The Agency for Scandal by Laura Wood EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Novel Title: The Agency for Scandal
- Author: Laura Wood
- Language: English
- Formats: PDF / EPUB
- Status: Available for Download
- Series: None
- Price: Free
- File Size: 2 MB
When hunting for secrets and scandal during the London season, then
there is really only one place to go: the opera.
All those people dressed up in their finery, packed in tight, pretending
to watch the drama onstage while actually watching each other? The
place is a perfect hotbed for intrigue.
Which is precisely why I was there.
I’ve always thought the Royal Opera House looks like something
from a confectioner’s window, all white and gilt, as if those scrolling
acanthus leaves were piped out of sugar paste – good enough to eat.
Then there are the boxes full of plush crimson velvet seats, one hundred
and twenty-one of them, arranged in golden splendour in a towering
horseshoe shape, beneath a soaring domed ceiling. When the place is
full it holds almost two thousand people – two thousand pairs of eager
eyes, two thousand gleeful voices breathless with gossip. It’s quite
something.
“Izzy,” a voice rang out then, close to my ear. “Isn’t that the Earl of
Rathmore over there? Because if it is, that’s definitely not his wife with
him.”
Teresa Wynter has been my best friend for eighteen years, and she is
many things, but subtle is not one of them. If the carrying sound of her
voice or the infectious charm of her wide grin wasn’t enough to draw
attention, then the eye-watering lemon yellow of the gown that she
wore would certainly do the trick (“It looked much more of a pale
primrose at the dressmaker’s, Iz, I’m sure it did…”). Several heads
swung towards the box where we were sitting to stare in our direction.
Or perhaps I should say to stare in her direction. Those gazes slid right
past me. As usual, I was little more than a shadow, barely a flicker
somewhere in society’s peripheral vision. Which, actually, was perfect
for my needs.
When you worked for a secret agency of female investigators, being
invisible was something of an advantage.
“Eh?” The noise came from Teresa’s Great-Aunt Louisa, who seemed
to shudder to life for a moment, sitting upright in her red velvet seat.
“What was that?” She eyed us suspiciously. Whenever she roused
herself it was usually to make her disapproval of our conversation felt.
Teresa’s smile was angelic. “Nothing, Aunt.”
Louisa sniffed but returned to her dozing without further comment.
Teresa’s great-aunt was a lady of advanced years, deaf as a post, and
seemingly happy to fall asleep anywhere. In other words, she was the
perfect chaperone, particularly for Teresa. My friend always maintained
she had been born about eighty years too late because she’d most
certainly have had a tawdry affair with Lord Byron given half the
chance. I absolutely believed this claim, and I’m not sure Byron would
have known what had hit him.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about Lady Rathmore,” I whispered
back to Teresa once Louisa had definitely settled. “I hear she got fed up
of her husband’s infidelities and has gone on an extended tour of
Europe with a certain handsome young footman.”
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