“Make her rest,” said Carswell, draining his glass. “That is all you can do. I am sure it will come right in time. That is all we can hope about anything, after all.” He sighed and put down the glass. “I bent my neck to my mother-in-law. She heard me out, but I don’t think I’m forgiven.”
“I was harsh with you on that,” said Giles. “She is a fascinating woman, one must concede. Emma was teasing me about her allure.”
“I was such a fool,” said Carswell. “You were right. Why could I not be satisfied? What is it that always makes me look about for something I cannot have – when I have everything? Why is that?” He picked up his hat and got up. “Do not worry. Those questions have no answers.”
“I can tease at them if you wish,” Giles said, “during my convalescence.”
“No, save your efforts for murderers, in the long term. In the short term, there is a plate of flaming raisins awaiting your attention upstairs.”
“You are sure you cannot stay?”
Carswell shook his head.
“I shall call in tomorrow,” he said, going to the door. “Until then, Merry Christmas, Major Vernon!”
“And to you, Mr Carswell!”
~ THE END ~
Dramatis Personae
Rooke Court
Major Giles Vernon: Chief Superintendent, Northminster Constabulary
Emma Vernon: Major Vernon’s wife
Julia Gordon: Emma’s half sister, married to Captain Gordon
Hamish Gordon: Julia’s son, aged 9
Sophy Gordon: Julia’s daughter, aged 8
Alexander ‘Sandro’ Gordon: Julia’s youngest child, 18 months
Lord Milburne: Emma’s son by her first marriage to Colonel Maitland
Holt: Giles’ manservant and butler
Mrs Patton: Emma’s maid
Mrs Holt: cook, married to Holt
Greene: nursemaid to the children
Hawksby Hall
Felix Carswell MD: consultant surgeon to the Northern Investigation Office, natural son of Lord Rothborough and Mrs Martinez (Dona Blanca), adopted son of Mr and Mrs Carswell of Pitfeldry
Eleanor Carswell: his wife
Ann, Lady Blanchfort: Eleanor’s mother, widow of Sir Richard Blanchfort
Littleboy: the butler
Jacob: Felix’s manservant
Stevens: Eleanor’s maid
The Northern Investigation Office
Chief Inspector Rollins
Inspector Coxe
Sergeant Hammond
The Northminster Counstabulary Headquarters
Captain Lazenby: Chief Constable
Dr Peterson: police surgeon
The Northminster Infirmary
Mr James Harper: surgeon in chief
Samuel Tolley: surgical dresser
Hawksby village
Rev John Lacey, Rector
Miss Jane Lacey, Rev Lacey’s daughter
Miss Martha Lacey, Rev Lacey’s daughter
Tabitha: the Lacey’s servant
White Lodge
Oliver Truro: celebrated novelist
Bessie Truro: his wife
Cathering Fleming: his sister-in-law
John Hepworth: Truro’s business manager and literary assistant
In the Minster Precincts
Canon Lambert Fforde and Mrs Sally Fforde: Giles’ sister and brother-in-law
William, Lord Rothborough: Felix’s natural father
Lady Maria Haraald: his youngest daughter, and Felix’s half sister
Mrs Blanche Martinez: Felix’s natural mother
Sir Mark Hurrell: Lady Maria’s fiancé
In Northminster
Samuel Roper: an inventor
Sarah Roper: his elder daughter
Amy Roper: his younger daughter
Mrs Steele: the Ropers’ neighbour
Edward Edwardes: a fashionable tailor
Jack Edwardes: Edward Edwarde’s son
Billy Armstrong: a radical tailor
Charles Blake: a fustian manufacturer
James Williamson: a woollen manufacturer
Thomas O’Brien: proprietor of The Bugle
Mr Hale: a high-class confectioner
At Darnell’s Cross
Mr and Mrs Abbott: landlords of The Greyhound Inn
Also by Harriet Smart
I hope you enjoyed this book. If so, please consider writing a review. You may also enjoy my other books, including:
The Butchered Man: Northminster Mystery 1
Northminster, 1840: a once-picturesque cathedral city, where dirty smoke stacks now rival ancient spires. When workmen make the shocking discovery of a mutilated corpse in a ditch outside the ancient walls, Giles Vernon and Felix Carswell are charged with solving the case.
