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Rivals in the City: A Mary Quinn Mystery

Page 22

by Y. S. Lee

James hesitated. “I’m embarrassed now to confess that I am somewhat jealous of him.”

  Mary shot him an incredulous look. “Of my cousin?”

  “I didn’t know about the family connection; Mrs Frame simply told me that you were ‘intimate’ with a young Chinese man.”

  “That’s cheap emotional leverage. You know better than to fall for that.”

  “In theory, of course. But it’s quite different when it actually happens.” He paused. “Besides, cousins often marry.”

  “Well, despite the continued popularity of first-cousin marriage, it holds no interest for me.”

  “No? He’s handsome and strikingly talented. And he could offer you the exciting life you so enjoy. Just think: you could wear breeches every day and never see my housekeeper again.”

  “It sounds terribly appealing, when you put it that way,” said Mary, “but I’m afraid I’m still rather partial to you.”

  “Partial!” He feigned a wounded look. “One is partial to jam, or to three-volume novels.”

  “Fond?” she offered, with a smile.

  “Of a puppy, or a distant uncle?”

  “All right.” Mary swung around to face him, taking both his hands and halting him mid-step. “James Easton, I am fervently, passionately, utterly, scandalously in love with you.”

  He went utterly silent and still.

  After a few moments, Mary laughed nervously. “James? A response would be nice.”

  His voice was half strangled. “You’ve never said that – anything like that – before.”

  “I didn’t think it needed saying.”

  “It didn’t. But I’m beyond glad you did.” The hitch in his voice made her tremble. “As for a response, all I can think to do is kiss you blind, here in the middle of the street, until we’re arrested for public indecency.”

  Every nerve in her body rose up. Her skin prickled with heat. After a moment, she managed to say, “All our hard work. Propriety and formal courtship and such.”

  “Please, Mary, I want nothing more than to marry you. I want us to be one. How much longer must we wait?”

  Mary paused. “‘Man and wife’?”

  James caught the slight edge in her tone. “Yes, ‘man and wife’. And therein the difficulty lies.”

  Mary clasped his arm and they resumed walking. “It’s not a difficulty with you,” she said. “I’m unreasonably confident that, as my husband, you will continue to treat me with respect. You will not impose your opinions upon me –”

  “As if such a thing might be possible,” interrupted James.

  “– or expect unquestioning obedience.”

  “I would never have such fantastical delusions of my own power,” he murmured.

  “Hush!” said Mary, with a laugh.

  “I hear and obey.”

  “You didn’t! You spoke!”

  James smiled and sealed his lips with a dramatic gesture.

  “My difficulty is with the legal arrangements,” said Mary. “Why should all my worldly goods automatically become yours upon our marriage? More importantly, why should we be man and wife, with me as yet another of your household chattels?”

  They walked in silence for a few minutes. At last, James said quietly, “I haven’t good answers to those questions. I suppose I could promise always to treat you as an equal and to take utmost care with your possessions. But that doesn’t address the real difficulty. Mary, I’m keenly aware that if you choose to marry me, you are taking all the risk. I receive all the benefit. I retain all the power. And as such, I have no right to press you on the subject.

  “This is but a weak answer, for there is no strong position I can take. But it is my hope that together we can create the sort of marriage that will, one day, be usual and customary. We will respect and advise and assist one another. We will be equal partners.

  “If you can find it within yourself to trust me, in such an effort…” James stopped and took both her hands in his. “Mary, you know I hope you will. But I can also see how, as a woman who prizes her hard-won independence, this may be too great a sacrifice. Perhaps I am asking too much.” His gaze was sombre, his hands gentle. “All I can ask is that you give it your consideration. And I promise that I will accept your decision without complaint.”

  Mary blinked back a tear. “Thank you, James. I will consider it … for the next ten minutes.”

  James looked visibly surprised at this time constraint, but seemed not to trust his voice. He offered her his arm and they continued to walk, leaving the confines of Russell Square and pacing silently up Woburn Place. They looked precisely like what they were: a courting couple taking the air of a late morning. They also looked nothing like what they were: a pair of radicals, quietly at war with their society.

  After several minutes, Mary stopped walking. She turned to face James, who looked at her with very real trepidation. “Well?”

  “I ought to be asking you that question,” said James. His voice was husky.

  “What’s in your pockets?”

  He obediently performed a small inventory. “Handkerchief, penknife, pencil, billfold, two shillings and six, a penny stamp … and this.” He pulled from his breast pocket a thick sheet of paper covered with spidery handwriting. He showed it to her and Mary saw, with a pang, that his hands were trembling. “A marriage licence. I, er, got it this morning. Before coming to see you.”

  “Wasn’t that a trifle presumptuous?”

  He offered her a shadow of his usual arrogant grin. “Optimistic, I’ll grant you.” He presented it to her. “Well? Aren’t you going to tear it up?”

  “Have you noticed where we are?”

  James blinked and looked around him. They were standing at the foot of the steps to St Pancras Church. He smiled weakly. “Mary? Are you planning to torture me for much longer?”

  She looped her arm through his once again, and lightly tugged him up the first step. “I suppose it depends upon one’s definition of ‘much longer’.”

  He followed her warily. “And yours comprises…?”

  She gave him her sweetest, sunniest smile. “How about the rest of our lives?”

  OTHER MARY QUINN MYSTERIES

  May 1858

  A foul-smelling heat wave paralyzes London. Mary enters a rich merchant’s household to solve the mystery of his lost cargo ships. But as she soon learns, the house is full of deceptions, and people are not what they seem – including Mary herself.

  The first book in this riveting Victorian detective quartet

  July 1859

  A bricklayer falls to his death from the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament – the most recent horror in a string of scandals that plagues the building site. With the British people eagerly watching the installation of Big Ben, Mary Quinn disguises herself as a twelve-year-old boy labourer to uncover the grim truth. Her fellow workers are suspicious. Mary’s secret past distracts her. And then James Easton returns…

  The second book in this riveting Victorian detective quartet

  February 1860

  A series of petty thefts takes place at Buckingham Palace. Mary Quinn, disguised as a domestic servant to Queen Victoria, is on the case. At first it seems simple enough – until a friend of the Prince of Wales is murdered in scandalous circumstances. Meanwhile, James Easton’s engineering firm is repairing the sewers beneath the Palace and a mysterious tunnel is discovered. Mary’s struggles seem insurmountable and she risks losing everything in

  the third book in this riveting Victorian detective quartet

  Y. S. Lee was born in Singapore, raised in Vancouver and Toronto, and lived for a spell in London. As Ying completed her PhD in Victorian literature and culture, she began to research a story about a women’s detective agency. The result was A Spy in the House, her debut novel. Mary Quinn’s adventures continue in The Body at the Tower and The Traitor and the Tunnel. Rivals in the City is the final book in the Mary Quinn quartet.

  Ying now lives in Kingston, Ontario. She blogs weekly a
t www.yslee.com.

  OTHER MARY QUINN NOVELS

  A Spy in the House

  The Body at the Tower

  The Traitor and the Tunnel

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any other kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated, as they may result in injury.

  First published in Great Britain 2014 by Walker Books Ltd

  87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ

  Text © 2014 by Y. S. Lee

  Cover illustration © 2014 Walker Books

  Image of figure © George Doyle/Stockbyte/Getty Images

  Image of British Museum © Mary Evans/Interfoto

  The right of Y. S. Lee to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988c

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:

  a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-4063-4721-0 (ePub)

  www.walker.co.uk

 

 

 


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