“I should be tempted to let him stew in his own juices . . .,” began the Major, but a sharp look from Grentham speared him to silence.
The minister fingered one of the leather document cases piled on his desk. “Given the current situation, it is imperative—imperative—that we ascertain whether foul play was involved. What with the upcoming arrival of the Allied delegation and our troubles with the upstart Americans, the death of the Prince Regent could be catastrophic for the interests of England.”
The assistant instinctively backed into the shadows of the dark oak filing cabinets, though he had a feeling that the basilisk stare of his superior could see straight through to the deepest coal-black pit of hell.
“And so,” he mused, “however unpleasant a task, we must extract the truth from this sticky mess.”
Jenkins gave a sickly smile, unsure whether the minister had just attempted a witticism.
“The question is, who among our operatives is best equipped to handle such an investigation.” Grentham pursed his lips. “Any suggestions?”
The Major quickly shot a look at Jenkins.
“Well, milord, I . . . I . . .”
“Spit it out, man,” ordered the Major. “We haven’t got all day.”
Sweat beaded on the assistant’s brow, though his throat remained bone-dry. “I was just going to say, perhaps one of our Peninsular allies might prove u-u-useful. Seeing as it was the Spanish who brought cacao to Europe from the New World, it would seem logical that they would be the most knowledgeable on the subject.”
Grentham looked thoughtful.
The Major’s gaze narrowed to a crafty squint. “Yes, I was just going to say that I think it an excellent idea to look outside our own circle of intelligence officers,” he said quickly. “They are all personally acquainted with the Prince, and we wouldn’t want any question of impartiality to color the conclusion of the investigation. I mean, sir, if anything were to . . .” He let his voice trail off.
Grentham flashed a semblance of a smile. “Good God, I may actually have a body or two around me with a brain.” Setting down his pen, he contemplated his well-manicured hand for a bit before slowly buffing his nails on his other sleeve.
Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh. The sound was soft as a raptor’s wing-beat, homing in on its kill.
“Send a messenger to Lord Charles Mellon. Tell him that I wish to see him as soon as possible.”
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Excerpt: THE COCOA CONSPIRACY
Book Two in the Lady Arianna Regency Mystery Series
CHAPTER ONE
The book’s binding was crafted out of dark, fine-grained calfskin, its richly tooled embossings age-mellowed to the color of . . .
“Chocolate,” murmured Arianna Hadley. Removing her gloves, which were still sticky from foraging through the food stalls at Covent Garden, she traced the delicate leaf design centered beneath the gilded title. “How lovely,” she added, and then carefully opened the cover.
Dust motes danced up into the air, tiny sparkles of sunlight in the shadowed corner of the alcove. As she shifted a step closer to the diamond-paned window, the scrape of her sturdy half-boots on the Aubusson carpet momentarily disturbed the hush that hung over the ornate bookcases.
Her heel snagged, and to her dismay she realized that a streak of mud—and something that looked suspiciously like squashed pumpkin—now marred the stately pattern.
Hell and damnation.
Arianna gave a guilty glance around, but the room appeared deserted. The only stirring was a small flutter of breeze wafting in through the casement. It teased over the polished oak, mingling the scents of beeswax, ink, paper and leather.
The smell of money.
A wry smile twitched on her lips as she turned her attention back to the book. Set discreetly within the marbled endpapers was a small slip of paper that noted the price. It was expensive. Very expensive—as was every volume and manuscript offered for sale by Messrs. Harvey & Watkins Rare Book Emporium.
But then, Arianna could now afford such luxuries.
She slowly turned the pages, savoring the feel of the creamy, deckle-edged paper and the subtle colors of the illustrations. With her new husband’s birthday fast approaching, she was looking for a special gift. And the intricate engravings of Theobroma cacao were, to her eye, exquisite.
“Chocolate,” repeated Arianna, pausing to study the details of a criolla tree and its fruit. Her husband was, among other things, a serious scholar of botany, and cacao—or chocolate—was his particular field of expertise. The text was Spanish, and the date looked to be—
A sudden nudge from behind nearly knocked the book from her grasp.
