A Pressing Engagement (A Lady Darby Mystery) Read online

  “Then may I call you that, too? At least in private?” I asked carefully, hoping I was reading his expression correctly. That he wanted to hear his given name used lovingly again, and not lock it away in his memory.

  His face softened. “I would like that.”

  I smiled and leaned over to kiss him.

  “Though, I don’t think I shall ever tire of hearing you call me Gage.” A mischievous smile curled his mouth as he began to roll me over onto my back. “The way you bite your g’s when you’re cross with me.”

  “I do not . . .” I began to protest, until his mouth found my earlobe, nibbling it.

  “The way you purr it when you’re pleased.”

  Any thought of further objection fled my mind and was forgotten. Even when we lay quietly again a short time later.

  But there were other matters to consider. Now that I knew Gage had purchased this home as a wedding present for me, I wondered how that affected our plans for the future. “How long do you anticipate we will remain in Edinburgh?”

  His chest hummed against my ear. “For at least another month,” he told me, running his fingers through the long mass of my hair where it spilled down my back and over his abdomen. “Then I thought we might travel to the Lake District of Cumberland for a short honeymoon trip. Lord Keswick has offered us the use of his home there.”

  “I’ve heard it’s beautiful there,” I responded, allowing the idea to take shape in my mind. It would mean leaving my sister and her family behind, but she was safely delivered of her fourth child and healthy as could be. Besides, I was married now, and I had known a separation was coming. Philip had even talked of returning his family to Gairloch Castle in the Highlands for the summer. The fact that we now owned a home in Edinburgh reassured me we would return. But we could not remain tied to one place. It wasn’t the nature of our relationship, of our inclination to become involved in private inquiries.

  Gage waited patiently, as if knowing I needed to filter through these implications, and I turned my head to press a kiss to his chest above his heart. “I think I would like that. Very much.”

  I could hear the gladness in his voice. “Then it’s done. As soon as can be arranged.”

  My heart quickened at the possibilities, at the anticipation of adventure, and I could feel the same excitement coursing through my husband’s muscles. Though, he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to begin preparations now. A fact I was grateful for when he brushed a hand down my arm and along the line of my back, bringing my skin back to tingling life.

  “Now, didn’t I spy a delicious little smattering of freckles behind your left shoulder?”

  Keep reading for a special preview of Anna Lee Huber’s next Lady Darby Mystery . . .

  AS DEATH DRAWS NEAR

  Available July 2016 from Berkley Prime Crime!

  For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.

  Psalm 88:3, Bible, King James Version

  July 1831

  Keswick, England

  It began with a letter. Or perhaps, more accurately, a messenger. Though, I suppose it’s pointless to quibble over such a triviality.

  My new husband, Sebastian Gage, and I had been enjoying a delightful picnic at the top of a hill overlooking Derwentwater in the thick of the Lake District of Cumberland. Our mutual friend, Lord Keswick, had offered us the use of his home, Brandelhow Manor, for our wedding trip while he and his family were in London for the Season, and we had happily accepted. After a rather tumultuous ten months, filled with murderous inquiries, an uneasy courtship, my sister’s difficult childbirth, our rushed marriage, and the grim court trial from our most recent investigation, we had both longed to escape the clamor and bustle of daily life for a time.

  Fortunately, the Lake District was everything we’d hoped. Relative privacy, breathtaking scenery, and plenty of room to ramble whenever we needed fresh air. After more than four blissful weeks of such idyllic contentment, I was thoroughly enchanted with both my new husband and this northwest corner of England.

  Having filled our stomachs with smoked mackerel, quark cheese spread on crispy bread, and luscious little strawberry tarts, we reclined in the dappled sunshine beneath the branches of the ash tree at Gage’s back.

  “Do you think we could convince Lord Keswick to sell us his estate?” I murmured with a drowsy sigh.

