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Coming Soon! 2nd novella in the Miss Beale Writes series: The Bride in Ghostly White. A touch of gothic, a touch of mystery.
In the Sketching Stage ~ Miss Beale Writes 3: The Captive in Green. A touch of gothic, a touch of mystery
Current Focus ~ Audiobooks from The Write Focus podcast. Published this year: Discovering Characters and Discovering Your Plot; Coming SOON: Defeat Writer's Block

Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Black Heart / Opening and Links

Herewith The Opening ~~ Section 1 and the first paragraph of Section 2 ~~ for the Short Story "Black Heart", third in the collection Sailing with Mystery, featuring artist Isabella Newcombe Tarrant.

1

“Come to Cairo. See the pyramids,” her friend Nedda had urged. “I will run mad if I have no one reasonable to talk with.”

Isabella agreed with excitement. Nine days in a hotel in Port Said with nothing to do didn’t appeal.

She never expected to stand on the desert road for an hour, waiting for the following truck to arrive and rescue them.

Everything around was dry desert, peaked dunes to one side of the half-burned road and ridges of mixed sienna and umber rising as a buttress against the drifting sand. Deep shadows in the ridges looked like the eyepits of a skull. The shadow-black rocks crumbled from heat and time. To her, the whole landscape looked alien, stark and intriguing.

The Egyptian desert looked nothing like Crete, where she had met her husband Madoc. The darker sandy rocks reminded her of the American southwest, where Aunt Letitia and Uncle Roger had lived, all red rock canyons or endless stretches of barren plains. Yet the desert southwest had scrubby pines, knotted junipers, and creosote bushes. Wildlife abounded: pinyon jays and wrens and thrashers, jackrabbits and coyote and deer.

Here, she only saw a distant falcon soaring on the updrafts. Nothing appeared to move in the landscape. Isabella had wanted to sketch a long-eared fennec or the precious-looking gerbil or a sleek gazelle. She’d only heard the zit-zit-dweedle of the scrub warbler once, as their truck jounced through the outskirts of Cairo.

Fanning herself with her wide-brimmed straw hat, she turned to watch the men standing at the road, a few yards behind the truck that had caused their halt a half-hour ago. Arms emphasizing his points, the Egyptian driver talked with Col. Werthy, Richard Owen, and Neal Gallagher. The four men had changed the first punctured tyre. It lay beside them, useless, for a tyre on the other side had also gone flat.

No one had apparently considered a second tyre blown, yet here they all stood, driver and the fifteen passengers who had crowded into the truck’s cargo box. And they all watched the shimmering distance towards Cairo, hoping the second truck would arrive soon.

Nedda dropped the hand shading her eyes and turned to Isabella. She looked cool and crisp in her khaki traveling suit. Isabella, in blue cotton, felt a wrinkled lump melting in the rising heat. The ends of the green scarf tied about her dark hair fluttered in the breeze. “I’m going back into the truck before I’m burned to a crisp.”

A tarp for shade was fixed above the truck box. While driving, the wind blew under the tarp and cooled them. Without movement, the dark canvas would trap the heat.

“The canopy will block the breeze,” she warned.

“I can tolerate heat. I cannot stand being fried. I think my nose is burned.” Nedda touched the tip gingerly.

“You should have crowded into the motorcar with the Ingrams.”

Nedda rolled her eyes at the suggestion and headed for the truck.

The motorcar had paused when the truck ground to a halt. The second truck to Giza, with luggage and supplies, was supposed to be close behind, yet after a quarter-hour, it still hadn’t arrived. Mr. Ingram, Nedda’s employer, had given the signal to drive on. His chauffeur had consulted their truck’s driver before he obeyed the order. Nedda had declined the offer to squeeze between Sheridan Ingram and the teenaged Colfax. None of the Ingrams had looked back as the Vauxhall touring car drove away.

Mrs. Gallagher and her daughter Shirley had clambered back into the truck after it was lowered from the jack. The Fremonts had joined them, complaining loudly about their discomfort. They would still be blaming the driver if Col. Werthy hadn’t warned them to stop. Their daughter Savina lurked near the four men, no doubt waiting for the colonel to abandon the conversation so she could hang upon his arm.

Isabella sighed. Catching a whiff of cigarette smoke, carried from behind her, she turned to see Mrs. Phoebe Drake standing alone. Still out of the truck were four men and one woman, clustered in its shade. Only the precise Clive Rexford was unrumpled by the morning’s drive. He had ridden in the cab with the driver rather than on the benches attached around the cargo box. Older than the others, he didn’t slouch against the truck, unlike the two young men whose names Isabella couldn’t remember.

They had pushed back their straw boaters, revealing one blond head and one ginger. Hands shoved in their jacket pockets, they scowled at the empty road.

Padgett Michaels talked with the woman he was trying to impress. Chloe Ladwick, with her soft brown curls and China blue eyes, had curves that rivaled Savina Fremont. The young men usually danced attendance on her, and Mr. Michaels appeared to have fallen into the same snare. No ingenue, she viewed her fellow passengers with jaded boredom that she didn’t try to hide.

“Have you recovered from those wooden benches?” Mrs. Drake asked, coming the last few steps to stand beside Isabella. She waved her cigarette holder, lacquered red, a bit of modern chic at odds with the barren desert. “I admit to gratitude for the punctured tyres.”

She smiled, sharing the sentiment. “And our hand-luggage knocking into our knees while we rattle along.”

“What do you think of our fellow travelers in distress?” Although her cerulean linen dress had wrinkled, Phoebe Drake still kept her svelte poise, her dark hair in a sleek chignon and her pale skin unflushed. The widow wasn’t a great beauty, but her dramatic appearance rivaled Savina and Chloe.

She judged the ten feet to the others. They chatted loudly. As she looked, Padgett Michaels passed a cigarette to the bored young woman. Lowering her voice, she said, “I wish they would not complain so loudly. We’re driving across a desert. We shouldn’t expect the paved roads of London.”

The woman chuckled. “Is that not the behavior of the tourist abroad? To expect English roads and a green landscape, comfortable accommodations and bland food, the rain and chill of our summers? I will say that accommodations in Cairo and Port Said surprised me. Our hotel in Port Said is lovely.”

“It reminds me of a house on Crete, with balcony rooms overlooking an inner garden and a fountain.”

“The classic Mediterranean structure.” Her bright green eyes scanned the landscape while she drew on her cigarette. The lacquered cigarette holder matched the shade of her lipstick. “I could wish our hotel in Cairo had a lovely garden.”

“I believe we stay in tents at Giza. That is what Mr. Ingram told Nedda.” Isabella fanned her hat.

“Tents?” Painted eyebrows lifted. Those red lips compressed, a break in her elegant mask. “We are living rough.”

The conversation dried, arid as the desert. Phoebe smoked while Isabella watched the falcon soaring through the updrafts from the endless sands. The intense sunlight hurt her eyes. The heat sucked moisture from the air, refusing to let her melt.

The conversation by the road continued. Clive Rexford abandoned his group and strolled to them. The sand, shifting underfoot, prevented his usual determined stride.

At the truck, the two young men had found a point of contention. They had straightened away from the truck as they argued. One gestured, his hand cutting down. The dispute didn’t yet equal the day’s heat, but the Fremonts and the Gallaghers looked over the side of the truck.

Cigarette hanging from his mouth, Padget Michaels described something with minute gestures, shaping it with his hands then pointing to imaginary parts in his palm. Miss Ladwick nodded, but her gaze remained on the two men a couple of yards away.

“A pendant or a brooch?” Phoebe asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Our antiquities hunter. He has to be describing jewelry. Only gemstones or gold would hold Miss Ladwick’s attention.”

Mr. Rexford reached them. “Ladies.”

“You abandoned your group just in time.” Phoebe pointed with the thin red holder.

He didn’t look around. “The argument would have brewed whether I stoked it or not.”

Nedda had joined the watchers peering from the truck box. Her green scarf was bright against the dark tarp. Mr. Fremont called down, trying to silence the rising argument. Mr. Michaels left off his description and drew Miss Ladwick toward the rear of the truck.

Isabella looked for Werthy and Owen. They still talked to the driver although the raised voices had caught Mr. Gallagher’s attention. “What is the dispute, Mr. Rexford?”

“Who knows? The heat. The dryness of the day. A wink from Miss Ladwick. Who will escort her to dinner. I have more interesting things to consider.”

“Such as?” Phoebe prompted.

He scowled at the cigarette smoke wafting his way and turned to Isabella. “I find it interesting, don’t you, that two tyres gave out simultaneously? Slow punctures, that’s what Mr. Gallagher said. Not holes, not tears or ruptures.” His precise tone clipped the words. “As if an icepick were thrust into the tyres. And here we are, stranded in the middle of the desert.”

“Not quite the middle of the desert,” Phoebe drawled.

“Not quite stranded,” Isabella added. “The other truck will be here soon.”

“Yet it is considerably delayed. I thought our driver said that we were traveling together. A curious circumstance, is it not?”

Isabella didn’t want to talk about the tyres. She had avoided it with Nedda, and she didn’t intend to have that conversation now. When she had a cool drink with refreshing mint, maybe then. Talking about it now only borrowed trouble.

A shout from the road drew their attention.

The driver pointed toward Cairo. Werthy and Owen shaded their eyes to peer along the road. Isabella tried to see, but the shimmering desert defeated her.

“Ah, the other truck,” Rexford said.

Phoebe tossed the cigarette from the holder. “Do you see it?”

“Not yet, but what else would give our driver such joy?”

A second set of shouts came from the stopped truck. A woman screamed, brief, sharper than a raptor.

“I expected this.” Rexford sounded pleased.

Beside the truck the two young men faced off, fists raised in classic boxing stance. They circled each other. They had taken the time to shed their jackets which Miss Ladwick held. She watched avidly, too avidly in Isabella’s mind. Is she the thirty that I think she is? And still acting the silly girl, impressed by boys fighting over her?

Mr. Michaels climbed into the truck, avoiding Shirley Gallagher’s escape onto the sand. Her mother’s demand that she “come back this minute” added to the noise.

Col. Werthy and Richard Owen pounded past, Mr. Gallagher steps behind them. Before they arrived, a flurry of punches were thrown. Fists smacked flesh. Both men staggered back. Then they lunged forward to grapple together. One man’s nose bled red onto their white shirts.

“Oh, a fight.” Savina Fremont stopped beside them. “Chloe must be so pleased.”

Owen grabbed one man’s punching arm and forced it back.

Werthy seized the other man and flung him back. He thudded into the driver’s door. Bouncing back, he met a solid punch to his jaw. That cast him back into the truck. He must have hit his head, for he slid down to the running board and slumped.

Owen held the other young man at arm’s length against the side of the truck.

The shouts died. Shirley peeked around the back corner of the truck then minced over to Chloe Ladwick. The movement caught her father’s attention. He rounded on her. Whatever he said, low and vehement, caused both women to exchange glances then sidle toward Isabella’s group.

“He’s amazing,” Savina gushed. No one asked who she meant. Her attraction to the colonel was well known.

Isabella started for the truck.

Werthy whipped around. His glass-grey eyes flashed with inner fire. “Stay back. All of you. Stand over there with Rexford. The other truck is coming, and we’ll have to jack this one again to change the other tyre. You two,” he turned on the young men. His orders were low and curt.

They straightened and headed for the back of the truck to help the women down, one of them wiping at his bloody nose with a handkerchief.

Nedda offered him another handkerchief after he steadied her climb down. He cast the soaked one into the sand then turned to help the buxom Mrs. Fremont.

2

“Well,” Nedda said when she joined Isabella, “that relieved the tedium.”

The chugging diesel of the other truck heralded its steady approach. Their driver waved his arms and jumped up and down.

Dabbing at his nose, the young man stopped beside them. Except for the blood on his shirt and a cut on his cheek, he looked like any other young man, athletic and sun-touched, attractive with health. His cheerful smile seemed at odds with the fight only minutes before. Freckles dotted his face, and the wind lifted his ginger hair. He thrust the reddened handkerchief at Nedda.

“Keep it, please. I have others.”

“My apologies, ladies. I shouldn’t have—well.” He gestured. “That will not happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t,” Nedda said crisply, for all the world like a maiden aunt decades older rather than a few years. “We’ll speak no more of it. Should you assist with the other tyre?”

