I blinked, wrenched back to the bookshop here and now.

Thomas Hatchard stood before me. He bowed elegantly, his sober garb a copy of his father’s well-known uniform of black frock coat and plain waistcoat buttoned to the throat. “A pleasure to see you again, and Lady Julia,” he said.

Thomas was John Hatchard’s second son, and as much a vehement abolitionist as his father. We had formed our acquaintanceship at Mr. Wilberforce’s meetings and, through mutual outrage and a similar wry sense of the world, had developed a friendship despite our age difference. It was, on occasion, a disquieting thought that I was old enough to be his mother.

“Did you receive my order, Mr. Hatchard?” I asked, lifting my brows. I had sent him a message to solicit his help, along with a package to aid our departure. But was he willing to help?

“I did, indeed, Lady Augusta, and I believe we can fulfill the entire order,” he said, with a small smile. Although an earnest young man, he was, I think, enjoying the intrigue. Besides, Hatchards was famed for exerting the utmost effort to satisfy its customers, whatever the request. “Please, come this way.”

“How delightful to see you, Lady Julia,” an all-too-familiar voice called across the shop. We both swung around abruptly to face Mrs. Ellis-Brant, my friend Charlotte’s cousin by marriage. She was already bustling toward us past the busy central counter, orange and blue feathers bobbing upon her neat cottage hat.

“Oh Lud, it is the Ermine,” Julia murmured. I stifled a snort. I had once mentioned to Julia that I thought Mrs. Ellis-Brant looked like the sleek, dissatisfied ermine in the Da Vinci painting, and the name had taken hold.

“And Lady Augusta, as hale and hearty as ever,” Mrs. Ellis-Brant said, approaching with her rodent smile. She curtsied, which we acknowledged with nods, then she leaned in and whispered, “Are you well again, Lady Julia? It was such a shock when you swooned at dear Charlotte’s dinner party.”

Julia’s polite smile stiffened. A few months ago, she had mistaken the dosage of her blue mass pills and had fainted in Charlotte’s drawing room. Although, in all truth, I feared it might have been more than that.

“As I said on the night, it was only the aftereffect of a migraine,” Julia said. “But thank you for your concern.”

“Of course, and I have not said a word to anyone about it, just as dear Charlotte asked,” the Ermine said, which meant she had told her intimates and anyone else in earshot. She turned her attention upon me, collusion in her eyes. “I remember you asking about Lady Hester Belford that evening.”

I had, indeed, shamefully exploited the woman’s love of gossip to discover the story around Lord Evan’s sister. And it seemed I was about to do so again. “Yes, you thought she had run off with a companion.”