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• You’ve just read the fourth book in the Brothers Sinister series. The other books in the series are The Duchess War, A Kiss for Midwinter, The Heiress Effect, The Countess Conspiracy, The Suffragette Scandal, and Talk Sweetly to Me. I hope you enjoy them all!
The final novella in the series is Talk Sweetly to Me, and it will be out in late August of 2014. The hero is Stephen Shaughnessy, who you saw briefly in this book. If you’d like to read an excerpt, please turn the page. But for those who are curious about Stephen’s advice column, between now and the release date for his novella, I’ll be posting “Ask a Man” columns…and you can ask him your own questions. Visit http://ask-a-man.tumblr.com/ to find out more.
Talk Sweetly to Me: Excerpt
Nine months ago, Miss Rose Sweetly started a friendly correspondence with Britain’s most infamous advice columnist, Mr. Stephen Shaughnessy. But a virtuous young lady cannot write to a known rake without risking her reputation. That's why she's signed all her letters as “Aldus Grange”—a man who claims to be everything Rose is not: old, male, and white.
Three months ago, Stephen Shaughnessy moved into the house next door. In person, he’s wickedly funny, devilishly flirtatious, and heart-stoppingly handsome—exactly the sort of man that earnest, mathematically-minded Rose should avoid. But as she’s struggling to cut all ties, he writes to “Aldus” for advice…on how to seduce the girl next door.
Rose knows she should walk away—but she can’t let this brazen insult pass. Instead, she vows to bring Mr. Shaughnessy to his knees…any way she can.
Chapter One
Dear Man,
My father says that women can’t do mathematics. Is this true?
Yours,
Hypatia
Dear Hypatia (if that is really your name),
I am puzzled as to why you are asking me this question, since you appear to have already asked one man. Do not all men think alike? It must be so, since your father believes all women think alike.
See how easily the problem is resolved?
Yours,
Stephen Shaughnessy
Authentic Man
Greenwich, November 1882
THERE WAS NO WAY for Miss Rose Sweetly to put her packages down. They were balanced precariously under one arm, all six of them. Her free hand fumbled through her pocket—encountering used pencil nubs and a letter, folded in half—in search of her key. Her burden would remain stable, so long as that dratted keyring was in this pocket, and not the opposite side—ah!
Thumb and forefinger met cold metal. Rose was withdrawing her find in triumph, when a voice interrupted.
“Good afternoon, Miss Sweetly.”
The sound of Mr. Shaughnessy’s voice—that lilting velvet—set the inevitable in motion. First the book wrapped in paper slipped, and then, as she grabbed for that, her notebook began to fall. She could compute the physics of it in her mind, a cascading avalanche of packages resulting from too few hands and too much gravity. Rose had time to make only one decision: save her slide rule, or save the shopping?
Her slide rule won. She grabbed hold of it with her fingertips just before it hit the ground.
Her other burdens were not so lucky. Splat went the book. The shopping landed with a more complex sound—one that reminded her a little too much of breaking eggs.
Mr. Stephen Shaughnessy stood two doors down from her. His eyebrows rose in alarm as her groceries spilled. Three oranges bounced crazily down the pavement.
Rose gave him her most brilliant smile and waved her slide rule. “Good afternoon, Mr. Shaughnessy.”
Mr. Shaughnessy had taken the house just down from her sister’s three months ago. In all that time, she’d never managed to shake the nerves she felt around him. He had never done anything to warrant that nervousness, unfortunately; he was unfailingly polite.
In witness of that, he didn’t abuse her for her clumsiness now. He didn’t even remark on it. He simply came toward her. He’d taken three steps forward—and she’d drawn back one—before she realized that he only intended to pick up her oranges.
Any other reason he might have drawn close to her? That was all in her imagination.
She set down her slide rule carefully and picked up her shopping bag. It was canvas, and most of the contents hadn’t spilled. The meat, wrapped in waxed paper, was still at the bottom. The eggs…well, she’d check them once they were inside, but she had a sneaking suspicion that she and her sister would be having omelets for dinner tonight. Only the fruit had gone awry. She picked up an apple, not looking in his direction.