“I beg your pardon.” The deep voice was edged with a foreign accent.
Arianna turned, about to acknowledge the apology with a polite smile, when the man gave her another little shove.
“I beg your pardon, but that book is mine,” he growled. “Hand it over at once.”
Sliding back a step, she instinctively threw up a forearm to parry his grab. “I’m afraid you are mistaken, sir. It was lying on the display table, free for anyone to choose.”
“I assure you, there is no mistake,” he replied. “I must have it.”
Turn over her treasure to a lout who thought to frighten her with physical force? Her pulse kicked up a notch, its hot surge thrumming angrily in her ears.
“Sorry, but I saw it first.”
Her husband had jestingly warned her that serious book collectors were an odd, obsessive lot, and this one in particular sounded slightly deranged. Or demented. But be that as it may, Arianna was not about to be intimidated by his bullying tactics.
“You will have to look around for something else, for I intend to purchase it,” she added, and not just for spite. She had already decided that the engravings were the perfect present for her husband.
“You can’t!” he exclaimed in a taut whisper.
Oh, but I can.
Closing the covers, Arianna hugged the book to her chest.
As the man edged closer, a blade of light cut across his pale face. Sweat was beading his forehead, and several drops hung on his russet lashes. “I tell you, that book is meant for me.”
“Then you should have asked the clerk to put it aside.” She gestured at the other volumes arrayed on the square of dark velvet. “Come, there is no need to squabble like savages. You have plenty of other lovely choices.”
He snarled an obscenity.
“Be advised, sir, I know plenty of worse words than that,” responded Arianna with a grim smile, and she added a very unladylike curse to prove it.
His eyes widened for an instant, then narrowed to a slitted stare. “Give me that book,” he repeated. “Or you will be sorry.”
His strike was quick—but not quick enough.
Her reactions honed by half a lifetime of fighting off drunks and pimps, Arianna caught his wrist and pivoted, twisting hard enough to draw a grunt of pain. “I wouldn’t wager on that.”
“Poxy slut.” Breaking away, the man clenched a fist and threw a wild punch at her head.
She ducked the blow and countered with a kick that buckled his knee. “True—if I were a real lady, I would be falling into a dead swoon.” Her jab clipped him flush on the chin. “But as you see, I’m not. Not a lady, that is.”
Staggered, the man fell against the display table, knocking several books to the floor. His curses were now coming in a language she didn’t recognize, but the edge of panic was unmistakable.
What madness possessed him? It was only a book, albeit a lovely one.
Arianna glanced at the archway, intent on making a strategic retreat. The last thing she wanted to do was to ruffle the rarified feathers of Messrs. Harvey & Watkins by brawling among their rare books. Such a scene would only embarrass her husband, who, ye Gods, had suffered enough gossip on her account . . .
Bloody hell. A glint of steel drew her eye back to her assail
ant.
His fumblings inside his coat revealed not only a book hidden in the waistband of his trousers but a slim-bladed knife.
“Try to use that on me, and you’ll find your cods cut off,” she warned softly.
He blinked, looking torn between anger and fear.
The sliver of silence was broken by the sound of hurried steps in the adjoining room. “Is someone in need of assistance?” called a shop clerk loudly.
Her assailant hesitated for an instant, then whirled and darted for the archway, bumping into the other man as they crossed paths.
Smoothing the wrinkles from his sleeve, the clerk frowned at Arianna. “This is not a place for sordid assignations, Miss,” he chided, looking down his long nose at her chipped straw bonnet and drab serge gown. As his gaze slid to the fallen books, he added a sharp sniff. “I must ask you to leave—immediately. We cater to a very dignified clientele who expect an atmosphere of decorum when they visit us.”
