A Sinister EstablishmentA Regency Cozy
Lynn Messina
potatoworks press • greenwich village
Contents
Beatrice Hyde-Clare Mysteries
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
About the Author
More Mystery!
Some Romance!
copyright © 2020 by lynn messina
cover design by jennifer lewis
isbn: 978-1-942218-32-6
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
All Rights Reserved
Published 2020 by Potatoworks Press
Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without prior written permission of the copyright owner and publisher of this book.
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Beatrice Hyde-Clare Mysteries
Book One: A Brazen Curiosity
Book Two: A Scandalous Deception
Book Three: An Infamous Betrayal
Book Four: A Nefarious Engagement
Book Five: A Treacherous Performance
Book Six: A Sinister Establishment
To the dozens of awesome history buffs and Regency authors whose websites and blogs ensure that my historically adjacent cozies aren’t historically embarrassing. Thank you!
Chapter One
If Beatrice Hyde-Clare had realized that her refusal to consent to her betrothed’s slight alteration in their marriage vows would allow his grandmother to assemble a roomful of people to witness the happy event, she would have agreed at once to his request. A promise made during one’s nuptials was binding, to be sure, but she had little doubt she would have found a way to extricate herself from a pledge to cease investigating murders should the need arise—a development she deemed highly unlikely, though not impossible considering the recent spate of corpses in her life. Her confidence was owed to the fact that during her brief courtship of the Duke of Kesgrave she’d grown adept at making rhetorically persuasive arguments. If her logic did not quite meet his rigorous standards for accuracy, it was no matter, for it satisfied her own.
Alas, she had been too delighted by Kesgrave’s audacity in rewriting the Book of Common Prayer—and why should he not take a liberal hand, for its lineage went back a mere three centuries while his own encompassed a full half millennium—to notice the dowager quietly scribbling messages at a table in the corner of the drawing room. It was only when the familiar trill of her aunt’s strident disapproval wafted in from the entry hall that she recognized the tactical error.
“Well, no, Flora, I do not think Beatrice chose to have her wedding today with the express purpose of rousing you from your sickbed,” Vera Hyde-Clare explained with just enough uncertainty in her voice to allow for the possibility, “as I believe she holds you in high esteem and would never wish for you to suffer a monstrous setback or have your health permanently damaged. And yet here you are, at Clarges Street, a shadow of your former self, barely able to hold your head up as you totter forward. Rather, I am merely calling attention to the misfortune of the timing, for it is so very unfortunate. It goes without saying that I would much rather you had not eaten a plate of spoiled oysters. But having made such an ill-advised decision—and an unusual one, too, as I would have sworn you detested the creatures—you should be allowed to bear the consequences in peace rather than summoned to attend a wedding that was not supposed to happen for another three days. I cannot condone the thoughtlessness. My poor dear, how terrifyingly pale you look. Do lean on me, so that you do not collapse onto the dowager’s fine marble floor.” She paused slightly in her speech, then added, “Oh, but it is very fine marble indeed, so elegantly veined. I wonder if it’s from Italy. Livorno, perhaps. Or maybe Carrara.”
As genuinely concerned as she was about her daughter’s health, Vera’s anxiety was no match for her instinctive admiration for quality, and Bea, noting the hushed tone with which she spoke, imagined the other woman running her fingers reverentially over the smooth marble. It was a visceral response to opulence, one Vera could no more control than the beating of her own heart, and, amused by her aunt’s constancy, Bea envisioned her perched on the threshold of heaven too awed by the exquisite ornamentation of the pearly gates to enter.
’Twas an absurd picture, without question—Aunt Vera pestering poor St. Peter on the location of the seabed from which the jewels were harvested whilst he tried to find her name in the Book of Life—and Bea laughed despite her churlishness. She was further diverted when Flora, assuring her mother she felt quite sturdy, laid claim to a miraculous recovery. “Truly, I feel as though I was never sick at all, Mama. I cannot think of how to account for it save for your exceptional care. Thank you, darling, for attending to me so diligently.”
As Flora’s stomach ailment had been a ruse employed that morning to allow her to slip from her home at 19 Portman Square unnoticed, this assertion was decidedly false. Indeed, the whole scheme had been based on the assumption that her mother’s sweeping discomfort with illness would keep her far away from the sickroom, a supposition that proved accurate when she prescribed several hours of uninterrupted rest for her daughter. Obligingly banished to her bedchamber, Flora had changed into her brother’s clothes, crept out of the house through the
