The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1)

by Mackenzi Lee

We find the bank on the high street. It’s a classical building with a marbled interior and rows of wooden-barred windows lining the perimeter, a wigged clerk behind each. The sounds of red heels and brass-tipped canes click like dice against the stone. “If we don’t act soon, they’re going to think we’re scouting the place for a robbery,” Felicity says after we’ve spent a half of an hour in the lobby, doing what can only be termed lurking. “We could tell them the truth,” Percy suggests. “Yes, but we’ve only one chance,” she replies, “and the truth is a bit too preposterous to be convincing. Alchemical puzzle boxes and all that.” I’m hardly listening to them—I’ve spent most of the while we’ve been loitering watching the clerk at the window nearest to the door, and after close scrutiny of his last few interactions, I’m fairly certain he and I have a big thing in common. When you are a lad who enjoys getting other lads in bed, you have to develop a rather fastidious sense for who plays the same instrument or there’s a chance you’ll find yourself at the business end of a hangman’s knot. And if this fellow and I had met at a bar, I would have already bought him a drink and put his fingers in my mouth. It’s a great risk—I’m not so much jumping to a conclusion as vaulting haphazardly to it—but, somehow, I know. “Stay here,” I say. “What are you doing?” Felicity hisses at me as I start across the lobby. “Helping.” I check myself in one of the mirrors lining the hall, ruffle my hair...