Even though I was working—and still am—on the next “big” novel starring Jamie and Claire, Lord John’s adventures in London in 1757 kept evolving, growing more complex and fascinating with each page. Set during the time just after Lord John has left Jamie Fraser at Helwater as a Jacobite prisoner of war, Lord John and the Private Matter is an interpolation: part of the OUTLANDER series, and taking place within its timeline—but focused on an adventure separate from the lives of the main characters.

So I hope you will enjoy this trip through the darker side of London life in the company of Scottish whores, plumed Huns, reprobate Sergeants, Irish apothecaries, transvestite spies . . . and Lord John.

Slainte mhath!

—Diana

P.S. If you’ve been reading the OUTLANDER novels, you probably already know that “Slainte mhath!” means “To your very good health!” in Gaelic, but I thought I’d mention it, just in case. (You normally say this while drinking whisky, but if you want to drink whisky while reading this book, I think that’s fine, and I’m sure Lord John wouldn’t mind, either.)

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

When First We Practice
to Deceive

London, June 1757
The Society for the Appreciation of
the English Beefsteak, a Gentlemen’s Club

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.

Trevelyan had left the privacy of the Chinese screen before Lord John, unaware of the latter’s discovery. The Honorable Joseph stood across the dining room now, deep in conversation with Lord Hanley and Mr. Pitt, the very picture of taste and sober elegance. Shallow in the chest, Grey thought uncharitably—though the suit of puce superfine was beautifully tailored to flatter the man’s slenderness. Spindle-shanked, too; Trevelyan shifted weight, and a shadow winked on his left leg, where the pad of the downy-calf he wore had shifted under a clocked silk stocking.