The Rebel in Scarlet Gloves

Suspect: Miss Lucy Greenwood, creator of bespoke cakes for special occasions. (Part-time sleuth)

Age: 28

             As the daughter of a cook, Lucy grew up with a love for baking. From a young age she learned how talent in the kitchen can make a person valuable to any household and much sought after by employers. But she is also far too independent and stubborn to stand being given orders for long, so she has spread her wings, invested her savings and opened her own shop—"Bespoke Temptations" in York. Here she makes marvelous creations to order and also serves tea, coffee and chocolate in a little tasting room where ladies can sample her cake and enjoy a quiet gossip without a male escort. It is the first shop of its kind in this part of the country and one of the very few anywhere that welcomes unaccompanied women.

        

    But her revolutionary ideas are not appreciated by everybody in that town. In fact, the other tradesmen on her street take offence at this attractive young woman, in business for herself, brazenly pushing her way into their exclusive little group. The outside of her shop is decorated with a sophisticated sort of subtlety that only hints at the delights within (no, they would certainly never enter the place to see for themselves) and the bow window is swathed in rich silk curtains, parted just wide enough to reveal a careful arrangement of dainty, mouthful-sized, chocolate and strawberry pink, fondant cakes. But beyond that tempting offering, nothing more can be seen of what goes on behind the curtains. Her male neighbors would prefer to keep women in their place, out of the business world and certainly not wandering around town without the protective guidance of a gentleman companion. As far as they're concerned, everything about this haughty cake shop proprietress --including her modern, independent manners, exotic ingredients (yes, she's been known to use coconut)and elegant, secretive draperies -- suggests wickedness afoot.

 

Certainly nothing about this woman or her cakes can be called plain. The turmoil she's created simply by moving in to the premises on Charles Place is little short of anarchy.

            They know nothing about her past or where she came from, but one look at her striding proudly down the street in one of her fashionable outfits is enough to start the rumor mill churning. They've heard she's a member of the Rational Dress Society and that she attends lectures by the National Society for Women's Suffrage. That's bad enough, but she also reads popular novels without hiding the covers. She carries them boldly in the street, alone, holding these scandalous books in her scarlet leather-clad hands. There is simply no excuse for it.

     

       Their wives feel much the same about Lucy Greenwood. She is an unmarried woman with no apparent desire for a husband and an equal disdain for gossip. So how can she fit in with them? She dresses far too fashionably. What's more, they hear from the postmaster's wife that she orders expensive, fancy, lace underthings from Lockreedy & Velder's Emporium in London. What, exactly, does she need them for, if there is no man in her life to see them?

            Surely these extravagances do not fit with her membership of the Rational Dress Society— a group that means to be rid of corsets altogether.

            They simply cannot make her out.

            Crimson gloves, lurid novels and decadent amounts of lace, indeed! This is Charles Place, the finest parade of gentlemen's shops in York, not the Montmarte in Paris.

            Just who does this prim miss think she is?

            Finally, we come to the name of her shop; the very apex of her mischief.

            Bespoke Temptations? As Detective Inspector Deverell thinks before he's even met the young lady accused of poisoning the victim, Now that was trouble, if ever he'd heard of it.

And he is soon to find out how very right he is.

           

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Get to know the mysterious Lucy Greenwood on February 20th, or pre-order today!

(Images used here: Public domain graphic of Victorian lady and "Plain chocolate caramels" c. early 20th century recipe book. Also author's own photograph of her gloves. Photo of cake -- and, indeed, cake itself-- provided by author's sister)