“The colonel has it in hand.”

The other truck rumbled and rattled in, stopping behind their truck. The driver stepped down and surveyed the problem while their driver explained. Then they two with Werthy, Owen, and Mr. Gallagher set to work. The second truck’s spare replaced the second punctured tyre. The drivers rolled the discarded tyres to stow in the back of the second truck with the supplies and luggage.

Jacket over his shoulder, Werthy came to them, rolling down the sleeves of his shirt. His eyes had lost their lightning ferocity. The wind ruffled his dark hair, grown longer in the three weeks that Isabella had known him. Behind him, Owen herded the other passengers to the first truck. “I want you two riding in the cab with me. Owen will drive the other truck.”

“What?” Nedda protested, but Isabella merely nodded. “First truck or second?”

“Second. Owen will drive the first one. He’ll take Caveley in the cab with him. Hetteridge can ride in cargo with both drivers, in with the luggage. I think it wise that we keep them separated for the rest of the drive.”

“Why were they fighting?”

He shrugged into his jacket. “Caveley said that Hetteridge hit him for no reason.”

“They were arguing,” Nedda pointed out. “They had a reason.”

“You were there. What did you hear?”

“Nothing that made sense.”

“Then we’ll find out at camp, when we’ve all had time to cool down.”

“Are we far from camp?” Isabella asked, wishing this day and its fraught events laid to rest. The sun rode high in the sky. Hours would have to pass before her wish came true.

“Another half-hour, Khalil says. Over the next rise we should see the pyramids. You’ll have time for photographs with the great Sphinx and to walk around. Try a few sketches,” he added, knowing Isabella had her sketchbook. He searched out his cigarette case and matches.

“And take yet more dictation from Mr. Ingram.” Nedda sighed heavily.

Lighting his cigarillo, Werthy paused long enough to give a broad grin. When the thin cigar was going, he nodded to the second truck. “I’m driving. Get your things and put them in the cab.”

Even enclosed and cramped with three on the seat, the truck cab was more comfortable than the wooden benches in the cargo box. The wind gusted through the open windows and swirled around. The pyramids soon appeared in the cracked windshield, dominant but hazy in the midday heat. The nine pyramids filled the sandy plain, called the Giza Necropolis. The tallest loomed over the others. They didn’t look like any other structure Isabella had seen. They were alien as the arid desert, intriguing in their difference.

Dust streamed away from the wheels of the truck ahead. The canopy flopped, admitting flashes of light into the cargo box. The others jounced on the wooden benches, fixed around the two sides and against the cab’s back. With Werthy’s rearrangement, they were less crowded. Talkative Shirley Gallagher squeezed between her parents. Savina and Chloe chatted. Mr. Fremont had his arms folded, not talking to his wife, who dabbed her brow and neck with a white handkerchief. Rexford and Michaels sat across from each other, also not talking.

Nedda drew the green scarf from her dark head. “Tell us, colonel, the reason you wanted a private conversation before we reached camp.”

He glanced over then directed his gaze to the sand-sifted road. “It’s what the other driver told us while we changed the tyre.”

“About this delay?”

“He had to change trucks. The first one refused to run. He drove it with no trouble this morning, all the way from the garage to the hotel, but the motor sputtered then quit before he managed fifty feet from the hotel. Sand in the petro tank.”

“Sand? How does—?” Isabella stopped.

“Sabotage,” he answered. “While this truck had two punctured tyres. Owen thought an icepick.”

“Mr. Rexford told us that. Mr. Gallagher told him.”

“Sabotage,” Nedda mused. “With an icepick from the hotel? And sand from the streets. Easy enough, I suppose. It’s simply another prank. Like the latches that broke on Miss Harlow’s suitcase. Every dock worker had a view of her unmentionables.”

“She was mortified.” Isabella remembered the older woman’s profuse apologies and tears. “We think she was targeted because she was a missionary.”

“Harmless pranks,” Nedda added. “Like the fountain pen exploding all over that girl’s dimity dress in the Reading Salon.”

“And salt switched for sugar when the hotel served breakfast before we left Cairo.”

“The deck chairs that came unscrewed. Colfax told his grandfather about that. It’s the one time that young man exhibited any interest in what happened aboard ship.”

“I saw him around the trucks this morning,” Isabella quietly inserted, “while we gathered.”

Werthy ground his teeth. “That’s not good. Sherry assured me the boy wouldn’t be a problem.”

“For your secret mission?”

He leaned forward to glare around Isabella at Nedda. “Just what do you know, Miss Cortland?”

“Isabella shared an interesting bit of information about you and Richard Owen and Sheridan Ingram.”

“Nedda! You had already guessed!” she protested.

“How much do you know, Miss Cortland?”

“A better question would ask what I don’t know,” she drawled, “but we shan’t speak of that. Better to talk about all of those shipboard pranks.” Her dark eyes opened wide as she looked at Isabella. She nudged with her elbow. “Like gluing the discs to the shuffleboard deck.”

“And the marbles that escaped from the basket of dinner rolls and rolled around the dining room. That poor steward’s face.”

“The pranks aren’t so harmless,” he retorted. “Milton Tavistock broke a leg falling down the stairs yesterday morning. His wife nearly fell as well, hurrying to reach him. A wire was stretched across the stair.”

“Poor Mr. Tavistock. I wondered the reason he and his wife didn’t come on this excursion. I thought they had changed to go to Alexandria. I didn’t hear about his fall.”

“Nor I,” Nedda said. “Nor did I know about the salt and sugar.”

Isabella patted her friend’s knee. “Not all the salt cellars and sugar bowls were switched. You left early, remember? Mr. Ingram had a telegram to send.”

“But the switched salt and sugar and the tyres means the prankster came on this excursion. He didn’t stay on the Nomadic or in Port Said. He’s with us.”

“Or she,” Werthy inserted.

The camp came into view through the cracked windshield. The Giza Necropolis was an active archaeological site. The diggings were a busy hive, with tarps placed near the excavations, reminding Isabella of the dig on Crete. Cold dread worked down her spine and prickled the hair on her arms.


The story continues ....

Try these links for the individual story.


https://books2read.com/u/b5WwxR

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C6L67M6P

For the collection Sailing with Mystery, five short stories that track Isabella's ocean journey to rejoin her husband, use these links:

Try out the Trailer on YouTube ~ https://youtu.be/csAe72b5X2I

Zon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJL28Z5W Ebook and Paperback, use the Same Link

Worldwide https://books2read.com/u/3R5QJR  Ebook and Paperback use the Same Link 




Saturday, March 1, 2025

Purple Poison / Opening and Links

2nd Short Story in the collection Sailing with Mystery 

A flurry of poison pen letters unsettle the passengers on the ship Nomadic

Even Isabella is not immune from the vicious invective.

Will the culprit be discovered before dangerous secrets are revealed?

Opening / Links Below

Purple Poison

1

“What will your husband think of your flirtation with Colonel Werthy?”

Isabella stared at that single line scrawled across the cream-colored sheet of paper. Blinding sunlight flashed in her eyes. She blinked, and the words in purple wavered on the page.

What will Madoc think?

Her husband would have nothing to think, nothing to suspect. She wasn’t flirting with the colonel. They had explored Gibraltar Town and Athens together. They dined together nightly, at Mr. Ingram’s table, the only regulars beside Lady Peverell and Sheridan Ingram. Even Mr. Ingram’s grandson Colfax appeared once in three days. Sometimes they did stroll the Promenade or reserved deck chairs side-by-side.

That wasn’t a flirtation, merely friendship of two similar minds. The colonel could talk art. She knew more than a little about world politics, currently and historically. Their association was nothing more than that.

A figure crossed before her, blocking the brilliant Mediterranean sun before dropping into the chaise beside hers. “You’re frowning, Mrs. Tarrant.”

The very man in question, Col. Werthy looked the gentleman at leisure in a summer suit, straw boater, and diagonally striped Repp tie. She waited until he had lit one of his ubiquitous cigarillos then handed over the letter.

He scanned it before those glass-clear grey eyes met hers. “I didn’t expect you to be the next target. My apologies.”

“The next target? Other people have received letters like this?” Even as she asked, Isabella considered potential recipients. One of those would not be Gemma Stropeford with her missing diary. She and her husband had debarked in Gibraltar, deciding their better course would be a return to England. Isabella had admitted to some relief as they left ship, aided by a loan from Lady Peverell. She had not wanted to become either confidante or good friend to Gemma.

Werthy waved the single sheet. “You join a privileged circle. I know of three others. No doubt more clutch their poison pen letters close, trying to hide them.”

“Poison pen?”

“What else would you call this? It’s a mild version compared to others that I’ve seen, but it’s clearly designed to poison your emotions.”

“A mild version? Did you receive one?”

“Not I. I had opportunity to read one.”

“A single line like this?”

“Rather longer. Quite the diatribe.”

“Really?” She wanted to ask who else? and what was in the letter?, but those questions seemed the height of rudeness.

He drew on the thin dark cigar, and she caught a whiff of rich tobacco under the smoke. “Mrs. Tarrant, you didn’t ask the expected question.”

“I didn’t? But we’re not involved in a flirtation, are we?”

Werthy chuckled. “You never fail to surprise me. Are you not going to demand that I absent myself from your company?”

“I will not. This claim lacks proof.” She held out her hand, and he returned the letter with its vicious implication.

“No worries about what your husband will think?”

“I am innocent of any flirtation. Besides, they would need to know Madoc’s address in India. I doubt they do—unless they’ve invaded my cabin and absconded with one of his letters. Nor do I think they will travel all the way to Madras and personally inform him of my supposed perfidy.”

Laughter from three youths strolling past broke Isabella’s attention on the letter. Her gaze traveled along the crowded Promenade deck. Anyone could have written the letter.

No, not anyone. Only someone who knew she was married could have penned it, someone who’d seen her growing friendship with Col. Werthy, someone who wanted to poison that friendship.

Farther along the deck, in the chaises, she saw Mrs. Phoebe Drake, dark head bent over a fashion magazine. A few chairs on, Miss Arabella Swandon manipulated a hook in and out of a handwork project. The ecru string reminded Isabella of a fisherman’s sweater. The Gallaghers and their daughter stood at the ship rail, Mrs. Gallagher holding a wide-brimmed straw hat firmly on her head, the ribbon around her daughter’s boater fluttering in the breeze. A young woman with golden curls, shining in the Mediterranean sun, looked their way. When her gaze encountered Isabella’s, she ducked her head and hid behind a novel.

Isabella looked again at the scrawl of purple ink. The handwriting was upright, the words open and well-spaced, the letters formed loosely, the capital W’s and C tall and lean. It certainly didn’t look like the hand of a poisonous person. Only Werthy’s name was stated, not hers, and she was not the only woman to receive his attentions. The note had no date. At the top was the ship’s seal, engraved in gold, stationery from a first-class salon.

Isabella refolded the letter and slipped it inside its envelope, also with a gold seal. Here was her name, the M of Mrs. open with a waved hook for its start, the I of Isabella a tall line hooked at the bottom, the T with a hooked line at the top then straight down. The pen had torn a hole in the envelope when the nib crossed the last T in Tarrant. Here was the evidence of enmity and an angry heart.

“Tell me what you know, Colonel.”

“Now that sounds like a determined mind.”

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He held his cigarillo over the chaise arm. The smoke wafted away from them. In that silence, something—the lines around his eyes, a vagrant intonation half-sensed—something caught her attention, and Isabella gave him a sharper look.

Col. Werthy had the lean athletic grace that made her think of a mountain lion seen at the zoo in Philadelphia. Attention to his attire gave him a sharp mien echoed in his military bearing. He never set himself forward, but he was a presence that couldn’t be overlooked. Sheridan Ingram had disclosed that he saw Werthy in the ship’s gymnasium whenever he managed to attend. He had the good graces of Lady Peverell, that redoubtable scion of nobility, as well as Hyatt Ingram, wealthy financier. They both cut through pretensions like a sharp blade through butter.

His smile dropped. “The artist’s eye,” he murmured. “That risk I didn’t expect.”

Isabella felt a pang at that implied slight to her talent, and her voice sharpened. “Because I paint pretty landscapes and avoid sketching my fellow passengers?”

Rather than answer, he looked away, his gaze following people strolling the deck or standing in conversation.

