Exclusive Excerpt from A Deadly Shade of Night

 Today I'm sharing with you an excerpt from A DEADLY SHADE OF NIGHT (A Bespoke Novel III).

Enjoy!

* * *

Detective Inspector Ptolemy Deverell did not pursue dangerous women. Unless, of course, it was part of his duty and his job. When it came to his personal life, he left such questionable sport— and subsequent headaches— to the other males in his family. They seemed to enjoy it, bless ‘em. He would much rather read a book by the fire, go sailing, or enjoy his own garden, from a bench beneath an ancient, shady tree, with a tankard of beer in hand. Almost anything that he could do alone, actually.

As a consequence of this “eccentric” behavior, there were some in his rather notorious family who considered him to be the most tedious and humdrum fellow that ever breathed. His brothers had gone so far as to suggest he was a foundling. He was definitely, so they teased, old before his time and a “bit of a let-down” for anybody anticipating the usual Deverell mischief and mayhem.

During a parlor game at one family Christmas gathering, he was voted the Deverell “most likely to become a monk.” He was a man of moderate habits and mild manners. He had never ridden a horse across a beach wearing only a wet shirt and breeches. He had never thrown a woman over his shoulder or stormed about, slamming doors and cracking whips. He hardly ever sulked and brooded. At least, nobody noticed if he did.

In short, he was hardly romantic hero material.

And then along came Miss Lucy Greenwood, who had swept into his life wearing tiny, tempting, raspberry buttons; an audacious demeanor; a droll smile, and with the air around her sweetly evocative of cake.

Naturally, she did not wear only the buttons. They were attached to a perfectly respectable dress. But the very fact that this requires confirmation should tell you something of their effect upon the luckless detective.

Today he had entered her kitchen resolved not to look at her buttons at all, for this was no time to be distracted by the details— as was his habit. He must not think of opening any buttons today; he was closing them. Firmly and decisively. To do it properly, he needed his wits, steady hands, and all his words about him.

But despite these intentions and before he could speak at all, he was undone.

Turning to him with arm outstretched, raising her spoon and one slender eyebrow with the same eager anticipation, she said, “Mind you don’t burn your tongue.”

Just like that, in the blink of an eye, the moistening of a taste bud and the breath of a yearning sigh, the goodbye that he had gone there to say was forgotten; the train ticket in his overcoat pocket abandoned to its dark, linty depths. Because he couldn’t leave. He knew, in that moment, for better or worse, that he never would abandon her. He might even ride a horse through the surf one day, getting his shirt and breeches soaking wet and stained with salt in the process, just for her.

Alas, here before him stood the agent of his downfall; the cause of a few sleepless nights and just as many daylight fancies.

Detective Inspector Deverell had faced a plethora of viciously armed and brutally determined villains during the course of his career, but they had nothing on Miss Greenwood wielding a spoonful of jam. It might as well have been a ten-ton weight with which to clobber him about the head and render him insensible.

Mother Nature, like a watchmaker in a mischievous mood when she made Miss Lucy Greenwood, had tucked a secret message into her creation: a little parcel of instructions with a diagram of his mind and body burned upon it. Consequently, this woman took one look at Ptolemy Deverell— “Tolly” to his closest friends— and immediately saw every crack in his armor, every soft spot in his being; all those things he spent his days concealing from the world at large.

She seemed to know all the tricks: everything to cheer him out of a glum mood, no matter how determined he was to be in one. For example, he never knew he had a sweet tooth, until he sampled one of the delightful creations from her kitchen. His only weakness, prior to that, was for jam— a partiality he had never mentioned to anybody— and the way that sticky, sugary aroma invoked memories of schoolboy yearning, hunger pangs, treats and comforts. A single teaspoon of jam was the reminder of a happy childhood home and unspoken affection; all those things that did not need to be said, they simply were. And Miss Greenwood’s raspberry jam was in a class of its own: nectar of the gods.

None of this had he ever expressed to her. Yet, there she stood, today of all days, tendering a spoonful of that precious comestible, to stop him in his tracks and make him stay.

