by Emma Jameson
The Dr. Benjamin Bones Romantic Mystery Omnibus
Two Novels and a Novella: Marriage Can Be Murder; Divorce Can Be Deadly: Dr. Bones and the Christmas Wish
Emma Jameson
Contents
Marriage Can Be Murder
Dedication
1. A Fresh Start
2. The Lady of the Manor
3. The New Office
4. Mrs. Cobblepot
5. Old Enemies
6. Venom
7. “I Saw Him”
8. Ranunculus
9. A Lighter and a Lorry
10. Freddy
11. Bonfire Day
12. Bonfire Night
13. Post-Mortem
14. Chain Home
Epilogue
From the Author
Divorce Can Be Deadly
Dedication
1. Haunted Cornwall
2. “Maybe It’s Murder”
3. Bloody Barking
4. The Broken Man
5. Cadaveric Spasm
6. Sous Le Vent
7. Under Arrest
8. A Voice From Beyond
9. The Bounder
10. Silk Purse and Sow’s Ear
11. Fire With Fire
12. “On Account of Her Ladyship”
13. Above Stairs
14. The God-Botherer
15. Below Stairs
16. Worry Stone
17. An Invitation
18. “This Gold Mine is Claimed”
19. Doing One’s Bit
20. “Ladies Have So Few Opportunities”
21. Two Ghosts
22. Jolly Good
23. The Phantom
24. His Wishes
25. The Especial Genius of Monsieur Baptiste
26. The Furniture Scheme
27. An Open Door
28. Inside the Cavalier Room
29. Behind the Mask
30. Into the Stratosphere
31. From the Author
Dr. Bones and the Christmas Wish and Dr. Bones and the Lost Love Letter
Author’s Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
From the Author
The Dr. Bones Romantic Mystery Omnibus
Copyright © 2018 by Emma Jameson
First Publication, 2014
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Copyright © 2018 by Emma Jameson
First Publication, 2014
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
For Mom, Dad, Jim, and Barbara
A Fresh Start
1 September 1939
Things will get worse before they get better, Dr. Benjamin Bones told himself, as much by reflex as conviction. The phrase was a maxim his grandfather often spouted, particularly at grim moments: funerals, bankruptcies, and elections which ended in another Tory victory. A firebrand reformer and socialist, Granddad had written and crudely published his own hand-folded, ink-smeared political tracts, passing them out on street corners until his mortified wife dragged him home. Of all the futures Granddad had imagined for Ben, who was his only grandson, marrying into a highly respectable Tory family like the Eubanks hadn’t figured. And if Granddad, who’d been cold in his grave these last five years, had been alive to learn of Ben’s marital troubles, the old agitator would have received such scandalous news—the possibility of the Bones family’s first-ever divorce— by cracking open a bottle of Glenlivet.
Not Mum. She’ll cry into her pinafore, Ben thought. And Dad might turn me out of the house. After finishing his one-thousandth speech about men upholding their obligations, that is.
It was a speech Ben knew well; he’d assaulted himself with it every day for the last six months. Divorce was dishonorable. Divorce was shameful. Divorce was a lifelong black mark that would haunt his future prospects to the end of his days. A divorced man was, after all, either a cad, a bounder, or weak-willed, unable to keep his house in order. And a divorced woman? With the exception of cinema stars, who existed in some silk-clad, diamond-encrusted alternate universe, a divorced woman was thought damaged goods. Even in cosmopolitan London, Penny would be called a reject and presumed a slut. After a suitable interval, Ben would have the opportunity to win back the confidence of his community by remarrying. Penny would not.
Unless Albie follows her to Cornwall and sweeps her off her feet.
But no. Albie Sanderson was married with two small children. He also enjoyed a munitions factory supervisor job supplied by his father-in-law. Ben, who’d disliked Albie even before his suspicions were aroused, could easily imagine the man abandoning his wife and kiddies. But the employment his rival’s father-in-law provided? That was a “reserved occupation,” immune from conscription in the British Army. Even if Albie truly loved Penny, which Ben did not believe, would he cast aside a guarantee of never being sent to Poland or France on the eve of near-certain war? Not likely.
He stole a glance across the car seat at Penny. Only three feet of black leather upholstery stretched between them, but the distance felt far greater. She’d insisted on making the journey with him, saying it must be fate. A fresh start, a chance to mend their marriage. Was she right?
