Mischief in Regency Society: To Catch a Rogue. Amanda McCabe

Chase, will take the minutes.”

      Slowly, all the teacups and plates of cakes were lowered to laps and tabletops, and the members of the Society turned their attention to their founder and president. Bright sunlight flowed from the tall windows of the drawing room of the Chases’ townhouse, warm and bright after the chilly misery of the night before, casting pastel spencers and muslin gowns in a brilliant light. Everything in the fashionably appointed room was just as expected—the ladies seated in pretty groupings of chairs and settees, china tea sets, silver services, hovering housemaids, the soft sound of Mozart from the pianoforte in the corner.

      All expected and proper. Except for one thing. Behind Calliope, set high on its pedestal, was a marble statue of Apollo. An anatomically correct, completely naked statue of Apollo.

      But then, what else could be looked for in a house belonging to the famous scholar of Greek history, Sir Walter Chase? A house where his nine daughters, named after the Greek Muses, resided and pursued their own, not always completely ladylike, interests.

      Calliope, the eldest of the Chase Muses at age twenty-one, was also not all that was expected. She was quite attractive, taking after her late mother’s French family with her black hair and brown eyes, her flawless fair skin; and those good looks—with the Chase fortune—had attracted more than a few offers from very eligible partis. Yet she had turned them all down. “They just don’t care about history and antiquities,” she told her father, and he immediately agreed that those young men would never do for one of the Chase Muses.

      She also cared little for fashion or for dancing or cards, preferring to spend her time in study, or in conversation about her studies with like-minded people.

      That was why she founded the Ladies Artistic Society in the first place, so that she and her sisters could reach out to other females with more on their minds than hemlines and hats. “Surely there must be others like us here in London,” she told her sister Clio. “You know—ladies who wish they could take books with them to pass the dull hours at Almack’s.”

      And so there were. Their membership now included two of their friends, along with the three eldest Chase daughters (the other six still being in the schoolroom, and therefore members-in-waiting). There was also a waiting list, though Calliope suspected that many of those just wanted a glimpse of Apollo. They met once a week during the Season to talk about history, literature, art, music. Often a guest lecturer, provided by the Muses’ father, would speak, or a painter would give a demonstration. Sometimes they would just discuss amongst themselves a book read or an opera seen, or Thalia, the third Chase sister and an ardent musician, would perform a scandalous, passionate Beethoven piece.

      Not today, though. Today there was very serious business to discuss, and obviously everyone discerned that from the stiff set of Calliope’s shoulders in her white muslin day dress. A hush fell over the bright room, all clinkings and rustlings stilled. Even Thalia ceased playing the pianoforte, swivelling around to face her sister.

      Calliope lifted up a copy of the Post, pointing at a black, shrieking headline: The Lily Thief Returns!

      “It has been many weeks since this criminal struck,” Calliope said softly. Her voice was quiet, but she felt her cheeks burn with the force of her inner anger. Many weeks—and she had thought the Lily Thief gone, vanished like so many other ephemeral sensations in Society. A two-day scandal, and then something else, an elopement or divorce, or other such harmless trifle. “I suppose he realised that attention was drifting from his foul deeds.”

      Her sister Clio glanced up from the minutes, her auburn brow arched above the gilt frames of her spectacles. Clio said nothing, though. Merely went back to her note-taking. It was Lady Emmeline Saunders who spoke. “Perhaps the Lily Thief has very good reasons for what he does.”

      “Reasons such as profit and riches?” Thalia cried from her piano. Her golden curls, so shiny and pretty, trembled with indignation. Thalia might look like a china shepherdess, but she had the heart of a gladiator. And that accounted for the many scrapes she always found herself in. “I am sure he saw a pretty penny from the sale of Lord Egermont’s Euphronios krater and the Clives’ Bastet statue.”

      “Antiquities have more than a monetary value, you know,” Clio said quietly. “Something their previous owners seemed to have lost sight of.”

      “Of course they do,” Calliope said. “And that is what makes the exploits of this Lily Thief so heinous. Who knows where these objects have gone, or if they will ever be seen again? We will have no access to the lessons they could teach us. It is a terrible loss to scholarship.”

      Clio bent her head back over her notes, murmuring low enough for only Calliope to hear, “As if there was much scholarship going on in Lady Tenbray’s library.”

      “The Lily Thief does not just steal money or jewels, as a common burglar would. Objects that could easily be replaced,” Calliope said. “He steals history.”

      The other Society members glanced at each other. Finally, Emmeline raised her hand again. “What must we do about this, Calliope? Perhaps engage a don from Cambridge to speak on cultural thefts?”

      “Or tomb-raiding!” cried Miss Charlotte Price, the youngest and most excitable of the Society. She had an unfortunate predilection for reading horrid novels, but her father was a friend of Sir Walter Chase. He hoped the Society would help her expand her horizons. So far the hope was in vain, but one never knew. “I did read about a cursed tomb robber in The Baron’s Revenge—”

      “Yes, indeed,” Calliope said, interrupting smoothly before Lotty could be carried off into a rambling synopsis. “But I have something rather more—personal in mind.”

      “Personal?” the others chorused.

      “Yes.” Calliope placed her palms flat on the table before her, leaning towards her audience. “We are going to catch the Lily Thief ourselves.”

      A great sigh went up, floating to the plaster-ceiling medallion in a wave of exclamation.

      “Oh, how very thrilling!” trilled Charlotte. “Just like The Curse of Lady Arabella—”

      “We are to turn amateur sleuths?” Thalia said, clapping her hands. “What a marvellous idea!”

      “Indeed,” agreed Emmeline. “Scholastic inquiry is all very well, but sometimes we need to move.”

      Clio’s pen stilled, her brows drawn down in a puzzled vee. “How do you propose we go about this task, Calliope? If even the Bow Street Runners could not find the Lily Thief…”

      Honestly, Calliope had not thought quite that far ahead. The idea of taking action themselves had only occurred to her at breakfast that morning, as she read the papers in mounting anger over the harmful exploits of that show-off Lily Thief. She had some vague notion that, as ladies of the ton, they could move about more freely and with far more stealth than those Runners. They could listen and observe with no one being the wiser, and perhaps catch the villain at a vulnerable moment.

      For she was sure of one thing—the Lily Thief was a member of the ton. He had to be, to possess such knowledge of the houses and schedules of lords and ladies. But she was not entirely sure how to begin catching him in their net.

      “I suggest,” she said slowly, “that we begin with last night’s theft of the Etruscan diadem. Was anyone at Lady Tenbray’s rout?” Calliope herself had not been, turning down the invitation to what was sure to be a dull crush to attend the theatre with her father. Macbeth, she had thought, was sure to be more exciting. If only she had known the Lily Thief was to strike again!

      Clio and Thalia were of no help, having chosen to stay home with their studies. There must have been someone there whose observations she could trust!

      Finally, Emmeline raised her hand again. “I was there, but I noticed nothing untoward, I fear.”

      “No one behaving oddly at all?” Calliope asked hopefully.

      “Just Freddie Mountbank,” Emmeline answered. “But then, what does one expect