#Review - A Grave Robbery by Deanna Raybourn #Historical #Mystery #Victorian

Series: Veronica Speedwell Mystery # 9
Format: Hardcover, 336 pages
Release Date: March 12, 2024
Publisher: Berkley
Source: Publisher
Genre: Mystery & Detective / Historical / Victorian

Veronica and Stoker discover that not all fairy tales have happy endings, and some end in murder, in this latest historical mystery from New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award–nominated author Deanna Raybourn.

Lord Rosemorran has purchased a wax figure of a beautiful reclining woman and asks Stoker to incorporate a clockwork mechanism to give the Rosemorran Collection its own Sleeping Beauty in the style of Madame Tussaud’s. But when Stoker goes to cut the mannequin open to insert the mechanism, he makes a gruesome discovery: this is no wax figure. The mannequin is the beautifully preserved body of a young woman who was once very much alive. But who would do such a dreadful thing, and why? 

Sleuthing out the answer to this question sets Veronica and Stoker on their wildest adventure yet. From the underground laboratories of scientists experimenting with electricity to resurrect the dead in the vein of Frankenstein to the traveling show where Stoker once toured as an attraction, the gaslit atmosphere of London in October is the perfect setting for this investigation into the unknown. Through it all, the intrepid pair is always one step behind the latest villain—a man who has killed once and will stop at nothing to recover the body of the woman he loved. Will they unmask him in time to save his next victim? Or will they become the latest figures to be immortalized in his collection of horrors?

A Grave Robbery, by Deanna Raybourn, is the Ninth installment in the author's Veronica Speedwell Historical mystery series set in Victorian England, featuring intrepid adventuress and sleuth Veronica Speedwell, and her partner, Revelstoke Templeton-Vale. Veronica and Stoke have been cataloging Earl of Rosemorran's vast collection of artifacts while also putting their lives on the line to solve curious mysteries that have nearly taken their lives more than once.

  

In this story, Lord Rosemorran has purchased a wax figure of a beautiful reclining woman called "Anatomical Venus" because of his daughter Lady Rose and asks Stoker to incorporate a clockwork mechanism to give the Rosemorran Collection its own Sleeping Beauty in the style of Madame Tussaud’s. Stoker is enamored of the wax figure. He can't get over how much the mannequin resembles his beloved Veronica. However, that is not the only shock that Stoker experiences. 

When Stoker goes to cut the mannequin open to insert the mechanism, he makes a gruesome discovery: this is no wax figure. The mannequin is the beautifully preserved body of a young woman who was once very much alive. But who would do such a dreadful thing, and why? Sleuthing out the answer to this question sets Veronica and Stoker on their wildest adventure yet. How did she come to be in a glass coffin in a warehouse? But the truth is dangerous and many people wish it would stay buried in the past.

From the underground laboratories of scientists experimenting with electricity to resurrect the dead in the vein of Frankenstein to the traveling show where Stoker once toured as an attraction, the gaslit atmosphere of London in October is the perfect setting for this investigation into the unknown. Through it all, the intrepid pair is always one step behind the latest villain—someone who has killed once and will stop at nothing to recover the body at all costs. 

Will they unmask the villain in time to save his next victim? Or will they become the latest figures to be immortalized in his collection of horrors? One of the historical aspects of this story is that there were anatomically correct figures that were made when real bodies were in short supply. I have read the Veronica Speedwell series from the very first book, A Curious Beginning. I have watched as Veronica and Stoker's relationship has grown to the point where they are inseparable.

Veronica is a cheeky character, and I love how she always seems to find trouble when she should be focusing on her lepidoptery job. Stoker is the more serious character and he has the scars to prove how much he has been through. Veronica and Stoker actually call in two people to help. J.J. Butterworth, a female reporter who knows that Veronica is carrying a heavy secret about her parentage, and Mornaday, who works for Sir Hugo Montgomery of Scotland Yard. I do recommend that the series is best enjoyed if you read the books in order. 

Chapter

1

London, October 1889

I draw the line at monkeys," Stoker said with considerable severity. "I will have no monkeys, Veronica."

Stoker was usually amenable to animals of every description, but the fact that the creature in question was currently sitting atop his head in a posture of nonchalance had doubtless contributed to his irritability.

The monkey in question was a golden lion tamarin-Leontopithecus rosalia, to be exact-also known as a golden marmoset, a description which is far more enticing than the creature itself. It was small, weighing no more than a pound and a half, and of modest proportions. Its quizzical expressions and the bright orange hair that circled its head in an exuberant impression of a lion's mane might have been charming, but the effect was spoilt by its naked face and downturned mouth. It was scarcely a year old, but it studied everything around it with the sour judgment of a wizened old person. Occasionally, when it looked at me, it tipped its head to the side and pulled its mouth further down, as if it could penetrate my secrets and found me wanting. It was unpleasant in the extreme, and the fact that it had taken to Stoker with an affection that bordered on the aggressive was a welcome development. It had been a gift to our aged friend, Lady Wellingtonia Beauclerk, from a Brazilian admirer, and in a moment of lunacy, I had agreed to care for it until Lady Wellie could make permanent arrangements. Unfortunately, there were few listings for callitrichines in the Situations Wanted advertisements in the London papers.

"It is hardly my fault the little beast prefers you," I said serenely. "Lady Wellie assured me it would be no trouble. A dish of tea, a spoonful of fruit, and a secure little nest is all it requires for its comfort, I am informed. And you must admit, it does not ask for much beyond that."

"Much beyond?" Stoker's voice took on a distinctly strangled note. "Veronica, she drinks out of my teacup. She purloins food from my fork. And the least said about her unhygienic sleeping arrangements, the better."

He might have been grumbling, but I observed with a smothered smile that he had already assessed the monkey's gender and applied the correct pronouns.

"It is adorable that the little beast dotes on you so," I assured him. "You are a very large, strong man. Surely you do not begrudge food and drink for such a tiny creature."