Before he even managed to tell her that he was leaving.

“Whatever is the matter?” she inquired, her spoon halfway withdrawn. “Upon my word! You look like a man about to be knocked down by a charging herd of amorously-inclined dairy shorthorns, and quite stuck to the spot. It’s only jam.”

Only jam.

And now he was in a bit of one himself.

Miss Greenwood was a formidable force, against which he stood no chance whatsoever. In her eyes, an obstacle was merely a challenge from which to learn; a wall, something to be climbed so that she might enjoy the view from a better vantage point, and a great distance between two objects, nothing more than the opportunity to travel between them, in as reckless, exuberant and shocking a manner as possible.

Heedless of his attempts at discouragement, she steadily and fearlessly teased her way under his solemn shell, her mission helped, naturally, by that little packet of information sewn under her skin: a Tolly Deverell Owner’s Manual.

“Miss Greenwood…Lucy.” He stared at her lips, which were as lushly pink, tender and tempting to his taste-buds as the bowl of raspberries that had just tumbled into one of her bubbling pots. “We have known each other now for some months. A year, in fact.”

Her mouth was slightly pursed, eyes bright and curious. In the heat of her kitchen, a routinely wayward coil of hair— the color of burnt sugar and in the shape of a question mark— wafted loose against her nape and collar. “Which, I suppose, since you’re a man and I’m a woman, means you claim the right to take charge and chastise me.”

“Chastise you?” He frowned. “Why? What have you done now?”

“Aha! You will not catch me out, Detective!” She gave an arch smile. “I shall not be caught confessing all my misdemeanors and, in so doing, not only remind you of a few you might have forgotten, but inadvertently draw your attention to those of which you are not yet aware. Doubtless you keep each one neatly labeled and stored away in those little rosewood drawers of your tidy mind. I must have an entire category of wickedness to myself in that cabinet by now. Can you possibly have room yet for more?”

He set down his hat, only to pick it up, fumble with it for a moment, and then put it down again. But he chose the wrong spot for its rest, and her eyes flared when she saw his hat trespassing upon the precious surface of her worktable. At once he swept it up and dusted off the sugar. Thoughtless! He was distracted, of course, and a bag of nerves. Which was not like him at all. On a tight breath, he muttered, “It occurred to me that it might be …I wondered whether…if you could find yourself favorably disposed toward…if you might be prevailed upon—”

“I am never prevailed upon, if I can help it. Sounds painful. Look, Deverell, I’ve got three sponge cakes and a dozen meringues to make. Those egg whites won’t whisk themselves.” She tasted the jam for herself, nodded, and set her spoon on the table. “We’re not characters in a Jane Austen novel, you and I.”

Indeed, he thought, morose. Life was considerably more complex for them. More murder, mystery and marmalade than courtship, candlelit cotillions and carriage rides.

“I enjoy a good romance as much as anybody, but I am not idly meandering my way through a drawing room in search of an untended, defenseless pianoforte and a politely long-suffering audience,” she added with a wry smile. “It’s a sad state of affairs when a stiffly whipped egg white is the only thing between me and the workhouse, but that’s real life for this modern heroine, so please do get on with it. If you did not come to point out my many and varied sins against propriety, yet again, the reason for this curious visit in the middle of the night continues to elude me.”

Sometimes he thought she could talk for England.

“Just be still a moment, Lucy. I shall not distract you for long.” But a tiny piece of his brain, yet retaining some good sense, urged caution. He should consider the pros and cons from all angles. It was not like him to rush into anything. They called him “The Tortoise” and not without good reason.

She, however, was devil-may-care in almost everything she did, from her passion for mail-ordered, impractically lacy Parisian underthings— according to the postmaster’s wife and local gossips— to her plan of opening a sumptuously decorated cake shop and tea room here, on a street traditionally reserved for discreet clubs that welcomed gentlemen only. For at least three hundred years, Charles Place in the ancient city of York had been the preserve of staid tailors, bootmakers and barbers, who strictly serviced masculine sartorial needs only, and of tobacconists, who cultivated a thick cumulus of cigar smoke to keep ladies away. But Lucy had invaded that manly enclave and created within it a chocolate mahogany and strawberry crème, damask shrine to the sweet tooth and gossip.

