Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly

Author:Lara Elena Donnelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

The Kelly Club was a set of second-story rooms on Orchard Street, just off Ionidous Avenue. The avenue was distinct from the arch; cocooned in the fashionable central city, Loendler Park boasted the patronage of wealth and beauty. Ionidous Avenue ran straight through the heart of the financial district. The Kelly Club had wealth, but lacked elegance.

The club was within walking distance—strenuous walking distance—of Cyril’s flat, and he’d gone there a few times in years past. He hadn’t been recently. They’d done the place up, polished the brass, et cetera, but Cyril still caught a whiff of old cigar smoke. Probably the same stale stuff he’d wrinkled his nose at the last time he came around.

There was a pack of razors at the bar, talking textile futures. They ignored Müller’s entrance, but when Cyril helped Cordelia out of her coat, they roused a chorus of wolf whistles. Cordelia flicked her skirt at the offenders, and chased it with a vixen’s smile.

The high ceilings bounced sound, but the tables were nearly filled. So many people were murmuring to one another, the effect of the echo was more obscuring than revealing.

“Table in the rear,” Cyril told the maitre d’, and she took them to a booth in the corner. He stood back and let Cordelia slip in. Müller settled beside her—not too close, Cyril noted, but close enough their feet could be doing who knew what under the table.

“What are we having?” Cyril asked, hanging Cordelia’s coat from one of the booth’s hooks, and hanging his own over it. He topped the column with his trilby, at a jaunty angle.

“They serve a good Maleno vintage,” said Müller.

“Hang it,” said Cordelia, “I don’t know port from nothing. They got gin back there?”

“A dry white’ll do for the lady,” said Müller.

Cyril, who was inclined to agree with “the lady,” resolved to have the same. At the bar, he squeezed past a hefty razor in her shirtsleeves and a backless waistcoat. She cased him and growled appreciatively.

“Sorry,” he told her. “I’m here with company.”

She cast her eyes whence he had come. “The old eagle or the pretty young jay?”

“And if I said both?”

“You’d put me in a twist,” she said. “I couldn’t straight envy you, but I wouldn’t give you any pity either.”

He propped a foot up on the bar rail. “What’s good here?”

“Not a port drinker?”

“I prefer whiskey,” he said.

“Are you a rye man, or do you like barley?”

“Rye, when I have a choice.”

She slid her schooner down the bar. “Try that beauty. Babe turned me on to it.” One of her companions saluted. “Thirty-year tawny. You’re gonna think it’s sweet, but give it a chance.”

He lifted it to his nose and barely smelled it, then took a sip to be polite. It was too sweet, but he could see where she was coming from. The butterscotch and nutmeg notes were reminiscent of a good, dark rye.

“All right,” he said. Then, to the bartender, “One of those. And the Maleno. And … oh, whichever dry white you like.

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