A Sanctuary for Soulden (The Lords of Bucknall Club Book 4) by J.A. Rock & Lisa Henry

Author:J.A. Rock & Lisa Henry [Rock, J.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2021-12-27T18:30:00+00:00

After dealing with his least favourite Frenchman, Soulden was relieved to deal with his favourite. To call M. Verreau simply a tailor was to do him a disservice. His shop in Jermyn Street was a modern marvel. It sold not only coats and pantaloons, but also hats and handkerchiefs and boots and gloves. M. Verreau was a revolutionary, but only when it came to fashion. Politically, he was a royalist through and through, and more than once he had introduced Soulden to trustworthy émigrés who still had valuable connections in France. Which was, Soulden reminded himself wryly, technically an ally—but not if Bonaparte had his way. The bloody man didn’t know when he was beaten.

M. Verreau, also very fortunately for Soulden, lived in the rooms above his shop.

“Ah, my lord!” he said when he opened the door, blinking out into the darkness. He clicked his tongue and shook his head. “A bath! I will have the boy get you a bath!”

Soulden might have argued that he had no time to waste, but he truly did feel filthy.

The water in the tub that the boy, grumbling about the late hour, set up in front of M. Verreau’s fireplace was only lukewarm when Soulden lowered himself into it. He didn’t care. It was a relief to be clean.

“Well, then,” M. Verreau said, tucking a pencil behind his ear. “If you are here, then you cannot go home. What is it that you need?”

Home.

Soulden felt a jolt of guilt as he thought not of his house in Mayfair, but of the estate in Kent. No. There would be no going home, not to Kent, and not to his place in Town either. If he was being watched, and of course he was, then why make it easier for the bastards?

Soulden winced as he ran a soapy cloth over his shoulders and the stitches pulled. Edmund had said he’d take them out before Soulden left. He caught M. Verreau’s eye.

“Excellent stitches,” Verreau said approvingly. “Whoever sewed such fine stitches would make an excellent glove maker.”

“I shall let him know when I see him next,” Soulden said, and tried not to recall the likelihood that he would never see Edmund again. When all this was over he ought to send him a hamper or something, so that he and Fitz could feast like kings for days. He wanted to smile at the image, but he could not. Edmund had given him far more than could be repaid with a hamper. Edmund had given him a part of himself, and that was a gift Soulden could never match. No, it was better to try to forget him. Their paths would not cross again.

“I’m going to Bucknall’s,” he said, “so I’ll need to look the part.”

“Of course,” Verreau said. “And you shall. Down to the handkerchief, my lord.”

’ankerchif.

He thought of Aumont again, and of the childish urge that had risen in him tonight to laugh at his accent. The first time he’d done that, Aumont had shoved him so hard he’d fallen backward into a puddle, his arms windmilling.

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