  He glanced fondly down at me, where my head rested against his shoulder. The wind rustled the leaves above and ruffled through the golden curls resting against his forehead. His hair had grown a bit overlong since our wedding two and a half months prior, but I didn’t mind. “I think it’s likely entailed. And I wager he would sooner see us disappointed than sell his young son’s inheritance.” His gaze strayed back toward the view unfolding before us. “But, you’re right, Kiera. It is lovely.”

  I smiled. “Darling, I think the word lovely is rather a profound understatement.”

  Below the grassy slope on which we lounged, the shimmering blue expanse of Derwentwater rippled with life. Tiny skiffs with bright white sails darted across its surface, most having departed from Keswick village to our right and aimed for one of the small islands dotting the lakes center, or the lush green hills and spectacular fells of the far shore. The round, slightly curved heights of Catbells arched over the other fells like a crooked finger, as if to nudge the downy clouds chasing one another across the brilliant sky. From our vantage, we could watch their shadows racing across the landscape below, from the scorched celadon of the exposed bluffs, down through the lush green forest of trees, and across the rich canvas of blues which made up the water of the lake. The air was pungent with life—with earth, and moss, and sunbaked skin—yet softened by the swirling breeze.

  This was the first opportunity I’d had to visit the Lake District of Cumberland, but I vowed it would not be the last. I well understood Lord Keswick’s attachment to the place. The scenery was breathtaking. I couldn’t recall seeing colors so vivid. The depths of the blues and greens were so rich and intense that I could not even begin to guess how to recreate them. It was impossible. Though, the artist in me had been determined to try.

  Landscapes had never been of particular interest to me, nor were they my forte. My gift was for portraiture. But in light of the views surrounding Brandelhow, I had resolved to make the effort, with mixed results. My attempt had been mediocre at best, but I would always cherish the painting simply for the memories it evoked. Particularly the smudges in the bottom right corner which attested to Gage’s powers of persuasion and the tight confines of my makeshift studio.

  “Oh, then what word would you have me use? Stunning? Exquisite?” Amusement shone in his eyes. “I’m not exactly Wordsworth.”

  “And well I know it,” I teased back.

  A shout of laughter escaped him, rumbling up from his chest. I lifted my head to look up at him just as he lifted his hand to cradle my jaw.

  “You minx.”

  His voice was warm with affection, and I tilted my face upward for his kiss.

  Which was when we heard the sound of a galloping horse approaching. His eyes strayed over my shoulder, and I turned to watch as the rider of a bay stallion rounded the bend in the dusty path at the base of the hill. Upon catching sight of us, he reined in his horse, bringing the steed to an almost sudden stop. Anderley, Gage’s dark-haired valet, stood from his seat, halfway down the slope of the hill next to a Brandelhow footman, to intercept the man before he could charge up the hill. He’d vaulted from his horse as if to do just that.

  “Who is it?”

  He sat up straighter. “A messenger of some kind.”

  We watched as the rider conferred with Anderley and then somewhat reluctantly passed him something. The valet spoke to him briefly and then swiveled to begin climbing the hill toward us.

  “With a letter,” I guessed seeing the folded square in Anderley�
�s hands. “But from whom?”

  I considered all the natural possibilities—family, close friends—but there was really no way to know until we read it. My stomach tightened with apprehension. One thing was for certain. Whoever had sent it had been anxious for us to receive it. Even from the top of the slope, I could see that the horse was winded and glistening with sweat from a hard ride.

  “I’m not expecting anything,” Gage said. “At least, not delivered like this. Though, I suppose it’s always possible . . .”

  I glanced at him as he fell silent, trying to understand what he’d been about to say. His mouth flattened and his expression grew taut, erasing the carefree expression of a moment ago. I eyed the missive Anderley carried with misgiving, somehow knowing, whatever the contents, our honeymoon was at an end.

  “An urgent message from London, sir,” Anderley told his employer as he passed him the letter.