In her shop, women gathered behind the artful drapes of velvet and silk to eat cake, sip tea, and share conversation, away from prying male eyes and ears. Although men were permitted on the premises, very few confessed enough interest to step beyond that door and see for themselves what the women got up to. Instead, they feigned haughty disinterest, while privately speculating on the contents of those pink boxes, wrapped in gold ribbon, which their womenfolk came out cradling with as much care as they would hold newborn babies. Not to mention the cause of those broad, cat-in-the-cream smiles upon the ladies’ faces.

To Lucy it was evidently all very amusing. Her eyes gleamed wickedly whenever she spied some befuddled gentleman hurrying by the shop with his head down, his coat collar turned up, and his gaze fixed upon the pavement to avoid her myriad temptations.

Of course, she claimed innocence and entirely benign intentions. But she did enjoy being mysterious.

On her shelves she kept several jars with labels that had been badly smudged or worn away, so that nobody but she knew what they contained. He wouldn’t be surprised if one of them was ‘eye of newt’. Whatever it was she put in her cakes and jam, it had made her a darling of the wives of York, while her outspoken ways caused the husbands some grievous stomach upset.

“I do not try to aggravate the male species,” she had said once. “Nor do I want to be a man. And I do not claim to speak for all womankind, for I know many who are perfectly content. I simply desire the same choices and opportunities as those offered to men, and I believe that’s only fair. I believe we should all have options.”

She was never hesitant to say how she felt about anything. Indeed, Tolly had known her only a year and heard all her opinions on everything from women’s suffrage to how many times a cup of tea might be stirred (three and a half spins of the spoon at most) before it became an insult to her ears and cause for a hard stare. Oh, her hard stares were the very worst!

“Women, contrary to popular opinion, are not children, lapdogs, or hysterics,” she had continued. “We are adults capable of sound reason, a useful exchange of ideas, and thoughtful, well-balanced judgment.”

He had laughed. And then, remembering that she was perfectly serious and he should be listening to her words not simply enjoying her expression— the way her eyes filled with tiny flames that danced in their depths and how her dimples came and went— he had made his own face solemn and said, “Oh, votes for women? I thought you said boats. Boats for women. Little round, pink things with frilly, embroidered sails. And presumably a great many life-preservers and flares. Not to mention an enormous compass to help you navigate, or else you’d all get lost no doubt.”

At that point she had approached him, rather menacingly, with an apple corer in one hand, so he had decided to end the teasing with a, “Good lord, that pie does smell delicious, doesn’t it? You must have the hands of an angel to craft such delights.”

In truth, he had no objection to the idea of votes for women. He feared the ladies were destined for disappointment once they had their say, but they ought to have it, all the same.

Really, men were foolish to think it could be prevented. Women like Miss Greenwood would never stand quietly in a corner and pretend to have no opinion, however more convenient it might be for the men if they did.

He should have steered clear of her from their first encounter, when she took unconcealed delight in the idea of being a murder suspect. That was a warning, if ever he needed one.

Before he met her, he would much rather not be the hero of this story, or any other. All he had ever really wanted was a quiet life. Happy to solve other folk’s problems, it was always his intention to avoid any of his own.

But now it was much too late for all that.

He simply couldn’t help himself, when it came to Lucy Greenwood.

His gaze wandered to a pot of tea, sat brewing nearby, a little kiss of steam visible from its spout. Ought to have a knitted cozy tucked over it, he thought, or the contents would get cold. His mouth felt dry. Yes, he could make good use of a cup right now. With something stronger in it for a little extra courage...

Find out what happens next when A DEADLY SHADE OF NIGHT finally falls on Friday, March 5th. Available now for pre-order.

Happy Reading!

(Images: "Raspberries on a Leaf" by Lilly Martin Spencer c. 1858; Vintage dessert graphic; "A Girl Reading in a Sailing Boat" by Edward Henry Corbould c. 1869)