"I do not begrudge her the food and drink. I begrudge her the fact that she sleeps upon my pillow, and this morning she tried to join me in the bath." A delectable rosy blush tinted his cheeks.

"One can hardly blame her," I murmured, delighted to see the blush deepen to crimson. Stoker and I had, for some time, enjoyed a thoroughly satisfying and thrilling personal relationship, a meeting and mingling of minds and bodies that was as successful as our working partnership. We were both us natural scientists, Stoker with an affinity for large mammals and extensive taxidermic skills whilst I preferred lepidoptery. We were employed by the Earl of Rosemorran-great-nephew of the monkey-riddled Lady Wellie-with cataloguing, repairing, and arranging his vast store of artefacts, art, and other agreeable treasures for eventual display in the Rosemorran Collection, the museum he planned to open for the edification of the general public. We had initially anticipated that his lordship's possessions, including the hoards inherited from his ancestors, a wealthy and acquisitive group, could be organised and ready for installation within a few decades. But as his lordship was an incorrigible haunter of auction houses, showroom sales, and other people's attics, the amount we had to sort seemed to increase on a frankly alarming basis.

The benefit to this, of course, was that Stoker and I could rely upon our employment to extend into extreme old age. The drawback was a tendency towards melancholy when contemplating exactly how much remained to be done. It did not help matters that we were, all too frequently, called away from our endeavours by the crime of murder and occasional instances of grand larceny. More times than would seem probable, Stoker and I had been prevailed upon-or had chosen, if I am honest-to involve ourselves in the investigation of the most heinous crimes. We had thwarted villains, saved innocent men from the hangman's noose, and restored priceless jewels to their rightful owners. We had masqueraded as royalty, foiled ancient curses, and evaded certain death. Our escapades were as invigorating as they were unlikely, and I had adored each and every one.

But I was conscious that morning, as a brisk October wind teased russet leaves from the branches of the trees, of a certain restlessness. We had, only the month previous, concluded a successful investigation that had imperilled both of our lives. Stoker had scarcely healed from the dislocation of his shoulder, and our dogs-five at last count-had just begun to accept that we were at last home and settled. Without the benefit of marriage, Stoker and I naturally occupied separate quarters at the earl's Marylebone estate of Bishop's Folly. A series of small, perfectly appointed pavilions had been built by one of the earl's ancestors-a Roman temple, a miniature pink Scottish castle, and so forth. I had claimed the French Gothic chapel for my own use whilst Stoker slept in the Chinese pagoda. Next to these charming buildings was a pond of significant size and depth to permit swimming, and bordering this pond was a shrubbery where the earl's Galápagos tortoise, Patricia, frequently upended herself, legs waving woefully in the air and giving lamentable cries until a rescue party could be formed to put her to rights.

Beyond the shrubbery was the Belvedere, a freestanding ballroom of sorts which held the bulk of the collected artefacts. It was workroom, office, laboratory, and club, furnished with such oddities as a decaying camel saddle, a collection of caryatids, the workings of a Sicilian puppet theatre, and an Egyptian sarcophagus which served as our sideboard. Busts of emperors jostled with mediaeval weapons, and paintings of dour Madonnas looked down upon Wardian cases filled with creatures of every description. Upstairs, the snuggery provided shelving for acres of books and periodicals along with Napoléon's campaign bed-a surprisingly comfortable spot to nap. A porcelain Swedish stove provided tea-making facilities and a handy cloisonné cupboard was always stuffed with tins of biscuits, gingerbread, and assorted sweets. There were cushions for the dogs, and an entire wall of cubbyholes crammed with papers, waxes, inks, brushes, pens, paints, glues, filaments, furs, wires, and every other supply we might require. The roof was sound, the walls thick, and his lordship's numerous-and frankly anarchic-progeny were strictly forbidden to enter without adult accompaniment.

It was, in short, the happiest place on earth, in my estimation, and I was never more contented than when engaged with a new batch of Lepidoptera. I had meant to spend the forenoon writing up the talk I had been invited to deliver to the Aurelian Society, but the morning's deliveries had distracted me. They included a pair of elegant cases of French design, each holding a pristine sample of the Madagascan moon moth. I had sat for several minutes, admiring the elegant sweep of their hindwings and the vividness of their eyespots before Stoker and his monkey interrupted me.

I turned back to my magnifying glass and my enormous silk-spinning beauties. "I have every faith in your ability to cope with one of the smallest primates in existence," I assured him.

"I have work," he muttered. It was with an heroic effort at restraint that I did not point out he was interrupting my own work. It has been my experience that the male of the species, though often thoroughly illogical, can-when encouraged to sit quietly and think hard-be guided into a position of sense. I applied myself to my moths whilst Stoker considered his options. He had just begun to feed the monkey bits of honeycomb from the paper twist in his pocket when a discreet cough sounded from the doorway.

"I do hope I am not come at an inconvenient time?"

I looked up at our employer with sincere pleasure. "Your lordship! It has been an age since you have visited the Belvedere," I said, laying down my magnifying glass. "We have made real progress since your last inspection."

"I have no doubt," Lord Rosemorran said. He seemed a trifle uncomfortable, tugging at his collar. His fingers, as usual, were begrimed with ink and left a grubby mark upon the linen. It did not matter. His clothing already bore traces of encounters with his children. His garments were streaked with the acids, inks, and paints of their various activities. I was only glad to see no traces of Lady Rose's latest endeavours. Her attempts to dye her aunt's white Persian cat the same colour as a peony had resulted in the entire household's linen turning a virulent shade of pink. She was the youngest, and by far the most villainous of the earl's brood, and I made a point of avoiding her whenever possible. I do not care for children even when they are biddable, quiet, and clean, and Lady Rose was never any of those.

As if intuiting my thoughts, the child in question bounded in behind her father, her eyes dancing with an unholy light. "Have you asked him, Papa?" she demanded.

The earl shifted uneasily. "I was just coming to that, my dear."