But she didn’t have to look directly at him to be aware of him. Mr. Shaughnessy was a young man—scarcely a few years older than Rose. He was tall and thin. He had a friendly smile, the sort that made a woman want to smile in response, and the faintest hint of an Irish accent. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and a much darker reputation.
But he picked up one of the offending fruits and smiled in her direction. “Why is it that the oranges bounced, but the apples did not?”
His smile felt like an arrow, one that hit her straight in the solar plexus. And so Rose adjusted her spectacles on her nose and said the first thing that came into her mind.
Unfortunately, the first thing that came into her mind was…
“It’s Newton’s Third Law. Upon collision, the apple exerts a force on the pavement, and so the pavement must exert an equal and opposite force on the apple. The structure of the apple is inelastic, and so the apple bruises. The orange, by contrast…” She swallowed, realized that she was babbling, and shut her mouth. “I’m sorry, Mr. Shaughnessy. I don’t think that’s what you meant to ask, was it?”
He straightened. Oh, he was dreadfully handsome. He put a casual care into his appearance, and it showed now. He was clean-shaven, even though it was three in the afternoon. His cravat looked as crisp as if it had been pressed just now, not at six in the morning. Nothing about Mr. Shaughnessy suggested that he was a degenerate of the first order. Nothing, that was, except his line of work and the persistent gossip in the papers.
“You don’t need to let me natter on when I get distracted that way,” she told him. “Everyone else stops me. In these parts, it’s considered polite to interrupt Miss Sweetly when she’s on a tear.”
“Nonsense,” Mr. Shaughnessy said. He took a step toward her, and then another. Her chest constricted—he was standing so dreadfully, deliciously close—and then he held out the oranges he’d gathered.
For one moment, as she took them from him, their hands brushed. Neither of them were wearing gloves: she, because she couldn’t have found her keys while wearing them; he because…well, the heavens alone knew, and she was not about to ask. His fingers were warm and pale and against hers.
“I would never interrupt you,” he told her. “I love it when you talk Sweetly to me.”
She yanked her hand away. “You mustn’t say things like that, Mr. Shaughnessy. Someone might overhear and mistake your meaning.”
His eyes met hers. For the briefest second, she imagined a spark in them—as if some imp inside him whispered that anyone who heard what he’d said would understand it perfectly. He’d intended to flirt with her, and he knew precisely how he’d flustered her.
But he didn’t say that. He simply shrugged. “We wouldn’t want anyone to misunderstand.” If there had been an ounce of sarcasm in his voice, she would have walked away right then and there. But there wasn’t. “So let me say it better. If I didn’t want to hear you talk about your opposite and equal reactions, I wouldn’t ask about your star charts. What are you computing this time?”
“Oh, it’s not star charts, not today. It’s the Great Comet.”
His eyebrows rose. “There’s a great comet?”
“Do you not read any scientific papers? It ma
y be the brightest comet ever observed. You can still see it with the naked eye against the sun itself.”
He glanced upward at the sun overhead, unobscured by any cometary tail. “If you can see it with the naked eye, how is it that I’ve never caught a glimpse of it?”
She huffed. “Because London is not in the Southern hemisphere.”
“Ah.”
“In any event, Finlay in Capetown wired his measurements to Dr. Barnstable, and he’s set me to do the computing.”
“So what does it look like?”
She got out her notebook, opened it to the appropriate page.
“Here we are. The comet transited the sun a month ago.”
He pointed to an orange in her bag. “So let’s say that is the sun. Then where is the comet?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mr. Shaughnessy. If that orange represents the sun, we here on earth would be standing seventy-one feet away.”
“Seventy-one?” he asked mildly.