Intelligent and practical, Chief Constable Major Vernon has transformed the old city watch into a modern police force, and he throws himself into the investigation with the same energy. But as he probes a murky world of professional gamblers and jilted lovers, he is drawn into a dangerous emotional game that threatens to undermine his authority.
Newly-qualified police surgeon Felix Carswell is determined to make his way in the world on his own terms despite being the bastard son of prominent local grandee Lord Rothborough. Called to treat a girl in an asylum for reformed prostitutes, what he uncovers there brings him into conflict with his new employer, Vernon, and throws the case into disarray.
Together they must overcome their differences and find the brutal truth behind the mystery of The Butchered Man.
The Butchered Man is the first Northminster Mystery featuring intrepid early Victorian detectives Vernon and Carswell.
The Dead Songbird: Northminster Mystery 2
Celebrated singer Anna Morgan has come to Northminster to escape a troubled past and sing at the city’s Handel Festival. But when she continues to receive the poisonous letters that have been plaguing her, she turns to Chief Constable Major Giles Vernon and Police Surgeon Felix Carswell to find her persecutor, drawing the two men into her charismatic orbit. At the same time, a talented young tenor is found dead in curious circumstances in a locked chapel, and the hunt for a murderer is on.
The Dead Songbird is the second Northminster Mystery featuring early Victorian detectives Vernon and Carswell.
The Shadowcutter: Northminster Mystery 3
Police surgeon Felix Carswell has joined Major Giles Vernon and his convalescent wife, Laura, for a few days in the elegant spa town of Stanegate – it’s a welcome holiday from the summer stench of Northminster. But no sooner has he arrived than a Spanish colonial gentleman, dying of consumption, requires his urgent care, while Major Vernon is called away to Lord Rothborough’s country house, where a lady’s maid has been found drowned in a secluded pool.
Major Vernon investigates above and below stairs in the great house, assisted by Lord Rothborough’s eldest daughter, Lady Charlotte. When a quantity of valuable jewellery is found missing, the cause of the dead maid’s death only becomes more mysterious.
Meanwhile, when his patient dies in his arms after confiding a secret, Carswell is drawn into baffling intrigues involving the government-in-exile of the dead man’s homeland, the Caribbean island of Santa Magdalena. And strangest of all, Dona Blanca, the widow of the president, seems to know exactly who Felix is.
Over the course of the summer, Vernon and Carswell together doggedly search for the truth behind these troubling events, but their determination leads to a shocking personal tragedy for both of them, one which that will force them to reassess their lives and their careers, and leave them changed forever.
From the grand hotels of a fashionable spa town to a sordid illegal dog fight; from back-stair intrigues in a great country house to political conspiracies and fencing matches, The Shadowcutter sees the welcome return of early Victorian detectives, Major Giles Vernon and Felix Carswell.
The Hanging Cage: Northminster Mystery 4
Summoned to the bleak market town of Whithorne in the
midst of a winter storm, Major Giles Vernon and police surgeon Felix Carswell are embroiled in another challenging investigation.
A beautiful young heiress has been found dead in her bed, and although suicide seems the most likely cause, the circumstances soon point to a tangle of illicit relationships and painful secrets. As Major Vernon pursues the truth behind Annabella Barker’s death, further shocking events soon unfold, including another suicide. At the same time, called in to deliver a son and heir, Carswell is drawn into the affairs of the eccentric Yardley family at Whithorne Castle, but it is no distraction from his anxieties about his troubled relationship with Sukey Connolly. Major Vernon, for his part, unexpectedly encounters an old acquaintance and is forced to question both his past and his future.
When a partial skeleton is found in a culvert, events begin to take a still darker turn, and Vernon and Carswell must pursue an unimaginable evil. As November floods threaten the bridges of Northminster itself, dangerous enemies emerge close to home and the struggle for justice becomes a matter of life and death.
