Alyssa Maxwell's Blog - Posts Tagged "mystery"

New Years Day might not be until Wednesday, but I've decided to get a big head start on 2014 tomorrow. If each new year brings us a whole new opportunity to be better at what we do and who we are in general, why wait? It's no surprise that the holidays can seriously interfere with a writer's schedule, and for several weeks now I've been plagued with that inevitable writer's guilt of not producing enough - of not being where I want to be in my latest WIP, MURDER AT BEECHWOOD (book 3 of The Gilded Newport Mysteries). Not to mention that I have an idea for yet another series I'd like to propose to my publisher. Could I handle two at once? The thought makes me both nervous and excited! I'd love to try - and in a writer's world, "trying" actually means you're willing to sacrifice on other parts of your life in order to get the job done. It also means from now on I can't let distractions get the better of me, and I need to view each day as an opportunity to push ahead with my goals.

So for me, 2014 starts tomorrow, at least in spirit. Hmm...I'd better get to bed early tonight so I'll be well-rested, because there's quite a lot I want to accomplish on the first day of my new year.

What do you hope to accomplish in the coming year?

My daughter left yesterday to return to school in NJ, where she's studying to get her PhD. It made me sad to see her leave, but before she went we had a discussion about a book. My book! She had just read one of my ARCs of Murder at The Breakers, and to my great surprise and delight, she didn't guess who the murderer was until the evil villain was unveiled. Now, this is a child (ok, she's 25), who often within the first 15 mintues of a movie will tell you exactly what's going on - and she'll be right! It's infuriating how often she's able to pick up on clues that sail right over my head. Even her friends have forbidden her to voice her suspicions whenever they're watching something together. So score one for Mom!

We also had fun discussing the various secondary characters who are based on her own ancestors - great and great-great grandparents, for instance, because I've inserted references for the benefit of my husband's Newport family, who should get a real kick out of finding certain names in the story.

Then she pinned me down with some tough questions about why and how, and I really had to stop and think, and a time or two she almost stumped me about my own book! Smarty pants. But then again, this book was two manuscripts ago. The facts become a litte blurred, not to mention confused with newer plotlines. Still, it was fun having to think about why I chose such and such plot device, etc.

But that's not all our talk meant to me - in fact that was really the least of it. What struck me as so special was that she and I were having, basically, a literary discussion about characters and clues and motives in a book I wrote. Me! And she not only enjoyed it, it sparked her imagination and curiosity. I doubt very much she gave it much thought, but to me it felt like we connected on a level we'd never connected on before, and that, as a parent, I'd gained that elusive approval we don't typically expect to get from our kids. After all, we're just the parents, right?

I hope to have many more conversations with readers about The Gilded Newport Mysteries, but I can truly say that one will always stand out as special - as having made me feel special and that I'd really achieved something.

CHAPTER ONE



Newport, RI, August 1895

She awoke that morning to an angry sea battering the edges of the promontory, and gusting winds that kicked up a spray to rattle against her bedroom windows. She might simply have rolled over, closed her eyes again and sunk pleasantly back into sleep, if not for the—

Here the nib of my pen ran dry and scratched across the paper, threatening to leave a tear. If not for the what? I knew what I wanted to say; this was to be a novel of mystery and danger, but I was having a dickens of a time that morning finding the right words.

As I pondered, my gaze drifted to another page I’d shoved aside last night. Sitting on my desktop inches from my elbow, the words I’d hastily scrawled before going to bed mocked me with their insipidness. Mrs Astor Plants A Rose Garden, the title read. Who could possibly care, I wondered. Yet people apparently did care, or I wouldn’t have been sent by my employer, Mr. Millford of the Newport Observer, to cover the auspicious event. Not that Mrs. Astor actually wielded anything resembling a garden tool, mind you, or chanced pricking her tender fingers on a thorn. No, she’d barked brisk orders at her groundskeepers until the placement of the bushes suited her taste, and then ushered her dozen or so guests onto the terrace for tea.

I sighed, looking up from my desk to stare out my bedroom window. The scene outside perfectly matched the mysterious one I’d just described: a glowering, blustery day that promised intermittent rains and salty winds. The inclement weather heralded ominous tidings for my protagonist, not to mention reeking real-life havoc on the tightest of coiffeurs.

No matter; I had no plans to stray from home until much later in the evening. I dipped my pen in the inkwell and was about to try again when from behind me a hand descended on my shoulder.

With a yelp I sprang from my chair, shoving it away with the backs of my knees. I sucked in a breath and prepared to cry out in earnest, but before I could utter a sound a second hand clamped my mouth.

“Shush! For crying out loud, Em, don’t scream. I thought you heard me. Ouch!”
I’d instinctively bitten one of the fingers pressed against my lips, even as recognition of the familiar voice poured through me and sent my fear draining from my limbs. Still, I had no intentions of apologizing. Wrenching from his grip, I turned and slapped my brother’s hands away.

“Blast it, Brady! What are you doing here? Neither Katie nor Nanny would have let you upstairs without asking me first.”

“The front door was unlocked. I called out but when no one answered I let myself in.” A flick of his head sent a shank of damp, sandy blond hair off his forehead—and assured me he was lying. That particular gesture had accompanied Brady’s fibs for as long as I could remember. The only truth to his statement was that he’d let himself in.

“You sneaked in, didn’t you?” I folded my arms in front of me. Why?”

“I need your help, Em.”

“Oh, Brady, what now?” My arms fell to my sides, and with a sigh that melted into a yawn, I walked to the foot of my bed and reached for my robe. “I suppose you must be in real trouble again, or you’d never be out and about this early.”

“Are you going to The Breakers tonight?” He referred to the ball our relatives were holding that evening.

“Of course. But—”

“I need you to do something for me.” He threw himself into the chintz overstuffed chair beside the hearth. I remained standing, glaring down at him, braced for the inevitable. “I, uh…I did something I shouldn’t have…”

“Really? What else is new?” Several scenarios sprang to mind. A brawl. A drunken tirade. Cheating at cards. An affair with yet another wife of an irate husband bent on revenge. One simply never knew what antics my half brother, Stuart Braden Gale IV, might stir up on any given day. Or night. Despite hailing from two of Newport’s oldest and most respected families—on both our mother’s and his father’s sides—Brady had seen the inside of the Newport jail nearly as often as the town’s most unsavory rapscallions. And on many a morning, I’d paid the bailiff on his behalf more times than I, or my purse, cared to count.

“I want to make it right,” he hurried on. “The Breakers will be mobbed later and I’ll be able to sneak in, but I’ll need your help.”

“I don’t like the sound of this one bit, Brady. Whatever it is, you know you should just come clean. You can’t hide from Uncle Cornelius for long.”

Before he could reply, a pounding echoed from the hall below. I heard a tread on the staircase and moments later there came a rap at my bedroom door. With an imploring look, Brady shook his head and put a finger to his lips. He jumped up from the chair and moved to the corner of the room where my armoire would hide him from view. A sense of foreboding had me dragging my feet as I went to the door.

“Good mornin’, Miss Emma.” Katie, my young housemaid, peered in at me and tucked an errant red curl under the cap she’d obviously donned in haste. Her soft brogue plunged to a murmur. “Sorry to disturb you so early, miss, but Mr. Neily’s below. Shall I tell him you ain’t receivin’ yet?”

“Neily?” A burst of wind rattled the windows sent a chill down my back. “On a morning like this?” My maid didn’t answer, and I managed to refrain from angling a glance into the shadows cloaking my brother. “Thank you, Katie. Tell him I’ll be down in a few minutes. Show him into the morning room, please, and bring in coffee.”

“Aye, miss.” The girl hesitated and then bobbed an awkward curtsy. I closed the door.

“You won’t tell him I’m here, will you, Em?”

With pursed lips I met my brother’s eager blue gaze. “He’s looking for you, is he?”

“One would assume.”

Going to my dressing table, I pinned my braided hair into a coil at my nape, secured the sash of my robe into a secure knot, and slipped my feet into a pair of tattered satin slippers. In the bathroom my great aunt Sadie had installed before she died, I turned the creaky faucet and splashed cold water onto my face.

Ordinarily I wouldn’t dream of greeting company in such a state of dishabille, but this was my cousin Neily, here on a blustery August morning hours before he typically showed his face beyond the gates of his family’s summer home.

Would I keep my brother’s secret? Blindly lend him the help he asked for?
I sighed once more. Didn’t I always?
When I stepped back into the bedroom, Brady was nowhere to be seen, though I thought I heard the telltale click of the attic door closing.

Downstairs, I paused in the morning room doorway. A coffee pot and two cups waited on the table; fruit, muffins, and a tureen of steaming oatmeal occupied the sideboard. Under any other circumstances, my stomach would have rumbled. Not today.

It didn’t appear as if my cousin had brought an appetite either, as he hadn’t helped himself to any of the repast. I pasted on a smile and stepped into the room. “Good morning, Neily. What brings you here so early, and in such weather? Not that it isn’t always good to see you.” Could he hear the hesitation in my tone? “Will you join me in some coffee?”

He had been standing with his broad back to me, staring out at the ocean, his dark hair boyishly tousled in the way that had become fashionable among the sporting young gentlemen here for the summer season. He turned, his somber expression framed by the tossing gray waves and the ragged clouds scuttling past like ripped, wind-born sheets.

“Good morning, Emmaline,” he said curtly, a civility to be gotten over quickly so he could come to the point of his visit. He held his black bowler between his hands. “Is Brady here?”

I blinked and clutched the ruffled neckline of my robe. For once I didn’t bother correcting Neily on my name. I preferred Emma, but my more illustrious relatives insisted on using my full name, as they did with all the girls in the family.

“Brady,” I repeated. I paused, hating to lie, but for now I’d do what I could to protect my brother, at least until I knew more.

I discreetly crossed two fingers. “You know Brady’s never up this early. Is something wrong?”

“He’s up today and yes, something’s wrong.” His overcoat billowing behind him, he came toward me so quickly I almost backed up a step, but managed to hold my ground. “If I were to look around, are you sure I wouldn’t find him?”

Only if you looked in the attic. But please don’t. Then again, by now Brady might be somewhere on the first floor, perhaps in the adjoining service hallway, listening to every word.