“Seventy-one point five eight three, but I try not to be pedantic. It makes people laugh at me.” Rose pointed to a dot on her notebook page. “Imagine that this is the sun. Then we are a speck of unimaginable smallness here.” She indicated a spot some inches away. “The comet, then, went along this path…” Her finger, dark against the white page, etched an elliptical curve. “But that’s not the exciting part. You see, anyone can calculate the path of a comet given enough data.”
“Not anyone,” he murmured.
She waved this away. “From all accounts, the nucleus of this comet split sometime after perihelion. Dr. Barnstable believes that we can predict the path of each piece—and since they’re so close to each other now, it will be no simple matter. It’s a three-body problem, which means it’s impossible to predict with equations. He’s asked me to work it out for him.” She beamed up at him.
He smiled back. “That’s brilliant, Miss Sweetly.”
And then the door opened behind them. Rose jumped again. This time, she managed to keep hold of her shopping bag. She turned to see her sister standing in the doorway. Patricia had one hand on the door handle; the other was placed in the small of her back. She was wearing a voluminous pink gown and a matching kerchief covering her hair. Her eyebrows rose at the scene in front of her, but her dark eyes sparkled in amusement.
“And here I thought I heard you at the door ages ago,” Patricia said. She gave her a head an exasperated shake, but Rose was certain—mostly certain—that she smiled as she did it. Patricia stooped as best as she could. Her heavy belly made her awkward, but she plucked Rose’s key off the ground. “Ah. I see that I did.”
“I…dropped some things,” Rose said, flushing all over again. “I was picking them up.”
Patricia looked at Rose’s notebook, open in her hands. She looked at Mr. Shaughnessy, standing not two feet away. And then she glanced at the pavement, where Rose’s other packages—the mail, the paper, the wrapped-up book—still lay scattered. “Yes,” she said dryly. “I can see that. That explains everything.”
“I’ll let you go, then.” Mr. Shaughnessy said. He tipped his hat. “Miss Sweetly. Mrs. Wells.”
“Mr. Shaughnessy.” Rose nodded her head. “I would curtsey, but I’m still holding the shopping, and the apples cannot withstand another inelastic collision.”
Beside her, Patricia made a noise in protest. But she held out her hands, gesturing. Rose gave her the book and her slide rule. While Mr. Shaughnessy disappeared around the corner of the street, she picked up the last of her scattered things.
Patricia did not berate her immediately. She did not, in fact berate her at all. She would normally have offered to help Rose, but she was eight months along, ungainly and awkward, and bending over did not come easily to her. When they’d gathered everything, they retreated inside the house—Rose at a walk, and Patricia at a waddle.
Patricia did not say anything as they traversed the front drawing room and went into the back pantry. She didn’t speak until Rose had the shopping spread out in front of them.
“Rose,” Patricia said quietly, “have you considered going back to Papa?”
Rose had not. Her stomach clenched at the very thought. “How could I leave you, when Doctor Wells will not return from his tour of duty for weeks yet?”
Patricia’s husband was a naval physician. He’d been sent to Sierra Leone before they’d known Patricia was with child, and Rose had lived with her sister ever since. But it wasn’t just her sister’s welfare that had Rose worried. Their parents lived in London—so close, and yet impossibly far from the Royal Observatory. At her father’s house, there would be no computations, no comets.
No Mr. Shaughnessy to set her nerves on edge.
“You know,” Patricia said, “you know that he is the most incredible rake.” She did not say who he was. She didn’t need to.
Rose set the oranges in a bowl, refusing to look at her sister. “He’s never once offered to seduce me. I don’t even think he’s thought of it.”
“He’s thought of it,” Patricia said dryly. “And…frankly, Rose, the way he’s talking to you? I don’t think he’ll even need to offer.”
Rose let out a long breath and shut her eyes. It, was, unfortunately, true. Mr. Shaughnessy was…well, he just was. His name had been on all the ladies’ lips since Rose was seventeen, when he’d earned renown—or infamy, depending on who was speaking—as the first man to write a column of advice for the Women’s Free Press, a radical paper that Rose should not have enjoyed nearly as much as she did. In the five years since then, he’d only built upon that reputation. He’d published four novels. His books were called “masterpieces of satire” by some, and “dangerous rubbish that was best burned unread” by others.