Ah, no good deed goes unpunished, thought Arianna sardonically. On her way home from the rough-and-tumble markets, she had stopped her carriage on impulse to browse through the fancy books. Better to have waited until she had swathed herself in silk and satin for the requisite morning calls in Mayfair.
“First of all, it is Missus,” she corrected. “And secondly, I am quite aware of what sort of patrons frequent your shop.”
The clerk winced at the word “shop.”
“However, you might want to take a closer look at the so-called Quality you allow through your door,” went on Arianna, assuming an air of icy hauteur. “That man was certainly no gentleman. He had a knife, and was probably cutting prints out of your precious volumes.” Her husband had explained how some unscrupulous collectors sliced up rare books for the maps or prints, which were sold individually to art dealers for a much higher profit.
The clerk’s look of disdain now pinched into one of horror.
“He also stole a book,” she added. “I saw it hidden under his coat.”
“B-but he has made several purchases recently, all properly paid for,” protested the clerk. Another glance, another sniff. “You must be mistaken. By all appearances, he is a perfect gentleman, no matter that he is a foreigner.”
“Well he’s not,” shot back Arianna. “You may take my word for it.”
His mouth thinned. “And who, might I ask, are you?”
“The Countess of Saybrook.” Arianna held out the chocolate book. “Now, before you toss me out on my arse, kindly wrap that and write up a receipt. And do make it quick. My carriage is waiting and the earl does not like for his prime cattle to take a chill.”
To purchase The Cocoa Conspiracy
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Excerpt: RECIPE FOR TREASON
Book Three in the Lady Arianna Regency Mystery Series
CHAPTER ONE
A jolt of the coach bounced the open book in her lap, rousing Arianna, Lady Saybrook, from a fitful half sleep. Wincing, she shifted against the leather squabs and flexed her aching shoulders.
“Hell,” she muttered as the wheels hit another frozen rut. This was truly the Devil’s own journey.
Though instead of rolling through fire and sulfurous brimstone, they seemed to be entering a bleak realm of ice and frigid vapors. With each passing mile, the landscape looked more and more leached of all color.
Touching her numb fingertips to the page, Arianna couldn’t help but wish that the handwritten recipe for hot Spanish chocolate might transform from ink and paper into a pot of steaming, spice-scented liquid. Despite the fur throw wrapped around her, she was chilled to the bone by the damp cold seeping in through the creaking woodwork.
And the weather looked to be turning worse.
December was not an auspicious time to be traveling from London to Scotland. Not that there had been any choice, Arianna reminded herself with an unhappy sigh.
Peering out the windowpane, she saw that large flakes of snow had begun to fall, smudges of dull white against the grim grayness of the windswept moors. A shiver skated down her spine. There was something about the dark, desolate surroundings that stirred a prickling of unease.
Her two companions, however, appeared untouched by worry. Alessandro Henry George De Quincy, the fifth Earl of Saybrook—and her husband of little more than a year—was slumbering quietly on the facing seat, his long legs wedged against her bench to steady himself against the bumps. Basil Henning, his good friend and former military comrade, was not quite so peaceful in repose. His raspy snores were growing louder by the minute.
But then, Henning was always a little rough around the edges—stubbled chin, wrinkled clothing, irascible temper . . .
A clench of guilt squeezed at her chest. He wouldn’t be forced to make this miserable trek if it hadn’t been for his loyalty to her and Saybrook in previous adventures.
“Damn Grentham,” swore Arianna under her breath, tucking the wrap tighter around her middle. The government’s Minister of State Security was renowned as a ruthless, manipulative master of intrigue. Most people feared him and didn’t dare to challenge his authority.
But not me.
“He is not a good man to have as an enemy,” she acknowledged in a wry whisper. A fact that hadn’t stopped her from jabbing a needle into his puffed-up vanity on several occasions.
She had won those skirmishes. But as for the war . . .
Another lurching bump. And then all went very still.
“Why are we stopping?” she asked in a louder voice.
Saybrook came instantly awake. Leaning close to the opposite window, he brushed a hand to the fogged pane and squinted into the swirling shadows. “Perhaps a tree has fallen across the road.”
