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reluctantly. “But I won’t get much out of them with you along.”
    “Why not?” Andrew asked. “With three, it will go thrice as fast.”
    “With Claire in her nice white blouse and you in your brocade waistcoat, everyone will just think you’re slumming. Airmen are a chummy bunch. They’ll close ranks on you.”
    “Give me a moment to change,” Claire said, “and we’ll see about that.”
    In her raiding rig, with the lightning rifle in its holster on her back, it would be a rare man indeed who would mistake her for a fine lady.
    Something else she must make sure never got back to Mama.
     

Chapter 5
     
    Andrew kept glancing at her sideways as they made their way to the Crown and Compass, the honkytonk that the ground crew around the Lass insisted was the place to begin inquiries about anyone. Finally, as if his curiosity could not be contained, he said, “You brought fancy d goress all this way?”
    Claire thought back to what must be the only occasion he had ever seen her in her rig—the costume ball she had attended with James at the Wellesleys, when James had upbraided her for showing her legs in their striped stockings in public. “It isn’t fancy dress,” she said briskly. “It is a very practical rig, and the corselet provides a foundation for the rifle’s holster.”
    “Which you do not intend to fire, I hope.”
    “Certainly not. Unless we find ourselves in some danger.”
    “If we do, I will handle it and you ladies will seek safety.”
    Claire and Alice exchanged a glance of amusement. “That is very gallant of you, Andrew, but you must know by now that Alice and I are quite capable of protecting ourselves.”
    Andrew cleared his throat and held the Crown’s door open, nearly shouting over the roar of the crowd and the notes of the pianoforte playing something fast and loose. “When it comes to fisticuffs—if it does—I insist you leave the protecting to me.”
    Alice leaned close to shout in Claire’s ear. “I ain’t never had a gentleman offer to protect me before. Maybe I’ll start a fight just to see it.”
    “You shall not, you rascal. We are here to gather information, not start fights.”
    Smiling, Alice bellied up to the bar and ordered tawny-colored drinks that came in tiny glasses. Claire would have preferred lemonade, but to order such a thing in here would have negated the effect of her raiding rig and drawn unwelcome attention.
    As it was, the rambunctious crowd ignored them. A table full of airmen sang along with the songstress next to the piano forte. Men at several tables played cards—cowboy poker, if she wasn’t mistaken. Ooh, what an excellent opportunity to strike up a conversation—and gain some ready money in the absence of a bank!
    “I’m going to join a card table,” she told Andrew, and swiped the third drink.
    “You’re what?”
    But she didn’t wait to explain—or ask his permission. While Alice dragged him, protesting, toward a crowd of airmen on the far side, she pulled up an empty stool and smiled beguilingly at the dealer. “Deal me in?”
    “What’s your stake? Here at the Crown w e take gold and diamonds, and paper if that’s all you got.”
    “I have none, unless—” She pulled the raja’s emerald off the fourth finger of her right hand. “This is gold. Will it do?”
    “Close enough.” The dealer tossed her legacy from her grandmother into the center of the table and dealt her in.
    Within a few minutes, Claire realized that she might be just the tiniest bit out of her league. Of all the variations of cowboy poker that she and the boys in the cottage had fabricated, she had not yet seen this one. She must remember, when things calmed down a little, to diagram it out and send it to Vauxhall Gardens on a pigeon. Snouts and his merry band of gamblers would make a forctid make tune and confound the denizens of Percy Street in one fell swoop.
    But she must not think about London. She must concentrate.
    Too late, her ring met its