Author Elizabeth Hoyt has an excerpt of her forthcoming Thief of Shadows (July 2012) up at her website—take a peek at the beginning, and then continue on to ElizabethHoyt.com to read more!
London, England
February, 1737The body in the road was the absolute cap to the day.
Isabel Beckinhall—Baroness Beckinhall—sighed silently to herself. Her carriage had come to a standstill in the worst part of London—the dirty streets of St. Giles. And why was she in St. Giles as dark descended? Because she’d volunteered to represent the Ladies’ Syndicate for the Benefit of the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children at the final inspection of the new home, more fool she.
Never volunteer. Not even when pleasantly filled with warm scones and hot tea. Warm scones were obviously the work of the devil or perhaps of Lady Hero Reading, one of the two founding patronesses of the home. Lady Hero had refilled her teacup and looked at Isabel with guileless gray eyes, asking prettily if Isabel would mind meeting with Mr. Winter Makepeace, the home’s dour manager, to look over the new building. And Isabel had blithely agreed like some scone-filled, mindless cow.
And the damned man hadn’t even shown!
“Moo,” Isabel muttered to herself just as the carriage door opened to admit her lady’s maid, Pinkney.