She hopped from foot to foot. "Do it now, Papa. You must!" Her tone was imploring, and she gave him a look only an indulgent father would interpret as winsome.

"What is it you wish, Lady Rose?" I asked.

Her expression turned baleful. "Nothing from you, Miss Speedwell. I need Stoker," she said. The very sound of his name was adoring on her lips. Like females of all ages and most species, Lady Rose harboured a tender spot for Stoker. Whether it was the courtly manners which had been bred into him by his viscountess mother or the juxtaposition of those manners with his staggering appearance-one need only say the words "Elizabethan buccaneer" to conjure tumbled witch-black locks, an occasional eyepatch, and a wealth of tattoos and golden earrings-most feminine creatures found themselves utterly beguiled by him.

"Oh," Lady Rose breathed as she looked at Stoker properly. "You have a monkey on your head. Did you mean to?"

"Yes," he told her solemnly. "I hear it is quite the fashion this year. Even the queen has one-a chimpanzee, I am told. It sits on her head in place of a crown and sleeps in a golden bed in the palace."

Lady Rose grinned. "You are very silly," she informed him.

Stoker returned the smile and gently removed the monkey from its perch, depositing it into the marble embrace of a handy caryatid. "Now, what can I do for you, my lady?"

Before Lady Rose could reply, there was a commotion at the door. Porters arrived bearing an enormous and obviously weighty crate. Lady Rose danced around it. "She's here, Papa! She's here!"

I looked in some alarm to his lordship. "She?"

The earl hurried to explain as Stoker directed the porters where to place their burden. "It is a trifle complicated. Perhaps it is better to show you."

The porters eased the crate to the floor and left, their pockets weighted with the earl's generous gratuities as Stoker applied a prybar to the lid. It was the work of moments to have the thing opened, and as the wooden sides of the crate fell flat, we stared in frank astonishment.

Inside the crate was a long glass box, a crystal casket, and inside lay a waxwork figure on a satin pillow. It was a young woman with long dark hair, rippling unbound over her shoulders. She wore an old-fashioned dress of heavy red velvet edged in fine lace, four inches deep. The neckline was deep and square, revealing an unblemished décolletage the same pale hue as the graceful hands. They were not, as one might expect, folded at the breast in a posture of stiff repose. Instead, they rested at her thighs, palms gently curved, the fingers tapered and relaxed. Her face was singularly beautiful, each feature moulded with grace, from the arch of the dark brow to the delicate line of the jaw. The complexion was pale except for the flush across the cheekbones and rosy lips which were softly parted. The whole effect was one of a maiden captured in enchanted slumber, a fragment of a fairy tale translated from the page to our workroom.

"She is exquisite," Stoker said hoarsely. His gaze rested dreamily upon her face, and I suppressed a flicker of irritation. One cannot be envious of a waxwork, I reminded myself firmly. I turned to our employer. "Where did you find her?"

"There is a warehouse in Shoreditch that currently holds a few items I haven't had the chance to transfer here," he said. I looked around at the already crowded Belvedere wondering precisely how much more his lordship intended to bring us. We could scarcely move about the place as it was. He must have seen something of my thoughts in my expression, for he hurried on. "Only a few items," he assured me. "Very small. You will hardly notice them when they arrive. But I happened to stop in to deposit a quite modest collection of-"

"My lord, you are not only keeping things in Shoreditch we knew nothing of, you are adding to them?"

He had the grace to look abashed. "Well, one sees things and one simply cannot resist them." He spread his hands helplessly. "In this case, I had purchased a full set of German tilting armour-very fine, fourteenth-century-from an auction house quite near to the warehouse. It seemed easiest to take delivery there and leave the armour until we had cleared space here in the Belvedere. Whilst I was there, I happened to notice the adjoining warehouse was clearing out items that had been left and never claimed." He nodded towards the figure in the glass casket. "When I heard there was a waxwork for sale, it seemed the happiest of coincidences. Rose had asked for one for her birthday."

"Had you?" I asked his daughter.

She was hopping from one foot to the other, fairly vibrating with excitement. "Oh, yes. Sidonie takes me sometimes to Madame Tussaud's." Their mother long dead, the earl's children were left frequently in the care of his sister. Since governesses left the house as frequently as the soiled laundry, the lady's maid, Sidonie, was occasionally pressed into service to lend a hand. I was not surprised that her notion of an appropriate outing for Lady Rose was a trip to the waxworks. The excursion was cheap and thrilling and conveniently located a quick walk away in Baker Street. "I am particularly fond of the Hall of Horrors," Lady Rose went on. "But Sidonie thinks I am too young to see them, so I made a point of escaping her to see the murderers. She found me in front of Burke and Hare," she said, pulling a face. "They robbed graves, you know. A nasty thing to do. So then we went to see something nicer and she showed me the Sleeping Beauty."

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#Review - A Tempest at Sea by Sherry Thomas #Historical #Victorian #Mystery

Series: Lady Sherlock # 7
Format: Paperback, 368 pages
Release Date: March 14, 2023
Publisher: Berkley
Source: Publisher
Genre: Historical / Victorian / Mystery

Charlotte Holmes’s brilliant mind and deductive skills are pulled into a dangerous investigation at sea in this new mystery of the bestselling Lady Sherlock series.

After feigning her own death in Cornwall to escape from Moriarty’s perilous attention, Charlotte Holmes goes into hiding. But then she receives a tempting offer: Find a dossier the crown is desperately seeking, and she might be able to go back to a normal life.

Her search leads her aboard the RMS Provence. But on the night Charlotte makes her move to retrieve the dossier, in the midst of a terrifying storm in the Bay of Biscay, a brutal murder takes place on the ship.

Instead of solving the crime, as she is accustomed to doing, Charlotte must take care not to be embroiled in this investigation, lest it become known to those who harbor ill intentions that Sherlock Holmes is abroad and still very much alive.

