Exclusive Excerpt from DEATH AND THE VISITORS
Copyright 2024 Heather Redmond
My vision swayed. Had the Russians returned to retrieve the ring I’d stolen? I dumped out the wildflowers I’d placed in my listening glass, then took the glass to the door, ignoring the pain in my midsection.
“You have nothing to worry about.” I heard Papa’s rumble loud and clear. My fingers convulsed around the glass as I thought about how to sneak the ring downstairs to the sofa. I’d better do it now, while Mamma’s and Mary’s watchful gazes were safely outside.
“You owe me a great deal,” said an English voice. “How can I possibly have nothing to worry about?”
After a moment’s confusion, I recognized the voice. The moneylender John Cannon, who had been treated to a nice meal and the presence of the entire family about once a month since Papa had borrowed a thousand pounds from him late last year. He called regularly, which was a source of great stress on the household.
“We had a visit from part of the Russian delegation,” Papa said.
“What does that have to do with our arrangement?” John Cannon said in a steely tone.
“Pavel Naryshkin, the brother of the tsar’s hofmeister, has promised one thousand guineas worth of diamonds in pledge to the Juvenile Library,” Papa said, the words ringing in my incredulous ears.
“Does he know they will go to nothing but paying down your impressive debt?” asked the moneylender.
“It is no business of his what I do with the money. Those in need are entitled to funds from those who have them.”
“What does he think the money is going for?” Mr. Cannon persisted.
“My pressing money problems will be solved with this gift,” Papa said, ignoring the question.
“Will they?” asked the acid-voiced moneylender.
I heard Papa’s hand come down on his desk. “Very well, I can see your patience is at an end. I will repay you, sir, my loan balance in full.”
“I think you owe more than a thousand guineas,” said Mr. Cannon.
“I do not,” Papa said. “I will pay you nothing at all if you do not agree. I will even hand you the diamonds myself, and if you can get a better price for them, then all the better for you.”
“And if the price is less?”
“That is your failing, sir.”
“I will see these diamonds before I agree to this,” Mr. Cannon said. “I know better than to trust you, sir.”
“What a thing to say to an honest family man. When I was only responsible for myself, I never owed any man a penny. Now it is different, with five children to feed, but I am still a man of honor.”
“I understand you have sent one of your mouths away, and three of the remaining four work in your business, so you don’t need employees. I wonder how you have quite this much trouble feeding them.” I heard the sneer, and a chair pushing back.
Tiptoeing away, I set the glass on the plate and tossed the flowers back in before running upstairs, hugging the wall. I agreed with Mr. Cannon. Surely the Russians meant for their diamonds to go to Mary Wollstonecraft’s daughters and not her widower’s loans. Poor Fanny, sent away to be an unpaid governess. She asked for no dignity and received none either. Mary, I knew, was too resourceful not to find a way to escape. She’d been gone to Scotland most of the past year, and she’d find a way to leave again. I did not know how to hold onto her and was loath to try. I needed to make my own way, even if a bit of larceny came into play.
On Tuesday, I had the bookshop counter in my charge while Mary was meant to be dusting. I’d seen Mary tuck her paper and pencil into her pocket, and I suspected she’d clean out the coal clinkers from the fireplace and ignore the rest in favor of working on Isabella, the Penitent, or some maudlin work of poetry.
I wondered why she couldn’t finish her novel. I’d reminded her that her mother’s first novel, Mary, was quite short, but she’d pointed out that Papa’s first novel, Caleb Williams, was quite long and had been much more successful.
She’d also said she might not have quite enough life experience yet to finish a novel, but Mary Wollstonecraft had been naught but a governess when she wrote Mary, so I didn’t see the problem. I did see the danger, though, implicit in gathering more life experience.
Papa came in as church bells struck eleven, with a collection of pencils he wanted me to sharpen. I noticed his right hand had a bit of a tremble to it and knew that was why he hadn’t wanted to wield the penknife himself.
“Why are you and Mamma dour?” I asked, innocently.
“Have any messages been delivered?” was his brusque reply.
“No messages, sir,” I said promptly, pulling a penknife out from under the counter as he headed toward a bookcase. “Am I looking for someone special?”
Mamma came in and chided Papa as he leafed through a copy of Lord Byron’s The Corsair.
She snatched the book out of his hands. “I will not have you leaving fingerprints on the books, Mr. Godwin.”
He lowered his chin and said coldly, “I will do what I like in my own house, madam.”
“We will not be able to pay for Jane’s singing lessons much longer,” she said in equal tones of ice. “Where are the funds you were promised?”
My stomach clenched around the remains of the porridge I’d eaten for breakfast. Surely, we were not so poor as that, when we were prominent enough to come to the attention of royalty? My unseeing gaze drifted around the bookshop. I suddenly felt all of Mary’s despair descending upon me. Was this all we had, now?
Papa turned, lips pressed down into a half-moon, aging his face dreadfully. “No tears in the bookshop, Jane.” He snatched the half-sharpened pencil out of my lifeless hand and walked out.
Mamma rushed toward me and slapped my cheek. “There, that will snap the tears right out of you.”
Mary Shelley Mystery #2
Stepsisters Mary and Jane find themselves caught up in a mystery involving a drowned Russian and missing diamonds, while falling for the charms of poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron—in this gripping historical mystery from the acclaimed author of the A Dickens of a Crime series.
1814: Foreign diplomats are descending on London in advance of the Congress of Vienna meetings to formulate a new peace plan for Europe following Napoleon’s downfall. Mary and Jane’s father, political philosopher William Godwin, is hosting a gathering with an advance party of Russian royal staff. The Russians are enthusiastic followers of Mary’s late mother, philosopher and women’s rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft, which leads to a lively dinner discussion.
Following their visit, Jane overhears her father reassuring his pushiest creditor that the Russians have pledged diamonds to support his publishing venture, the Juvenile Library, relieving his financial burden. But when Godwin is told the man who promised the diamonds was pulled from the River Thames, his dire financial problems are further complicated by the suspicion that the family may have been involved in the murder.
Stepsisters Mary and Jane resolve to find the real killer to clear the family name. Coming to their aid is Godwin’s disciple, the dashing poet Percy Shelley, who seems increasingly devoted to Mary, despite the fact that he is married. And a young woman Jane befriends turns out to be the mistress of the celebrated poet—and infamous lover—Lord Byron.
As both sisters find themselves perhaps dangerously captivated by the poets, their proximity to the truth of the Russian’s murder puts them in far greater peril . . .
Thriller Crime | Mystery Historical [Kensington, On Sale: August 20, 2024, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9781496749031 / eISBN: 9781496749055]
Heather Hiestand was born in Illinois, but her family migrated west before she started school. Since then she has claimed Washington State as home, except for a few years in California. She wrote her first story at age seven and went on to major in creative writing at the University of Washington. Her first published fiction was a mystery short story, and she has written mystery, romance, and historical fantasy in the years since. Heather’s first published romance short story was set in the Victorian period and she continues to return, fascinated by the rapid changes of the nineteenth century. The author of many novels, novellas, and short stories, she is a bestseller at both Amazon and Barnes and Noble. With her husband and son, she makes her home in a small town and supposedly works out of her tiny office, though she mostly writes in her easy chair in the living room. She also writes as Heather Redmond and formerly, Anh Leod.
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