She spotted the dilettante Lionel Wexford talking to a young man clad in a fisherman’s striped shirt. Farther along the railing a mutton-chopped elderly gentleman stared at a gull diving around the one of the ship’s four masts.

She broke the stretching silence. “Will this change things between us? Will it change our friendship? Are we going to change over one line in purple ink?”

Those clear grey eyes returned to her. He had his own artist’s eye, piercing beyond the obvious, and she feared he saw just how much she enjoyed their relationship. He smiled and infused warmth into his answer. “No. No, Mrs. Tarrant, we aren’t.”

Yet she mistrusted that forced heartiness. Isabella tucked the letter in her sketchbook then swivelled her legs off the chaise. “Walk with me.”

The breeze ruffled her hair. The skirt of her blue polka-dot dress fluttered around her ankles. If she could walk him away from everyone else, where they wouldn’t be overheard, he might tell her about the other recipients. If she knew about them, she might be able to find a common link.

The vivid blue sky was bright against the dark blue waters surging around the ship. They passed a couple strolling the deck, arms linked and heads bent to each other, a mother herding a daughter and son away from the shuffle board game played by two teenaged boys, a man walking alone, and two young women chatting and giggling.

As they neared the bow, Isabella veered toward the railing. Out from under the upper deck and against the rail, the sun was brilliant and the the wind stronger. Her skirts tangled around the railing, reaching for the sea. Overhead the sky was a blue haze, but far to the east, storm clouds threatened the waters that they sailed toward.

Werthy took off his boater and stared at the distant clouds. The wind ruffled his dark, wavy hair. It tore his tie from his linen jacket, and the striped ends streamed across his chest.

No one was within fifteen feet of them, and no one seemed to watch them. Now was the time to ask the important questions. “Who else? Who else has received a letter?”

Werthy gave a cutting gesture.

Isabella huffed. “You said three others were in this privileged circle of recipients. Will you tell me who they are? Do you know how long ago these letters started?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You think to investigate?”

“I think a minor evil unchecked will turn into a greater evil. Did we not just fight a war with a minor cause that exploded into a major issue?”

“A hit, a palpable hit,” he quoted Hamlet and touched a finger to his brow. Those literary injections and his wide-ranging knowledge of his world were two reasons she valued his company. “I have no first-hand knowledge of those letters. Nor do I have permission to name the third.”

“You’ve piqued my curiosity, Colonel, but I will not censure you for discretion. I did not come on this voyage to poke my nose into other people’s business.”

His gaze swept the deck, tracking their walk past the shuffle board game and back to the deck chairs. He eyed the closest person, a lady swathed in a shawl, her attention was on the teenagers shouting over the shuffleboard game. “Join me for luncheon,” he finally said. “You may find it edifying.”

Luncheon was out. As much as Isabella wanted answers, she wouldn’t disappoint a friend. “I regret that I have another invitation, but I thank you.”

“Lady Peverell?”

“Not today, no.”

“Nedda Cortland?”

Now what did Col. Werthy know about Hyatt Ingram’s personal secretary? “The very same,” she murmured. She would not tease the information from him. He would either share it or not. She stepped away from the railing, preparing to depart.

“Bring her with you. No doubt she will prefer a Gold Star luncheon to a mere Silver Star. Or does she enjoy her half-hour snatched away from her employer?”

“If she consents” was all that Isabella would commit to.


Purchase Links for the Short Story ~

Worldwide https://books2read.com/u/mgNgqR

The Zon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C59FJJWC

Buy the Collected Short Stories

Sailing with Mystery Trailer https://youtu.be/csAe72b5X2I

Zon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJL28Z5W

Ebook https://books2read.com/u/3R5QJR


Monday, February 10, 2025

3 Star-Crossed Stories

 3 Star-Crossed Stories

February is the Love month, but it’s hard to celebrate love when you write murder stories.

February can be the coldest month, and that may be the reason Valentine’s Day is smack in the middle, the 14th of 28 days.

To enjoy February, stock up your TBR stack with stories that will make your soul shiver.

Licensed from DepositPhotos


First, our Celebratory Offering

To continue the publishing anniversary celebration, this month I offer a short story with Isabella Newcombe Tarrant. I managed to avoid killing anyone in this story.

Isabella has started her ocean voyage to join her husband Madoc. Besides new friends, she has puzzles to solve. In “Amber Dreams”, the puzzle is a purloined diary that a young bride had poured her heart into – and a blackmailer intends to use the diary against her.

Read the opening here: https://maleebooks.blogspot.com/2025/02/amber-dreams-opening-and-links.html

You can find the short story at these links:

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1YG2J6Q

Books2Read  https://books2read.com/u/3yWAAl

Second, my Newest Offering

One of Isabella’s new friends aboard ship is Nedda Courtland, private secretary to an oil-wealthy financier.

Nedda does have a murder to solve. Someone poisoned her boss. His wife? A business rival? Who else would want him dead?

It’s murder and a hint of a romance in this short story. “Spanish Moss” is part of a newsletter promotion from Book Funnel. Check out the link to find new writers to read. Share the link with your Book Group friends.

If you missed the gift of “Spanish Moss” in December, you have to use a different email for Book Funnel to provide you the link. OR we can figure out another way to send the story to you. Pop me an email to request that.

Here’s the Book Funnel Link: https://books.bookfunnel.com/HFnewsletterFebruary2025/fz24sxr828

 Third, the Soul-Shivering Offering

My pen name Edie Roones is part of a straight up sales promo entitled Vigilante Justice, a collection of revenge novels.

My Edie self has a soul-cold vengeance needed in the short story “Dangerous Gold”, set in Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest.

24+ writers are participating in this sales promo, most with full-length novels while I have a short story.

Use this Book Funnel link to check out the promotion:  https://books.bookfunnel.com/VigilanteJustice /ex2yp40pts 

 

Get a blankie and a hot toddy to stave off the chill of dastardly deeds!

And enjoy!


Saturday, February 1, 2025

Amber Dreams / Opening and Links

 


1st of the Short Story

Isabella propped her sketch to dry against the wall at the back of her bunk. The smooth sailing of the day reassured her that it wouldn’t topple over.

Propping the sketch on the bunk wasn’t ideal, but in her few days aboard the passenger ship Nomadic, she hadn’t discovered a better place in the third-class berth. She shared the tight quarters with three other young ladies. Hettie Rufford’s climb to the top bunk still disconcerted her, but chattering with new friends was an unexpected benefit.

Luck had flown with her when she finished her portrait for the dowager Lady Malvaise much earlier than anticipated. The booking office had recorded a cancellation the morning that she arrived to ask about an earlier berth. She sent blessings to whoever had cancelled their reservation, for she would join Madoc a month earlier than originally planned. A voyage of forty days with an additional five days ashore in Port Said, waiting to transfer to a ship that plied the Indian Ocean, would be no great matter.

She slipped into her strappy heels then fluffed the gathered skirt of her black frock before stepping to the mirror mounted above the tiny washstand.

“As lovely as that frock is,” Nedda Cortland shared, swinging a slippered foot as she lounged on the lower bunk, “you’ll need something more, Isabella. You will certainly need more for a stroll on the deck under the moonlight.” She turned another page in the fashion magazine she’d confiscated from the first-class Reading Room.

Isabella gave an inelegant snort. “No moonlit strolls for me, but I will take my India shawl.” She retrieved the brightly-colored wrap from her bunk and shook it loose from its folds. “Are you certain that you’ll be fine here?” Fine alone, she meant, for on the past evenings they’d dined together, braving the crowded second-class dining room to enjoy a bland meal more filling than tasty.

The secretary lifted her dark gaze from the glossy pages. “The steward will bring a tray, and I intend to enjoy a few hours alone. Not even Hettie or Caro should disturb me,” she added, naming their roommates. “Go on. You will be late, which will not be an auspicious beginning to an evening with Mr. Ingram. You have his invitation? You will need it to enter the first-class dining room.”

She waved her silver-beaded purse. “I have it here. You are certain, Nedda?”

The secretary rolled her eyes then straightened from her lounge on the lower bunk. She tugged the silky flamboyant wrap onto her shoulder. “Stop havering over this opportunity to enjoy first-class.”

Isabella laughed and went.

The trek from third-class sent her along narrow passageways and up three flights of stairs to reach the Promenade Deck, above the main deck. The Nomadic was a larger ship in the British-Asia Oceanic Navigation line. With a single-funnel and four masts, it was considered one of the premier ships traveling from Britain to the Mediterranean.

BAON offered four types of accommodation to passengers. Gold Star denoted first-class passengers with staterooms on the promenade deck and the first deck. Silver and Bronze Star meant second- and third-class passengers. The majority of those traveling, these passengers were housed in the second two lower decks. The Red Star fourth-class, the smallest contingent aboard, were deeper into the ship, rarely emerging into areas shared by the other passengers.

British-Asia Oceanic prided itself on its treatment of all passengers, but Red Star lacked any amenities, including a dining room. They had only a canteen and had to eat in their cramped, dormitory-style berths.

Madoc had warned Isabella not to take a fourth-class berth. She had saved money with a third-class berth, considering what was acceptable for the servants of first-class passengers would be acceptable for her. Thus, she met Nedda Cortland, secretary to the wealthy financier Hyatt Ingram, and two personal maids, Hettie Rufford and Caro Marten. She rarely saw Hettie and Caro, but she and Nedda had formed an alliance.

After a working lunch with her employer, Nedda had spotted Isabella on deck with her watercolors. The secretary had guided Mr. Ingram to meet her new friend. This evening’s invitation to the first-class dining room was the result. That encounter, Isabella suspected, was a carefully planned subterfuge to win time away from a demanding employer.

She didn’t begrudge Nedda seizing a chance for solitude. Like a little city on the ocean waves, the Nomadic was crowded, with few places for a solitary retreat. Of the four in their shared berth, only Isabella was not at someone else’s beck-and-call. While she relished deciding how to spend her free hours, she sympathized with her three roommates, working as hard aboard as they would on land.

In the first-class dining room, hundreds of candles softened the ship’s harsh light. Floral arrangements graced the tables. China and crystal and silver sparkled on crisp white linens.

Isabella followed the maître d’ to a prominent table already half-filled. A sommelier listened to Mr. Ingram’s instructions. She assumed the other two at the table were his son and grandson, mentioned this afternoon. The men rose as the steward drew out a chair on the table’s long side, one of four.

“Charming, charming,” the financier murmured. Approaching his seventies, he still looked hale, eyes clear and bearing upright. “Mrs. Tarrant, my son Sheridan, my grandson Colfax. Mrs. Madoc Tarrant, the artist.”

Sheridan Ingram had his father’s long face and neat appearance, but pouches beneath his eyes and forming jowls hinted at dissipation. He gave a hearty pleasantry which Isabella returned. The grandson barely lifted his eyes from table. Colfax Ingram had a couple of inches on his father. The pads in his jacket couldn’t hide his narrow shoulders.

The men started to sit only to stand again as others reached the table. Leading the way was an elderly woman in black crepe de chine with a floral georgette swath at the neckline and over the skirt of her gown. With her silver hair piled high, sparkling with diamante pins, she looked to have more than a decade on Hyatt Ingram.

Following her and quick to draw out her chair as hostess was a man with a thin mustache and a military bearing. Isabella couldn’t place his age, somewhere in his thirties.

Coming last was a fashionable couple of Sheridan Ingram’s age, Mr. and Mrs. Neal Gallagher. He wore a cerise tie and matching pocket square with his white dinner jacket. Mrs. Gallagher’s gown, a long sheath with a flared skirt, matched her husband’s flash of cherry-pink.

Two chairs still remained empty. As Isabella exchanged greetings with the newcomers, she wondered who had yet to appear.

Their hostess was Lady Serilda Peverell. Isabella knew the name, for her roommate Hettie Rufford was the woman’s maid. The military man, Colonel Emerson Werthy, took the chair on Isabella’s right. Mr. and Mrs. Neal Gallagher separated, the man to Mr. Ingram’s left and his wife to Lady Peverell’s right. At first glance Isabella had thought him older than his wife, but as he spoke across table to Sheridan Ingram, ignoring the sulky grandson, she adjusted that age downward, deeming them nearer in age to Col. Werthy than her own of 25.