The Hanging Cage is the fourth Northminster Mystery, featuring early Victorian detectives Vernon and Carswell.
The Ghosts of Ardenthwaite: Northminster Mystery 5
Something is amiss at Ardenthwaite. Ghostly apparitions have been seen, so terrifying that the mistress of the house and the servants have deserted the place. Colonel Parham, the tenant, asks his landlord Felix Carswell and Major Giles Vernon to determine what is going on. But their investigations soon takes an unexpected turn, leaving them in confusion and doubting their own sanity.
Shortly afterwards, a man dies in Northminster Infirmary, the victim of a brutal and systematic attack which seems to point to dangerous criminal forces hitherto unknown in the city. Vernon has his suspicions as to who is behind it, and with Carswell’s assistance he begins to unpick a complex network of alliances and enemies. Yet, as their best witnesses meet brutal fates, they are forced to face the grim possibility of failure.
Having been forced into unpleasant compromises to gain access to the truth, Giles is further unsettled by the return of Emma Maitland to Northminster, now engaged to another man. As she assists him with the case, he begins to realise all that he has lost. For Felix Carswell, a bizarre and other-worldly encounter with a beautiful, spirited young woman throws up the possibility of an extremely advantageous marriage. Eleanor Blanchfort is an heiress and Lord Rothborough’s ward. Has destiny brought them together as she suggests, and can Felix find the will to resist such a dazzling temptation?
The Echo at Rooke Court: Northminster Mystery 6
Felix Carswell returns from his blissful wedding journey and is at once called to the bedside of a young man fighting for his life. Fred Pierce has been seriously injured rescuing the occupants of a house from a fire, and Major Giles Vernon suspects the fire was not an accident. When Fred Pierce loses his struggle to live, having uttered a mysterious message on his deathbed, the search for an elusive arsonist begins. Could there be a connection with a recent fire at a cotton warehouse, or is there something amiss at the bank where Fred Pierce was a diligent employee?
Major Vernon has been house-hunting with his fiancée Emma Maitland, and the couple have agreed to rent an ancient but beautiful house in the Minster Precincts, Rooke Court. Their new landlord is Sir Morten Hurrell, owner of a magnificent country estate at Hurrell Place. But they soon find that all is not well with the Hurrell family when the heir Arthur Hurrell is found dead in highly suspicious circumstances. Vernon and Carswell find they have another challenging investigation on their hands.
A scandalous anonymous novel, a potential bank collapse and the acrimonious affairs between the Hurrell family and their neighbours the Wyttons only add to the complexity of the case. Felix finds the struggle threatens to break the still fragile bonds he has formed with his young wife, while Giles faces dismissal and the possible end to his marital hopes; it will require all their ingenuity and courage to find the answers they need.
From the opulent luxury of country estates to the shocking realities of a fever hospital and the extraordinary secrets offered up by an old house, The Echo at Rooke Court is the sixth enthralling Northminster Mystery featuring Major Giles Vernon and Felix Carswell.
The True Value of Pearls
After the war, a dangerous legacy...
It’s 1947; London is in the grip of post-war austerity, and Saskia Harper is desperately unhappy. Still mourning her first husband, killed in the war, she is searching for the love that her scholarly husband cannot give. A foolish, misjudged affair has left her full of regret.
When she learns that she has inherited the house in which she grew up, she sets out to claim it. For her, the Seigneurie is a place of enchanted memories set in a remote corner of Brittany, the Cornwall of France. But when she arrives at the ancient manor house, she finds that her inheritance is fiercely disputed. Someone else claims to be the true owner, and all seems lost.
Reeling, Saskia is thrown into a chance encounter with a mysterious yet charismatic stranger, Jean-Jacques Sebastien, who has come to Brittany on a desperate quest of his own. Jean-Jacques drags her into the dangerous complexities of post-occupation France, where the wounds of the war have barely begun to heal, and it soon emerges that they have business in common, and far more besides. But as she opens her heart to him, she finds herself struggling to save him from his own dark past.
