After each halting step, they paused to remark upon this window or that cloud overhead or this section of pavement or that blade of grass. At this rate, it would take an hour to travel one hundred yards.

Which was exactly the plan.

If anyone glimpsed them from a window or a passing carriage, all they would see was an elderly couple doing exactly nothing. She and Philippa were conspicuous enough not to look furtive and ordinary enough to register as little more than part of the scenery.

“Are you certain the basket isn’t too heavy?” Tommy quavered in an irascible-old-man voice. “I can carry it and give you the cane.”

“I’m not your sister,” Philippa replied in a surprisingly convincing old-lady voice. “If trouble comes, I wouldn’t have the least notion what to do with a sword stick. Other than drop it at my feet and run screaming. Besides, this basket weighs little. You didn’t spend your youth toting large stacks of books up and down countless stairs.”

Tommy grinned at the idea that beneath Philippa’s soft, voluptuous curves lay a hidden core of muscle. She was like a sword stick. Pretty on the outside and dangerously capable beneath. Tommy yearned to unsheathe the blade and gaze upon its beauty.

“Are you certain your sister won’t miss her cane?” Philippa asked.

Tommy scoffed. “Her dressing room contains an entire armory of sword sticks and who knows what else. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn she wears chain mail over her shift.”

“All the more reason for her to care very much,” Philippa said. “I own many books, and each one is precious to me.”

“You wouldn’t loan one to a friend?”

“Only if I could trust her to return it in the same condition.”

“I have returned every sword stick I’ve ever borrowed, and never in a condition soap and water couldn’t cure. If Elizabeth is disgruntled about anything, it is that she rarely has cause to use the hidden rapier.”

“‘Rarely’?” Philippa’s eyes widened. “You mean she really does attack people?”

“Only when they deserve it,” Tommy assured her.

They were ever so slowly drawing closer to the rooms of the Electi Society for the Intellectually Elite. Coaches occasionally passed, but she and Philippa were the only pedestrians on the street. It was impossible to know where Graham was at this moment. Somewhere on the roofs overhead. He’d identified a likely entrance point days ago.

“‘Intellectually elite,’” Philippa muttered. “All they do is smoke cigars and drink port. I’d like to exchange all of the books in their library for replicas with blank pages and see how long those pretentious geniuses take to notice the difference.”

“That is good to know,” Tommy murmured back. “I was wondering what gift to give you for Christmas.”