Aloud I said, “Look all you like.” I was sure Neily could hear my heart pounding. “Did you check around town?”

“He’s not at his digs, and he’s not sleeping it off at any of his usual haunts. This is important, Emmaline, and I need your help. So does Brady, as a matter of fact.”

Good heavens, did he think I hadn’t figured that out for myself? But I raised my eyebrows in a show of ignorance.

Neily’s grip on his hat tightened, leaving fingerprints on the rain-dampened felt. “If you happen to see him, if he shows up here…”

“Yes, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him. Now, about that coffee…” I started toward the table, but Neily’s next words stopped me cold.

“No. Don’t tell Brady anything. Call the house. Immediately. Ask for me. Tell no one else anything. No one. Not even Father.”

That reference to Cornelius Vanderbilt II held just enough emphasis to send a lump of dread sinking to the pit of my belly. “You’re scaring me, Neily. What exactly has Brady done?”

In a rare occurrence, Cornelius Vanderbilt III, heir to a fortune that had surpassed the $200 million mark a generation ago, shifted both his feet and his gaze, obviously no longer able to meet my eye. “I…I don’t like to say, Emmaline, not just now. It could all just be a…a misunderstanding.”

I strode closer to him. Realizing I was clutching my robe again, I dropped my hands to my sides and squared my shoulders. “What could be a misunderstanding, Neily? Stop being mysterious. If Brady’s in trouble I have a right to know.”

“It’s railroad business.” A faint blush stained those prominent cheekbones of his, raising my curiosity tenfold and making me wonder, Brady’s present crisis aside, what business machinations the family had gotten up to now. “Please, Emmaline, that’s all I can tell you.”

I knew I wouldn’t get any more from him. “All right. If I see Brady or hear from him, I’ll call. He was invited for tonight, wasn’t he?”

Tonight’s ball was to be both a coming out party for my cousin Gertrude and a housewarming event for Alice and Cornelius Vanderbilt’s newly rebuilt summer “cottage”—an affair that promised to be the most extravagant Newport had ever seen.

“He’s invited, but it’s doubtful he’ll show.” Neily started past me, then hesitated, staring down at the patent leather toecaps of his costly boots. “I couldn’t help but notice that…that Katie isn’t…”

Ah. Earlier that spring, a few weeks after the family had come up from New York to supervise the final touches on The Breakers, a young maid in their employ had shown up at my door, distraught and with nowhere else to turn. Katie Dillon had told me little more than what was obvious, but I’d surmised the rest. I’d been furious with Neily, and vastly disappointed with the cousin I’d known all my life and had come to admire.

“No, Katie isn’t,” I said coldly. I tugged my robe tighter around me and pushed away images of that awful night of blood and pain and tears. Katie had been in her third month, had hardly begun to show yet. “Not any longer. The child died and nearly took Katie with it.”

For the briefest moment Neily hung his head, quite a show of remorse for a Vanderbilt. “But she is…she’s…”
“Fine now, thank you for inquiring.” My tone rang of dismissal. I had far more important concerns than soothing his conscience.

Neily lingered a moment longer as if searching for words. Then he was gone, leaving me staring past the foggy windows to the waves pluming over the rocks that marked the end of the spit of land on which my house, Gull Manor, perched boldly above the Atlantic Ocean.
A half an hour earlier I’d been imagining mysterious happenings, but suddenly I’d entered a very real mystery of my own. Who was the villain? Who the victim?

A step behind me broke my troubled trance. I didn’t bother turning around. I knew my brother’s skulking footsteps when I heard them. “Right now Neily only suspects I did what I did,” he said softly. “If I undo it, there’ll be nothing to hide. All I need for you to do is be my lookout later.”

I walked to the window and reached out, pressing my palm to the cool pane. “Brady, I don’t see why I should help you if you won’t trust me enough to tell me what you did.”

“Of course I trust you. But it’s better you don’t know too much. I don’t want you implicated.”

I whirled, true fear for Brady knotting my throat. His clothes and hair had dried, but his rumpled appearance lent him a vulnerable, lost air that tugged at my heartstrings. “Oh, Brady. If you don’t change your ways, someday you’ll be beyond anyone’s help.”

He held up a hand, palm up. “Just keep an eye on the old man, Em. That’s all. Right before midnight. Everyone should be in that cavernous hall of theirs toasting cousin Gertrude before the midnight supper. But if you see Uncle Cornelius edging toward the staircase at any time between eleven forty-five and midnight, do something, anything, to stop him. All right, Em? Can you do that for me?”

I regarded his trim, compact frame, his fine, even features, and the smudges of sleeplessness beneath his eyes. Brady was my elder brother by four years. Our parents were alive and well but living in Paris among all the other expatriated artists searching for inspiration, many of whom had once, in a simpler time, called Newport home.

Arthur Cross, my father, was a painter and yes, a Vanderbilt, but a poor one, descended from one of the daughters of the first Cornelius. Brady wasn’t a Vanderbilt at all but Mother’s son from her first marriage. His father had died before he was born, a Newport dandy with a penchant for spending rather than earning and who had been presumed dead in a yachting accident, though his body was never found.

With no available parents, somehow I had become the guiding force in Brady’s life. Even at twenty-one I was the steadier of the two of us, the more practical, the one who remembered that food and clothing and a roof over one’s head couldn’t be won at poker or dicing. But when I couldn’t guide him, I picked him up, dusted him off, gave him a lecture and fed him honey cakes and tea. Why that last? Because despite his many failings—and they were numerous—there remained some endearing quality about Brady that brought out my motherly instincts. What can I say? I loved my brother. And I would do what I could to keep him on the straight and narrow.

“Promise me your intentions are honorable,” I demanded in a whisper.

“I swear it, Em.”

With a nod and an audible breath I agreed to help him. I just prayed I wouldn’t regret it.
***

With my panel over, I was able to enjoy Saturday at SleuthFest as a regular attendee, i.e., someone eager to soak up the wisdom of mystery professionals who are way more experienced than I am. I attended five panels in all. If I've misquoted anyone or left any names out, I humbly apologize. It was a lot to take in and I tried to keep track as best I could.

At the Editor's Roundtable, we were reminded to make our manuscripts the best it can be before submitting, and to follow each publisher's guidelines, which are always available on their websites. This might sound like common sense, yet each editor could give examples of writers who seemed to believe that little mistakes didn't matter, and who submit under the assumption that if the editor doesn't like something, "she'll fix it for you." So not true! Whether this is about story content, grammar and style, or formatting, even little concerns add up. The last thing you want an editor to think is you either don't have an eye for detail, or you're just not trying hard enough. Editor's want good stories, but they also want authors who are easy to work with--who are accommodating when it comes to house styles and are willing to adjust. And they are just as likely to reject a manuscript with dazzling writing but so-so content as they are to reject a fabulous plot with not-so-great writing.

Most of the editors seemed willing to point out a reason or two when they reject a manuscript, especially if the story showed potential and they might like to see it again. Deni Dietz of Five Star believes that kind of editor feedback is an important tool in helping aspiring authors grow and develop their craft. Shannon Jamieson Vazquez of Berkeley especially doesn't like to see too quick of a turnaround when she sends a rejection with an invitation to resubmit with revisions. She cited an example of something returning a manuscript within a couple of hours with a message indicating that all concerns had been addressed. Not possible!

At lunch, keynote speaker Laura Lipman reiterated this notion of taking time with your manuscript and not to rush into submitting or self-publishing because "you want it now." Her example was of a woman she'd met who spent 3 months working on her book, and two "heartbreaking" months submitting and being rejected. And for that reason she was self-pubbing. It's so important to be sure your manuscript is "ready" for publication, whether traditionally or through self-pubbing, and we all know that takes time, effort, and several objective points of view--which means every manuscript should be critiqued and then edited by at least one other professional editor.

Laura also reminded us that traditional and indy/self-publishing are both viable options, and there is too much squabbling these days between the two camps. In fact there shouldn't be any camps at all, but rather authors seeking out the best options for their careers, whatever that may be. We should be able to come together as colleagues and be supportive of each other. I'd add to that the fact that what works for an author at one time may not be right at another point in his/her career. So we should always keep an open mind.

This was only part of my morning. I also attended the panels on Taboos and Setting, but I'll cover those in my next post. Lest you think it was all work and no play, though, at lunch an author popped out of a giant cake, there was a wild (and wildly funny) auction where, among other things, the gentleman next to me bid $1500 and won a one-on-one session with special guest, author Ace Atkins. (I was afraid to scratch my nose.) Raffle tickets for fabulous baskets were sold by FL MWA members in pink boas (yes, even the guys), and ballots were circulated for "The Most Interesting Man at SleuthFest." But more in my next post.....

Ready for my third and final recap of SleuthFest? Let's jump right in...

In the Taboos workshop, the consensus seemed to be that, especially in cozy mysteries, readers don't like extreme violence, foul language, or descriptive sex scenes. But if an author has the ability to handle sensitive subject matter gracefully and can make them work in her story without jarring or otherwise offending the reader, then there are no real taboos. However, they issued this caution: the writer must have a special talent to pull this off. Not everyone can, so pushing the envelope on taboos can be risky, and can ultimately backfire on the author. Oh, and while you can pretty much kill off any number of people, do not hurt or kill any cats or dogs. Or other cute, helpless animals. Or any animals. Just. Don't. Do it.

Next came the panel on settings. I've always been a fan of "setting as character," meaning setting is never arbitrary, but carefully selected for its own particular atmosphere and traits in order to enhance the themes of the story—the idea that setting can affect the action of the plot just as much as a character can. The panel discussed urban vs. rural settings, and stressed that setting must always be seen from the point of view of the main characters. Do they have a history in that place, and what kinds of memories do they attach to it? Or are they new to an area, and how do they react to new sights and sounds? How does the way in which they perceive their environment reflect and or affect their current state of mind? When writing setting details, the author should always take into account the emotions of the main character. Those emotions should help "color" the setting details the author puts on the page. All the panelists agreed that portraying setting through their characters' eyes was more important that being 100% accurate. They recommended knowing as much about your setting as possible. For example, you don't want to show downtown Detroit after 6pm as a bustling place, because it simply isn't. The trick is to know enough so that you sound convincing, and run with it. One thing they advised against was too much accuracy when it comes to directions—you don't want to sound like a travel log, or like an author who did a heck of a lot of research and wanted to include it all in the book. As far as choosing an urban or rural setting, it really depends on the tone and action of the story.