  I blinked in surprise, briefly meeting the valet’s gaze as he turned to move a short distance away to give us privacy while Gage read the missive. The same tightly controlled expression ruled his face.

  Gage flipped the letter over in his hand as he sat forward, wrapping an elbow around the knee of one of his long legs encased in buff riding pantaloons and dark leather Hessians to brace himself. He hesitated a second, as if recognizing the same thing I had, before finally breaking the seal and unfolding it.

  I tried not to stare at him while he read, reaching for my glass of lemonade. It had grown tepid in the sunshine, and my mouth puckered at the sour warmth. However, it was impossible to ignore him completely. So I pretended to observe the progress of a small boat as it glided across Derwentwater toward the tall, dark pines studding the expanse of one island, while out of the corner of my eye I studied him.

  It was clear almost from the start that the contents of the letter were not all together welcome or unexpected. In fact, he seemed to review the words with a resigned acceptance coupled with intense irritation. He gazed at the bottom of the page for a moment after he’d finished, before lowering it with an aggrieved sigh that was also part grunt. “It’s from my father.”

  My eyebrows shot skyward. As far as I knew, Gage had not heard from his father since our wedding. Lord Gage had returned to London almost immediately following the ceremony, which he had attended only under threat. The haughty war hero had not been pleased by his son’s choice for a bride, having already selected a charming and politically advantaged debutante for him. Knowing he already believed me to be a shameless, scandalous woman, and that Gage would be hurt by his father’s failure to attend our wedding, I elected to use my unfairly earned reputation to my advantage, threatening to forbid Lord Gage access to any future grandchildren if he did not appear. A bluff that turned out to be effective, as he’d thought me heavy with his first grandchild at the time, since Gage and I had pushed forward our wedding date.

  I had not told Gage about my gambit, and I assumed neither had his father, but I had to wonder for a moment whether the jig was now over. My eyes strayed toward the hasty scrawl on the foolscap. “What does he say?”

  “He wants us to investigate something.”

  My spine stiffened. This was a surprise. At least to me. After the amount of trouble he’d given us during our last murder inquiry, and the number of derogatory comments he’d made about both of our investigative skills, I had never expected him to request his son’s assistance with an inquiry ever again. But to apply to us both . . .

  “Both of us? He actually said that?”

  His pale blue eyes focused on me. “Yes. But here. You can see for yourself.”

  I took the letter from him gingerly, a bit hesitant to read Lord Gage’s acerbic commentary.

  Sebastian,

  I trust this letter finds you well and adequately rested. I need you to go to Ireland posthaste, to the village of Rathfarnham, south of Dublin. A Miss Harriet Lennox, now a nun at the Loretto Abbey there, has gotten herself murdered. The matter is of some importance to His Grace, the Duke of Wellington, seeing as the chit is his distant cousin. We cannot allow the murder of his relative to go unchecked.

  Obviously the matter is delicate, and of some urgency, otherwise I would have handled it myself. As you are already hundreds of miles closer, I recommended to his grace that you should be sent in my stead. I also suggested that your wife might be of some assistance, as she is of the same irrational sex as these nuns, and certainly not above pressing them should the inquiry require it.

  I shall expect word from you upon your arrival, and upon the discovery of any crucial piece of information.

  The letter went on to inform Gage of the accommodations his father had arranged for us with an acquaintance who owned a cottage in the same village as the abbey, but such details were of little import at the moment. As were the two letters of introduction included inside from the duke, one addressed to the Reverend Mother Mary Teresa Ball; the other to a Sir John Harvey, Inspector-General, and others to Whom It May Concern.

  I narrowed my eyes. “The same irrational sex?”

  “The letter is from my father. What did you expect?”

  “A bit more courtesy. He does realize he’s summoning us from our honeymoon, does he not?”

  Gage draped his arm over his raised knee, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbow exposing his forearms which were now bronzed by the sun, and chuckled mirthlessly. “Oh, I’m certain of it. I’m sure this timely interruption was just a perquisite.”

