A Brazen Curiosity, page 23
part #1 of Beatrice Hyde-Clare Series
Fortunately, Aunt Vera was there to keep her in line with a simple request delivered with just the right mix of hope and supplication, as if her niece was so beneath a duke’s touch she had to beg him to show interest.
Bea did not want his charity.
To say that, of course, would be to sound churlish, and it would only draw stark attention to what they all knew to be true: She actually did need his charity if she was ever going to be anything more than an overlooked mouse on the farthest fringe of society. To agree with her aunt would only expose her to further humiliation. To walk away without responding at all would make it appear as if she could not cope with the situation.
With no good options, Bea stood there silently and listened as Kesgrave graciously promised to call on them when they were all in town, a pledge that delighted Russell, who hesitantly suggested a morning ride in Hyde Park. The duke, evidently in a benign mood, also agreed to that, and Bea waited irritably for Flora to make a request of him as well. Her cousin, however, said goodbye to his grace without seeking a favor.
Next it was Beatrice’s turn to bid Kesgrave farewell, but her mind was curiously blank of all useful thought. Although she was the same person who had greeted him with aplomb as he stepped from a tree branch into her bedchamber, she felt ineffably altered by her aunt’s comment, as if something inside her had been dulled.
’Twas almost as though, standing on the threshold of Lakeview Hall about to return to her family’s home in Sussex, she had reverted to the person she had been when they’d arrived. How clearly she could remember that Bea—the Bea who sputtered, the Bea who stammered, the Bea who faltered and stumbled and tripped over her own words and lapsed into silence rather than misspeak.
A pitiable creature, to be sure.
No, Bea thought, rejecting that abject being, that earlier version of herself, as her shoulders stiffened with rage at the years she had passed almost cowering from her own shadow. She would not go back.
This house was not a magical castle in a child’s fairy story with fire-breathing dragons and hidden secret passageways. She did not have to be within its confines to be the new Bea, the better Bea, the Bea who spoke up for herself and defended her point of view and identified a murderess and clawed her way out of a dilapidated shed in the middle of a field.
Determinedly, she lifted her head and raised her eyes to meet the duke’s, which were curiously bright and astoundingly blue. “Until next time, your grace. You bring the pedantry. I’ll bring the dinner rolls,” she said provokingly, and her aunt gasped in horror.
Kesgrave’s lips twitched, making it clear that he didn’t have to understand her words to comprehend their meaning. “Until next time, Miss Hyde-Clare.”
“She meant pleasantries, your grace. Pleasantry, not pedantry,” Aunt Vera insisted on an awkward laugh that quickly became a cough of concern when she heard Skeffington call out to Kesgrave from the staircase. Hastily, she added, “We must go at once, while the weather is still good. I believe there’s concern it might rain, as the clouds are thick. Do make our apologies to our host.”
The swiftness of their departure contrasted sharply with the slowness of their progress, as the sky did indeed open up soon after and make the road muddy and difficult to cross. Aunt Vera didn’t mind, for the extra travel time provided her with the opportunity she needed to educate her niece on proper behavior. Young ladies did not stare openly at the shattered skulls of fellow guests, and they most certainly did not provoke their hostesses into confessing to vile murders.
On and on she went, specifying the many ways her niece’s conduct had fallen short of accepted standards during their stay at Lakeview Hall. She fussed over minor mistakes, lingered over small peccadilloes and heaped generous disapproval on her niece’s head. She was meticulous, particular, schoolmarmish, and mean.
Despite it all, Bea smiled the whole way home.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lynn Messina is the author of more than a dozen novels, including the best-selling Fashionistas, which has been translated into 16 languages. Her essays have appeared in Self, American Baby and the Modern Love column in the New York Times, and she’s a regular contributor to the Times Motherlode blog. She lives in New York City with her sons.
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Itching for more Bea?
Don’t worry, she’s on the case.