I've been thinking about writing a short story/novella, so after lunch I attended the Short Story panel. The best advice I came away with was write your story and don't worry too much about length in the first draft. Later, go back and cut all unnecessary words and story elements that don't directly impact the plot. Every words counts – there can be no extras. For me, the advice to trim later removes some of the pressure of writing short.

However, the authors had other wisdom to share. Libby Fischer Hellman called a short story an "affair," whereas a novel is more like a marriage. It can allow you to expand on a subplot or secondary character from a novel, or as Michael Haskins pointed out, it's a good way to stay in your characters' head between full-length novels and keep them fresh in your mind. Short stories are also great for author name recognition. Twist Phalen and Stacy Allen begin with a premise first, and Twist says she then develops contrary characters she can drive crazy with the plot. Stacy Allen has an excel spreadsheet set up with lists of character traits, settings, and plot element choices, and apparently hitting F9 sets up her scenario for her. I need to look into that further.  All agreed that short stories are much more popular and easier to sell than previously, thanks to ereaders, flexible pricing, and shorter attention spans. Finally, writing a short story is a great exercise in writing tight, a skill that can be transferred over to novel writing for fast pacing.

My last panel of the day was It's Their Job, Staying on Top of Your Sleuth's Career. No one lives in a void. Your sleuth should have a well-rounded life with family, friends, and yes, a career of some kind. What your sleuth does for a living is often exactly the thing that puts them in the right place at the right time (or wrong time, when you consider we're dealing with murder), or has given them the skills to get the job done. Depending on the career, it may influence what the sleuth observes, how they process the information, and what opportunities they have to track evidence. Your sleuth's career will be an ongoing thread throughout the book and throughout the series, so it's important to research it well and make it believable.

Along with this, the panel reminded us to also give our sleuth a flaw, something they need to deal with and that gives them an opportunity to learn and grow over time. Incidentally, the other night I started reading The Other Woman by Hank Phillippi Ryan (which I picked up at the conference bookstore), and in it her sleuth has just been fired from a high-powered job in TV news, and is having to start over as a small-time newspaper reporter, the only job she was able to get. I'll be interested to follow both the career and character arcs as Jane Ryland tries to get her life back together.

In my posts covering this conference, I've discussed history, what editors want, the traditional vs. self-publishing debate, taboos, setting, short stories, and story content in the form of a sleuth's career. That's enough information to at least get someone started on a book, in less than two days' time. But there was so much more to be learned about the future of publishing, promotions and discoverability, self-publishing, forensics, pacing...you name it, SleuthFest had a workshop on it. The conference organizers did an amazing job of putting it all together, and making SleuthFest productive and fun. They have my hearty thanks!! For me, SleuthFest started and ended all too soon. Next year I plan to attend the full conference, and hopefully sit on another panel or two as well. This year, Murder at the Breakers wasn't out in time to sign at the conference. Next year, I'll two books to sign! SleuthFest 2015, here I come!

I recently participated in a Monday Blog Hop where each week, 2 authors answer 4 questions about their writing process. Here are my answers. If you're a reader and a cozy mystery lover, I hope my answers tweak your curiosity to find out more about my books. If you're an aspiring writer, I hope something here sparks an idea or helps you along with your own writing process. So.....

What am I working on?

Right now I'm in the middle of my third Gilded Newport Mystery, Murder at Beechwood. This will follow Murder at The Breakers, which comes out on the 25th of this month (so excited), and Murder at Marble House, which releases at the end of September. Like this blog hop that takes you from author to author, murder takes my sleuth hopping from one Bellevue Avenue "summer cottage" to another in Gilded Age Newport. Emma Cross is part native Newporter, which makes her stubborn, determined, and hearty, but she's also a second cousin of the Vanderbilts, which gives her entree into high society when she needs it—as does her job as a society reporter for a local newspaper.

I'm fascinated with family dynamics, so family plays a big part of these stories. Emma's parents are living abroad in Paris with other expatriated, starving artists, and there are times she feels a bit abandoned. Her Vanderbilt relatives help fill the gap, and while they can drive her crazy with their somewhat skewed view of the world, she also appreciates their generosity towards her and genuinely cares about each of them. As I researched the Vanderbilts, I also came to appreciate them as individuals, rather than symbols of a bygone era, and I can honestly say I've developed a fondness for them that I believe shows on the page.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I've been told my settings are so vivid the reader feels as if she's there. I treat setting as another character in the book, one which can directly affect the plot. Setting is never arbitrary to me - there are specific reasons I choose one location over another. With these books, I have a personal connection to Newport through my husband and his family, who are Newporters going back several generations. But the fact that Newport is on small Aquidneck Island, and that in the 1890s the only way on or off was by boat, makes it especially appealing as a cozy mystery setting. That kind of close environment creates an intimate society where everyone knows everyone else—and their business—and to me that's an essential part of a cozy.

Why do I write what I do?

I write historicals for the simple reason that I love them, and because for some reason when I put my fingers to the keyboard, my words take on a historical tone. Can't help it. I suppose it's a direct result of the kind of reading I've done since a pretty young age. I always gravitated toward historical stories, and grew up on authors like Louisa May Alcott, the Brontes, Jane Austen, and Daphne Du Maurier. I also love the challenge of finding ways to solve a crime without modern forensics. This means paying especially close attention to what's present at the crime scene and where it's placed, as well as having my sleuth piece together information through questioning people and then verifying their alibis through her various "sources." Added to that is the fact that as a young woman, she also has to work around the social restrictions of the times in order to preserve her reputation and not shock the bejesus out of her Vanderbilt relatives, who are highly shockable.

How does my writing process work?

With this series, I took a lot of time developing the characters before I did any writing. Recurring characters are important—they help create a sense of familiarity for the reader—so you need to build a strong foundation for them. History helped me quite a bit when it came to the wealthy families like the Vanderbilts and the Astors, but Emma's immediate family and friends are fictional, so I spent a lot of time "getting to know them" and how they fit into Emma's life.

Next, I turn to the victim. Who will be murdered, where, and how? History helps in this decision process, too. I look for a significant event at the time of the book and build around that. In the summer of 1895 the Vanderbilts held a ball and coming-out party for their daughter, Gertrude, in their newly rebuilt Breakers, which had burned down three years prior. It was THE event of that summer, and everyone in society was there that night—including cousin Emma, of course. What better time to stage a murder, right? The second book is built around the engagement of young Consuelo Vanderbilt to the ninth Duke of Marlborough. The poor girl wanted no part of being this man's wife (she was in love with someone else), but her mother was so determined she even (perhaps) faked ill health to persuade her daughter. Consuelo becomes an integral part of the mystery in that book, although the victim is a fictional person. For the current work in progress, I chose Mrs. Astor's Beechwood because historically, Caroline Astor was THE queen of society and as such, she officially kicked off each summer's festivities with a ball and entertainments on her lawns overlooking the ocean. Can you imagine how dismayed the poor woman would be to have such sordid business linked to her good name?

Clues, motives, secrets and red herrings come next. For me, writing a mystery is like solving a giant puzzle, and I need to know what the pieces are before I can put them together. Once I have everything in place, I begin writing the actual story. Things usually change a bit along the way, because sometimes the characters have different or better ideas than I had, but my synopsis still serves as a guide to keep me from becoming utterly lost. And having planned well, writing the book becomes a pleasure.

So there you have it! Writers, is there anything you'd like to share about your writing process?

Consuelo came to a halt beside a rosebush. I stopped beside her and waited for her to speak. She remained silent, staring at the scarlet blossoms but not seeming to see them. Her eyes held a faraway, pensive look.

“Is something wrong?” I asked her gently.

“It’s what Lady Amelia just said about her parents separating, and her being taken far from home, from her brother and her father. It’s so sad, Emma. It’s . . . it’s exactly what’s happening to me. If I marry the Duke, I’ll leave this country. I won’t see you or my friends or my brothers anymore. Soon, it'll be as if we don't even know each other. We’ll be strangers.”

I slipped an arm around her waist. “You and I will never be strangers. I can promise you that.”

I reached out and plucked a rosebud, careful not to prick my thumb, and handed it to my cousin. She bowed her head to it, dabbed at a tear with her free hand, and inhaled deeply. Her lips parted as if she were about to say something more, words that never came.

In that instant, a scream ripped across the garden.

**

Gripping each other’s hands, Consuelo and I set off running down the path. Another scream filled the air and echoed off the rear of the house behind us. Up ahead, Mrs. Stanford and Lady Amelia came to sudden halts in front of the pavilion. Just inside the wide archway, the Misses Spooner stood clutching each other’s hands. Aunt Alva was lost in the shadows under the pavilion roof.

“Oh, good gracious, Emma, what can it be?” Consuelo squeezed my hand as we ran, her fingernails cutting into my flesh. Then we, too, reached the pavilion. My hand flew up to press my bosom. Consuelo cried out.

“Is she . . . is she . . .” Roberta Spooner—or was it Edwina?—craned her neck to see around Aunt Alva.

Aunt Alva didn’t utter a word. I pried Consuelo’s fingers from my hand and then pressed forward, placing a hand on Lady Amelia’s shoulder so I could squeeze between her and Mrs. Stanford and continue up the two steps into the pavilion. The aroma of some pungent incense tickled my nose and stung my eyes. I stepped around the Spooner sisters and came to Aunt Alva’s side. My breath froze in my throat.

I saw Clara first—Clara Parker, the young maid I’d spoken to outside Consuelo’s room that morning, who had fretted over how little Consuelo had eaten and who had hoped I might be able to cheer my cousin up. Clara, her severe black frock contrasting sharply with the white pinafore and starched cap she wore, stood facing us, the whites of her eyes gleaming in the shadows, her head moving side to side in a continual gesture of denial. The already-petite girl seemed further diminished by the fear magnifying her eyes, and by the incongruously cheerful yellows of the sunflowers, daisies, and black-eyed Susans that bedecked the pavilion.