  I frowned, glancing down at the missive one more time and then set it aside. “A nun murdered in a convent? This sounds like the beginning of some ghastly Gothic novel. One expects a mad monk or a poorly disguised ghost to appear next.”

  His mouth quirked. “And what does that make me? The righteous and thoroughly dull hero of this tale.”

  I arched a single eyebrow. “That’s far better than being the girl who goes about shrieking and fainting all the time. And being kidnapped by the villain, not once, but twice.”

  “Oh, but I’ve been so looking forward to catching you midswoon.”

  I angled him a quelling look, but it only made his smile broaden.

  I shook my head, and then tapped the letter with my finger. “In all seriousness, what do you wish to do?”

  He didn’t answer immediately, instead turning to stare at the variegated peaks of the fells in the distance. His father had placed him in a difficult situation. How does one say “no” to the Duke of Wellington, or allow a young woman’s murder to go unpunished? For if we declined to go, by the time the missive reached his father telling him so, the trail would have grown even colder, and that much harder to investigate.

  That being said, I also knew neither of us was eager to end our honeymoon, to abandon our arcadia and return to the dangers and difficulties we sometimes faced as private inquiry agents. We had planned a slow journey south, stopping where and when we wished, enjoying the long days of summer in the countryside before we reached London. Jeffers, the eminently capable butler we had poached from the brutish husband of the victim of our last murder inquiry, had already been sent ahead of us to prepare Gage’s town house for our arrival. After setting to rights the Edinburgh town house Gage had purchased for me for a wedding present within a week, I had no doubt Jeffers could manage what Gage sheepishly described as his “rather bachelor abode.” What that had meant precisely, I didn’t know, but I’d suspected it had more to do with his choice in colors and conveniences than the possible presence of half-naked female statues.

  Now that leisurely trek seemed all together unlikely.

  Anderley shifted his feet in the grass, recalling our attention to him and the rider standing next to his horse below. The man chatted with the footman from Brandelhow, who had descended the hill to join him, while sending us restless glances.

  “Give the messenger some coin for his trouble and send him on his way,” Gage instruc
ted his valet.

  “I can’t,” Anderley surprised him by saying. “He says he’s come all the way from London and must wait for a reply.”

  Gage scowled at his dark-haired servant, but I knew his displeasure was not directed at the valet, but at his father.

  “I hope he hasn’t ridden that beast all the way,” I proclaimed, staring down at the lathered bay below. “It’s a wonder the horse is not dead if he’s ridden him this hard at every stage.”

  Anderley pivoted to face me, his handsome face betraying no emotion. “I’m sure he’s been trading out his mount every so many miles, my lady. Says he made the journey in three days.” His eyes flicked down toward the base of the hill and his mouth tightened. “Though I suspect he’s ridden this particular horse a bit longer than is strictly good for him.”

  “Then tell the footman to take him back to Brandelhow and see that he’s fed and given a bed while the stable lads see to his horse,” Gage instructed him. “I’m sure between the two of us we can manage the picnic hampers and blankets. We’ll wake the rider when I have a reply for him.”

  Anderley nodded. “Very good, sir.”

  Gage sat silently, watching as his valet descended the hill out of earshot, but even then he didn’t speak. He wore a contemplative frown, as if still trying to decide what to do about his father’s abrupt and rather rude directive. I suspected part of his worry was that he would disappoint me in some way, allowing his father to disrupt our wedding trip, but I remained quiet, waiting for him to speak first.

  The footman and rider guided the horse back toward Brandelhow, soon rounding the bend in the path and disappearing beyond the high grasses. Anderley settled onto a large rock near the edge of the trail, facing out toward the lake to wait for us.

  Unexpectedly, Gage chose that moment to tip me back on the blanket and lean over to kiss me fiercely, stealing my breath. “Blast my father,” he growled as he lifted his head to look down at me. “And blast this bloody girl for getting murdered.”