The True Value of Pearls is an emotional, romantic suspense novel in the tradition of Mary Stewart.
The Daughters of Blane
Three young ladies with more beauty and charm than Isobel, Leonora and Vivien Buchanan, daughters of the laird of Blane, would be hard to find; their marriage prospects are exceptional. Indeed, in the summer of 1890, Isobel is already engaged to a duke. But Isobel is secretly uncertain about the man she is to marry. When another, utterly unsuitable candidate presents himself, she is stunned by the strength of her feelings. Suddenly she must make a decision that could have devastating consequences. Younger and more independent, Vivien has always resisted the destiny allotted to women of her class. Marriage to a radical politician seems to offer her the deep and close relationship she seeks; but time and changing ideals can temper the deepest passion. Only Leonora, spoiled and extravagant, is ready to settle for a conventional marriage. But a rich and titled husband is no guarantee of happiness, especially against the pull of true but illicit love.
Set against the turbulent events of the 1890s and moving from the Western Isles of Scotland to London society, from slum life in Edinburgh to a palazzo in Venice, and finally to the battlefields of the Boer war, The Daughters of Blane is the passionate and ultimately triumphant story of three women who refuse to fit the mould society has made for them.
Green Grow the Rushes
In the summer of 1900, a group of young people are brought together in the decaying splendour of the Quarro, a Scottish country house owned by the down-at-heel Lennox family. As their lives touch, new alliances are formed – some doomed to failure and bitter despair, others that will endure against the odds to bring lasting happiness.
A sweeping, panoramic survey of turn-of-the-century Scottish society – from country house to industrial slums, bohemian free-thinking to High Tory Politics – Green Grow the Rushes is peopled with a cast of memorable and vividly realised characters.
“Smart’s characters have a feel of authentic life and move in and out of a backdrop which cunningly incorporates political change, trade union rebellion, suffragette noise and good food” – The Sunday Times
The Wild Garden
Kate Mackenzie is on the brink of success as an artist when she meets Gabriel Erskine, twenty-two years her senior. She’s not looking for a relationship, but Gabriel’s understanding of paintings and his outlook, so different from that of her friends, captivate her. Six months later, she moves into Allansfield, the beautiful house in rambling gardens on Gabriel’s estate in Fife. She doesn’t know him well, but what better way to change
that than by living with him?
Touching, involving and honest, The Wild Garden is an utterly contemporary novel about life’s choices, love’s different aspects, and second chances.
The Lark Ascending
When Chris Adam receives a proposal from wealthy, young Guy Lindsay, her family are delighted – this would be a fine match indeed for a daughter of the Manse. Chris is tempted, for she is attracted to Guy, but her vocation is to be a composer, and instead of marriage she chooses to study music in Edinburgh.
There Chris meets Angus Bretton, who has been sent down from medical school in disgrace. Though he seems strangely restrained after the passionate Guy, Chris falls deeply in love with him, and it is Angus who comes to her rescue when events conspire against her and all her dreams are in ruins. But Angus is not all that Chris imagines him to be and their happiness is short-lived. A chance meeting with Guy gives Chris a glimpse of the fulfilling life she might have had – but now Guy is married to one of Chris’s friends.
As war breaks out across Europe in 1914, tragedy, betrayal and scandal lie ahead before Chris can fulfil her musical destiny and stand by the side of the man she loves.
Reckless Griselda
On an impetuous journey to stop her father making an unsuitable marriage, Griselda Farquarson meets dashing Tom Thorpe. They fall instantly in love and into trouble. After she indulges in a sensual clandestine encounter with him, Griselda is forced to face the consequences of her reckless disregard for the rules of society. For this is England in 1816 and Tom is a wealthy baronet, caught up in a net of emotional entanglements and family conflicts. Determined to do the right thing and preserve Griselda’s reputation, he must face the ruin of his own. As a whirlwind of scandal engulfs them, will Griselda and Tom be able to transform their passionate attraction into a true and lasting happiness or will their love be destroyed by it?
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