BY GAIL CARRIGER

The Parasol Protectorate

Soulless

Changeless

Blameless

Heartless

Timeless

The Custard Protocol

Prudence

“Lord Akeldama, I will not have you involving my daughter in some seedy tea extraction mission!”

Dama sat back, affronted. “My darling girl.”

Rue leapt to his defence. “When has Dama ever done anything even remotely seedy?”

“Of course, infant, permit me to rephrase. I will not allow you to involve my daughter in some stylish tea extraction mission, either.”

“Could we say ‘stylish tea infusion mission’?” Dama suggested meekly.

Rue was not going to let her mother coerce her Dama. She mounted a secondary defence. “Pish-tosh, Mother. May I kindly remind you that I am all grown up and perfectly capable of making my own tea-related decisions.”

“Like rampaging around London in your bloomers?”

“I wasn’t in human form, no one knew it was me. At least, not until the tether to Uncle Rabiffano snapped.”

“So it was you? Oh dear me, the scandal! You’ll have to retire to the countryside until it blows over at the very least. How will we keep this out of the popular press?”

Rue felt like stamping her foot, but didn’t on principal. “Of course it was me. And I will certainly not go to the countryside.”

“I hope you learnt something from this,” said her mother, looking a little hopeless.

“Frankly, all I learnt is that I must give up bloomers. Perhaps a short silk underskirt would work better? It’s the tail, you see, it rips the seams.”

COPYRIGHT

Published by Orbit

978-1-4055-1560-3

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Tofa Borregaard

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Excerpt from God Save the Queen by Kate Locke

Copyright © 2012 by Kathryn Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

ORBIT

Little, Brown Book Group

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London, EC4Y 0DY

Prudence

Table of Contents

• By Gail Carriger
• COPYRIGHT
• CHAPTER ONE:The Sacred Snuff Box
• CHAPTER TWO:For Queen and Custard
• CHAPTER THREE:Rue’s Problem with Redheads
• CHAPTER FOUR:A Floating Custard
• CHAPTER FIVE:The Maltese Tower
• CHAPTER SIX:A Lioness in a Teahouse
• CHAPTER SEVEN:Honeysuckle Isinglass’s Secrets Revealed
• CHAPTER EIGHT:In Which Percy Encounters a Pepper
• CHAPTER NINE:Rakshasas
• CHAPTER TEN:Vanara
• CHAPTER ELEVEN:The Shape of Things to Come
• CHAPTER TWELVE:Hijacking an Elephant Head
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN:Monkey Hijinks
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN:Ladybirds to the Rescue
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN:Weremonkeys in Dressing-Gowns
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN:In Which Tea Solves Everything
• Acknowledgements
• Advertisement
• extras
• about the author
• GOD SAVE THE QUEEN
• Advertisement

CHAPTER ONE

THE SACRED SNUFF BOX