Bonfire Night. Deanna Raybourn
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Amateur sleuth Lady Julia Grey and her detective husband, Nicholas Brisbane, face their latest adventure in this novella by New York Times bestselling author Deanna Raybourn
It’s the autumn of 1890, and almost a year has passed since—much to their surprise—Lady Julia and Nicholas became parents. Just as the couple begins to adapt, a solicitor arrives with a strange bequest. Nicholas, it seems, has inherited a country house—but only if he and his family are in residence from All Hallows’ Eve through Bonfire Night.
Neither Lady Julia nor Nicholas is likely to be put off by local legends of ghosts and witches, and the eerie noises and strange lights that flit from room to room simply intrigue them. Until a new lady’s maid disappears, igniting a caper that will have explosive results…
The fourth in a series of Lady Julia Grey stories set during traditional English holidays, Bonfire Night follows Silent Night, Midsummer Night and Twelfth Night. Look for Deanna’s newest 1920s novel, Night of a Thousand Stars, in October!
Bonfire Night
Deanna Raybourn
Contents
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
London, 1890
“Julia, how did you misplace the baby? Again?” my sister asked with more than a touch of asperity.
I gave her the most dignified look I could muster under the circumstances. “I did not misplace him,” I informed her in lofty tones. “I forgot him.” The fact that this was now the fourth time I had walked into the park with the child and left without him was mortifying—and not something my siblings would let me soon forget.
“Oh, that makes it quite all right then,” chimed in our brother Plum. I put my tongue out at him, but before I could form a suitable reply, my husband spoke.
“It’s my fault entirely,” he said, his voice silken. “Julia was generous enough to take on a case of some delicacy. She was rather preoccupied with breaking the alibi of a jewel thief.”
Plum twitched in his chair. “The Enderby case? I thought that was put to bed last week,” he protested. The theft of the Enderby opals was the most important investigation that my husband had allowed Plum to undertake on his own authority. He had been single-minded in his pursuit of the culprit—so much so that Lady Enderby’s maid had nearly been arrested for the theft after only an hour’s investigation.
I smiled sweetly at my brother. “Yes, the maid was the most obvious thief, wasn’t she? But the solution seemed a little too simple to Brisbane. He refused to have her arrested until I had spoken with her.”
Plum flushed pink to his ears and shot an accusing look at Brisbane. “It was my case,” he repeated.
“And it was mishandled,” my husband returned coolly. “The case against the girl was damning, but I was not persuaded.”
“She confessed,” Plum retorted, his jaw set stubbornly. But the more enraged he became, the calmer Brisbane remained. It was a trick I had seen him employ a thousand times, and usually upon me. Brisbane had learnt long ago the most effective way of handling any member of the March family was to remain utterly unmoved in the face of strong emotion. Goading him out of his sang-froid was one of my favourite pastimes, but my decidedly intimate methods would never work for my brother, I reflected with a delicate frisson of remembered passion.
“She confessed because she is French and therefore away from her home, her country, her friends. She told me about the accusations you lobbed at her,” I chided. “You practically called her a thief the moment you sat her down. What did you expect her to do?”
“I expected her to tell the truth,” he said.
“Careful,” Portia warned. “Plum’s getting into a pet and you know his sulking puts me off my food.”
I waved a hand. “If we have dinner at all, you may count yourselves fortunate. The workmen have moved into the kitchens and twice this week Brisbane and I have dined on bananas.”
“Why bananas?” Portia asked.
“Gift from a grateful client,” Brisbane returned. “His Excellency the ambassador of the Emir of Ranapurcha was very generous with them. We have forty pounds left.”
Portia blinked. “He gave you forty pounds of bananas?”
“You misunderstood, dearest,” I corrected. “We have forty pounds remaining. There were one hundred to begin with. Mrs. Lawson has put them into, salads, sauces, soufflés—I think at one unfortunate meal she even managed to make them into soup.”
“Do not remind me,” Brisbane put in with a curl of his handsome mouth. “It was grey.”
I went on. “But she has left us at last, bound for a peaceful retirement at her sister’s cottage in Weymouth, and we are left with a new cook and a larder full of ripe bananas.”
“That explains the smell,” Plum said. He still looked a trifle sulky, and I knew he was not over his mood. His next remark confirmed it. “So,” he said, fixing me with a gleeful look, “you were telling us about losing the baby. Again.”
I cursed him inwardly. Plum had only ever been third favourite amongst my brothers, and I was reminded why. He was always a little too quick to find my soft spots and prod them. Pointedly.
Portia sat forward, her expression avid. “Yes, I only ever forgot Jane once, and that was because I saw the most delicious first edition of Bacon’s essays in the window of a bookshop. I left her pram on the pavement without a thought.”
Plum snorted. “You’ve never pushed a pram in your life. You left the nanny is more like it.”
Portia’s gaze was glacial. “The nanny’s presence was immaterial. I still forgot the child. Although,” she added, turning to me, “I’ve never forgot her four times.”
I looked to Brisbane. “I can’t decide if she is trying to defend me or accuse me,” I told him.
“A little of both,” he decided. “She wants you to know that she sympathises with your peccadillo but would never be quite so daft as to commit it herself. At least not four times.”
“That’s very helpful,” I said with a dangerous smile. He smiled back, and there was intimacy in that smile and a promise of something delightful yet to come.
“Stop staring at your husband, Julia,” my sister instructed. “You’ve gone pink