As the stewards served a chilled cocktail, two women arrived to take the last seats at table. The one in a flurry of crocheted shawl and fly-away curls with threads of grey was Miss Arabella Swandon. She tittered about her tardiness and difficulties with finding the table and gave a “hallo” to everyone, repeated to Colfax beside her until he deigned to look up and nod. From that Isabella guessed that only the Ingrams and Lady Peverell always had this table. The others shifted around at will for each dinner.

The svelte woman strolled behind Miss Swandon. She waited for her chair to be withdrawn, done with alacrity by Col. Werthy. Over a simple chemise of aubergine she wore a haut couture gown with beaded embellishments on the elaborate embroidery. She introduced herself as Mrs. Phoebe Drake. Isabella expected the able colonel would ignore her to attend to Mrs. Drake, but he surprised her. He gave them both equal attention as the courses progressed through a consommé, baked cod in butter, then a ragout of oxtail.

The entrée was an excellent beef tournado. She enjoyed it even more when she recalled last night’s curried chicken and rice, preceded by a rice soup and followed by rice pudding. With a bite in her mouth, though, the conversation turned to her. She should have expected it. Lady Peverell had speared the others at table, course by course. The Gallaghers were queried during the cocktail and soup, Mrs. Drake during the fish, and Miss Swandon during the ragout.

She swallowed her bite of beef as Mr. Ingram explained how she came to join their table.

“An artist?” Lady Peverell frowned, a minatory gaze looking for a flaw in Isabella’s appearance. “What brings you aboard ship?”

She gave a silent thanks to her friend Flick Sherbourne for the paisley shawl and to her sister-in-law Cecilia for the Lanvin-style frock, simple elegance in black satin woven to resemble silk. The elderly woman’s eagle eyes had likely spotted the inexpensive fabric. Isabella lifted her chin and gave a smile that belied her jitters. “I sail to join my husband in India.”

“A planter?” Sheridan Ingram leaned forward to look uptable. “With which company?”

“He’s not a planter. He’s with Tredennit Builders.”

Col. Werthy hmphed. “Road building,” he informed the others. “A contract in Australia, isn’t it?”

Her view of the colonel warmed. “It is, but I know very little. Madoc has only been employed with Tredennit since the New Year.”

“Tarrant. Tarrant.” Neal Gallagher tapped his knife on his plate. “I’ve heard that name. Read it. In the newspapers.”

Eyes swiveled her way. She swallowed air this time. Only careful maneuvering would keep the topic away from salacious gossip about murders, the arrests of Frederick Petrie and Nigel Arkwright, and Cecilia Arkwright’s subsequent marriage to Madoc’s brother Gawen. “My brother-in-law is a renown archaeologist. Professor Gawen Tarrant at St. George’s University. He is publishing a series of articles about his archaeological dig on the island of Crete. I did the drawings with the articles.”

“Pen and ink?” the colonel asked. “And watercolors. I saw you working this afternoon. Do you use any other medium?”

Before she could answer, Mrs. Gallagher asked, “Do we dock at Crete? It would be fascinating to visit an actual archaeological dig. We would touch history.”

“I’ve seen one of your paintings,” Lady Peverell declared. “An oil of young Edward Malvaise.”

“Yes, my lady, I completed that portrait in the last month. To have seen it, you must be well acquainted with the dowager Lady Malvaise? It hangs in her private suite at the family estate.”

“She was most pleased with your work, Mrs. Tarrant. She advised all of us to commission you before you sailed for the South Seas.”

“I escaped all commissions, my lady. I had to finish my work for Prof. Tarrant and a few pen-and-inks for Tony Carstairs. He offers my work in his gallery.”

“Is it a nice portrait of the Malvaise boy?” Miss Swandon asked. “He’s the only one still alive after the war, isn’t he?”

The dowager Peverell ignored the interruption. “She said you were not the usual artist.”

A raised voice at a nearby table stopped any reply. “You do not have my permission to write to him,” a man declared.

The comment drew the eyes of all who had heard, passengers and stewards alike. Colfax Ingram turned in his seat while Isabella’s side of the table watched without displaying such rude interest.

The couple were smartly dressed. The young woman wore a stylish embroidered peacock gown. A glittering tie pin detracted from the understated elegance of the man’s crisp suit. As he berated her about her role as a Stropeford bride, Isabella didn’t envy them at all.

The young woman had lowered her gaze to her plate. Her murmured response did not reach their table. Nor did it placate her companion.

He withdrew white rectangles from an inner pocket and cast them down. One fluttered open to land on the daisy-filled posy. Then he drew out an envelope and waved it under his wife’s nose. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

At the snap in his voice, Isabella flinched. She wanted to look away, yet her gaze was captured by the train wreck. The Gallaghers and Miss Swandon had twisted around, copying Colfax’s obvious staring.

The bride reached for the envelope only to have the man snatch it back. “You dare write to him after—.” He lowered his voice, hiding the words although not his harsh tone.

Col. Werthy started from his seat. Mrs. Drake put a hand on his arm.

Hyatt Ingram loudly cleared his throat. “Steward!”

The man looked up then. When he saw the censure over this public drama coming multiple tables, he flushed red. His chair scraped the floor as he stood. He tossed the envelope onto the table before he strode out.

In a flurry of jerky actions, the young woman hastened after him.

The whole room watched. When the doors closed, talk resumed, loud and clattery in the first moments before settling down as people overcame amazement.

“We shall see what we shall see,” Lady Peverell intoned.

The steward had arrived. “More wine,” the elder Ingram ordered.

The man lifted a hand, and a younger steward appeared with a new bottle. He uncorked it and poured a mouthful, which he offered to Mr. Ingram for approval. Everyone watched him taste the wine. He commented to Mr. Gallagher and the colonel about the vintage.

The first steward moved away as the younger one began filling goblets with the new wine.

“A cabernet,” Mr. Ingram informed them. “You will enjoy it with the beef.”

“Oh my!” Miss Swandon fanned herself. “I usually have only one glass at dinner.”

The financier smiled like a benevolent uncle bestowing a treat. “Tonight you will have two.”

Lady Peverell lifted a finger, and the first steward bent to listen to her. Then he stepped to the abandoned table. His body blocked his action, but when he returned, he handed the folded notes and the letter to the elderly lady. She slipped them into her beaded purse. Her gaze then speared Isabella. “Mrs. Tarrant, you and I shall have a talk in the morning. At 11 o’clock in my stateroom.”

That sounded ominous. Isabella could give only one answer. “Of course, Lady Peverell.”

. ~ . ~ . ~ .

Find the story at these links:

Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Portrait with Death / 1st Three Chapters and Links

 Can an artist avoid death when murder paints with blood?

Portrait with Death ~ 

3rd Novel in the Into Death series

Chapter 1

 Wednesday, 31 January 1920

The train whistle blew. Steam clouded the grimy platform. People rushed past, laden with parcels that hadn’t gone to freight. Others sauntered along the platform, through the vapor wafting from beneath the engine. Small clutches of people lingered, saying goodbye.

Madoc hoisted his tightly-packed canvas duffle over his shoulder. He gave a shake of his head, to get his black hair out of his eyes. In the months since they’d met, his hair had grown. Isabella thought he had a personal goal to rid himself of anything like the military cut forced on him for years.

The conductor called for boarding, and tears flooded Isabella’s eyes. He was leaving. Now. Not weeks, not days. Now. She wouldn’t see him for months.

He touched her cheek. “None of that, Bella.”

“I wish I were traveling with you, Madoc.”

“Not yet. Only two and a half months. Then I will count the days until your ship arrives in Calcutta.”

“Seventy-six days, during which I work madly to finish an oil painting and store what we won’t need in that box room that Gawen’s offering, then I count the days. And try to finish the illustrations for his articles. He hasn’t written the last two yet.”

“You’ll come up with something he can use. You also have those pen-and-ink drawings for Tony Carstairs. London sites.”

“I have no worries about the drawings for Tony, but I’m running out of artifacts for your brother.” She fretted over the drawings because she dared not fret about his leaving. Married a month, and Madoc was heading to a faraway place. “Madoc, must you work your passage on this cargo ship? I can take a smaller berth or share with someone.”

“I need to stay active on this voyage.” He had rejected all her ideas for his travel to India, every idea she’d advanced over the past month of their marriage. “Captain Harvey is a cousin of one of my former soldiers. And working my passage will keep me busy. I’ll fall into my bunk every night, too worn out to miss you, love.”

Isabella clutched his arm. Nightmares no longer plagued him nightly, but they still occurred at odd times, for odd reasons. He’d been demobbed for over a year now. He wouldn’t want his new shipmates to know he had any weakness. Madoc made friends easily; he’d win them over—but they would be cautious if nightmares were their introduction to him.

“Besides,” he added, “I’m not certain what living arrangements Mr. Tredennit has set up in Calcutta. We won’t cross to Australia until July. Our summer is their winter.”

“An upside-down world.”

“A shake-up of your normal world. It will affect your art.” He flicked the golden end of her braided hair. “I’ll write letters or send a cable from every port until we reach Calcutta.”

The conductor called again.

Madoc bussed her lips with the briefest caress, risking censure for that public affection. Then he was gone, climbing into his compartment. He dropped the window to lean out.

She wanted to climb into that compartment with him.

The train engine groaned then began to pull, wheels squealing on the tracks before they caught and tugged. A man bumped her. A boy dashed between her and the train. When she steadied, the passenger cars were rolling, taking Madoc farther and farther away, faster and faster. He waved. She blew him a kiss. He stretched as if catching it, carried his closed fist to his lips. Then the vapor swirled, the train gained more speed and left the station, heading into the rain and away from her.

She yanked out a handkerchief and blotted her wet cheeks.

“Very touching,” said a wry voice behind her. “Shall we have tea before we start back? I know a shop a few streets from the station. They have clotted cream fresh from the countryside.”

“Cecilia,” Madoc’s brother Gawen said to his new wife, in a sigh rather than a quelling tone. “We planned to have tea at home.”

Gawen and Cecilia had insisted on joining them on the platform, partly to see Madoc off, partly to give Isabella support.

The two brothers were tight-knit. Gawen also hadn’t liked his younger brother working his passage to India and then to Australia. He understood the reason. He posed his arguments. Madoc hadn’t listened to him or to Isabella.

Cecilia had insisted on coming to the station for Isabella’s sake. She was intent on bolstering her friend. Isabella hadn’t moaned to anyone about Madoc’s leaving, yet Cess sensed her dismay. She’d tried dozens of distractions in the past fortnight. She had many more planned for the brief days before Isabella left to paint that portrait.

She didn’t begrudge the commission for the portrait. It would bring money, a lot of money, money to give her and Madoc a good emergency fund when they set up home in Australia. His job there would take months. Nor was the portrait the chief reason that she had to wait before taking ship to join him. That was the lack of a berth. With the war over and all countries in harmony imposed by treaty, their citizens had eagerly returned to traveling. The first affordable berth that Isabella could book wasn’t until April.

Seventy-six days from now.

An oil portrait. Six illustrations for Gawen, based on her remaining sketches from Crete and two artifacts. Ten pen-and-ink drawings for Tony Carstairs. Watercolor landscapes. Surely those will fill my empty hours without Madoc?

Cecilia pointed at the railway clock visible on the platform. “It’s a half-hour to lunch. Let’s eat at a tea shop then go on to St. George’s. Gawen, you do need talk to Isabella about your last two articles, and she can see the artifacts that you’ve picked for illustrations. Then she shall come to the flat for dinner.”

“No, I must call a rain check for dinner. I must finish my packing. I want everything almost out of the Kirkgardie Street flat before Filly Malvaise moves into your old room. I still have boxes and boxes.”

“I still want you to stay with us.” Cecilia looped a hand through Isabella’s elbow. Her other hand hooking on her new husband’s arm, she steered them off the platform and to the stairs. People coming down the steps had to venture to the side.

“I will not, Cess. You and Gawen married last weekend. You need time alone together.”

“We’ll have time when you leave.”

They emerged onto the street and into a cold rain that spat ice. Isabella popped up her umbrella while Gawen managed one for Cess and him. Cess turned and spoke, but the street traffic drowned her words. Isabella nodded anyway and followed them like a well-trained puppy.