A Tempest at Sea is the Seventh installment in author Sherry Thomas's Lady Sherlock series. Key Characters: Charlotte Holmes who has been solving mysteries under the name of Sherlock Holmes and has been extremely successful to the point of earning her very own nemesis. Lord Ingram Ashburton who has become Charlotte's secret lover after divorcing. Mrs Watson is Charlotte's trusty sidekick and the woman who has risked everything to help Charlotte become the person she is now. Livia Holmes is Charlotte's older sister, and the woman who is slowly becoming a force of her own.

After feigning her own death in Cornwall *(See Miss Moriarty, I Presume) to escape from Moriarty’s perilous attention, Charlotte Holmes has gone into hiding for fear that Moriarty's people will find her and end any hope of Charlotte finding a way to defeat him. After receiving a tempting offer from Lord Remington Ashburton, who is an agent of the British government and Lord Ingram's older brother, Charlotte has an option to stop hiding. Find a dossier the crown is desperately seeking and she and Mrs Watson can expect a measure of safety from Moriarty.

Her search leads her aboard the RMS Provence a ship that appears to be heading for Australia. Charlotte disguises herself as an elderly lady and boards a ship along with her partner, Mrs. Watson. But on the night Charlotte makes her move to retrieve the dossier, in the midst of a terrifying storm in the Bay of Biscay, a brutal murder takes place on the ship. Instead of solving the crime, as she is accustomed to doing, Charlotte must take care not to be embroiled in this investigation lest it become known to those who harbor ill intentions that Sherlock Holmes is abroad and still very much alive.

So, the mystery falls on Lord Ash, who is onboard with his children and their governess to work with Inspector Brighton, who first appeared in Murder on Cold Street and tried to ruin the life of a friend of Ash and Charlotte's, to solve the mystery. But this mystery has many suspects. Suspects who may or may not be working for Moriarty. Suspects like the Shrewsbury's who tried to ruin Charlotte's life way back in the beginning of this series. To top things off and to make things even more crazier, Charlotte and Livia's mother Mrs Holmes as well as Norbert, her ladies maid, also show up for the trip! And Mrs Holmes may be a murder suspect!!

The ending of this story leaves your imagination to run wild. Is this the final book in the series? Is this the final time that Charlotte will have to deal with Moriarty? Can Charlotte trust that nobody onboard found out who she was, and that she's still alive? Many, many questions still remain, and it appears that Livia is well on her way to her own adventure and maybe a reunion with a man who she fell in love with not that long ago. 
 

One

April 1887

There's something you're not telling me, Ash," said Charlotte Holmes.

The night was starless, the sky low and heavy. But spring was beginning to make itself felt as a certain fullness in the air, the swelling of blackthorn buds on the cusp of flowering.

Charlotte was warmly wrapped in an Inverness cape, a deerstalker cap on her head. No one who saw her in her masculine attire now-if anyone could see in the pitch-blackness-would have mistaken her for the pink silk-clad vixen who had successfully ambushed Lord Ingram Ashburton earlier in the evening.

It had been their first meeting since her terribly inauspicious "death" in Cornwall, where her body was said to have been dissolved in a vat of perchloric acid. Her closest associates had "mourned" in a manner befitting those who could not publicly acknowledge their grief. But they had also worried in truth as weeks wore on with no news from her.

Charlotte, even before she had been advised to stay away from her usual haunts following that spectacle on the Cornish coast, had decided on a safe haven: none other than Eastleigh Park, the country seat of the Duke of Wycliffe, Lord Ingram's eldest brother. The estate's hunting lodge had proved a peaceful abode for her and, of course, an excellent location in which to lie in wait for Lord Ingram to turn up for his annual Easter visit.

And now, after a few highly pleasurable hours becoming reacquainted in his bedroom in the main residence, he was escorting her back to the hunting lodge, as she could not be seen in his quarters come morning, whether as a man or a woman. The night was thick as a wall. She walked nearly blindly, but he had grown up on this estate and ambled along, guiding her with an occasional touch on her elbow or the small of her back.

"I'll tell you when we're inside," he said, in response to her earlier comment, his tone deliberately light.

But when they'd entered the hunting lodge and lit a few sconces, he did not divulge what he'd kept from her. Instead, he left with a hand candle to make sure that the structure, bigger than her ancestral home, was free from hidden intruders. Charlotte removed her caped coat and prosthetic paunch, strolled into the drawing room, and stretched out on a settee, the gold brocade upholstery of which was visibly fraying-the hunting lodge, an opulent addition to the estate a hundred and fifty years ago, had not been improved in at least two generations.

He returned, handed a biscuit tin to her, crossed the room to a padded chair upholstered in the same worn brocade, and leaned against its rounded armrest, one leg straight, the other half-bent. He was rarely so informal in his posture. But even so, his shoulders remained open, his weight evenly distributed. He lifted his head and seemed about to speak-but didn't.

A single lamp bronzed the antlers mounted above the door and delineated shadows in the hollow of his cheeks. Charlotte opened the tin, nibbled on an almond macaroon, and waited, though she had already guessed what he was about to tell her.

It was not about Moriarty-her lover was distracted, but not yet alarmed. Still the matter had made him concerned for her safety. A task that required her to leave Eastleigh Park then-a task for Sherlock Holmes? And who could make such a request and be sure that he would, in fact, relay it to her?

When she'd polished off the slightly too sweet macaroon and he still hadn't spoken, she flicked crumbs from her fingertips and said, "What does my lord Remington want, exactly? And is he not aware that the estimable consulting detective of 18 Upper Baker Street is not currently offering 'his' services to the public?"

Lord Remington, Lord Ingram's brother, was responsible for much of the intelligence gathering in the far-flung corners of the empire. But in recent months, he had taken a greater interest in the domestic side of things.

Lord Ingram expelled a breath. "Oh, Remington is more than aware of your absence from London. I believe he is of the view that rather than rusticating, you might as well lend him a helping hand."

