by Issy Brooke
“They are worth far more than that.”
“I would not flatter yourself, dear heart. Wasn’t it lovely to see Anne so happy?”
“It was. I never had any doubt that she would find her way in life. All our daughters are perfectly settled now. And Bamfylde too.”
“Yes. Mostly.”
“Mostly?” he said, suspicious now of Adelia’s words.
“What about Dido?” she said.
He looked out of the carriage window as a strange sadness weighed on his shoulders. “Dido has the castle and she has the money. All she lacks is her husband and he is absolutely no loss to her at all. She is better off without him.”
“But she is an abandoned woman and all the money in the world cannot make up for her loss of place in society. And, more importantly, the marquis has fled the country and must now be living a life of easy and pleasure on the continent, in spite of what he did. Does that not rankle with you?”
“It does if I think about it.”
“Now we are more experienced as detectives, Theodore, ought we not finish that investigation? Ought we not run him to ground?”
“Even if we could find him, how do we bring him to justice in England? We cannot kidnap the man.”
“Can’t we?”
“Adelia!”
But she looked very fierce, and very determined, and he recognised the long-simmering resentment of a mother whose daughter had been wronged.
Long-simmering resentment that, in other cases, had led to murders and deaths. Calcraft and Spenning, for example. Even at the trial, Edwin Calcraft had denied murder. Yes, Spenning had died at his hands but it had been accidental, he had said.
Calcraft claimed that Spenning himself had asked to meet and discuss the charity.
Calcraft knew that the money, on his death, would go to Spenning and he was resentful of that. He had decided to formally dissolve the charity and cut off all links with it, and start afresh, clean of any association with Spenning.
Spenning could not abide the potential loss of the money. He had asked to meet Calcraft and it was he who had suggested the boathouse. Calcraft said that he was immediately suspicious of that. Why not at a house? Or an office? This proved, Calcraft said to the court, that Spenning had intended to kill Calcraft before the charity could be dissolved and Calcraft’s will changed.
Calcraft claimed he acted only in self-defence.
But the courts had recognised only that a man was dead and Calcraft did not deny that at all.
“You’re frowning,” said Adelia. “Eat a slice of cold pie.”
“I’m sorry. I was thinking about how we’ll never know the truth about Calcraft and Spenning. And about how resentments can bubble away and make trouble.”
“I am resentful of what that man did to our Dido. And I shall let it bubble away until we do something about it. We do know the truth, after all, about what he did.”
“That is to be our next venture, then?”
“Unless something else demands our attention, yes.”
“Very well,” he said. “What sort of pies do we have?”
“Humble,” she said, with a laugh.
And he thought, maybe a trip abroad would not be so bad…
End of book seven
Thank you for reading The Lady’s Scandalous Secret! I hope that you enjoyed it and are able to leave a review which will help other readers decide if this book is for them.
The next book in the series is The Haunting of an Heir.
The eldest son of Theodore Caxton, Lord Calaway, was a wayward youth. His dissolute lifestyle led him to being cast out from the family and left to his own debauched devices in the great city of London.
He’s put that behind him, now. He’s a reformed character. Sober, wise, and welcomed back into the fold.
But not everyone is ready to forget and forgive what he once did…
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About the Author
Issy Brooke writes light, refreshing Victorian mysteries set in her native Britain. She has a master’s degree in Nineteenth Century Literature and a passion for historical authenticity.
Her current series is The Discreet Investigations of Lord and Lady Calaway, which follow the exploits of an older married couple. They are detectives to the upper classes and their adventures take them the length and breadth of the UK. The series begins with Murder at Mondial Castle and continues through six more books (and ongoing). There is also a novella, The Killer on the Belltower, which can be read at any point in the series.
Her first series was Lady C Investigates, which is complete at five books beginning with An Unmourned Man. All five books are also available as a box set.
Fans of the wonderful scientific discoveries of the Victorian age will also enjoy the trilogy The Investigations of Marianne Starr.
When not reading about the Victorians, thinking about them, writing about them and watching films about them, Issy enjoys travelling and walking, eating cakes and drinking tea.
You can sign up to her mailing list here for notifications of new releases. http://issybrooke.com/newsletter