few scant weeks. She was going to be a spinster all her life.
    â€œ
How banaaal
,” Marie would have said, mimicking her mother’s favorite insult. And then she would have had some joke to make it all seem insignificant.
    â€œElinor?” Phoebe said.
    â€œForgive me. I find myself caught up in memories.” Elinor sighed. “There is one resource we are forgetting. Joan.”
    â€œOf course,” Phoebe said, popping upright to attention. “We are ill-used to subterfuge and intrigue, but she was practically born to it, wasn’t she? But in her condition—”
    â€œWe can’t involve her directly,” Elinor said. “As much as she’d be eager for the adventure. But she will have the contacts that we need, and the experience to formulate a plan where we have only the vaguest of notions.”
    â€œWill you write to her, then?” Phoebe asked.
    â€œBetter none of this is in writing,” Elinor said. “It’s only a day’s journey to the new house. We can go in person.”
    â€œExcellent. I haven’t seen her since Christmas,” Phoebe said with a grin. “She never did finish teaching me to pick locks.”
    â€œDon’t tell your brother about that,” Elinor said. “But if you’re desperate, I can show you. I was her first pupil, you know.”
    Phoebe laughed. “I’d forgotten that. It’s so unexpected, you two being friends.”
    â€œI can occasionally be interesting,” Elinor said with a wry smile.
    â€œDefinitely,” Phoebe said. She leapt to her feet and seized Elinor’s hands. “Thank you so much for doing this, Elinor. I couldn’t stand the thought of that awful man being out there and nothing happening to him.”
    She left then, padding down the hallway on bare feet, a slight skip in her step. Elinor sat staring at the door for a long while after she had gone. For Phoebe, this was already victory. Already an adventure. For Elinor, it was like looking up the slope of a mountain, and preparing to climb.
    It was strange, how quickly one’s understanding of the world could change. Now she knew that her friend had been suffering, and there was a man who had created that suffering. She might be a spinster—might be fit only to play escort for younger acquaintances and wither away in her brother’s drawing room—but she had some use in her left. She could make Edward Foyle answer for whatever he had done to her friend.
    And she would.

Chapter 6

    Colin woke in his bed with the distinct impression that his current location was more a matter of fortune than ability on his part. He was face down, fully clothed but for one boot which had somehow made its way to the windowsill. His mouth was dry, his head pounding, and an ache he couldn’t quite locate