To mirror the happy destinies about to be foretold?

Or to sit in garish contrast to the gruesome image that greeted me as I lowered my gaze.
A figure swathed from head to toe in varying shades of violet sat slumped over a cloth-covered card table, her head angled awkwardly to one side. The jeweled turban had fallen off her head and rolled to the edge of the table, and short, thin wisps of graying brown hair stuck out in all directions from her scalp. I moved farther into the pavilion until I could see her face; her eyes protruded from their sockets, staring unblinkingly at the crystal ball inches away. A colorful deck of cards fanned out from beneath her cheek, several of them scattered on the floor beside the table amid a sprinkling of coins. Her lips were a sickly shade of blue and . . .

A crimson gash scored her throat. My stomach roiled—but no. I looked again and realized there was no blood anywhere. Instead, around her throat a scarf of deep red silk was twined so tightly her neck bulged from around the fabric.

“Dear God.” I circled the table and shoved a stupefied Clara aside. From behind Madame Devereaux’s chair, I grabbed the woman by the shoulders. I hauled her upright, then leaned her limp body against the back of the chair.

In a frenzied blur I dug my fingers around the silk scarf to loosen its grip. Even as the ends slipped free I knew it was too late. Madame Devereaux had breathed her last, and no amount of hoping would coax her lungs to fill again. A trickle of blood spilled from the corner of her mouth. Her lips gaped and her tongue lolled, showing where she had bitten clean through. A bruise was already forming on her temple, where her head had struck the table in front of her. Or . . . perhaps she’d been struck, before being strangled.
A whimper came from one of the ladies grouped in the entrance of the pavilion. I looked up at them to see them gaping, dumbfounded. Then, as one, they lifted their gazes to the person whose presence I’d all but forgotten.

“I didn’t . . . I didn’t . . .” Clara stammered. She stood with her small back plastered to one of the structure’s carved columns, looking like a child called to the headmistress’s office and babbling incoherently.

Aunt Alva’s arm came up, her forefinger aimed at the maid. “Your hands were around her neck. I saw you.”

“I swear . . . I didn’t . . . I swear . . . she was like that . . . I only tried to help . . .”

“Shut up,” Aunt Alva ordered. “Just shut up.”

Her command may have silenced Clara, who clamped her lips tight, but it also released a flurry of cries and exclamations from the other women. Alva whirled about to shush them. Her gaze must have landed on her daughter, because she immediately said, “Go back to the house. Tell Grafton to call for the police. Go, Consuelo, now.”

I don’t know how much my cousin saw. I wanted to go to her, to comfort her, but when I looked up from the sight that held me so horribly entranced, she had gone.

Newport, RI, June 29, 1896

I sat up in bed, my heart thumping in my throat, my ears pricked. I’d woken to high-pitched keening, an eerie, unearthly sound that gathered force in the very pit of my stomach. There had been no warning in last night’s starry skies and temperate breezes, but sometime in the ensuing hours a storm must have closed in around tiny Aquidneck Island. I knew I should hurry about the house and secure the storm shutters, yet as I continued to listen, I heard only the patient ease and tug of the ocean against the rocky shoreline, the sighs of the maritime breezes beneath the eaves of my house, and the argumentative squawking of hungry gulls flocking above the waves.

With relief I eased back onto my pillows—but no. The sound came again—like the rising howl of a growing tempest. Throwing back the covers I slid from bed and went to the window. With both hands I pushed the curtains aside.
And stared out at a brilliant summer dawn. Long, flat waves, tinted bright copper to the east, mellowed to gold, then green, and then a deep, cool sapphire directly beyond my property.

The sky was a still a somber, predawn gray, but clear and wide, with a few stars lingering to the west. Like polished silver arrows, the gulls dove into the water with barely a splash and swooped away to enjoy their quarry.

I could only conclude I had been dreaming, even when I’d thought I was awake. Well, I was certainly awake now. I grabbed my robe, slid my feet into my slippers, and quietly made my way downstairs.

I needn’t have muffled my footsteps, for as I entered the morning room at the back of the house I found Katie, my maid-of-all work, as well as Nanny, my housekeeper, already setting out breakfast. The inviting scents of warm banana bread and brewing coffee made my stomach rumble.

“You’re both up early,” I said.

“Mornin’, Miss Emma,” Katie replied in her soft brogue.

Nanny’s plump cheeks rounded as she bid me good morning, her half-moon spectacles catching the orange flame of the kerosene lantern. “Something woke me. I’m not quite sure what.”

“That’s so odd—me, as well.” I picked up the small stack of dishes and cutlery on the sideboard and carried them to the table, noticing the web of small cracks in the porcelain of the topmost plate. Katie looked at me uncertainly, then half-shrugged and made her way back to the kitchen.

She had been in my employ for a year now and had yet to grow accustomed to the informal machinations of my household. At Gull Manor we never stood on ceremony; there was no strict order of things, but rather a daily muddling through of tasks and chores and making ends meet. That was my life—by my choice and by the gift of my aunt Sadie, who had left me the means to lead an independent life.

Part of that gift included this house, a large, sprawling structure in what architects called the shingle style, with a gabled roofline, weathered stone and clapboard, mullioned windows framed in timber, and enough rooms to house several families comfortably. Set on a low, rocky promontory on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, Gull Manor was a very New England sort of house, one that seemed almost to rise up from the boulders themselves and have been fashioned by the whim of rain, wind, and sea. Yes, it was drafty, a bit isolated, and required more upkeep than I could afford to maintain it on the proper side of shabby, but it was all mine and I loved it.

Katie returned with a sizzling pan of eggs, and I asked her, “What about you, Katie? What brought you down so early?”

“Oh, I’m always up before the sun, miss. A leftover habit from being in service.” She placed the frying pan on a trivet on the sideboard and whirled about. “Oh, not that I’m not still in service, mind you...”

“It doesn’t always feel like it, though, does it?” I finished for her.

“No, miss. And for that I’m grateful. Now... I’ll go and get the fruit...”

Nanny, in a faded housecoat wrapped tight around an equally tired-looking nightgown, heaped eggs and kippers on a plate, placed a slice of banana bread beside them, and went to sit at the table. I did likewise, and when I’d settled in and picked up my fork, I hesitated before taking the first bite. “Have you seen our guest yet this morning?”

Nanny shook her head. “That sort doesn’t rise with the sun.”

“Nanny! That’s unkind. Please don’t refer to Stella as ‘that sort.’ We agreed—”

“We agreed but I still worry that you’re crossing a line, Emma. Out-of-work and disgraced maids are one thing, but...” She pursed her lips together.

“Prostitutes are another,” said a voice behind me.

Nanny glanced beyond my shoulder and I twisted around to see the figure standing in the doorway. Stella Butler wore my old sateen robe buttoned to her chin. Her ebony hair, tamed in two neat plaits, hung over each shoulder, making her look anything but a jaded woman. The bruises with which she had arrived at Gull Manor had faded, thank goodness. High cheekbones and slanting green eyes marked her a beauty, but today that beauty struggled past obvious fatigue and the downward curve of her mouth. She met our gazes with defiance, but the spark quickly died. She bowed her head and released a sigh.

“I’m sorry. I’m grateful to you, Miss Cross. I promise I won’t stay long and I’ll pay you for every scrap of food I eat.”

I stood and pulled out the chair beside my own at the round oak table. I gestured to the well-worn seat cushion. “You’ll stay as long as you need, and as for payment, I’m sure we’ll work something out, something mutually beneficial.”

Nanny harrumphed. Without another word Stella scooped up a small portion of eggs and a slice of banana bread I deemed too thin, and returned to the table. I was about to admonish her to take more, that she needed to keep up her strength, but thought better of it. Stella obviously had her pride, and if she was going to carve out a better life than the one she’d been living, she would need pride as much as strength.

“I’ll be right back,” I told them. “I’m going to see if the newspaper came yet.”

“I would think the storm kept the delivery boys from venturing out at their usual time,” Stella said without looking up.

“You, too? This has been the strangest morning.” I glanced out the window. The sun had fully risen, gilding our kitchen garden and the yard beyond. A few fair-weather clouds cast playful shadows over the water. With a shrug I headed for the front of the house, my slippers scuffing over the floor runner. Ragged edges and the occasional hole suggested the rug needed replacing, but it would be some time yet before I could justify the expense.

It was as I reached the foyer that the wind suddenly picked up again, sending an unnerving shriek crawling up the exterior facade to echo beneath the eaves. I hadn’t been dreaming. What kind of a strange storm was this?

Bracing for a blustery onslaught, I opened the front door.

“Nanny! Nanny!” I shouted and fell to my knees. Here was no gale battering my property, or any other part of the island on which I lived. The keening and the cries I’d heard, that had yanked me from sleep, were not those of a summer squall.

They were those of a baby, tucked into a basket and left on my doorstep.

Releases May 26th!

“Henry, don’t you dare ignore me!” came a shout from behind the drawing room doors, a command nearly drowned out by staccato notes pounded on the grand piano.
“Henry!”

Stravinsky’s discordant Firebird broke off with a resounding crescendo. Voices replaced them, one male, one female, both distinctly taut and decidedly angry. Phoebe Renshaw came to an uneasy halt. She had thought the rest of the family and the guests had all gone up to bed. Across the Grand Hall, light spilled from the dining room as footmen continued clearing away the remnants of Christmas dinner.

With an indrawn breath she moved closer to the double pocket doors.

“I’m very sorry, Henry, but it isn’t going to happen,” came calmer, muffled words from inside, spoken by the feminine voice. A voice that sounded anything but sorry. Dismissive, disdainful, yes, but certainly not contrite. Phoebe sighed and rolled her eyes. As much as she had expected this, she shook her head at the fact that Julia had chosen Christmas night to break this news to her latest suitor. And this particular Christmas, too—the first peacetime holiday in nearly five years.

A paragon of tact and goodwill, that sister of hers.
“We are practically engaged, Julia. Why do you think your grandparents asked my family to spend Christmas at here at Foxwood? Everyone is expecting us to wed. Our estates practically border each other.” Incredulity lent an almost shrill quality to Henry’s voice. “How could our union be any more perfect?”

“It isn’t perfect to me,” came the cool reply.