Funny. Last summer I had to fend for myself, and I’ll be alone again when I travel to Upper Wellsford for the portrait. Not completely alone, though. Far from her, Madoc was still her husband, and Cess and Gawen were family.

London looked grey and dingy and dreary. Weeks in the countryside as spring emerged would be much better than cooped up in the congested city.

She hoped Madoc found a friend on ship. He’ll make friends quickly. He’ll find out their destination and their jobs on board and draw out their life stories.

That didn’t reassure her.

His ability to talk easily to strangers, to manage an unknown crew of workers, and to know work that needed to be done even without a prep for it: those traits had impressed Michael Tredennit. The older man had offered Madoc this chance. The new job had excellent pay and compensation for travel and an opportunity for advancement.

I’m happy for him. I am. I just wish—.

“Isabella, what do you think?”

She came to the present with a jolt and realized they’d passed Gawen’s roadster. “Sorry, I was wool-gathering. What did you ask?”

Cess exchanged a knowing look with Gawen then indicated the tea shop across the street. Brightly lit windows offered comfort from the elements. Ice pellets spattered her umbrella. The tea shop’s sunny interior, revealed above the bright blue café curtains, promised warmth and welcome. Cecilia launched into a description of a large luncheon.

Isabella listened to little of it. “Of course. Whatever fits with your plans.”

She tried to be less distracted as they lunched. The food was excellent and warming. The waitress allowed them to linger. Gawen talked of the last cataloging for the artifacts brought from Crete. Cecilia brimmed with plans for her columns for Modern Woman and how her work fit so easily into Gawen’s life. She tried a discussion of the new direction in the spring fashion magazines, but Isabella refused to engage in that conversation.

Then Cess began planning visits to four different couturiers, with Isabella needed for quick sketches.

“When are you planning to visit these fashion houses?”

“Next week.”

“You forget. I’m leaving for the Midlands in three weeks. I have packing. I have Gawen’s illustrations and those drawings for Tony. I can’t sketch countless models for you.”

“Your trip is a month away.”

“Not really. You will want these sketches to be magazine-perfect, won’t you?”

“Of course. Just like you do for Gawen.”

“That’s not enough time. Cess. It’s not. Not with everything else I must do.”

“Can you not delay your journey? Start the portrait at the end of February? Or in mid-March? Please! A few extra days only.”

Isabella cut into the luscious tiramisu, its aroma of coffee and chocolate promising delight. “I shall be at the outer edge of my timeline as it is. I dare not take extra days, or I’ll interfere with completing my commission. I won’t delay boarding ship.” She smiled at her friend, trying to take the sting out of her stubborn stance. “Let me talk to Tony. He may know of a young artist willing to do your fashion sketches.”

“Whoever it is,” she said glumly, “will want pay for their time.”

“Were you not going to pay me?” At Cess’s startled look, Isabella laughed.

“I fully intended to pay you, Isabella.”

“The hole gets deeper,” Gawen murmured then hid a smile behind his coffee cup while Cecilia blustered about payment.

The afternoon passed as planned. The ice turned back into rain.

When Isabella called a cab to take her back to the Kirkgardie flat, Cecilia waited with her in the entrance. “Do talk to your Mr. Carstairs. Give him my new address. Will we see you this weekend?”

“With a lorry in tow. I hope to have several boxes packed, ready for storage.”

“Stay for dinner. I’d have you visit us every night for dinner before you leave for Upper Slaughter.”

Isabella chuckled at the name. “Upper Wellsford. Next to Lower Wellsford. It has its own rail spur.”

“Upper Slaughter,” Cess declared firmly. “I predict that your curiosity will be slaughtered within three days of your arrival in that sleepy hamlet. You don’t have to stay there the whole time, do you? You can visit us. Every weekend.”

“Perhaps not that often. Oil paint sometimes has a mind of its own. I’ll ring you if I wish to visit.”

“How will you cart that monstrous canvas to Upper Slaughter? Why did the dowager want it nearly life-size?”

“He’s her only living grandson and heir to the barony. I’m making a very nice commission, Cess. The canvas and my easel should arrive before I do.”

“Oh, bother. That’s the cab man. You can manage everything else? If you need anything—.”

“I’ll see you several times before I go. And I will ask for help if I need it.”

“I feel as if my sole fledgling chick is flying the nest. I’ll miss you, Isabella.”

“I’ll write daily, Mother.”

“Oh, you!”

In this day of bright lipstick, they air-kissed. Like a posh Bright Young Thing, Isabella thought as she ran down the steps and slid into the cab.

She understood Cess’ strange feeling of loss. It had started for her when a gunshot nearly killed Cess. Madoc’s ocean voyage tripled the feeling of deprivation. Life’s changes weren’t always a blessing.

Cess had no one beyond their little circle. As the youngest daughter of Viscount Salton, she had had a wide circle of acquaintances. Yet she hadn’t had friends who became closer than family until the fraught events of last October. The viscount had threatened to cut ties when Cess wanted to marry Gawen. They had married. Maybe the viscount hadn’t followed through with his threat.

Isabella was just as alone. She had only an aunt for bloodkin, but that worthy remained in the States. Her marriage to Madoc had barely renewed the feeling of family before his imminent departure loomed. Cecilia and Gawen were her only friends on this side of the Atlantic, and soon Isabella would depart and enter another world where she knew virtually no one.

The cab trundled away, bouncing over pavement that needed repair, the rain pelting the windows and blurring everything around.

Or maybe that was the tears in her eyes.

 . ~ . ~ . ~ .

 Thursday, 5 February 1920

Flick Sherborne perched on a corner of Alicia Osterley’s littered desk and watched as her friend examined the photographic prints she had handed over as soon as she entered.

Blinking owlishly behind the thick round glasses that gave her the nickname of Owl, Alicia closely examined several of the prints. She hadn’t commented when Flick had presented her the courier envelope. She merely unwound the string and drew out the prints, spreading them on her desk to see the full range.

That’s how Flick knew Alicia would rise in the editing world. Already she had the behavior of Alan Rettleston, managing editor of the London Daily. No one had taught Owl the editing job; she came full-fledged with the knowledge. Cold logic about the facts, critical objectivity to judge the audience, emotional reaction held last, after all decisions.

With over two decades in the newspaper world, Alan Rettleston was emotionally stunted. Would Owl become that way? Her boss Lottie Crittenden wasn’t. Lottie was a publisher, not a busy editor. Modern Woman was her third publication. Where had Lottie gotten her seed money for Modern Woman?

Lottie and her nieces Greta Ffoulkes and Tori Malvaise threw fabulous parties filled with London’s Bright Young Things and artistic effetes. Flick rarely attended. Even more rarely did she receive an invitation—although the current obligatory invitation was propped on the dining table underneath the kitchen window. Like Owl, she was an employee more than a social equal. When Owl did attend a party, Flick imagined she blinked—well, owlishly at the goings-on in London’s high society. Those attending the fast and wickedly daring parties weren’t the readership for Modern Woman. Owl didn’t need to understand wild scavenger hunts and swimming in public fountains and all-night binges driven by white powder.

Owl was a babe in the editing world. Maybe she would escape the jaded cynicism of Alan Rettleston.

The current red-edged invitation came from Greta Ffoulkes, for a Valentine’s party. A masquerade The best of young London would be there, eager to celebrate the lives they hadn’t risked in the past war. Champagne would flow faster than conversation, and the dancing faster still. Secrets would become public, rumors would start, facts would be forgotten. She might go. In the crowd, no one would look too closely at her reworked black satin. A black mask for her eyes, a red flower pinned to her dark hair, and the Spanish shawl for an artistic touch.

“These are good.” Owl slid six prints toward her, the ones of women workers taking a smoke break outside a factory. The women’s coveralls hung baggily, with rolled cuffs at wrist and ankle. Their scarves and earrings said Woman at Work. The only thing that they shared with the few pictured men were tired faces and slouched bodies leaning against the brick factory walls. “Very good yet not for us. Sorry, Flick. I don’t have an article in the next six months that these photos will support. If something changes—.”

Sliding off the desk, Flick stacked the photos and tucked them back into the courier envelope she’d swiped from her father’s firm. “No worries, Owl. Rettleston will want a few of them. I wanted you to have first pick.”

Her friend sighed. “I wish I did have something. So many women will lose their jobs now that the men are demobilized. Perhaps I could commission an article—.”

“Not me. I don’t write the heavy-hitting. My garden features suit me very well, thank you.” Her blue eyes narrowed. “Do you need a break? You look as tired as those workers.”

“Perhaps we could do a photo spread. No words. You can tell a narrative without words.” She held out her hand for the envelope.

Flick tugged harder at the string that closed it. “You don’t get two refusals in one visit, my friend. Alan Rettleston gets second refusal. Besides, a photo spread of working women is not really the audience of Modern Woman.”

“I know, but the occasional feature—I could argue for it.”

“Let Rettleston do his work. Don’t worry about me.”

Owl pursed her lips as she scrutinized Flick. “You look thinner.”

“It’s the pants.” She tugged at the wide-legged worsted pants made from a man’s suiting pin-stripe.

“Are you eating enough?”

Gosh, Owl was determined. She pressed a false humor into action. “Three meals a day. Positively stuffed.” She blew out her cheeks.

“Are they square meals?”

“On a round plate. Stop worrying about me, Owl. Or do worry in this way. Would you be interested in a public school garden feature? Boys on a manicured lawn would make fond mothers sigh with contentment. The public school I’m thinking of has clipped topiary. Very photogenic. I have a couple of photos from last October that would work for any publication date, even summer, and the topiary is evergreen.”

“Anything you bring us about flowers and gardens we’ll take. That’s from Mrs. Crittenden herself. We had a flood of letters after your December feature on orchids. It was as if English women had never heard of orchids. Are you thinking of Greavley Abbey where your brother is?”

“Yes. All unexpectedly, too.”

“He’s not doing well?”

Flick didn’t answer that. Owl’s fascination with Chauncey was long standing. Chauncey didn’t know of it and likely never would. Owl just blinked owlishly at him. “He needs a visitor to take him out of Greek conjugations and Old Guard politics, for which he has little patience.”

“When do you leave?”

“A couple of weeks.” She slung the strap for her tote over her shoulder. The big bag held her most prize possession, a Kodak Autographic Special camera, bought off a newshound who worked at the London Daily, Rettleston’s paper. “I must wrap up things here.” She grinned, knowing she would look like an eager street imp with her bobbed dark hair and over-sized flight jacket handed down from her brother Allworthy, an ace in the Royal Air Force. “Lottie’s party this weekend. The mater’s tea before Valentine’s Day. A masquerade. Dinner with Rettleston one night.”

“You don’t have to dine with—.”

“Whirlwind shopping with friends. One must have tweed for the country. I might see the rest of winter in Upper Wellsford and bring back more than one article with photos for you.”

“I wish I could take those workers,” Owl fretted.

“It’s not a problem.”

“Will you—?” She dropped her eyes and toyed with the fountain pen on her desk. “Please tell Chauncey that I said hello.” The bland words didn’t match the eagerness that had started her broken-off question.

“I will.”

Chauncey might not remember Owl. The petite dark-haired girl with a round face dominated by thick black spectacles would have barely registered on his pre-war scale.

Maybe he had changed. Maybe serving as Greek master at Greavley Abbey School in a sleepy village had changed him for the better.

Shame about the photos, though. Women losing work should be the focus of Modern Woman, not flower features.

Chapter 2

Friday, 27 February

Herbert Pollard ran the Hook and Line Pub with a strict hand. From under thatchy brows threaded with more silver than his sandy hair, he stared at the small watercolor easel that Isabella had brought on the train. Beside it on the bar lay her sketchbook, sliding out of her artist’s tote, a leather satchel confiscated from Madoc. Isabella fished in her purse for the three envelopes sent from the dowager Lady Malvaise, introductory letters to Mr. Pollard and the prep school’s headmaster and young Edward Malvaise, the subject of her portrait.

“We don’t approve of the wild goings-on that painters do,” Mr. Pollard said heavily. “Specially American painters what call themselves artistes.”

“We run a nice establishment,” his wife interjected from the end of the bar where she worked on ledgers.

The whistle for the departing train blew.