No one who had attracted Moriarty as an enemy could afford to merely rusticate. Charlotte had been busy. "Is my lord Remington dangling safety from Moriarty as a lure?"

She had no plans to venture abroad on someone else's behalf for a lesser prize.

Her lover looked grumpy, very nearly irate. "At this moment, I'm not sure even the power of the crown-let alone Remington, merely a servant of the crown-could keep anyone safe from Moriarty."

"Surely that's too pessimistic an outlook?"

"Surely you're right, madam. All the same, I find it difficult to be pleased about anything that involves risk to you."

She smiled to herself, opened the biscuit tin again, and took out a jam tart. "What exactly is Lord Remington offering me?"

"More or less what Moriarty thought he might: When you decide to reemerge into the world, Remington will let it be known that to harm you would be to injure him."

A magical amulet it wasn't, but neither was it something to sneeze at.

"And in exchange," continued Lord Ingram, "he wants you to find a dossier that has gone missing-Remington has judged you very good at finding things."

"He is not wrong about that." Ever since her toddlerhood, Charlotte had always known not only where everything was located in the house but also if any items had been misplaced. "However, I imagine that what he wants found would not be as easy to locate as Mrs. Watson's reading glasses."

"No. Not only does Remington not know where it is, he cannot even be sure who has it."

Apparently, Lord Remington's underlings had been cultivating in secret a Prussian embassy attaché. But perhaps their practice of secrecy left something to be desired, for Herr Klein, the attaché, was abruptly recalled to the fatherland. Lord Remington's underlings, however, were convinced that before Herr Klein's hasty departure, he'd left them something.

But Herr Klein had not stepped out of his hired house in the days immediately preceding his removal. Moreover, his house had been watched by parties both British and Prussian. So, to whom had he entrusted this dossier?

The Kleins-husband, wife, and two young children-were no longer in Britain and would not have been available for questioning even if Herr Klein had remained at his post. Their servants, relying on delivery for foodstuff and laundered garments, had also not left the place during the period of greatest interest.

By the time Charlotte officially took on the commission, the house-and the servants-would have been searched multiple times by agents of the German Empire.

Moreover, while she would be furnished with a list of names, individuals who had entered and departed the consular assistant's household during the most critical span of time, she would not be permitted to question anyone on the list for their connection to the Kleins or their reasons for visiting the Klein household. She was only to observe and search-while keeping her involvement an absolute secret, naturally.

Lord Ingram's lips thinned as he finished enumerating the parameters of the task.

"Well," said Charlotte dryly, "it is understood that the task must be arduous for a reward as Olympian as my lord Remington's protective aegis."

Her lover snorted. "You'll take it?"

"I can't decide on that until I hear more details and speak to Lord Remington's emissary myself."

"You should keep in mind that by assigning you this task, he is sparing his own agents the risks that you would face."

"And I've never said that I'll accept an incomplete assurance of safety as my entire payment. Worry not, I shall name a commensurate price."

On that, Mrs. Watson had trained her well.

"Now tell me your other news," she said, weighing the jam tart in her hand. It was small but felt substantial, exactly how she liked her jam tarts. "The one that you considered, however briefly, as a substitute answer."

At this her lover betrayed a slight surprise, but only for a moment. They'd observed each other for years. He would have expected her to have noticed that he'd been about to speak and thought better of it.

He sighed. "The other news is that Mrs. Newell, Miss Olivia, my children, and myself are going on a voyage together."

Charlotte's chest constricted. She felt . . . wistful.

I have my sisters to think of, and you your children. But if-if someday the conditions should be conducive, would you like for all of us to go away together? Spain, Majorca, Egypt, the Levant? By the time we reach India, it will probably be unbearably hot in the plains, but the hill stations should still be pleasant.

When she had uttered those words the year before, it had been less a proposal of itinerary than a statement of hope, that perhaps many things would be possible in a lovelier, more idyllic future. Many things had indeed changed for the better since then, not the least that they were now lovers, but they also found themselves in circumstances far more dangerous than she could have anticipated a mere six months ago.

The pang in her heart was as much regret for not being able to join everyone on the trip as nostalgia for a time when she'd believed the world to be a safer, simpler place.

She exhaled. "Livia has always yearned to travel."

"A change in scenery seemed a good idea for us all," he said quietly.

She left the settee. But when she stood before him, she didn't know what to say, precisely. So she offered him the jam tart in her hand, expecting him to turn it down. Instead, he pulled her closer by the wrist and took a bite. And then he took the jam tart from her and offered it back to her.

The pastry was short and crumbly, the jam sticky and sweet.

"We were hoping you could join us for a segment of the journey-or several segments, if safety allows," he murmured.

He brought the jam tart to his own lips again, but this time, he only kissed the spot she'd bitten. Charlotte reacted more strongly than she thought she would, and with a hunger that was not only for his delectable self.

"Perhaps-perhaps I still could," she said after a minute. "After all, how long can it take to find this thing of Remington's?"

Three weeks later

Livia Holmes stepped out of her hotel room, feeling as if she were in a dream.

All her life, she had longed to travel. And not just to London, or Cowes, or someone's country house for a fortnight, but far, far away, a voyage for no other reason than to comprehend the height and breadth of the known world.

And now that the moment was here, now that she had but to walk down the stairs, exit the hotel, and head for the Port of Southampton, she was desperately afraid that she might wake up after all and find that everything was but a dream.

Like all those dreams she'd had as a child, running away from home, just Charlotte and her. And all those dreams she'd had of late, of holding her Mr. Marbleton by the hand and sprinting toward a carriage, a train, a ship, and once, even a hot air balloon, which only needed its ballast removed to float into the sky.

She tightened her fingers around the handle of her satchel. Perhaps she was all the more anxious because it had already been such a lovely trip.