Henning was slower in opening his eyes. “Auch, or perhaps a bloody rein has snapped, or a spoke has cracked,” he grumbled, rubbing at his unshaven chin. “There are a hundred—nay, a thousand—things that can go wrong on these miserable rutted roads of Yorkshire.”
“Thank you for the cheery note of optimism, Baz,” quipped Saybrook.
“If you want sweetness and light, you should have headed south and caught a ship to the balmy shores of Catalonia,” retorted his friend. The earl was, in fact, half-Spanish, a fact that only added to his reputation for eccentricity among the Polite Society of London. “Heaven knows, we would all be far more comfortable there than in this godforsaken wilderness.”
“I’ll step outside and see what the problem is. If there is an obstacle blocking the way, José may need a hand.” Saybrook buttoned his overcoat and, after a hint of hesitation, eased the carriage pistol from its holster by the door before reaching for the latch.
Arianna frowned. “You expect trouble?”
“It is always wise to be prepared—”
CRACK!
One of the windowpanes suddenly exploded in a shattering of silvery shards.
“Get down!” ordered the earl calmly as he ducked low and shoved the door open with his shoulder. “Arm yourselves. The dueling pistols are in their case under the chess set, and the cavalry weapons are in my valise,” he added. “Baz, you guard the left while I reconnoiter on the right.” And with that, he rolled out into the gloom.
Henning’s sleepy scowl vanished. Like Saybrook, he was a battle-toughened veteran of the Peninsular War. The bullet did not spark panic, merely a short, sarcastic laugh.
“Ah well, we did ask for things to get a bit warmer.” His lips pursed as he pulled out the rosewood box and checked the priming of the sleek pistols. “Here, you had best keep one of these fancy barking irons, Lady S. You’ve already proved you know how to use it.” The matched pair had been a gift from the Russian Tsar, who had professed his undying admiration for her marksmanship during their recent stay in Vienna. Her shot had saved . . .
Be damned with old enemies—there were new ones to face.
Arianna took the pistol and then slipped a sheathed knife from her reticule and pushed it into her pocket. The long, slim blade was deceptively dainty looking. It
s steel was lethally sharp.
“There is something to be said for possessing an unladylike expertise with deadly weapons,” she replied.
Henning’s chuckle died away in the sound of splintering wood as another bullet smashed through the casement. “Stay here and keep low.” He crawled over her tangled skirts and unlatched the far door. “I’ll go cover Sandro. Whoever is out there is in for a rude surprise.”
“Rude, indeed,” she echoed before following on his heels.
Cold spiked through her as she hit the ground and slithered into the shelter of the spoked wheel. The light, gray and grainy as gunpowder, was fast fading behind the weathered clefts of granite, leaving the narrow road through the ravine shrouded in shadows.
Squinting, she tried to bring the hazy shapes into focus. Sounds were just as muffled—all she could hear above her pounding heart was the nervous snorts of the horses and the rush of a nearby mountain stream tumbling down through the rocks.
Damn. Arianna drew in a deep breath and held herself very still. No sign of movement up ahead, no stirring of . . .
A scuff—and then a step, coming from the rear of the carriage.
Easing back the weapon’s hammer to full cock, she moved forward for a better angle of view.
Swoosh, swoosh. The faint whisper of wool brushing against leather. A moment later, the dark flutter of a greatcoat, skirling around a pair of well-worn boots.
Not those of her husband or his friend.
Arianna tightened her grip on the butt. Her hands were so cold that she could barely feel any sensation in her fingers.
“Ha.” With a low hiss, the stranger dropped to a crouch by the wheel and raised a rifle. “I see you now, behind that rock,” he muttered under his breath. “One . . . two . . .”
“Drop your weapon before I count to three,” said Arianna, moving the pistol to within a hairsbreadth of his temple. “Or you are a dead man.”
A Question of Numbers Page 30