As a twenty-seven-year-old male in good health, Ben had expected to be called into service as an Army doctor. Instead, he’d received notification that he, like Albie, held a “reserved occupation”—a job critical to the preservation of the homeland during wartime, and one that could not be filled by a hastily trained woman. But London was full of physicians, many retired but willing to return to practice. So the Ministry of Labor was relocating Ben to a needier segment of the country. Instead of the Harley Street practice he’d aspired to, he was driving down to Cornwall, to a village west of the port city, Plymouth. Like London, Plymouth boasted a small network of physicians too old for conscription, but Plymouth’s surrounding villages, all with suitably bucolic names like Birdswing and Barking, did not. Ben had been ordered to take up residence in Birdswing, which had recently buried its elderly doctor. From there, he would take patients from a twenty-mile radius and assist Plymouth with disaster relief, should the city be bombed. To say these government orders represented a sharp departure from Ben’s career hopes was a towering example of British understatement. Still, a few months or years in the country was his duty, and he meant to see it through. For a woman like Penny, even a few days in the country would be excruciating.
And Birdswing? Ben stole another glance. She was curled against the passenger door of their Austin Ten-Four, navy Chanel peacoat rolled up beneath one cheek. Though Cornwall, land of castles, coasts, and moors, was reputedly beautiful, there would be no haute couture in Birdswing, population 1,221 souls. Penny knew that better than anyone; she’d been born there, escaping to London around age seventeen. Perhaps the fact her husband had been sent back now, by government order, was truly fate in the form of a choice: remain in London, rendering divorce inevitable, or accompany him to a place she loathed in the spirit of sacrifice.
Sacrifice didn’t come naturally to Penny. Last night, she’d stayed up till almos
t dawn playing Guy Lombardo records on the gramophone and drinking with friends. Irritated by the hen chatter and the music, which was far from his taste, Ben had gone to bed early, plugging his ears with cotton wool so he could sleep. Now he understood her plan: to sleep the day away rather than sit beside him in what amounted to a wheeled cell, with nothing to do but stare at the moving English countryside and answer “yes” or “no” when he tried to initiate a conversation.
Yet she’s here. And I should be grateful she doesn’t want a row, Ben told himself. Even when she was awake, she kept her nose in a book.
Penny had fallen asleep clutching it, a slender volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Lately, she carried it everywhere, in her hands or tucked in her bag. Did some verse in it remind her of Albie? Ben felt his upper lip curl. The idea didn’t infuriate him, only struck him as nauseating. He wasn’t sure if that response boded well for the restoration of their marriage.
Once his knowledge of the affair had become obvious, Penny had tried to explain, and Ben found himself unable to listen. That first rupture of trust, now more than three years ago, had cut too deeply, severing his awareness of certain beliefs, certain feelings. Sometimes he wanted to transcend that, to heal. Other times he preferred to just carry on, blindly if need be. Often he had no idea what went on inside his own heart, but he knew this: if their marriage was to be saved, hearing the gory details about Penny and Albie’s affair had to be avoided at all costs.
Surely that isn’t so strange, Ben thought, seeing the countryside unspool beside him without really taking in the swaying grasses or gentle green hills. Easier to forgive when one has no specific facts to forget. Besides, Penny’s transgression aside, Ben’s hands weren’t spotless. He hadn’t broken his wedding vows or even been seriously tempted. But. He’d given his burgeoning medical practice the bulk of his attention, reserving his deepest passion and enthusiasm for his patients. He’d worked late when he could have gone home; made routine house calls instead of taking Penny to the smart clubs and Bond Street shops she adored; read medical journals into the wee hours instead of going to bed when she did. In short, he’d done his best to live like a bachelor rather than face the wife who’d become a stranger after….
He cut off that line of thought. His father’s pedantic voice came to him: Marry in haste, repent in leisure. Many an ill-suited union has splintered on the rocks of that first year. But marriage isn’t about pleasure or self-indulgence. It’s about duty. That’s why it arrives clothed in solemn vows and prayer. To signal the grave nature of the commitment you undertook when you repeated, “Till death us do part.”
How much of that speech did Ben believe? It varied from minute to minute, but his old dad was right on one count: people made mistakes. Ben, who’d fallen for Penny during his second year of medical training, had proposed marriage on their third date and been accepted on the sixth. Equating infatuation with love, he’d been over the moon when she said yes, unable to believe his luck. Barely five foot-eight and compactly built, he’d been unbearably wet behind the ears, unaware of how his wide blue eyes, mussed brown hair, and lopsided smile went over with the female set. His top marks in the classroom were balanced by gross ineptitude elsewhere, especially those spots where dance music blared and glasses clinked. In Ben’s early attempts to meet girls, he’d missed tentative advances, ignored crushes, and squandered opportunities, all without the slightest clue.
Then came that evening in the quad.
Ben had been studying beneath a hornbeam tree since his final class let out, getting deeper into Gray’s Anatomy as the sun disappeared, leaving sweeps of orange, purple, and red in its wake. He might not have noticed except for the gathering gloom; only a scrap of reading light remained. Overhead, the hornbeam had sighed, releasing a fresh volley of dry yellow leaves, and Ben pulled his nose out of the textbook.