According to Lord Ingram, who had arrived first, he and his children had spent a few wet, chilly days in the port city. But as soon as Livia and Mrs. Newell reached Southampton, the weather had turned sunny and mild. Together, everyone had driven out to nearby New Forest and visited the ruins of a thirteenth-century abbey. They had made a tour of Southampton's stretches of medieval town walls. And yesterday afternoon they had strolled along the sinuous River Itchen, then flown kites in a nearby park. Livia, who had only intended to watch, had found herself with a spool in hand, running on bright new grass, laughing as her butterfly kite caught the current and shot straight up.

On the way back to their hotel, young Master Carlisle, Lord Ingram's son, had leaned against his father in the carriage, and Lord Ingram had pulled the boy closer. And Livia had felt almost as warm and safely ensconced.

"Are you ready, my dear?" asked Mrs. Newell, stepping into the passage after Livia. She was both Livia's second cousin and her official sponsor for this trip.

Livia took Mrs. Newell's arm and felt steadier. She loved the dear old lady, and it was her very great fortune to set out with someone who had always watched out for her. "Yes, ma'am. I'm ready."

With a smile, Mrs. Newell patted Livia's hand. They walked down the passage in the direction of the stairs. May I stride ever closer to the journey of a lifetime, Livia silently petitioned the universe. May I begin a new life altogether.

They reached the stair landing. A man and a woman descended from above, the woman clad in the most beautiful traveling costume Livia had ever beheld.

The cut of the dress was impeccable, the construction precise, the material understated yet luxurious. It moved with the smoothness of cream pouring from a pitcher, but more sumptuously-the simple-looking grey skirt was lined with several layers of tissue-thin blush pink silk chiffon. Together the pink and grey were delicate and evocative, reminiscent of a cherry sprig in blossom just visible in a spring mist.

The only imperfection, Livia was sorry to note, was the wearer of this sartorial sorcery.

She was about Livia's age, twenty-eight or so. Her figure served the dress well, but her features were more prominent than pretty. Had she evinced some vivacity or a steeliness of character, she might have made for an unconventional beauty. But she was simply . . . there. To say the dress overwhelmed her would be too generous. The dress, in all its splendor, existed independently of her.

Her companion was a tall, broad man whose day coat nearly burst at the seams to accommodate his shoulders and upper arms. His features, like hers, were oversized. On some men, that translated into a brooding handsomeness. But this man's countenance seemed only ferocious-and vaguely misaligned, as if God had been in a hurry on the day of his creation.

Livia and Mrs. Newell emerged onto the stair landing as the man and the woman reached the bottom of their flight of steps. Everyone hesitated. Then the man motioned toward the next flight, indicating that Livia and Mrs. Newell should proceed. A courteous gesture, but it came across to Livia-who, granted, was wildly sensitive about such things-as tinged with a trace of impatience.

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#Review - A Sinister Revenge by Deanna Raybourn #Mystery #Victorian #Historical

Series: Veronica Speedwell (#8)
Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
Release Date: March 7, 2023
Publisher: Berkley
Source: Publisher
Genre: Mystery / Victorian / Historical

Veronica must find and stop a devious killer when a group of old friends is targeted for death in this new adventure from the New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award–nominated author Deanna Raybourn.

Veronica’s natural-historian beau, Stoker, has been away in Bavaria for months and their relationship is at an impasse. But when Veronica shows up before him with his brother, Tiberius, Lord Templeton-Vane, he is lured back home by an intriguing job offer: preparing an iguanodon for a very special dinner party.
 
Tiberius has received a cryptic message—along with the obituaries of two recently deceased members of his old group of friends, the Seven Sinners—that he too should get his affairs in order. Realizing he is in grave danger but not knowing why, he plans a reunion party for the remaining Sinners at his family estate to lure the killer out while Veronica and Stoker investigate.
 
As the guests arrive and settle in, the evening’s events turn deadly. More clues come to light, leading Veronica, Stoker, and Tiberius to uncover a shared past among the Sinners that has led to the fatal present. But the truth might be far more sinister than what they were prepared for. 

A Sinister Revenge is the 8th installment in author Deanna Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell series. Months after Stoker walked away from Veronica, and decided to clear his head, Veronica Speedwell, and Tiberius Templeton-Vane travel all the way to Bavaria hoping to find the elusive young brother. Meanwhile, Stoker has been on the hunt for a mythological creature known as Wolpertinger. In German folklore, a Wolpertinger is an animal said to inhabit the alpine forests of Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg in southern Germany. 

It has a body comprising various animal parts – generally wings, antlers, a tail, and fangs; all attached to the body of a small mammal. The most widespread description portrays the Wolpertinger as having the head of a rabbit, the body of a squirrel, the antlers of a deer, and the wings and occasionally the legs of a pheasant. Veronica and Tiberius soon find Stoker and explain to him that Tiberius has received a threat to his life. Twenty years ago, Tiberius and six friends, known as the Seven Sinners, traveled the continent as young men, sowing their wild oats. On a visit to the Templeton-Vane family estate, one of the young men died.

Tiberius has received a cryptic message—along with the obituaries of two recently deceased members of his old group of friends that he too should get his affairs in order. Realizing he is in grave danger but not knowing why, he plans a reunion party for the remaining Sinners at his family estate to lure the killer out while Veronica and Stoker investigate. As you know if you've read this series from the beginning, Veronica and Stoker are basically untrained investigators who have gone through Hell and Back and solved some really creepy and dangerous mysteries which has left scars on both.

As the guests arrive and settle in, the evening’s events turn deadly. More clues come to light, leading Veronica, Stoker, and Tiberius to uncover a shared past among the Sinners that has led to the fatal present. But the truth might be far more sinister than what they were prepared for. Veronica and Stoker's relationship is all but finished, for the most part, until they are forced once again to look danger in the eye, and finally realize that they two of them are a couple whether they like it or not, whether Veronica actually wants to get married or not. 

There is a fairly large cast of characters who Veronica is forced into dealing with. One of them might be the killer, or could there be more than one and this is an elaborate plot to destroy all of the remaining Sinners for the death of one of their members 20 years ago? Veronica Speedwell is smart, quick-tongued, vivacious, and loyal. She knows who she is and won't sacrifice that based on other people's expectations. She is full of moxie and gumption and she won't stand by while Stoker throws a hissy fit or tantrum because of a slight by Veronica herself.

