Lord John and the Private Matter

Начало книги

It was the sort of thing one hopes momentarily that one has not really seen—because life would be so much more convenient if one hadn’t.

The thing was scarcely shocking in itself; Lord John Grey had seen worse, could see worse now, merely by stepping out of the Beefsteak into the street. The flower girl who’d sold him a bunch of violets on his way into the club had had a half-healed gash on the back of her hand, crusted and oozing. The doorman, a veteran of the Americas, had a livid tomahawk scar that ran from hairline to jaw, bisecting the socket of a blinded eye. By contrast, the sore on the Honorable Joseph Trevelyan’s privy member was quite small. Almost discreet.

“Not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a door,” Grey muttered to himself. “But it will suffice. Damn it.”

He emerged from behind the Chinese screen, lifting the violets to his nose. Their sweetness was no match for the pungent scent that followed him from the piss-pots. It was early June, and the Beefsteak, like every other establishment in London, reeked of beer and asparagus-pee.

Читать дальше →