Penny had been standing over him, dressed in a light blue frock and matching sweater. Her expression, slightly scornful, set off her prettiness, transforming it into near-beauty. And her light blue frock pulled tight where it should, revealing generous curves and perfect legs.
“That cow by the fountain,” Penny said, indicating another girl sitting yards away, “called you a bloodless bookworm. I didn’t appreciate her cheek, so I told her you were my boyfriend. Not to mention the best kisser on campus. Now why don’t you stow that doorstop and prove it before she decides I’m a bald-faced liar?”
Ben had goggled at her. Hours later, it struck him that his ideal reply would have been, “Sure. And while I’m about it, why don’t I buy you a drink?” But in those days, timely comebacks were beyond his powers. And asking out a girl of Penny’s caliber had seemed a delicate, treacherous business, like spying on the Japanese or defusing bombs. So he’d actually said, “Terribly sorry. Must be some mistake.”
She’d laughed at him, but sweetly, emboldening him to ask, “Have we, er, met?”
“Of course we have. Just now, silly." She’d poked Ben in the chest, just wide of his heart. “I’m Penelope Eubanks. You’re Benjamin Bones. I’ve been watching you for ages, every time I come to visit my brother George. Working up the nerve to say hello.” As he gave a weak, disbelieving chuckle, she glanced over her shoulder. “Oh! Little Miss Fountain is frowning. Quick, pretend to kiss me.”
With enviable grace, she eased down beside him, seating herself on a hornbeam root as comfortably as on a satin pillow. Then she brought her face in, near enough for him to inhale her sweet breath.
Those perfectly painted lips didn’t touch his. But they were so close, he felt as if something intimate passed between them. The singularity of that faux-kiss was like the first time he tasted a gin and tonic. Bright and tart, bracing as juniper buds submerged in snow; a little bit wrong and all the more desirable for it.
And comparing Penny to a cocktail was fitting, because in those days, everything about her was intoxicating. Her blonde curls, smart frocks, black patent heels, and tortoiseshell hair combs. The way she smoked unapologetically, holding the fag between her fingers like a man, declaring a skinny black holder too twee as she blew smoke in his direction. Her red lipstick called “Carnage,” the whiff of Sous le Vent behind her ears, the way she laughed off a snag in her silk stockings while other girls moaned.
He’d loved her. And if it hadn’t been love, the distinction was too narrow for Ben, just twenty three years old, to know the difference.
Penny hadn’t wanted a long engagement or even a society wedding, which suited Ben just fine. Less than a month after she said yes, they eloped to Gretna Green, like wayward lovers in a Jane Austen novel. Nowadays Scotland’s “anvil priests” required twenty-one days of residence prior to nuptials, but Ben didn’t chafe under the restriction. Especially since Penny, content with only a simple gold band, suggested they consider themselves as good as married.
Their holiday in Scotland was everything he’d hoped for. When Ben and Penny returned to England, they were congratulated all around, even by her wealthy father, who’d looked pale and shocked, yet forgiving. Much was made over the romance of it all—a business magnate’s daughter and a promising young physician, too wildly in love to wait. A home was found for them while Ben completed his medical training, the first year’s rent paid by Mr. Eubanks as a wedding present. In that house, a half-timbered mock Tudor with a stained glass rose on the front door, Ben and Penny began to know one another. All too well, it seemed.
It will get worse before it gets better, Ben repeated, passing a hand over his face. The hum of the Austin Ten-Four was almost hypnotic. Golden afternoon was dissolving into twilight, and still the road stretched on, nothing but farmland on either side. But it can get better. War may still be averted. We could be back in London in six months. And perhaps seeing Penny in Birdswing, in the village she grew up in, will remind me of how I felt in the quad.
* * *
“Ben?” Penny sounded groggy, but looked lovelier than ever in the half-light. “Are we in Birdswing?”
“I
hate to admit it, but I’m not sure. According to this, we should be on Stafford Road. Problem is, all the signs are painted over.” He’d pulled over a few minutes before, unfolding his map across the steering wheel and studying it by torchlight.
“Painted over?” Sitting up, she opened the glove box and slipped her book of sonnets inside. “Some sort of prank?”
“No, I think it’s deliberate. A rural effort to keep the fifth column confused.” Ben had heard that segments of the country took the notion of invasion very much to heart. Convinced that enemy agents might parachute into England, many citizens proposed eliminating the sort of information that might assist invaders in making their way to towns or cities, such as church and cemetery names, iconic pub signs, and all road markers. He had no idea what a freshly-dropped German spy, perhaps still in harness with a collapsed parachute in tow, might make of their position, but as a natural-born Englishman in possession of a decent map, Ben was well and truly confused. Either the buildings looming ahead marked the outskirts of Birdswing, or they’d wandered east, perhaps into Barking or another hamlet.