“No? How on earth do you think you’ll avoid a scandal if you break it off now?”
Phoebe could almost see her sister’s cavalier shrug. “A broken not-quite-engagement is hardly fodder for scandal. I’m sorry—how many times must I say it? This is my decision and you’ve no choice but to accept it.”

Would they exit the drawing room now? Phoebe stepped backward intending to flee, perhaps dart behind the Christmas tree that dominated the center of the hall. Henry’s voice, raised and freshly charged with ire, held her in place. “Do I? Do I really? You listen here, Julia Renshaw. Surely you don’t believe you’re the only one who knows a secret about someone.”

Phoebe glanced over her shoulder and sure enough, two footmen met her gaze through the dining room doorway before hurrying on with their chores. Inside the drawing room, a burst of snide laughter from Henry raised the hair at her nape.

“What secret?” her sister asked after a moment’s hesitation.

“Your secret,” Henry Leighton, Marquess of Allerton, the man Phoebe’s grandparents had indeed invited to Foxwood in hopes of a subsequent engagement, said with a mean hiss that carried through the door.

“What...do you believe you know?”

“Must I outline the sordid details of your little adventure last summer?”

“How on earth did you discover...?” Julia’s voice faded.

It registered in Phoebe’s mind that her sister hadn’t bothered to deny whatever it was.

“Let’s just say I kept an eye on you while I was on furlough,” Henry said, “and you aren’t as clever as you think you are, not by half.”

“That was most ungentlemanly of you, Henry.”

“You had your chance to spend more time with me then, Julia, and you chose not to. I, therefore, chose to discover where you were spending your time.”

“Oh! How unworthy, even of you, Henry. Still, it would be your word against mine, and whom do you think Grampapa will believe? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bed.”

“You are not walking away from this, Julia!” Henry’s voice next plunged to a murmur Phoebe could no longer make out, but like a mongrel’s growl it showered her arms with goose bumps.
The sounds of shuffling feet was followed by a sharp “Oh!” from Julia. Phoebe’s hand shot instinctively toward the recessed finger pull on one of the doors, but she froze at the marquess’s next words. “This is how it is going to be, my dear. You and I are going to announce our engagement to our families tomorrow morning, and shortly after to the world. There will be parties and planning and yes, there will be a wedding. You will marry me, or you’ll marry no one. Ever. I’ll see to that.”

“You don’t even know whether or not anything untoward happened last summer,” Julia said with all the condescension Phoebe knew she was capable of, yet with a brittle quality that threatened her tenuous composure. “You’re bluffing, Henry.”

“Am I? Are you willing to risk it?”

Phoebe’s breath caught in her throat at the sounds of shuffling footsteps. She gripped the bronze finger pulls just as Julia cried out.
“Let go of me!”

Phoebe thrust both doors wide, perfectly framing the scene inside. Julia, in her pale rose gown with its silver-beaded trim, stood with her back bowed in an obvious attempt to pull free of Henry’s hold. A spiraling lock of blonde hair had slipped from its pins to stream past her shoulder. Henry’s dark hair stood on end no doubt from raking his fingers through it. His brown eyes smoldering and his cheeks ruddy with drink, he had his hands on her—on her! His fingers were wrapped so tightly around Julia’s upper arms they were sure to leave bruises.

For a moment no one moved. Phoebe stared. They stared back. Henry’s tailcoat and waistcoat were unbuttoned with all the familiarity of a husband in his own home, his garnet shirt studs gleaming like drops of blood upon snow. Anger twisted his features. But then recognition dawned—of Phoebe, of the impropriety of the scene she had walked in on—and a measure of the ire smoothed from his features. He released Julia as though she were made of hot coals, turned away, and put several feet between them.

Phoebe steeled herself with a breath and forced a smile. “Oh, hullo there, you two. Sorry to barge in like this. I thought everyone had gone to bed. Don’t mind me, I only came for a book, one I couldn’t find it in the library. Julia, do you remember where Grampapa stashed that American novel he didn’t want Grams to know he was reading? You know, the one about the boy floating up that large river to help his African friend.”

“I don’t know...” Julia looked from Phoebe to Henry and back again. She brushed that errant lock behind her ear and then hugged her arms around her middle. “I’ll help you look. G-good night, Henry.”

“Oh, were you just going up?” Without letting her smile slip, Phoebe shot a glare at Henry and put emphasis on going up.

A muscle bounced in the hard line of his jaw. His eyes narrowed, but he bobbed his head. “Good night, ladies. Julia, we’ll talk more in the morning.”

He strode past Phoebe without a glance. Several long seconds later his footfalls thudded on the carpeted stairs. Phoebe let go a breath of relief. She turned to slide the pocket doors closed, and as she did so several figures lingering in the dining room doorway scurried out of sight.

There would be gossip below stairs come morning. Phoebe would worry about that later. She went to her sister and clasped her hands. “Are you all right?”

Julia whisked free and backed up a stride. “Of course I’m all right.”

“You didn’t look all right when I came in. You still don’t. What was that about?”

Julia twitched her eyebrows and turned slightly away, showing Phoebe her shoulder. Yes, the light pink weal visible against her pale upper arm confirmed tomorrow’s bruises. “What was what about?”

“Don’t play coy with me. What was Henry talking about? What secret—”

“Were you listening at the door?”

“I could hear you from the middle of the hall, and I think the servants in the dining room heard you as well. Lucky for you Grams and Grampapa retired half an hour ago. Or perhaps it isn’t lucky. Perhaps this is something they should know about.”

“They don’t need to know anything.”

“Why are you always so stubborn?”

“I’m done in, Phoebe. I’m going to bed.” Her perfectly-sloping nose in the air, she started to move past Phoebe, but Phoebe reached out and caught her wrist. Julia stopped, still facing the paneled walnut doors, her gaze boring into them. “Release me at once.”

“Not until you tell me what you and Henry were arguing about. I mean besides your breaking off your would-be engagement. That comes as no great surprise. But the rest... Are you in some sort of trouble?”

Julia snapped her head around to pin Phoebe with eyes so deeply blue as to appear black. Her forearm tightened beneath Phoebe’s fingers. “It is none of your business and I’ll thank you to mind your own. Now let me go. I’m going to bed and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll do the same.”

Stunned, her throat stinging from the rebuke, Phoebe let her hand fall away. She watched Julia go, the beaded train of her gown whooshing over the floor like the water over rocks.
“I care about you,” Phoebe said in a barely audible whisper, something neither Julia, nor the footmen, nor anyone else in the house could possibly hear. She wished she could say it louder, say it directly to her prideful sister’s beautiful face. And then what—be met with the same disdain Julia had just shown her? No. Phoebe had her pride, too.

#

Eva Huntford made her way past main kitchen and into servants’ dining hall with a gown slung over each arm. Lady Amelia had spilled a spoonful of trifle down the front of her green velvet at dinner last night, while Lady Julia’s pink and silver beaded gown sported an odd rent near the left shoulder strap. Eva briefly wondered what holiday activities could possibly result in such a tear, then dismissed the thought. Today was Boxing Day, but she had work to do before enjoying her own brief holiday later that afternoon.

“Mrs. Ellison, have you any bicarbonate of soda on hand? Lady Amelia spilled trifle—oh!” A man sat at the far end of the rectangular oak table, reading a newspaper and enjoying a cup of coffee. She draped the gowns over the back of a chair. “Good morning, Mr. Hensley. You’re up early.”
“Evie, won’t you call me Nick? How long have we known each other, after all?”

It was true, she and Nicolas Hensley had known each other as children, but they were adults now, she lady’s maid to the Earl of Wroxly’s three granddaughters, and he valet to their houseguest, the Marquess of Allerton. Propriety was, after all, of the utmost importance in a manor such as Foxwood Hall. Familiarity between herself and a manservant wouldn’t be at all proper. “A long time, yes, but it’s also been a long time since we’ve seen each other.”

He smiled faintly “I saw you yesterday. And the day before that.”

“True, but only surrounded by others, or when passing each other in the corridors.” She turned to go. “In fact, I should—”

“Oh, Evie, do stay. I’ve craved a moment alone with you. Don’t look like that. I only wish to...to express my deepest condolences about Danny. My very deepest, Evie. A bad business, that.”
Her throat squeezed and the backs of her eyes stung. Danny, her brother... She swallowed. “Yes, thank you. A good many men did not come home from the war.”

“Indeed.”

Hang it all, this would never do, not on Boxing Day. In a couple of hours she would be free to trudge home through the snow to spend the afternoon with her parents, and they must not glimpse her sadness. She gave a little sniff, a slight toss of her head. There. She smiled at Mr. Hensley. “Tell me, what are you doing down here at this time of the morning? Won’t his lordship be abed for hours yet?”

“Already up and out, actually.”

“On such a cold morning?” Shivering, she glanced up at the high windows, frosted over and sprinkled with last night’s light snowfall.

Mrs. Ellison turned the corner into the room, her plump hand extending Eva’s requested soda, fizzing away in a measuring cup. She handed Eva a clean rag as well. “Who’s up and out on this frigid morning?”

Eva moved a place setting aside and spread the velvet gown’s bodice open on the table. She dipped the rag in the soda. “Lord Allerton, apparently.” She looked quizzically over at Mr. Hensley.

He set down his newspaper. “At any rate, his lordship isn’t in his room. I inquired with the staff setting up in the morning room and no one’s yet seen him today.”

“One supposes he’s gone out for a walk despite the weather, then.” Eva dabbed the dampened cloth lightly at the stain on Lady Amelia’s bodice, careful of the embroidery and the tiny seed pearl buttons.

“Or perhaps a ride in that lovely motorcar of his?” Mrs. Ellison suggested with a sigh.

“No, I called down to the motor shed and his Silver Ghost is still there.” Mr. Hensley frowned in thought, a gesture that did not diminish his distinguished good looks. He was several years older than Eva and had briefly courted her sister before entering into service as an under footman right here at Foxwood. The years had been more than kind to him, she couldn’t help admitting. The slightest touch of silver at his temples might be premature for a man of thirty, but on Nick Hensley the effect was both elegant and charming. Perhaps more so than a valet needed, she added with a silent chuckle.