A BRAZEN CURIOSITY
Twenty-six-year-old Beatrice Hyde-Clare is far too shy to investigate the suspicious death of a fellow guest in the Lake District. A spinster who lives on the sufferance of her relatives, she would certainly not presume to search the rooms of her host's son and his friend looking for evidence. Reared in the twin virtues of deference and docility, she would absolutely never think to question the imperious Duke of Kesgrave about anything, let alone how he chose to represent the incident to the local constable.
And yet when she stumbles upon the bludgeoned corpse of poor Mr. Otley in the deserted library of the Skeffingtons' country house, that's exactly what she does.
Available now!
A SCANDALOUS DECEPTION
As much as Beatrice Hyde-Clare relished the challenge of figuring out who murdered a fellow guest during a house party in the Lake District, she certainly does not consider herself an amateur investigator. So when a London dandy falls dead at her feet in the entryway of the London Daily Gazette, she feels no compulsion to investigate. It was a newspaper office, after all, and reporters are already on the case as are the authorities. She has her own problems to deal with anyway-such as extricating herself from a seemingly harmless little fib that has somehow grown in into a ridiculously large fiction.
Truly, she has no interest at all. Except the dagger that killed the poor earl seemed disconcertingly familiar…
And so Bea is off to the British Museum because she cannot rest until she confirms her suspicion, while trying to allay her family's concerns and comprehend the Duke of Kesgrave's compulsion. For the handsome lord has no reason to waste his time solving a mystery alongside a shy spinster. And yet he turns up everywhere she goes.
Available now!
AN INFAMOUS BETRAYAL
Having solved the two murders that somehow fell in her path, Beatrice Hyde-Clare is on the lookout for a third. Through a absurd quirk of stupid fate, the shy spinster has fallen in love with the thoroughly unattainable Duke of Kesgrave and is desperate for something, anything, to occupy her mind. A dead body would do nicely.
Fortunately for her, a fellow guest from a Lake District house party appears on her doorstep with exactly that: the lover of his fiancée's mother expired after a wretchedly painful episode just that morning in an apparent poisoning. As unorthodox as it is, he would like Bea to investigate rather than calling the authorities.
Bea begins her inquiry into Mr. Wilson's death at once and almost immediately finds herself in the company of Kesgrave, who is as determined as ever to assist her. 'Twas patently unfair, for the whole point of the investigation was to get away from the handsome lord.
Now Bea is faced with the daunting challenge of exposing the villain without revealing her heart.
Available now!
Anything can happen in Regency London, as five headstrong and passionate women defy propriety and find love with powerful lords as determined as they are.
THE HARLOW HOYDEN
Book One
A bold young woman devises a simple scheme to save her sister from a loveless marriage, but her plan quickly goes awry when she finds herself irresistibly drawn to the handsome duke to whom she's trying to attach her sister.
Available now!
THE OTHER HARLOW GIRL
Book Two
The usually prudent Lavinia Harlow makes the remarkably imprudent decision to pursue membership to the British Horticultural Society in order to prove something to the very provoking—and all too appealing—Marquess of Huntly.
Available now!
THE FELLINGHAM MINX
Book Three
A reigning beauty's sparkling wit dries up whenever she's in the presence of a dashing earl whom she longs to impress.
Available now!
THE BOLINGBROKE CHIT
Book Four
A talented artist who has put herself firmly on the shelf feels her resolve weaken when she meets a charismatic lord far too tempting to resist.
Available now!
THE IMPERTINENT MISS TEMPLETON
Book Five
A clever spinster with a talent for solving problems refuses to be cowed by a imperious earl—no matter how much she craves his good opinion.
Available now!
Also Don’t Miss
MISS FELLINGHAM’S REBELLION
When the actions of her scatterbrained mother threatens to plunge the family into scandal, Catherine decides she can no longer bear her own timidity and boldly enters into a dangerous game with a charming marquess.
Available now!
PREJUDICE & PRIDE
1“An imaginative and witty retelling of
universally acknowledged truths.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Lynn Messina, A Brazen Curiosity