1

Bavaria, September 1889

You must not go into the forest at night," the innkeeper warned, his voice trembling with fear. "Something dangerous walks there in the darkness."

He carried on in this vein for some time as I applied myself to a stein of Weissbier and a plate of crisp, excellent sausages. My friend and travelling companion, the Viscount Templeton-Vane, listened politely as the fellow grew more vehement.

"The creature that walks by night, it is part wolf, part man. It has but one eye, the other a gaping hole of deepest black. It keeps to the shadows, and if you dare to come near, it snarls like a bear," he went on, his eyes round in his chubby, shiny face. He was a character straight from a storybook, plump and bearded, an imp of a fellow, with lines of good humour etched upon his face. But there was no mirth to be found upon his visage as he told his tale, only fear, brightening his eyes and causing his mouth to tremble ever so slightly.

Behind him, a lurking barmaid whose ample charms were scarcely contained by the lacing of her dirndl threw her apron over her head and fled through the door to the kitchens.

The viscount-Tiberius to his friends-quirked up one expressive brow. "My good man, calm yourself. Surely this is some piece of local lore meant to frighten the feeble. We English are made of sterner stuff."

"But it is true," the fellow insisted, colour pinkening the cheeks above the white fringe of his beard. He glanced around and lowered his voice. "I have seen it, a hulking shadow, moving in the silence of the firs. And when I stepped in its direction, it reared back and it growled with the fiendish fury of a hound of Hell."

Tiberius, usually a man of cool logic, looked startled. "Growled, you say?"

"Like a wolf," the man confirmed.

I sighed. It was time to put an end to this. "My good man," I said politely to the innkeeper, "whilst I must concede that your use of alliteration is impressive, I think we can dismiss the notion of a hybrid monster roaming these mountains."

He gave me a look of profound injury and slunk away, muttering.

Tiberius met my gaze. "Can we? I realise the local folk are a superstitious lot, but how exactly would you explain the existence of such a creature?"

I ticked off the qualities as I said them. "A tall, unsociable creature that keeps to the shadows, shuns the society of respectable people, and growls its displeasure? Tell me, who does that seem to describe?"

Tiberius' mouth went slack, then curved into a smile. "You mean-"

"Yes, Tiberius. I think we have, at long last, found your brother."


The Honourable Revelstoke Templeton-Vane-Stoker, familiarly-had not been lost so much as slightly misplaced. For some months Stoker and I had enjoyed an intimate relationship that had proven thoroughly fulfilling, indeed enrapturing, in all the particulars. We were work colleagues, engaged in the endlessly fascinating task of preparing museum exhibits for our employer, Lord Rosemorran. We were also neighbours, each of us inhabiting a small folly on his lordship’s Marylebone estate.

And we were occasional partners in detection, as falling over corpses had become something of a habit. In short, our lives were so fully entwined it was difficult to say where one left off and the other began. We enjoyed it all-from the scientific work to the investigation of crime, to the exuberant physicality of our more private endeavours. (Stoker is singularly suited to the amatory arts through a combination of bodily charms, robust stamina, and an enchanting thoroughness that might have startled a less experienced or enthusiastic partner than I.)

But following a painful interlude, Stoker had taken himself off to nurse his wounded feelings. When last he and I had been together, there had been a complication regarding my marital status. Not a complication so much as a husband-one I had believed dead and whose resurrection was most unwelcome. The fact that we had nearly died as a result of Harry's dramatic appearance into our lives had not endeared him to Stoker, and he had taken his leave of England whilst still believing me bound forever to a man with criminous tendencies. As his parting words had been a directive to grant him time and privacy to smooth his ruffled feathers, I had naturally concurred. By the next morning he was gone, leaving only a hastily scribbled line to explain he was off to Germany in pursuit of a trophy-as a natural historian, his employment entailed procuring and improving a vast array of specimens-but no invitation to join him ensued.

At almost precisely the same moment, a letter had arrived from Tiberius urging me to come to Italy, where he had persuaded his hostess, an aging papal marquise, to part with a prized collection of rare birdwing butterflies. I am, first and foremost, a lepidopterist. I did not hesitate to pack my carpetbag and board the first train out of London. Through the end of the spring and the whole of that summer I accompanied Tiberius as he made his way through Italy, sending boxes of butterflies back to Lord Rosemorran's burgeoning museum.

From Stoker, I had not a single line, although Lord Rosemorran frequently alluded to Stoker's peregrinations through the Black Forest in his own letters. I thus had a vague idea of where Stoker was, and I was not at all distressed by our lack of communication. I knew two things: the depth of our feelings for one another and the fact that absence makes the heart as well as the libido grow stronger. I had little doubt that Stoker missed me-all of me.

No, the fact that he had taken his leave so abruptly and with no effort at a proper good-bye did not distress me in the slightest. And while another woman might have grown increasingly irritated that the post forwarded from England brought not the merest scrap of a postcard, to say nothing of a proper letter, I naturally devoted myself entirely to the study of lepidoptery. I passed my days in hunting specimens that flittered and fluttered from the Dolomites to the Sicilian hills and back again. I grew leaner and more firmly muscled from scrambling over peaks and pastures. I set out at daybreak each morning from our lodgings, when the night's dew still bespangled the grasses at my feet. I did not return until the languid golden sun dropped beyond the horizon, leaving a few last gentle rays to show me the way back. I never used my net; its presence was merely a habit from my previous expeditions. Instead I followed the butterflies, making careful study of their mazy meanderings, their behaviours and habitats.

And when I returned to the solitude of my room, I spent long hours writing up my findings both for my private notes and for publication in the Aurelian journals. Invariably, I dropped into bed exhausted by my exertions, only to rise at dawn and repeat the process. Not for me the languid evening passed in mournful contemplation of the distance-both literal and figurative-between myself and the person I considered to be my twinned soul. I would not permit myself to waste away in pining and regret. I had the celibate consolations of science, and I made full advantage of them.