“Oh, wouldn’t I relish a ride in that heavenly motorcar!” Mrs. Ellison took on a dreamy expression. “Ah well, back to work.”

“I’m sure he’ll turn up. Good morning, Vernon, Douglas.” Eva greeted the two footmen, along with other staff members arriving for breakfast after finishing their morning chores of laying fires, sweeping floors, and setting up the breakfast buffet. An instant later Connie, the new house maid, skidded to a halt in the corridor and, with a visible effort to catch her breath, came into the room. “Good morning, Connie. Everything all right?”

The girl scanned the room with large, worried eyes. “Did Mrs. Sanders notice my late start this morning?”

“Were you late? Well, no matter,” Eva assured her. She hoped she was correct, and that Connie wouldn’t be facing a scolding later from Mrs. Sanders. “It’s Boxing Day and I suppose we’re allowed a bit of leeway. Is everyone ready for their holiday later?”

Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, was a rare treat for the manor staff. Eva planned to spend the afternoon at her parents’ farm outside the village, but first she needed to set her ladyships’ gowns to rights. After a final inspection of the now nearly-invisible stain, she moved Amelia’s velvet off the table to make way as more staff gathered round.

She was just on her way to deliver the gown to Mable, the laundress, before settling in with needle and thread to mend the beaded strap on Lady Julia’s frock, when Lady Amelia came bounding down the back staircase and launched herself from the bottom step. She landed with an unladylike thwack mere inches away from Eva.

“Good heavens, my lady!” Eva sidestepped in time to avoid being knocked off her feet and spilling her burdens to the floor. She hugged the gowns to her. “Is there a fire?”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Eva. I didn’t mean to give you a fright.” Lady Amelia’s long curls danced loose down her back, and in her haste to dress herself she’d left the sleeves on her crepe de chine shirtwaist undone. “I was looking for you.”

“You know I would have been upstairs to help you and your sisters dress in what?” She glanced at the wall clock. “Twenty minutes.”

Amelia Renshaw’s sweet face banished any annoyance Eva might have felt. At fifteen she was a budding beauty. Not Lady Julia’s glamorous, moving picture star beauty but a quieter, deeper sort that one often finds in country villages like Little Barlow. Her hair was darker than Julia’s but still golden, a color reflected in her eyes, which sometimes shone hazel and other times brown, but always with those bright gold rims. If Phoebe took after their dear but somewhat plain mother and Julia took after their dashing father, Amelia had inherited a pleasing combination of both that would surely endure throughout her lifetime.

“If you’re worried about your frock, my lady, look.” Eva held out the gowns, using one hand to unfold the bodice of Amelia’s green velvet. “I’ve almost got the stain out and Mable will vanquish what’s left.”

“Oh, I don’t care about that,” Amelia said with a dismissive wave. “You keep the gown. I wanted a private moment to wish you happy Christmas.”

“Lady Amelia, where would I ever wear such a garment? And as for Christmas, you wished me happy yesterday.” Slinging both gowns over her shoulder she reached to button up the girl’s wide cuffs. “Had you forgotten?”

“Yes, but yesterday was a work day for you and this afternoon you’ll be free to enjoy as you like.” She switched arms so Eva could button the other sleeve. “I may wish you happy from one carefree person to another. That’s quite different, don’t you think?”

Puzzled, Eva frowned at her young charge, but only for an instant. “I think it’s a lovely gesture and I thank you very much, my lady.”

“There’s more. I wanted you to know there’s a special surprise in your box from Phoebe and me. Oh, there’s something from Julia, too, something she purchased, very lovely and thoughtful, but Phoebe and I made our gift ourselves. But you’re not to open your box until you’re at home with your parents.” Amelia bounced on the balls of her feet with excitement. “We made one for your mother as well.”

“How sweet of you. But you’re very mysterious, aren’t you?” Eva reached out and affectionately tucked a few stray hairs behind Amelia’s ear. In some ways she was blossoming into a gracious young lady, while in others she was still very much a little girl. One with sadly too few memories of her mother. Poor child, one parent lost to childbirth—along with the babe—and the other to war. Eva hoped she helped fill the gaps, on occasion at least, even if only in the smallest ways. “Whatever it is, Mum and I are sure to love and treasure it always. Happy Christmas to you, my lady.”

To her mingled chagrin and delight, Lady Amelia reached her arms around her and squeezed.

#

“With this deplorable weather keeping us inside, we’ll have to use our imaginations to keep ourselves occupied this afternoon.”

Maude Renshaw, Countess of Wroxly—Grams as Phoebe and her siblings called her—stood as tall as she had as a young woman, if the photographs were any indication. If anything she seemed even taller now, although Phoebe knew that to be an illusion created by her predilection to always wear uninterrupted black, from the high-necked collars of her dresses to the narrow sweep of her skirts. With smooth hair the color of newly polished silver worn in a padded upsweep culminating in a topknot at her crown, Grams was a study in dignified elegance that caught the eye and held it whenever she entered a room.

Strengthening the illusion of Grams’s Amazonian height, Phoebe’s youngest sibling, Viscount Foxwood—Fox—walked at Grams’s side, her hand in the crook of his elbow. Fox had yet to enjoy a major growth spurt, much to his chagrin as this set him a good head shorter than many of his classmates at Eton. Together they led the small procession of family and guests into the Petite Salon, tucked into the turret of what had been the original house.

This room was one of Phoebe’s favorites. It’s creamy paneled walls offset by bright white wainscoting and an airy cove ceiling made a welcome contrast to the dark oaks and mahoganies in other parts of the house, while rich colors of scarlet, blue, and gold, and the rotunda of windows overlooking the south corner of the gardens, lent warmth and a cozy touch.
An enthusiastic blaze danced behind the fireplace screen, and Mr. Giles and the footmen, Vernon and Douglas, stood at attention, waiting to serve. The table had been laid with leftovers from last night’s dinner—roast goose and venison and beef, with Mrs. Ellison’s savory apple-chestnut stuffing, among other delicacies, and for dessert, the leftover bread pudding and cranberry trifle. Phoebe hoped Amelia could manage to reserve all remnants of trifle for her mouth today and not her attire. At any rate, it was all easy fare designed to allow the kitchen staff, along with the rest of the servants, to finish up early and set out on their afternoon holiday. The day promised adventures for everyone—for the servants as they pursued their personal interests, and, Phoebe thought wryly, for the family and guests as they endeavored to look after themselves for these next several hours.

“Where is my son? It’s not like Henry to be late to a meal.” Lucille, Marchioness of Allerton, regarded her son’s vacant seat at the table. It was no secret that Lady Allerton doted to extremes on her elder son—and always had. Phoebe regarded the marchioness. Where Grams’s stoic self-discipline had sculpted her figure into lines of angular elegance, a less diligent outlook, and perhaps a habit of overindulgence, had softened the Marchioness’s figure, rounded her hips and shoulders and upper arms, and produced rather more chins than a body needed.

“He and Lord Owen must have gone out,” Grampapa remarked. He turned his broad face toward Mr. Giles, who perceived the question without needing to hear the words.

“I believe Lord Owen is still in his room, my lord. If Lord Allerton has gone out, he left no message that I know of.”

Lady Allerton’s frown deepened. “Hmm... That, too, is most unlike Henry. Did he take his Silver Ghost?”

“No, my lady. His motor is still in the shed.”

“Hmm... How very odd.”

“Really, Mama, why all the fuss?” Lord Theodore Leighton—Teddy— reached for a roll and his butter knife with a bored expression. “Henry’s a grown man.”

He fell silent without any further reassurance and buttered his bread with meticulous strokes as if creating a work of art. This proved no simple task, not for Teddy, and Phoebe quelled the urge to reach over and offer her assistance. The knife quivered in his grasp, bringing attention to the scarred flesh of his fingers and the backs of both hands. The rippled skin ended at his sleeves and reappeared in angry blotches above his collar to pull the left side of his face into a perpetual sneer. Phoebe wondered that he hadn’t grown whiskers to hide the scars. Like Henry, this second son of the Leighton family was handsome, or had been, before the war had left its mark on him.
Mustard gas, in the trenches of the Battle of Somme. Phoebe remembered the day a distraught Lady Allerton had telephoned to deliver the awful news. Teddy’s injuries had taken him out of action for nearly six months, but when everyone had expected him to return home, he returned to the trenches instead. He made it abundantly clear at every opportunity he wanted no one’s pity, no one’s help. He’d butter his own roll, thank you, if it took all morning.

Phoebe tried never to feel sorry for him, even tried to like him, but he made it a ticklish task, especially in moments like this. This might be Henry they were talking about, but he and Teddy were, after all, brothers and Teddy exhibited not the slightest concern.

Still, while the elder generation discussed where Henry might be, Phoebe couldn’t help hoping he might never return. She glanced across the table at Julia. Had her argument with Henry driven him away? She noted that Julia’s arms were well-covered in deep blue chiffon, with a velvet shawl draped over that, to hide any evidence of last night.

Well, as Teddy had said, Henry was a grown man who might do as he pleased. Phoebe, on the other hand, saw little in her future now that the war had ended, other than an endless procession of luncheons, dinner parties, and a parade of potential beaux. She sighed.

A mistake.

“What’s wrong, Phoebe?” Beside her, Amelia looked both pretty and smart in a new shirtwaist with blouson sleeves and ribbon piping that matched her blue eyes.
“Wrong? Nothing.” She hoped Amelia never learned of Henry’s boorish behavior of the night before.

“Then why are you moaning?”

“I am not moaning. I sighed. There is a difference.” Phoebe leaned back in her chair and cupped her mouth to prevent Fox overhearing. Fox always seemed to be listening in on other people’s conversations, storing away bits of information to be used at his convenience at a later time. “The truth is, I’m horribly bored, Amelia. I miss...” She paused. How to phrase this without sounding unfeeling and self-absorbed? “I miss the activity of the war. Not the war itself, mind you. I’m happy and relieved it’s finally over. But we made a true difference to a good many people. And now...I fear life has lost its color.”

Her sister nodded, her eyes keen with understanding. “That all we’ll have to look forward to from now on are parties and such, like in the old days?”

