I turned my head and saw her in the doorway, her peignoir floating, locks of dark hair tumbling to her shoulders.
I could not hide—I was standing bare, on a towel, in the center of my chamber, and the sponge was not nearly enough for concealment. I could only remain motionless, water and soap sliding down my large body, and stare at her.
Donata closed the door. “I remember now why I agreed to marry you.”
“To pour water on your pristine carpet?” I managed to say.
She did not answer as she approached. When she reached me, Donata plucked the sponge from my hands and began drawing it over my skin.
“The man writing the letters tried to kill me,” I said.
“I know,” Donata answered, maddeningly calm. “Grenville’s coachman told us. The account was rather jumbled, but I imagine you will give me the entire tale. For now, I am pleased to see you whole.”
Her lips trembled as she finished, and she pressed them shut.
I stilled the sponge. “I will not go to Egypt,” I said. “I will tell Grenville. I might not have been able to come home tonight … I don’t want …”
Donata snatched the sponge from my grip, squeezing it so that cooling water splashed me. “What absolute nonsense. Of course you will go. You have been longing to. I told you, Gabriel, never let another’s threats determine your life.” She dragged the sponge down my chest with a firm, almost digging, stroke. “Besides, many things will happen between now and January. Wait, and decide then.”
Donata touched her damp hand to her abdomen, reminding me what would happen in the months before January.
I pushed the sponge away and gathered her to me. She came, unprotesting, though I soaked her gown.
“You are beautiful,” I said.
She moved wonderfully as she laughed. “I am a mess. Not fit to be seen.”
“I like you a mess,” I murmured.
She was the lady for me, strong, clear-headed, exasperating, never letting me become complacent with myself.
And beautiful, as I’d told her.
Donata did not object when I lifted her and took her to the nearby bed. There I proceeded to get her, the peignoir, the pillows, and the bedcovers, quite soapy and sodden.
End
Thank you for reading!
Captain Lacey’s adventures continue in
The Alexandria Affair
Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries
Book 11
Coming in 2016
Author’s Note
This venture into Captain Lacey’s world taught me more about London than I’d ever known before. Every corner tells a story.
I hesitated before writing this book, because I wanted it to involve Jewish London, a subject about which I knew nothing. I had to begin research from scratch about the reintegration of Jews into England after their thirteenth-century expulsion was more or less reversed by Oliver Cromwell in the mid-1600s.
I realized that, like me, Captain Lacey would likewise know very little about Jewish London. He’s a relative newcomer to London (having spent all his life in Norfolk and then in the army traveling the world). We would learn together, not only Jewish history but of the attitudes toward Jews during that time.
When I asked my fellow Regency authors about sources of information, they hands down recommended The Jews of Georgian England, by Todd Endelman, which is an excellent history of Jewish life in London and England from the early 1700s until the dawn of the Victorian age. I highly recommend it for informative and thoroughly interesting reading.
The Hartman family, Itzak Stein, and Mr. Molodzinski are Ashkenazi Jews, whose families immigrated from Central and Eastern Europe. The choice of their ancestry was a random decision on my part, and not one that espouses any bias, except that a large population of Ashkenazi Jews inhabited London during this period. Georgian London was also home to Sephardic Jews, who originated in Spain and Portugal before they were expelled from Iberia altogether in 1492. (There is an excellent lecture series offered by The Great Courses called The Other 1492, which covers Spain and the expulsion of Jews and the persecution of Jews and conversos.)
The Ashkenazi synagogue Lacey visits with Mr. Molodzinski in Duke’s Place is no more. Built in 1690, it was destroyed in the Blitz in 1941. The nearby Sephardic synagogue of Bevis Marks, completed in 1701, has been in continuous use and has an informative website. Thanks to the series of prints of London by Augustus Pugin and Thomas Rowlindson, published in Ackermann’s Repository of Arts, we know what the lost Great Synagogue and other buildings in the London of Lacey’s era looked like.
I also learned much about public records in the Regency, which were scattered for the most part among parish registers and court records. Not until the Births and Deaths Registration Act of 1836 was an office established in Somerset House for the gathering of all birth, death, and marriage certificates—thus saving sleuths in the remainder of the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries much trouble when seeking a missing clue.
All in all, I hope you have enjoyed this look into Captain Lacey’s London. He will return for more adventures in Book 11 and more novels to come.
Books in the Captain Lacey Regency Mystery Series
The Hanover Square Affair
A Regimental Murder
The Glass House
The Sudbury School Murders
The Necklace Affair
A Body in Berkeley Square
A Covent Garden Mystery
A Death in Norfolk
A Disappearance in Drury Lane
Murder in Grosvenor Square
The Thames River Murders
The Alexandria Affair
The Gentleman's Walking Stick
(short stories)
And more to come!
Save $ by purchasing Boxed Sets
Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries, Vol 1
Includes
The Hanover Square Affair
A Regimental Murder
The Glass House
The Gentleman’s Walking Stick
(short story collection)
Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries, Vol 2
Includes
The Sudbury School Murders
The Necklace Affair
A Body in Berkeley Square
A Covent Garden Mystery
Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries, Vol 3
Includes
A Death in Norfolk
A Disappearance in Drury Lane
Murder in Grosvenor Square
More boxed sets will follow as the series grows
Also by Ashley Gardner
Murder Most Historical
(A Collection of Short Historical Mysteries)
Coming Soon
Kat Holloway Victorian Mysteries
A Soupçon of Poison
(Currently available in Murder Most Historical)
A Dollop of Death
About the Author
Award-winning Ashley Gardner is a pseudonym for New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Ashley. Under both names—and a third, Allyson James—Ashley has written more than 85 published novels and novellas in mystery and romance. Her books have won several RT BookReviews Reviewers Choice awards (including Best Historical Mystery for The Sudbury School Murders), and Romance Writers of America's RITA (given for the best romance novels and novellas of the year). Ashley's books have been translated into more than a dozen different languages and have earned starred reviews in Booklist. When she isn’t writing, she indulges her love for history by researching and building miniature houses and furniture from many periods.
More about the Captain Lacey series can be found at the website: www.gardnermysteries.com. Or email Ashley Gardner at
[email protected] The Thames River Murders
Copyright © 2015 by Jennifer Ashley / Ashley Gardner
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and ar
e not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Cover design by Kim Killion
Jennifer Ashley, The Thames River Murders
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