Chilled from the late February wind, Isabella stopped hunting in her purse and turned to the satchel. “Of course not. I mean, I’m reassured that you don’t approve of wild goings-on. A woman alone—.” She trailed off, letting them complete the sentence with the clichéd responses. Her icy fingers finally felt the three letters forwarded from Lady Malvaise’s secretary-companion. She withdrew them and removed the red cord that bound them. Mr. Pollard’s letter was on the bottom. Fighting shivers from her walk from the train station, she handed over his. “Did you receive the large easel and canvas and box that I sent? Those were supposed to arrive this morning.”

He stared at the letter as if he didn’t know what to do with it. “Aye, brought to us this morning they were. I put them in the room you hired.”

Isabella winced, thinking of small rooms offered by pubs and the size of the easel and the canvas. The box, the size of a milk crate, had her paints and brushes and turpentine and palette. Would the room hold her?

“What’s in this?” He tapped the envelope on the bar.

“Lady Malvaise has promised to pay for my room and board. She writes of the arrangements for you to draw the funds.” At least, that was the agreement in her own letter from the secretary. She hadn’t opened any letter but her own. “I don’t know all the particulars. Will there be a problem with my staying the length of time that I mentioned in my letter of the fifth?”

“No, no problem.”

His wife left her stool and came behind the bar to take the letter her husband handed her. “When you wrote, we thought you were a momma worried about her son. His first time away from home and all that. We didn’t know you were an artist from America, not until that easel arrived.”

“Oh. A momma with a son at Greavley Abbey School. No. I’m not really all the way from America, either. I live in England with my husband. He’s Welsh. Madoc Tarrant. The reason that I’ve come here, to Upper Wellsford, is that Lady Malvaise’s grandson attends Greavley Abbey School. It’s his portrait that I am to paint.”

“The dowager Malvaise?” Mrs. Pollard slanted a look at her husband as she unfolded the letter then dropped her gaze to read. She looked two decades younger than he. Her pale brows pinched in, then she turned to the second page. Whatever she read there turned her incipient frown into a wide smile. “Why, that’s fine, then.” She turned to her husband. “We’ll have no trouble accommodating Mrs. Tarrant. It’s as she says. Lady Malvaise will cover any charges for her room and board.” She tucked the letter back into the envelope. “And her grandson’s at the Abbey School. Has he been there long, Mrs. Tarrant?”

“I think he has attended for several years. I’m not certain, though. I suppose it is too late to introduce myself to Mr. Filmer the headmaster or to Edward Malvaise.”

As a bar maid appeared, Mrs. Pollard waved her husband back to his work. She rested an elbow on the bar and watched Isabella tuck the remaining two letters and her sketchbook into the leather satchel. “As to the boy, it’s much too late. He’ll have Friday Evensong and Compline to attend. Dean Filmer usually comes in after the service. That’s late,” she added.

Isabella nodded and smiled and murmured her gratitude. Everything they said was helpful. If that meant pretending that she knew nothing about Church of England services, then so be it. Her father had enjoyed what he called “high church liturgy” and the prayers of the canonical hours. A professor of history, he’d relished steeping himself in ritual and music and a setting with a strong weight of centuries.

She missed him terribly sometimes.

Not so much since her marriage to Madoc—although now she missed her husband.

“Will Mr. Filmer come to the pub after ten o’clock?”

“Closer to half-past. You better call him Dean Filmer. That’s what he goes by. The dean. The teachers are masters. Some kind of Greavley foolishness, but you know public schools and their traditions.”

That reminded Isabella that she’d hadn’t seen any women in the pub. “Do you have any policies that I should know about?”

“We have quiet nights here. No ladies in the pub after tea-time unless accompanied by their husbands or sons or a man of the village. Since you wish to meet Dean Filmer, I suppose that gives you permission to be in the pub, but not on a regular basis, Mrs. Tarrant.”

“I will keep that in mind. Will I take meals in my room?”

“Bless you, no, Mrs. Tarrant. We have a small sitting room reserved for guests. Mr. Pollard calls it the lounge. We have seating there and tables to serve dinner and breakfast to our paying guests. We keep city hours,” she added, sounding proud of that. “Lunch here in the pub, of course. If you’re to miss a meal service, be pleased to let us know several hours in advance.”

“That suits me perfectly.” She and Mrs. Pollard exchanged smiles.

After their original quick judgement, Isabella hadn’t expected to like the Pollards. She’d gradually revised her opinion of Mrs. Pollard. The husband remained a mystery.

Isabella slung the strap of Madoc’s satchel over her shoulder and gathered up her small easel and purse. Then she bent her knees to pick up her bulky suitcase.

“Sibby!” Mr. Pollard called. “Sibby! That girl!” When no one appeared at the swinging door behind the bar, he pushed it wide, offering a view into a busy kitchen. “Sibby! Get in here.”

The bar maid came out, tucking loose strands of hair behind her ears. With her dark hair and trim figure, she would have been pretty, but a scowl marred her sharp features. “What am I to do now?”

Mrs. Pollard rolled her eyes and returned to her ledgers. Mr. Pollard rapped out several sentences about “come when you’re called” and “work for me at whatever I say”. He finished with “Don’t be frowning at me, or you’ll be looking for another position.”

Sibby kept her gaze on him throughout and nodded or shook her head at the appropriate moments. When Mr. Pollard wound down, she crossed her arms over her bibfront apron. “What’s to do?”

“This is Mrs. Tarrant,” his wife said calmly from the end of the bar. “Take her suitcase, and show her to the room we’ve prepared. Freshen the water in her pitcher, and give her extra cloths.”

Sibby came around the bar. “This it?” and she reached for the suitcase.

Having lugged it from the station along with her small easel and satchel while the February wind bit through her, Isabella happily relinquished it.

For all her slenderness, Sibby had no trouble with the suitcase on the steep stairs to the first floor. The hall had windows at either end. Light filtered through lacy curtains. The uncarpeted floor looked oiled rather than waxed. Isabella’s city pumps clicked on the wood while the bar maid passed more soundlessly in plain brogues.

Sibby stopped at the last room. “This room looks onto the back. You’ll like that. Not so noisy as the front.” She swung the suitcase onto the bed.

Isabella winced, for the coverlet was a pale printed quilt with interlocked rings in pink and rose and purple. “Do they call that pattern ‘wedding ring’?” She peered around the room. The large easel and canvas that she had shipped were just inside the door, leaning against the wall, taking up the scant walk-space on this side of the bed. Madoc had knocked out the easel of rough wood and left it unsanded since it would be freighted. Brown paper wrapped the canvas, protecting it during transport.

“I have no idea. I’m not much for sewing.” The bar maid edged around the bed to a square table tucked into the front corner. She claimed a transferware pitcher adorned with a country scene. “I’ll get your water, ma’am.”

Isabella pressed against the bed to let Sibby pass, then she placed her purse and satchel beside her suitcase. She propped the little easel under the large one.

This room would be her home for the next twelve weeks. Surely the painting will be done by then! The little square table for the pitcher and basin took up the corner, with a small round mirror hanging above a shelf. A man who had to shave would devolve to many gyrations to see his face. She stepped over her box of paint supplies, shoved against the foot of the bed. Once around, she found that the other side had much more room. Under the window was a narrow table and a single chair. She switched on the japanned metal lamp, and the room took on a muted glow. Lace curtains half-covered the windows, but there were also heavy drapes pushed aside to reveal the misty landscape. After peering at the twilight-dim back garden, she drew the curtains. She was examining the shelves and hangers of the wardrobe between the bed and the outside wall when Sibby returned.

“Will you have dinner in the lounge or up here, Mrs. Tarrant?”

“Below, please. I intend to start as I mean to go on. Do you think we’ll have snow in the morning?” That didn’t bode well for her paints. Hopefully, she would soon have her preliminary sketching done, on paper and on the canvas.

“Weather report says Sunday will be warm and sunny, then we’re back to cold and rain. There’s towels in the bathroom. That’s down the hall, right next to the stair. The WC is across from it. Do you think you’ll need more cloths for washing?” Sibby had taken to heart Mrs. Pollard’s order to give her more cloths, and she crammed the stack onto the little shelf of the triangular corner table.

“Not for a few days.”

“I work afternoon and evening. In the morning till afternoon it’s Nuala. She’ll have your morning tea at 7 sharp. Breakfast a half-hour later. You have a couple of hours before dinner.” She nodded abruptly, remembered to smile, then retreated.

With the door shut, Isabella towed her suitcase across the coverlet and set to unpacking. Her few clothes which had crammed the suitcase looked lonesome in the wardrobe. She arranged and re-arranged them then decided to empty the contents of the satchel onto one shelf. Her sketchbook, pencils and eraser, sharpening pen knife and charcoal fit very neatly on the eye-level shelf. A long jacket, two good frocks, and her blouses hung neatly from the short rod. Folded skirts and jumpers and jodphurs filled the other two shelves. Her spare shoes, one pair for walking, the other pair in case of a special dinner, tucked easily onto the bottom shelf. Staring at the empty top shelf, she turned about, wandering what else would fit in the wardrobe and give her more room.

She stubbed her toe on the paint box. In a trice she fit her watercolor paints and brushes and palette, papers and clips neatly onto the top shelf. The small easel fit neatly under the table.

Tomorrow was her first meeting with Edward Malvaise. She also needed to cart to the school the large easel and canvas and paint crate with everything she needed to work with oils. Lady Malvaise had stated positively that the headmaster would provide a room at Greavley Abbey School in which she would work, and the paint crate would store there easily.

Full dark had fallen while she unpacked. Catching the time on her wristwatch. Isabella hurried into a plain taupe frock and tugged on a warm cardigan patterned with gold and bronze overblown roses. She finished her look with eardrops of seed pearls in a gold setting and the single twisted gold strand that Madoc had given her after their marriage. Sliding into a pair of mahogany pumps, she locked her door, slid the key into her purse, then clattered down the narrow stairway and turned down the hall that Mrs. Pollard had indicated with a wave of her hand when she’d mentioned the lounge.

There she encountered Sibby, carrying a tray with covers.

The bar maid gave her a jaundiced look that repulsed any greeting. “Mrs. Pollard says you are to linger over your dinner. You can use the lounge as a sitting room. When Dean Filmer arrives, she’ll send him there so you can meet with him.”

“That’s considerate of her.” She held the door then followed Sibby into the room.

The lounge was dim, with only three lamps providing a weak glow. The only welcome was a cheery fire. Three round tables with heavy chairs were set for dinner service. Well away from the fireplace were a settee and two fauteuils. The curtains were drawn against the night. They didn’t create a cozy ambience. Their dark color absorbed the light, adding to the dimness.

Sibby set the tray on the first table, well away from the fireplace. She removed the covered dishes then departed.

Isabella barely waited for the door to close before she dragged a table closer to the fire and scooted over its chairs. Then she transferred the covered plate and dessert coupe and bread plate. Covers off, she could see the steam rising from the steak and kidney pie. The dessert coupe had an apple crumble that surprised her by being delightful, with cinnamon sprinkled on the custard portion.

When Sibby returned an hour later, Isabella had rearranged the whole room, one table dragged to the window that overlooked the garden with its low wall and view of the trees beyond and the other table relegated to the far end of the room, in front of a set of low shelves, sparse of books yet rich with curios. She’d dragged the settee from the wall. With the deep armchairs across from the settee, she had created a conversation circle on the other side of the fireplace. The circle caught the fire’s heat and became cozy. She had claimed the fauteuil nearest the fire and was flipping through an old magazine when the door opened.

Sibby stopped short when she saw the changes but said nothing. She gathered the dishes onto her tray. “Will you be wanting coffee now?”

Should I risk coffee in the countryside? American born and raised, she’d acquired a coffee habit early, and English tea didn’t quite replace it. Only Middle Eastern restaurants could brew it properly, but sometimes their incarnations of coffee were too strong. “Yes, please, and thank you. My compliments to whoever baked that apple crumble. It was an unexpected joy.”

The bar maid smiled, a true smile, not a fake one. “That’ll be Mrs. Halsey our cook. I’ll tell her you liked it.”

“Thank you, Sibby.”

“Will you be wanting anything else? Cream and sugar for your coffee?”

“Black, please. I suppose it would be an imposition were you to tell me when the headmaster arrives? I think Mrs. Pollard intended to do so, but I doubt she will bring him immediately.”

“He’ll be late. Close to eleven. He comes in his auto. Too much trouble to walk from the school. I’ll be happy to give you a head’s up.” She hesitated then, “He likes to be called Dean Filmer.”