“You read my mind exactly. And all that seems so purposeless now. I’ve been thinking—”
“You should be thinking of finding a husband before the dust gathers on that shelf you’re sitting on.” Fox whispered out of the side of his mouth, his gaze still fixed across the table at the elders as if he hadn’t been listening in on Phoebe and Amelia.

“I’m nineteen, Fox. That hardly qualifies me for any shelf and besides, what difference should it make?” Phoebe shook her head at him. “It’s a new world and women will no longer be relegated exclusively to the home. We have choices now.”

“That’s right,” Amelia put in eagerly. “Many choices.”

Fox finally deigned to turn his face to Phoebe, his lips tilting in a mean little smile. “You think so? As you said, the war is over. The men have come home. Time for you ladies to return to the roles God designed you for.”

She nearly choked on her own breath. Only a throat-clearing and a glare from Grams prevented her from retorting—and perhaps wringing her brother’s neck.

“I propose that directly following luncheon, Julia play the piano for us.” Grams pinned her hazel eyes on Julia, turning her proposal into an adamant command that brooked no demurring.
“And following Julia, I wouldn’t mind regaling everyone with a song or two.” This came from Lady Cecily Leighton, Henry’s maiden great aunt. Phoebe glanced up at her, alarmed by the suggestion. Lady Cecily had proved herself thoroughly tone deaf on more than one occasion, and once Phoebe had had to endure an entire hour of jumbled and stumbling notes. If that weren’t enough, the woman’s outfit today reflected sure signs of a growing disorientation, with her striped frock overlaid by a knee-length tunic of floral chiffon. A wide silk headband sporting a bright Christmas plaid held most of her spiraling white curls off her shoulders and neck, giving her the appearance of some kind of holiday gypsy. The poor woman’s maid must have been aghast when her mistress left her room.

“Of course, Cecily, dear.” Grampapa spoke softly and gently, as he did when Phoebe was small. His perfectly-trimmed mustache twitched as he smiled. “We shall look forward to it.”

Phoebe managed to suppress a groan, but Fox could not. Grams shot another glance across the table, while Grampapa’s eyebrows twitched out a warning.

“After Julia serenades us—” Fourteen-year-old Fox pulled face —“And Lady Cecily, too, may we find something exciting to do? Grampapa, couldn’t we take the rifles out for some skeet shooting? It’s not so very cold. Is it?” He directed that last question to Henry’s younger brother, Teddy, who thus far had been silently filling his plate.

“Fox,” Grams said with a lift of one crescent-thin eyebrow, “I believe indoor activities are more appropriate for days such as this.”

“Oh, Grams...”

“Fox.” Grampapa’s stern tone forestalled the complaint Fox had been gathering breath to utter.
Fox made a grinding sound in his throat and Phoebe whispered to him, “When are you going to grow up?”

“When are you going to stop being so boring?”

“Terribly sorry to be late for luncheon, everyone. I had some letters to write. Do forgive me.” Clad in country tweeds, Lord Owen Seabright strode into the room. He bowed ruefully and took the vacant seat beside Julia. His gaze met Phoebe’s, and she raised her water goblet to her lips to hide the inevitable and appalling heat that always crept into her cheeks whenever the man so much as glanced her way.

Lord Owen Seabright was an earl’s younger son who had taken a small, maternal inheritance and turned it into a respectable fortune. His woolen mills had supplied English soldiers with uniforms and blankets during the war. He himself had served as well, a major commanding a battalion. Unlike Teddy Leighton, Lord Owen had returned home mercifully whole.

If only Papa had been so fortunate....

She dismissed the thought before melancholy had a chance to set in. Of course, that left her once more contemplating Owen Seabright, a wealthy, fit man in the prime of his life and as yet unattached. After years of war such men were a rarity. He’d been invited to spend Christmas because his grandfather and Phoebe’s had been great friends, because Lord Owen had had a falling out with his own family, and because Fox had insisted he come, with Grams’s blessing.
If an engagement between Julia and Henry didn’t work out, Owen Seabright was to be next in line to seek Julia’s hand. Phoebe wondered if Owen, or Julia for that matter, had been privy to that information. She herself only knew because Fox had told her, his way of informing her he’d soon have Julia married off and Phoebe’s turn would be next.

Or so he believed. What Phoebe believed was that Fox needed to be taken down a peg or two.
“Henry isn’t with you?” Lady Allerton asked.

Lord Owen looked surprised. “With me? No. Haven’t seen him today.”

“No one has, apparently.” With a perplexed look, Lady Lucille helped herself to another medallion of beef Bordelaise. “I do hope Henry hasn’t gotten lost somewhere.”

“Odd, him going out on foot alone like that.” Grampapa’s great chest rose and fell, giving Phoebe the impression of a bear just waking up from a long winter’s rest. “Ah, but he can hardly lose his way. He knows our roads and trails as well as any of us. Spent enough time at Foxwood as a boy, didn’t he?”

“Yes, but Archibald,” Grams said sharply, “things look different in the snow. He easily could have taken a wrong fork and ended up who knows where. Or he might have slipped and twisted his ankle.”

“Good heavens,” Lady Allerton exclaimed. “Is that supposed to reassure me?”

“Should we form a search party?” Amelia appeared genuinely worried. Phoebe sent her a reassuring smile and shook her head.

“Oh, Grams, don’t be silly.” Fox flourished his fork, earning him a sharp throat-clearing and a stern look from Grampapa. The youngest Renshaw put his fork down with a terse, “Sorry, sir,” and shoved a lock of sandy hair off his forehead. “But even if he was lost, he’d either end up in the village, the school, or the river. He’s not about to jump in the river in this weather, is he?” The boy shrugged. “He’ll be back.”

He sent Julia a meaningful look. She ignored him, turning her head to gaze out the bay window at the wide expanse of snowy lawn rolling away to a skeletal copse of birch trees and the pine forest beyond that. Far in the distance, the rolling Cotswold Hills embraced the horizon, with patches of white interspersed with bare ground where the wind had whipped the snow away.

Phoebe brought her gaze closer, and noticed a trail of footprints leading through the garden and back again. Henry? But if he’d gone out that way, he had apparently returned to the house.
Grams narrowed her eyes shrewdly on Julia. “I do hope there is no particular reason for Henry to have made a sudden departure.”

This, too, Julia ignored.

“As Lawrence Winslow did last summer,” Grams muttered under her breath. Although everyone must have heard the comment—Phoebe certainly had—all went on eating as if they hadn’t. Grams seethed in Julia’s direction another moment, then returned her attention to her meal.

Apparently, not everyone was willing to pretend Grams hadn’t spoken. “Julia, you and Henry get on splendidly, don’t you?” Fox snapped his fingers when she didn’t reply. “Julia?”

She turned back around. “What?”

Phoebe was gripped by a sudden urge to pinch her. Though last night had obviously left her shaken, this sort of indifference was nothing new. It began three years ago, the day the news about Papa reached them from France, and rather than fading over time her disinterest had become more pronounced throughout the war years. By turns her sister’s apathy angered or saddened Phoebe, depending on the circumstances, but always left her frustrated.

“Stop it,” Amelia hissed in her brother’s ear, another comment heard and ignored around the table. “Leave it alone.”

Phoebe observed her little sister. Had Amelia been privy to last night’s argument, or had she merely grown accustomed to Julia’s fickleness when it came to men?

“My, my, yes, he’ll be back.” Lady Cecily spoke to no one in particular. She had been intent on cutting the contents of her plate into tiny pieces, even her deviled crab sandwich. She didn’t look up as she spoke, but next attacked an olive. Her blade hit the pit and sent the green sphere spinning off the plate and onto the table cloth with a plop. She giggled as she tried without success to retrieve it with her fork, saying, “He must return soon, for isn’t there an announcement Henry and Julia wish to make today?”

Lady Allerton leaned in close and plucked up the olive. With an efficiency born of habit, deposited it back onto the elder woman’s plate. “You asked that this morning, Aunt Cecily. And no, there is no announcement just yet. Why don’t you eat something now?”

“No engagement yet?” Lady Cecily looked crestfallen. She held her knife in midair. “Why is that? Julia dear, didn’t Henry ask you a very pertinent question last night?”

Julia finally looked away from the window as if startled from sleep. She blinked. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

“We were all very tired last night, what with all the Christmas revelry.” Grams’s attempt to sound cheerful fell flat. The Leightons might be second cousins, but they would not have been invited to spend the holiday at Foxwood Hall if Grams hadn’t held out hope that Father Christmas would deliver a husband for Julia. The war had left so few men from whom to choose. “Henry and Julia shall have plenty of time to talk now things have calmed down. Won’t you, Julia?”

“Yes, Grams. Of course.”

Phoebe doubted her sister knew what she had just agreed to. Fox sniggered.

“If you don’t stop being so snide,” she whispered to him behind her hand, “I’ll suggest Grampapa send you up to the schoolroom where you belong.”

Fox cupped a hand over his mouth and stuck out his tongue “Then you should stop impersonating a beet every time Lord Owen enters a room,” he whispered back.

“I do no such thing.” But good gracious, if Fox had noticed, was she so obvious? She sucked air between her teeth. But no, Lord Owen was paying her no mind now, instead helping himself to thick slices of cold roast venison and responding to some question Grams had just asked him. She relaxed against her chair. Lord Owen was a passing fancy, nothing more. He was...too tall for her. Too muscular. Approaching thirty, he was too old as well. And much too....

Handsome, with his strong features and steely eyes and inky black hair that made such a striking contrast next to Julia’s blond.

Yes, just a silly, passing fancy....

“Well now, my girls.” Grampapa grinned broadly and lightly clapped his hands. “I believe it’s time to hand out the Christmas boxes, is it not? The staff will want to be on their way.”

“Yes, you’re quite right, Grampapa.” With a sense of relief at this excuse to escape the table, Phoebe dabbed at her lips and placed her napkin beside her plate. “Girls, shall we?”

Amelia was on her feet in an instant. “I’ve so been looking forward to this. It’s my favorite part of Christmas.”

Julia stood with a good deal less enthusiasm. “Not mine, but come. Let’s get it over with.”