They had, by all accounts, sold well—even to those who harrumphed about setting bonfires with them.
Mooning after Mr. Stephen Shaughnessy was foolish. She knew how the two of them looked, sketched to scale. Socially speaking, if he were an orange in Westminster, she was…an elderberry, somewhere in the vicinity of Zanzibar.
“I love you, Rose.” Patricia sighed. “And I know you’ll make a good marriage, one as brilliant as mine. But you have to remember that most of the men who look at you won’t be seeing you. They won’t see that you’re clever and amusing.” Her sister came forward and took Rose’s hand in her own. “They’ll see this.” She rubbed the back of Rose’s palm. Dark skin pressed against dark skin. “It doesn’t matter how respectably you dress, or how much you insist. Most men who see you will see that you’re black, and they’ll think you’re available. So please take care, Rose. I don’t wish you hurt.”
Rose took her hand away and picked up another apple. She polished it with a towel, rubbing until it was red and shiny. “Don’t worry about that,” she said softly. “I won’t do anything foolish.”
She didn’t say anything about getting hurt. She thought of the letter she’d brought home—still folded in her pocket. Of the book wrapped in paper, waiting for her eager perusal. Patricia didn’t know the half of what Rose had got herself into.
At this point, pain was already inevitable.
Want to find out more about Talk Sweetly to Me? Click here.
Other Books by Courtney
The Worth Saga
Coming late 2014
click here to find out more
The Brothers Sinister Series
The Governess Affair
The Duchess War
A Kiss for Midwinter
The Heiress Effect
The Countess Conspiracy
The Suffragette Scandal
Talk Sweetly to Me
The Turner Series
Unveiled
Unlocked
Unclaimed
Unraveled
Not in any series
What Happened at Midnight
The Lady Always Wins
The Carhart Series
This Wicked Gift
Proof by Seduction
Trial by Desire<
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Author’s Note
THIS BOOK STARTS WITH the Cambridge/Oxford boat race of 1877. In reality, the boat race of 1877 was judged a dead heat (with Oxford probably a hair ahead of Cambridge). I changed that for purposes of this story: sorry, Oxford!
When I first started working on this book, I had this vague idea that Free (who I already knew was a suffragette) would get paired with some dude who was opposed to women’s rights, and they would have explosive chemistry et cetera blah blah blah. It turns out that I did not want to write that book: I couldn’t make myself believe that Frederica Marshall, suffragette, would fall for a man who fundamentally didn’t believe she was his equal. I also realized that book, if I wrote it, would be one where the theme turned out to be, “Aw, if women just put out long enough, men might decide they’re actual worthy human beings!”
And so instead of figuring out how to pair Free with someone who was trying to drag her down, I started to ask myself an interesting question: What was the most that someone like Free could hope to accomplish in her time?
And so I started exploring what women—extraordinary women—did in the late nineteenth century. The answer surprised me.
When I chose to make Free an investigative reporter, I modeled her after a real nineteenth century investigative reporter, Nellie Bly. At the age of 21, Bly (who was the daughter of working-class Americans) went to Mexico, where she lived for six months, reporting on the regime there. In 1887—at the age of 23—Bly faked insanity so that she could be admitted to the Women’s Lunatic Asylum in New York. She stayed there for ten days, and when she got out, she wrote the story of the women she met in the asylum—women who were, for the most part, not mad when they went in.
Like Bly, I sent Free undercover—in her case, to a government lock hospital in Britain. Like Bly, Free reported on the conditions she found. The government lock hospitals really did exist—and they did more than just lock up prostitutes, although that’s all they were ostensibly supposed to do. The Contagious Diseases Act—which established the lock hospitals—said that if anyone said a girl was a prostitute, she would have to submit to fortnightly examinations by a doctor. The purpose of the Act was to try and stop the spread of syphilis in the British Army and Navy.