“Yes, Mrs. Pollard said. I appreciate this, Sibby.”

“You’ll be here?”

“Yes. I thought I would investigate the books on that shelf.”

Sibby lifted the tray, took a step, then paused. “Will I come back to more changes in the room?”

“I hope not. I thought I would leave the sideboard and the shelves where they were.”

“Mrs. Pollard may not like it. Is this one of those London room arrangements, furniture out in the room and not against the wall?”

“The dowager Malvaise is paying handsomely for my stay here, for over two months. I would like to have a bit of comfort in the evening. These chairs were too far from the fire.”

“You needn’t explain to me. I suppose you found cobwebs and dust bunnies.”

“I did.”

She shrugged. “It’s Nuala what cleans this room. You’ve given her more work of a Saturday morning.” Then she walked out the door she’d left ajar and hip-bumped it closed.

Isabella hoped Mrs. Pollard was not too upset with the changes.

How was Madoc enduring his changes? He would be on board his ship by now, with a narrow berth in a cabin shared with other men. A ship mess for his dinner, likely without any sweet dessert.

She tugged out a handkerchief to dab her eyes.

 . ~. ~ . ~ .

 Flick didn’t like cigarettes, but a cigarette in a lacquered holder was de rigueur among the faster crowds. She didn’t have to smoke it. If she waved it around, it might stay lit.

Her flatmates had left an hour ago, both in frocks copied from Lanvin’s newest creation, thin straps and a deep vee, a dropped waist with a full skirt beneath. Millie paired her rose pink frock with a feathery boa from props while Stefa in yellow threw on the glen plaid throw from the couch, wearing it like an enveloping shawl. They had laughed at Flick’s wish they “stay warm”. The rain had been spitting ice pellets when Flick arrived back from Fleet Street where she’d gone to sell her photos.

Alan Rettleston ran London Daily, and on the 16th he bought every photo that Owl had rejected. As he lit one  cigarette off another, he said, “I want more. Men only. Women only. Same style. Same factory if you can work it. Come back in a week with all of them. Do that, and I’ll pay a third more.”

Flick wasn’t a fool; she knew what he was doing. He wanted a narrative: the men gone, women doing their work; men returned, pushing the women out of jobs. Since that was the narrative she’d spotted, she’d follow his instructions.

The money from the photo feature would keep her ahead on funds, an entire quarter ahead.

When she returned to London Daily on the next Tuesday at noon, Rettleston set her to work with “Old Pickwick. He’s good at crafting a story after the photos come in.” While the newspaper’s official photographer developed the negatives, she and Pickwick poured over her contact prints, tiny images the same size of the negatives.

This morning Rettleston counted out her payment from his petty cash box. As he handed it over, he talked of a party hosted by Lilibeth Hargreaves.

Lilibeth was a member of the Bright Young Things. At their parties, champagne flowed freely, the music was jazzy or snazzy, and dancers crowded any tiny space. Only the flashiest of London’s ton would be on the guest list. Rettleston promised her dinner with dancing before.

Dinner. Dancing. Millie and Stefa had chattered during their morning cuppa that they had a party in the theatre district. Rather than stay alone at the flat or venture alone to a restaurant, Flick agreed to the evening. She immediately worried at Rettleston’s grin, more lascivious than she expected. “Would you take me to the Fitzwilliam Victoria Hotel?”

“That old dodge.”

“It does lean to the traditional.”

“Stuffed shirts and dowdy women,” he sneered.

“The food is excellent,” she countered, “and they have a chamber orchestra for dancing, not one of the newer brass bands. I met my parents there last month. Dinner, dancing, and Miss Hargreaves’ party. That’s a wonderful evening.”

He let himself be convinced. With dinner in the offing, Flick skipped the late lunch she’d planned and only had tea.

The red dress that she’d bought on a dare from Stefa came off its hanger. A sheath dress, calf-length, demure with its high neck and long sleeves, but the back draped so low it might be called backless. She wore her highest black heels and jet eardrops that she’d picked up at a market stall. The Spanish shawl with its vivid flowers on a black ground was her only concession to warmth. Then she picked up her black beaded purse that held in-case cab fare and ran down the steps to wait for Rettleston in the entrance.

His red roadster surprised her then didn’t, for she was discovering he had more than a bit of flash in him. He had the top up against the weather, thank God. She opened the door and slid in before he had a chance to put a hand to his own door latch.

The whole evening whirled. Pre-emptive maneuvering limited the cocktails he pressed on her. Couples crowded the Fitzwilliam Victoria’s dance floor, so he didn’t request too many dances. Flick spotted a good-looking man staring at her. She winked—yet he didn’t see. He looked away just as she did.

He was dining with other couples, the stuffed shirts and dowdy women that Rettleston had decried. One woman was flash, though, glittering rings on her fingers, a spandelle in her marcelled hair, an embroidered dress from a Paris catwalk. Handsome looked younger than the woman, an obvious single in the group, and he looked older than Flick’s brother Chauncey but younger than her oldest brother Warren. Her brother Allworthy’s age, she guessed. Then Rettleston demanded her attention, and she stopped speculating if Handsome Is was also Handsome Does.

The party at Lilibeth Hargreaves was wilder than she liked but not as wild as the theatre parties that Millie dragged her to. Lilibeth had hired a jazz band on a promotional tour from Louisiana in the States. The dancing was fast, the drinking faster, and Rettleston kept handing her fizzy cocktails. Conversation was impossible, but people talked louder, creating a din that still rang in her ears the next morning.

When Rettleston suggested breakfast, Flick winced. “I have a long drive tomorrow. I need sleep.”

“Come with me. You’ll sleep after I relax you.”

She groaned. “Take me to my flat, please. I’ve had a wonderful evening, but it has to end. I have to drive. I’m expected.”

Flick let him kiss her in the roadster, the gear shift keeping them apart, then she dashed out and up the steps to her flat. She waved from the door. He revved the motor then sped off.

She’d survived the evening.

Now to drive to Upper Wellsford.

Chapter 3

 Friday Evening, 27 February

Michael Wainwright did not normally dine with his superior on a Friday evening. A murder investigation solved that very morning, no new case to mull over, he’d been trapped into an affirmative when the chief inspector cornered him to be the spare man at a celebration. Since he liked Chief Inspector Malcolm and had no plans for the evening, he didn’t try too hard to winkle out of the invitation.

His tuxedo fit loosely. He hadn’t regained the three stone lost in the last years of the war, looking into the fanged maw of hell and surviving only by a screech of talons.

When he woke in the night, darkness surrounding him like a predator monster lurking silent and still, he would forget where he was, when he was. Then an automobile’s revving engine would filter from the street below or an ambulance’s clangor would peal distantly. He would remember he had returned to London. The next seconds reminded him the Armistice was signed, and most of the soldiers were demobilized. On those nights he thanked God and dropped back to sleep.

Malcolm offered to pick him up, but Michael refused, saying he would make his own way to the Fitzwilliam Victoria Hotel. He hopped a bus and was glad of his overcoat that hid his tuxedo from the workers heading home.

The hotel’s marble edifice flew international flags. The Fitzwilliam was beyond his monthly budget except for special occasions, but he had dined there enough to know to walk through the elaborate lobby to the frosted glass doors that led to an atrium and thence to the restaurant with its exclusive dining and dancing. The string orchestra played a foxtrot rather than the international tango gradually replacing it.

Subdued conversations flowed under the strings’ harmonies. An occasional flute created a counterpoint. Not for the Fitzwilliam the clarinet and brass.

He was early but recognized by the maître d’, a dour man who adopted the mien of a stiff butler.

“Mr. Wainwright, if you will follow me.” He walked the fringes of the dance floor to a long table in the corner. “Do you wish a highball or John Collins to start the evening?”

He avoided the proffered chair that set his back to the room. “Whiskey and soda, please. Forgive me, have we met?”

“On the occasion of a wedding, sir. You dined with the bride and groom. Last autumn, I believe. And Easter last, you escorted an elderly couple. The happy couple also attended that evening.”

He had treated his brother and new sister-in-law to a celebratory evening here at the Fitzwilliam. He didn’t hide his surprise at the maître d’s memory. His grandparents were the elderly couple. “You’ve an excellent memory.”

The man allowed a small smile. “Our guests to the Fitzwilliam change rarely, sir.” Then he faded away.

While he waited for his superior and the rest of the party, Michael watched the dancers and discretely examined at the other diners. The tables around the dance floor were for couples, with tables for four and six farther back, and larger tables widely spaced behind columns.

A flash of red silhouetted against somber black caught his eye. He watched a couple taking a table behind a column. The woman wore the red, a dress that looked demure until she turned her back and he saw an expanse of pale skin above the draped back. The waiter drew out her chair, sitting her behind the marble column so that he had the barest look at her pretty face and dark hair, bobbed but not crimped as so many women did now. The man looked familiar. Michael caught an edge of trouble associated with his memory of the man.

A waiter delivered his drink. Sipping it, he reminded himself that the day was done, labor ceased. He could shed his role as an investigator. Tonight, his chief had cast him into the role of the charming Spare Man.

Chief Inspector Malcolm arrived, led by the maître d’. Malcolm escorted his wife. A lone woman followed then came three other couples, all chattering. He would be Spare Man for the unescorted woman. She wore one of the shapeless styles that were becoming popular, feminized with swirling embroidery that reminded him of India.

Michael stood and greeted them. He bothered to remember last names only, including the single woman’s. His job as a detective inspector had built his memory for names. He had to shift down table, away from the couple being celebrated, but that gave him a better view of the woman in red. Attractive rather than beautiful, he judged, her waif look imparted by her bobbed hair. She smiled as she responded to her escort’s conversation, smiled when the waiter delivered a sidecar to her and a highball to the man. Yet she kept looking around the dining room, as if she looked for someone.

He needed to focus on his own party, but his subconscious kept watch. He knew the instant the man stood, coming around to draw out the woman’s chair. They joined the couples gathering for another foxtrot. The man spoke. Her expression appeared frozen, without its earlier animation.

“Enjoy dancing, Wainwright?” his chief asked.

“Sir, no, sir. Not my thing, especially now.”

“No?” the single woman queried. Mrs. Pomphrey. Margaret, Margret, Margot, something like that. A widow. “Did you suffer an injury in the war, Mr. Wainwright? You seem healthy now.”

Margot Pomphrey, he remembered. “No injury,” he confessed. “I’ve turned stodgy since the war. My sergeant despairs of me.”

“Yet you were watching the dancing. Or the dancers. Has someone caught your eye?”

“Actually, I wondered if the Fitzwilliam had moved into the new decade and would shock us all with the Tango. They’ve tamed the Foxtrot, I see.”

The comment earned muted laughter and turned conversation from him to dancing.

The celebratory couple joined the next dance. Michael felt honorbound to ask Mrs. Pomphrey to dance, and she accepted with an alacrity that kept him distant on the dance floor.

The young woman and her escort had returned to their table. The waiter had presented the entrée. As the evening progressed, the couple received their services more quickly than Michael’s table did. Yet the number of times that they danced kept their progress through the dinner at a similar pace.

Mrs. Pomphrey rattled on about after-parties. He listened with half an ear and waited for his glimpses of the dark brunette. He had no hope that he would ever meet her. She would not deign to enter his local pub or dine at the humble restaurants he frequented. He rarely ventured into the society to which the Fitzwilliam Victoria catered.

Their worlds were far apart.

Yet he found himself lingering at the restaurant’s entrance as the party dispersed for the evening. The chief expressed his appreciation for Michael playing Spare Man. He clapped Michael on the shoulder. His wife said, “Margot enjoyed the evening. Your idea was brilliant, my dear.” Then she patted her husband’s chest and clattered through the atrium to the hotel’s lobby.

His chief hesitated, as if he knew he needed to say more. Michael quickly said, “Thank you for the invitation and dinner, sir. I will see you on Monday.” That put him back in lower status, and Malcolm nodded and followed his wife.

He lingered a few minutes longer, giving the others time to collect their checked evening wraps while their automobiles were brought to the entrance.

The maître d’ appeared. “Sir. Have you need of anything?”