#

Eva could finally feel her fingers and toes again after slogging through snow and slush across the village to her parent’s farm. Mum had put the kettle on before she arrived, and she was just now enjoying her second cup of strong tea and biting into another heavenly, still-warm apricot scone.
Holly and evergreen boughs draped the mantel above a cheerful fire, and beside the hearth a small stack of gifts waited to be opened. Eva eyed the beribboned box from the Renshaws. She wondered what little treasure Phoebe and Amelia had tucked inside.

Mum huffed her way into the room with yet another pot of tea, which she set on a trivet on the sofa table. “Can’t have enough on a day like today,” she said, as if there had been a need to explain. “As soon as your father comes in from checking the animals we’ll open the presents.”
“I think they’re lovely right where they are,” Eva said. “It’s just good to be home.”

“It’s a shame your sister couldn’t be here this year.”

“Alice would if she could have, Mum, but Suffolk is far, especially in this weather.”

“Yes, I suppose...” With another huff Mum sat down beside her, weighting the down cushion so that the springs beneath creaked and Eva felt herself slide a little toward the center of the old sofa.

A name hovered in the air between them, loud and clear though neither of them spoke it. Danny, the youngest of the family. Eva’s chest tightened, and Mum pretended to sweep back a strand of hair, when in actuality she brushed at a tear.

Danny had gone to France in the second year of the war, just after his eighteenth birthday. Not quite a year later, the telegram came.

“Ah, yes, well.” Mum patted Eva’s hand and pulled in a fortifying breath. “It’s good to have you home for an entire day, or almost so. I’d have thought we’d see more of you, working so close by.”
“Tending to three young ladies keeps me busy, Mum.”

“Yes, and bless them for it, I suppose. It’s a good position you’ve got, so we shan’t be complaining, shall we?”

“Indeed not. Especially not today. But...I hear you huffing a bit, Mum. Are your lungs still achy?”
“No, no. Better now.”

The door of the cottage opened on a burst of wind and a booted foot crossed the threshold. Eva sprang up to catch the door and keep it swinging back in on her father, who stamped snow off his boots onto the braided rug and unwrapped the wool muffler from around his neck.

“Everyone all right out there, Vincent?” Mum asked. She leaned forward to pour tea into her father’s mug.

“Right as rain.” He shrugged off his coat and ran a hand over a graying beard that reached his chest. “Or as snow, I should say.”

“Come sit and have a cuppa, dear. Eva wants to open her gifts.”

“Oh, Mum.”

They spent the next minutes opening and admiring. Eva was pleased to see the delighted blush in her mother’s cheeks when she unwrapped the shawl Eva had purchased in Bristol when she’d accompanied Lady Julia there in October. There was also a pie crimper and a wax sealer with her mother’s initial, B for Betty. For her father Eva had found a tooled leather bookmark and had knitted him a new muffler to replace his old ragged one.

From them Eva received a velvet-covered notebook for keeping track of her duties and appointments, a linen blouse Mum had made and embroidered herself, and a hat with little silk flowers for which they must have sacrificed far too much of their meager income. But how could she scold them for their extravagance when their eyes shone so brightly as she opened the box?
Mum gripped the arm of the sofa and pulled to her feet with another of those huffs that so concerned Eva. “I’ll just check on the roast. Should be ready soon. Oh, Eva, you’ve forgotten your box from the Renshaws.”

So she had. “There’s something inside for you, too, Mum.”

“You have a look see, dear. I mustn’t burn the roast.”

“All right, I’ll peek inside and then I’ll come and help you put dinner on, Mum.”

She picked up the box and returned to the sofa. Her father grinned. “So what do you suppose is in there this year?”

“We’ll just have to see, won’t we?” She tugged at the ribbons, then pulled off the cover and set it aside. The topmost gift was wrapped in gold foil tissue paper. The card on top read To Eva with fondness and appreciation, from Phoebe and Amelia. She carefully unrolled the little package, and out tumbled a set of airy linen handkerchiefs edged in doily lace, each adorned with its own color of petit point roses. A pink, a yellow, a violet and a blue. Eva didn’t think there were such things as blue or violet roses, but her heart swelled and her eyes misted as she pictured the two girls bent over their efforts, quickly whisking away their gifts-in-the-making whenever Eva entered their rooms.

“Oh, look, Dad. See what the girls have for me. Aren’t they perfection? And here’s a fifth, with a tag that says it’s for Mum.”

He craned his neck to see. “Look a mite too fine for the use they’re meant for.”

“Oh, Dad.” Eva chuckled and glanced again into her box. “And here’s a card...” She took out a simple piece of white paper, folded in half. She unfolded it. “It reads, ‘For the Huntfords, for their pains.’ Odd, there’s no signature.”

“Isn’t that jolly of the Renshaws to remember your mum and me.”

“I’ll bet it’s a bit of cash, like last year. Let’s see...” Eva bent over the box to peer inside. The breath left her in a single whoosh.

“Well? What’s next in that box of surprises?” Dad leaned expectantly forward in his chair. “Evie? Evie, why do you look like that? Surely they haven’t gone and given us one of the family heirlooms, have they? Evie?”

“I... Oh, Dad...Oh, God.”

“Evie, we do not blaspheme in this house,” her mother called from the kitchen. She appeared in the doorway, drying her hands on a dish rag. “Eva, what on earth is wrong? You’re as white as the snow.”

“It’s...it’s a ring,” she managed, gasping. Her hands trembled where they clutched the edges of the box. Her heart thumped as though to escape her chest. “A s-signet ring.”

“Oh, that’s lovely, dear. So why do you look as if you’ve just seen a ghost?” Her mother started toward her. Her father’s rumbling laugh somehow penetrated the ringing in Eva’s ears.

She held up both hands to stop her mother in her tracks. “Mum, stay where you are. Don’t come any closer.”

“Why, Eva Mary Huntford, what has gotten into you?” The sullenness in her mother’s voice mingled with that incessant ringing. A wave of dizziness swooped up to envelop Eva. “What sort of signet ring could make my daughter impertinent?”

Eva looked up, the room wavering in her vision. “One that’s still attached to the finger.”
Murder Most Malicious

Murder at Ochre Court releases Tuesday, July 31st!


At the end of book 5, Murder at Chateau sur Mer, Emma Cross had a big decision to make, and yes, readers, I left you hanging. I'm sorry! In Murder at Ochre Court, we learn what her decision was and how it affected her life. We also may have the answer to another pressing question or two, but shh... no spoilers! As most of you know,

I've brought up Emma's role model, Nellie Bly, on numerous occasions during the series. Here, Emma actually meets her, and while what ensues is completely fictional, Nellie's views concerning marriage are taken from history.

Without further ado . . .


Newport, Rhode Island

July 1898


“Take my advice, Miss Cross, and marry a rich man. Then you may do whatever you like.”

The train from New York City to North Kingstown, Rhode Island, jostled me from side to side on the velvet seat while trees and shrubs and the occasional house streaked past the window to my right. The car was about half full, and soft murmurs and light snores provided accompaniment to the rumble of the tracks. I had faced forward as I usually do, not at all liking the sensation of being propelled backward through space at unnatural speeds. The woman in the seat opposite me, however, seemed to have no such qualms. She sat upright—not rigidly, but proudly, one might say, the kind of bearing that spoke of an unwillingness to bend to the persuasion of others.

“But,” I said and paused, still baffled by her last bit of counsel, “you achieved so much before you were married, ma’am.”

“True enough. But I was lucky, and I was willing to do whatever it took. Are you so willing, Miss Cross?”

Why, yes, I believed I was, but before answering, I studied her, taking in the square chin, the blunt though not unpleasing features which, like her posture, projected an air of uncompromising confidence. I sighed. I’d spent the past year in Manhattan reporting for the New York Herald and pursuing my fondest dream—only to find myself enveloped by the same frustrations that had thwarted my career in my hometown of Newport. What was I doing wrong?

Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, better known to the world as journalist Nellie Bly, smiled slightly at my hesitation. “There is only one sure path to personal freedom, Miss Cross. Money. And for a woman who has none, there is only one sure way of obtaining any. Marriage.”

“But—”

“Ah, you’re going to argue that marrying for money is wrong, that such a woman is destined for unhappiness and will find herself subject to her husband’s whims.”

I nodded.

Her smile grew. “I didn’t say to marry just any man. Do you imagine I’d be willing to exist in anyone’s shadow, husband or otherwise?”

A face with patrician features and dark eyes formed in my mind’s eye, but I dismissed it, or at least the notion of marrying a certain man for his money. That opportunity had come and gone and I had never regretted, for a moment, standing on my convictions. No, that wasn’t quite true. I would never marry for money, but there were times I wondered what my life would be now had I given in to temptation . . . .

A jolt brought be back to the present. “Your living in someone’s shadow is hard to fathom, Mrs. Seaman, with everything I’ve read about you. But your husband is—” I broke off, appalled at the impertinence of what I’d been about to utter.

“Forty years older than me, yes, that is correct.” Unfazed, she darted a glance out the window, blinking against the rapid flicker of sun and shadow against the moving foliage. “Still, we are compatible. I am quite fond of my husband, Miss Cross, and we are happy together. I have compromised nothing, yet I have achieved my goals and am living the life I desire. That is precisely because I have always known what it is I want, and I have never veered from the course that would take me exactly where I wished to be.”

The train jerked as it switched tracks, tipping us a bit to one side. I caught myself with the flat of my palm against the seat. Mrs. Seaman merely swayed as a willow in a breeze, then steeled her spine. The train slowed as the trees yielded to the wooden platform and green-painted depot darkened by soot. The sign read North Kingstown. I unsteadily got to my feet and reached to retrieve my valise from the overhead rack. Even though I stood on tiptoe, the bag, having slid from its original placement, eluded my grasp. A gentleman from across the aisle intervened, easily sliding out the thickly brocaded piece and swinging it down into my arms.

I thanked him before turning back to the individual I’d idolized for more than a decade, who now left me confused and not a little uncertain whether my admiration had been warranted or not. Everything I’d believed about this remarkable woman, this brilliant journalist, tumbled about my mind in chaos. Was she no different from my Vanderbilt aunts and all the other society matrons, whose lives seemed to me as empty and artificial as paper flowers?

She winked at me. “You see, Miss Cross, men are not the enemy. Find one you can trust, one who makes you laugh, and most importantly, one with enough money to make your dearest desires come true.
***

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