Friends and Foes by Sarah M. Eden EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Sarah M. Eden
- Language: English
- Genre: Romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
England, December 1814
Philip Jonquil walked with deceptively lazy strides down one of Maidstone’s
back streets. He’d traded his signature attire of bright colors and expensive
tailoring for something far more subdued. Knowing he’d be walking about in
an area of town known for thieves and cutthroats, Philip judged it best not to
appear prime for the plucking.
The ruse hadn’t proved entirely successful. Two nip-purses had been doing a
ridiculously bad job of tailing him for several streets. They made quite an
effort at not being seen, but he’d spotted them easily. Philip had less than a
half-mile to cover before meeting up with Hanover Garner, a man known to
the Foreign Office as something of a genius at tracking spies, a title Philip
had earned as well over the past half-decade.
Not so ingenious this time, though, were you? They’d come to that particular
corner of Kent on a solid bit of information and still managed to miss their
man. Le Fontaine, a particularly notorious spy for France, was supposed to
have been there. Someone must have warned Le Fontaine. By the time Philip
and Garner arrived, the French spy was gone.
Finding himself the target of would-be thieves proved a fittingly annoying
addition to an already bothersome day. Society, no doubt, would expect such
a confirmed dandy to swoon or flutter about in terrified agitation at being
accosted by footpads. But society was far too easily duped. Philip had
simpered and minced amongst the upper crust for five years, but underneath
the carefully constructed persona, he was anything but a fribble. He
encountered with shocking regularity criminals who would make the seediest
of London neighborhoods seem like nurseries at nap time and, thus far, had
always emerged relatively unscathed.
Philip could hear the knucklers drawing closer. He sighed in annoyance.
He’d simply have to take care of the bothersome duo.
As their footsteps grew louder, he spun around without warning, catching
them entirely off guard. “Let me guess. This is to be a bulk-and-file
operation. Which one of you means to knock me down and which plans to go
for my billfold?”
Obviously the pickpockets hadn’t expected that response. They stood frozen
a moment, eyes darting between him and one another.
“A gentleman?” the shorter of the thieves sputtered. He looked to his partner.
“’E’s a thumpin’ nib!”
Philip supposed he ought to have affected a lower-class accent, but, quite
frankly, he hadn’t the patience for it at the moment. “My apologies for not
dressing the part of a well-twigged gentry cove—I wasn’t expecting
company.”
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