“A bit of information, if you please. The couple that were seated across the dance floor from us. The table was beside a column. The woman wore a red dress. I have met the man somewhere, but I cannot recall his name.” He edged a bob across the lectern.

That last comment and the doucement cleared the maître d’s expression. “Yes, sir. The gentleman is Alan Rettleston, managing editor of the London Daily. We do not see him often. The young lady, however, is well known to us. She has dined several times, usually with her parents of a Sunday, once a quarter, I would say.” Then he stopped, waiting for the question that he had guessed prompted the first question.

“Her name?”

“Miss Felicity Sherborne. A photographer, I believe.”

“For the London Daily?”

“That I do not know, sir.”

Michael thanked him and left.

 . ~ . ~ . ~ .

Saturday Morning, 28 February

Isabella introduced herself to the maid Nuala then enjoyed her morning tea and poached egg on dry toast.

Mrs. Pollard came into the room when she was refusing marmalade and more toast. Nuala saw the woman and ducked her head before retreating to clear the table now beside the window. Feeling a smidgen of guilt for rearranging the room, Isabella poured the last of the tea into her cup and stirred in another little spoon of sugar.

“Mrs. Tarrant?” The woman placed her hand on the back of a chair. “May I join you?”

“Please do. The sunshine is brilliant this morning. I shall enjoy my walk to Greavley Abbey.”

“You spoke with Dean Filmer last evening?”

She nodded as she tapped the spoon then laid it on the saucer. “He will send a man this morning for my easel and canvas and box of supplies. The headmaster has also promised to introduce me to young Mr. Malvaise.”

“You haven’t met him?”

“The dowager commissioned me. I have her letter of introduction to her grandson.”

“I see. You should have no trouble up at the Abbey School then.”

Isabella decided to tackle the furniture rearrangement before Mrs. Pollard did. “I hope you don’t mind.” She swept her hand around to indicate the room. “It’s a drastic rearrangement. Last evening the fire hadn’t had time to warm the room. I decided to shift my table closer which led to shifting a armchair, and then I had to balance the room. The more I moved, the more had to be moved. I didn’t realize until this morning that this room faces the south and will take advantage of this glorious sunshine. That table by the window will be wonderful on a warm and sunny morning.”

“Mrs. Tarrant—.”

“February doesn’t have many sunny days, I know, but I’ll be here through March and into April, and we will definitely have more days like today.” There, she’d reminded the woman that she was a long-term guest of the Hook and Line.

Mrs. Pollard grimaced and shifted in her seat. “We have other guests, Mrs. Tarrant. We have three fishermen staying with us. You didn’t see them last night because they supped in the pub. This morning they rose early. They didn’t quite know where to sit for breakfast.”

“I believe I saw them. Three men, young, middle-aged, older. We spoke as they left. Do they each take a different table? I thought they had eaten together this morning.”

“They did, this morning, but they don’t often do so.”

“They chose the window table. That table will be popular, especially this spring. Candlemas was cloudy, wasn’t it? We should have an early spring. Did I see crocuses at the gate?”

“You did. Mrs. Tarrant, the fishermen aren’t our only guests. Miss Felicity Sherborne arrives today to visit her brother. He’s a master at the Abbey School. She plans to stay a fortnight. She will arrive by tea-time, I should think. We have more guests expected next week. Where are they to sit, Mrs. Tarrant? Miss Sherborne cannot retreat to the pub. You will both be vying for the best table and the best seat.”

“If we are that crowded, then I hope Miss Sherborne and I can share the same table. It will be lovely to have someone to talk with during meals. Someone new always has a wealth of conversation.”

“You have a hopeful view of Miss Sherborne.”

“Should I not? What do you know of her? Has she stayed here before?”

“She stays once a season for several days. A long weekend for each of her visits last fall, this time a fortnight, as I said. I believe she’s keen on photography.”

“I shall enjoy her explanation of photography, I’m certain. I assisted a photographer once.” Poor Richard Lamb. Murdered by a colleague at the archaeological dig on Crete. The memory subdued her sparkle. “We will definitely have several conversation starters.”

Mrs. Pollard cleared her throat. She compressed her lips, as if she had more to say but wouldn’t. She stood and thrust her chair under the table. “I see that you plan to make your rearranging work. Please don’t be changing more things without consulting me.”

“Nuala didn’t have more work, did she?” She pretended not to know that the young woman had had more work. Moving furniture had revealed dust and cobwebs and gravel and bits of leaves hiding under the settee and chairs.

“You said a man from the Abbey School would collect your canvas and easel? Should I admit him to your room to collect them? I assume you’ll be at the Abbey all day?”

“Yes, please. And a box. Everything’s beside the door. I hope to introduce myself to young Mr. Malvaise before this morning is much advanced.”

“The boys play rugby on Saturdays. Preparation for the exhibition games on Founder’s Day, the first weekend in April.”

“Then I shall definitely need to speak with him early. Thank you for telling me that, Mrs. Pollard. Mr. Filmer didn’t mention it.”

Her smile looked pinched. “For asking you not to rearrange the room?”

“For giving me the warning about the games today and for telling me about Miss Sherborne.”

Mrs. Pollard didn’t snort, but she looked as if she wanted to.

The barmaid Nuala came in as Mrs. Pollard left. Staring into her tepid tea, Isabella wondered if Nuala had waited in the hall while Mrs. Pollard delivered her scold … which didn’t really come off. She hid a grin and drank the tea, even if it had lost all warmth.

 . ~ . ~ . ~ .

 “Report’s filed, boss.” Sgt. Callaway followed Michael into his office. “In triplicate,” he added, imitating a nasally corporal. The story of the corporal had entertained Michael over several pints in the first weeks after Callaway returned to work with him.

“Sit down. Tell me we haven’t caught another case.”

“Not yet, boss. Sunday’s still free.” Callaway started to lower himself into a chair, then the door behind him opened. He quickly straightened and tucked his hands behind his back, a noncom giving a report to his captain.

Chief Inspector Malcolm barely gave the sergeant a glance. “Closed your case?”

“The sergeant filed the papers earlier.”

“Good then. You two will have the rest of the weekend free.”

“We hope so, sir.”

“I have a commission from my wife.” He acted as if the sergeant wasn’t there. The chief was probably used to servants standing around. “My wife and I hope you are free for dinner Saturday next. Just the four of us. Margot Pomphrey enjoyed last evening.”

He saw Callaway’s eyes roll. The sergeant would relish that bit of information and ruthlessly tease Michael. “If no case arises, sir. I must insist on paying my way, however.”

“Nonsense. This will be a favor to us. Evening attire, I would think, though we do not plan to attend a party afterward. Plans do change, however. Best to prepared.” He waited expectantly then, and Michael was forced to thank him for the invitation. His chief then turned to  Callaway. “How is Mrs. Callaway, sergeant?”

“My mother is doing well, sir. Thank you for asking.”

The door shut behind Malcolm. “You’re doing better, Callaway,” Michael praised. “You gave no hint that you knew he’d forgotten you aren’t married.”

“He’ll never remember that, boss.”

“Not until you rise in the ranks.”

“That’s not likely to occur.”

“The world’s changing.”

“And you’re having dinner with him, boss. Again. The world’s staying the same. People find their levels and stay there. Like him and his wife setting you up with that Pomphrey woman. Again.”

“Then we’ll have to hope a case will interfere. That reminds me. We had a man in our station some months back. I cannot remember the case. Alan Rettleston. Editor on Fleet Street. London Daily. Do you remember?”

“Not our case, boss.”

“No. Just here in the station.”

“I can ask around, quiet-like.”

“Do that. I’m curious.”

“Trouble, boss?”

“No. Not even a hint of it. Just my curiosity.”

“You know what curiosity did. A case right up our alley. I’ll see.” He faded back and shut the door just as quietly.

Michael worked through paperwork until he reached an old file from months back, the weeks immediately after he’d returned to police work. He hadn’t thought the war had returned home with him until he came on that crime scene. Unsolved still. He rarely had time to review the case, but he kept the file on his desk for spare moments like this. He leaned back and started through the documents, reading each one individually, trying to shift them around, like puzzle pieces that fit in multiple spots. A new angle? Missing facts? Different kinds of interviews? He’d thought at first that his newness as a detective inspector hampered him. He no longer thought that.

Callaway knocked then poked his head around the doorframe.

“Come in.” Michael closed the file. “I need the interruption.”

“MacBride case, boss?”

“How did you know?”

“Still worries me, too. We’ll get to the answer, boss, never you doubt it.”

“In this year, I hope. Already a half-year has passed, and we’re still no closer. What do you need?”

“That man, boss, Alan Rettleston. He was in the station. Charges never brought.” He touched his nose.

That nose-touch meant that Rettleston had paid his way out of the charge. “What brought him to us?”

“Assaulted a Jane at a Mott Shop. Broken bones the worst of it. Re-arranged her face for her. Surgery needed there. The Jane was willing to charge, but nothing doing. You have anything we can use?”

“No. I just recognized him. He was at the Fitzwilliam Victoria.”

“Was he? That nice place? With who?”

“Whom. A pretty lady in a red dress.”

“She’ll need to be warned.”

“Unfortunately, she might not view me as creditable. You know these new things. They don’t automatically accept everything the police says.”

“No one should do that. But a word of caution ….”

“Anything else, sergeant?” He drew the file back toward him.

“No, boss.”

“Then we’ll plan to have a normal Sunday, shall we? We might manage some interviews on this before a new case crops up.”

 . ~ . ~ . ~ .

 The walk to Greavley Abbey did not take long. Few vehicles passed on the road. Isabella took to the wide verges whenever she heard a motor, but the macadam was easier walking. The road was bitumen in Upper Wellsford itself, but it changed to the crushed gravel mixture once she passed the last village cottage. Trees grew along the grassy verge. The forest looked cleared of undergrowth although deep within the old-growth trees were tangles of bushes. The understory along the verge looked to be flowering trees, drinking up the sunshine that didn’t penetrate the oaken canopy. Driving the road in spring would be a celebration of color.

When a brick wall began running alongside the road, she knew the Abbey was near. The wall seemed to die away deeper into the forest. She wondered the reason for its building.

She hadn’t searched for Greavley Abbey’s history. Lacking a cathedral or an influential monastic order, the abbey had escaped Henry VIII’s deprivations, and the village had built its own church, a plain grey-stone building with a Palladium style front and an octagonal bell tower at the back.

Her sole source at the London Library in the Pall Mall had claimed Greavley Abbey had a checkered past. The monastery, still Catholic yet its influence greatly reduced, survived until Henry VIII and then Oliver Cromwell. In the Jacobean Glorious Revolution, the monastic order was forced to remove. A wealthy merchant purchased the whole, Abbey Church and dormitory and extensive grounds. The merchant’s heirs grew wealthier in successive monarchies. Yet while the family accumulated wealth, the blood was not as prolific. By the 1780s, the last merchant had no direct or collateral heir to name. He fastened upon the idea to form a school and spent his last three decades doing so.

Isabella reached the grand entrance with its round spheres topping the supports for the open ironwork gates. She stopped to catch her breath. Distant shouts let her know the boys already were at play. She saw no one moving about the front. The Abbey Church stood to her right, medieval in shape with stained glass windows and a high bell tower that reminded her of Notre Dame in Paris. Before her was a manor house, Palladium style, and she wondered if the childless merchant had built both manor house and village church.

In the narrow opening between church and manor she could see through to a building of grey stone, much like the church. That must be the monks’ dormitory. She saw the barest corner of a further building and wondered at it. The manor was of a warm brick with grey stone quoins. The house rose three stories, taller than the church and its dormitory, although the crenallated bell tower ran a story higher. The manor’s architect must have sought symmetry with the church buildings rather than an imitation of the earlier buildings.

Trees grew, old and strong, to her left. Along that side of the house was a boxwood hedge. She wondered if that was the approach to the maze that had fascinated the librarian.

The church and the manor formed two sides of a square. The librarian had spoken of a cloister walk and three other buildings, one for administration, the second for teaching, and the third for the teachers’ lodgings. Only they didn’t call them teachers, Isabella remembered. Mr. Filmer had called them masters, and he was the headmaster, but she was to refer to him as Dean Filmer.

Surely in this great place would be a lockable room for her painting. The headmaster had said that she could leave her work without worry. Yet her late father had taught at public schools, in America and here in Britain. Boys easily became imps.

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