If I am to be strictly honest within these pages-and I have sworn to be so-then I will admit to the occasional wakeful night or interminable afternoon when I found my thoughts inhabited by his familiar form and face. When these moods came upon me, so strong was my longing for him, it required all of my discipline to refrain from flinging my things into a bag and dashing to him. The only remedy was another strenuous day spent in pursuit of my studies, driving myself physically harder than ever before even as I enumerated his flaws. I catalogued them as I strode the Italian hills, whipping up my annoyance.

"What sort of man just leaves? And without so much as a proper kiss good-bye," I muttered to the nearest rock in a fit of particular frustration on the isle of Capri. "What kind of fellow thinks it is acceptable simply to disappear for months on end and send no assurances of his well-being? Not a telegram, not a semaphore flag, not so much as a hint of a postcard with his current address? An ass," I told the rock.

But even as I said the words, I knew Stoker was not entirely to blame. He had left still believing I was the wife of another man. Only a handful of hours had passed between Stoker's departure and my learning the truth of my marital status-that I was not, and never had been, legally married.

Why then did I leap at Tiberius' invitation instead of rushing after Stoker to stop him before he left England?

It was some months before I could face the answer: I was a coward. When I learnt of Stoker's resolve to leave, to take time for himself to consider our attachment, my initial reaction, the longing of my heart, had been to go to him. And therein lay my terror. I, who had laboured and loved independent of real connection for so long, was entirely and besottedly enraptured with this man. When I most had need of a confidant, I had not turned to him out of fear of dependency, and when he left, the desire to run to him had kindled that fear once more.

So I drove it out with hard physical exercise, with time and distance, hoping I could blunt the sharp edge of my resistance to committing myself fully to Stoker. My demeanour, ordinarily so tranquil as to be remarkable, was frequently waspish as I came back, always, to the fact that even if I wanted to go to him, he had insisted upon the gift of time. If time was what he wanted, he should have all the time in the world, I decided. In fact, I would grow weary and withered and ancient before I would stir a single step towards him. If I suffered from the loss of his company, then he should suffer as well, I decided. I had my dignity, after all.

I do not know how long I might have maintained my lofty determination to wait for him to make the first move. I might still be wandering the Lombard hills, butterfly net in hand, had Tiberius not appeared one morning at breakfast, bags packed and travel arranged. Our hotel, a converted castello, was very fine and comfortable but with few of the comforts so beloved of the English traveller. The beds were hard, the pillows nonexistent, and the mosquitoes particularly aggressive. Worst of all possible woes, the tea was unspeakable and I had almost resigned myself to drinking coffee. I was peering into the murky depths of the teapot when Tiberius took the chair across from me.

"I wish to find Stoker," he said flatly. "Do you know where one might run him to ground?"

I put aside the crime that passed for tea in those parts and gave him a level look. "Somewhere in Bavaria, if Lord Rosemorran's letters are accurate. But his lordship can be vague about such things, and this is, after all, Stoker of whom we are speaking, a man inclined to follow his most wayward impulses. He might be in Batavia. Or Bolivia. Or Bechuana." He did not respond to my little witticism and I gave him a close look. Tiberius was, like all the Templeton-Vane men, a singularly handsome fellow. But there were plummy shadows under his eyes, and a line, slim but severe, etched its way across his brow. "Tiberius, why do you want to find Stoker?"

He hesitated, itself cause for alarm, and then said three words which chilled me to my marrow.

"I need him."


The fact that Tiberius Templeton-Vane, ninth viscount of the same, expressed any emotion as lowering as need of another person was mildly terrifying. He was the most self-possessed man I had ever met, his character having long since been shaped by the ineffable knowledge that he was the firstborn son of an aristocrat, heir to a fortune, a title, and an estate. His privilege was as much a part of him as his elegant hands or his superb sense of dress. Tiberius, so long as I had known him, needed no one and nothing-least of all his scapegrace brother. Stoker had, almost since the cradle, been considered the cuckoo in the nest. (The fact that their mother’s dalliance with an Irish painter was actually responsible for Stoker’s paternity only augmented this division.) Stoker had rebelled against the family’s strictures, taking himself off for the first time when he was twelve years of age. His putative father, the eighth viscount, had him apprehended and returned to Cherboys, the family estate in Devon, but Stoker simply ran away again. And again. Every time he was hauled back to Cherboys, he bided his time and then left. In due course, the viscount stopped retrieving him and Stoker fell in with a travelling circus before studying medicine in Edinburgh and later becoming a surgeon’s mate in Her Majesty’s Navy.

Through his perambulations, he had lost the thread of connection with his family, and by the time I had met him, some three years previous to these events, there was almost no communication between Stoker and his three brothers, their father having died the year before I came into his life. He had been independent for so long that it had almost become a matter of pride for him that he did not rely upon the Templeton-Vane name or its influence to open doors for him. He lived by his own talents, and this was met by his brothers sometimes with good-natured bafflement and sometimes with resentful envy. Their own lives had been laid out for them by the late Lord Templeton-Vane, and none of the three had the courage or will to deviate from the appointed path. Tiberius, as the eldest, had succeeded to the title. The second, Sir Rupert, had been granted a baronetcy for his services to the Crown as a barrister who dabbled in secret diplomacy. The youngest, Merryweather-shoved into the Church, possibly against his will-had been granted the living of the parish of Dearsley, the village nearest to Cherboys. The brothers were settled, with varying degrees of satisfaction, in their roles.

And yet. Now and then, so fleeting I could almost believe it my own fancy, each of them had looked at Stoker with something akin to jealousy. I was not surprised. It was the same expression frequently aimed in my direction, usually by women with too many children and too much time spent embroidering tea cloths. To make one's own money, to direct one's own destiny, these were heady gifts indeed.

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