Sweet Revenge lahm-1

  Sweet Revenge

  ( Lady Arianna Hadley Mystery - 1 )

  Andrea Penrose

  England, 1813: Lady Arianna Hadley acts the part of a French chef in one of London's aristocratic households to find her father's murderer. But when the Prince Regent falls ill after consuming Arianna's special chocolate dessert, she finds herself at the center of a scandal. It soon becomes clear that someone is looking to plunge England into chaos-and Arianna to the bottom of the Thames...

  Andrea Penrose

  Sweet Revenge

  “A mysterious lady, bent on revenge, and a mystery-solving Lord will take you on a thrilling ride through Regency England in this smashing debut novel.”

  —Victoria Thompson, author of Murder on Sisters’ Row

  SHARP MINDS

  “Have a seat, monsieur,” snapped Arianna, indicating the lone stool at one end of the steel-scarred length of maple. She set aside the fillet blade and took up a paring knife. “While I peel and dice the carrots.”

  “No amanita mushrooms?” he said softly.

  The reference to the deadly poisonous species took her aback. Good God, did the man actually have a sense of humor?

  Arianna grunted in reply. “Zees may be a joke to you, sir, but it eez my reputation at stake.”

  “Not to speak of your life.”

  She felt herself blanch, but remained silent.

  Perching a hip on the stool, Saybrook watched her scoop up a handful of the vegetables and begin trimming off the tops. “You have the hands of an artist, Monsieur Alphonse,” he remarked, shifting his gaze to the heavy steel blades and graters arrayed around him and then back again. “One would not expect such fine-boned fingers to wield the tools of your trade with quite so much skill.”

  Her throat seized and Arianna didn’t dare try to speak, fearing a feminine squeak would give her away. At this distance, the darkness of his eyes appeared due to the telltale dilation of his pupils—Mr. De Quincy clearly imbibed a goodly amount of laudanum to ease his pain. But apparently the drug had not dulled the sharpness of his wits.

  She must not make the mistake of underestimating him. She had made too many errors already.

  for John R. Ettinger

  Saybrook rules!

  Acknowledgments

  A book is much like one of Lady Arianna’s delectable chocolate confections—it requires the perfect ingredients, much chopping and stirring, followed by carefully calibrated heat to emerge from the oven with just the right crunch and texture.

  Several “chefs” have added their expertise to my own efforts and I wish to raise a cooking spoon in salute!

  Gail Fortune, my agent extraordinaire, deserves much credit for helping me concoct the mixture of chocolate and mystery. I’m incredibly “fortunate” to be working with such an amazing talent. . . .

  John R. Ettinger, a dear friend and brilliant intellect (honestly, who else would admit to having a “favorite” mathematician!), was kind enough to spend hours giving me a crash course in basic economic theory. Any errors in logic are the fault of the chardonnay and my own feeble brain. . . .

  Sandy Harding, my wonderful editor, offered much sage advice in polishing the final manuscript, and patiently helped me untangle myself from various plot twists.

  To all of you, I am profoundly grateful.

  “Sweet is revenge—especially to women. . . .”

  —George Gordon Byron DON JUAN (CANTO I, ST. 124)

  1

  From the chocolate notebooks of Dona Maria Castellano

  How fascinating! I recently discovered an old Spanish missionary’s journal in a Madrid bookstore and found a number of references to chocolate among his writings. According to him, ancient Aztec legend has it that the cacao tree was brought to Earth by their god Quetzalcoatl, who descended from heaven on the beam of a morning star after stealing the precious plant from paradise. No wonder that the spicy beverage made from its beans was called the Drink of the Emperor. It is said that this xocoatl or chocolatl was so revered that it was served in golden goblets that were thrown away after one use. . . .

  Rum Truffles

  ⅔ cup heavy cream

  8 ounces 60% dark chocolate

  2½ tablespoons dark rum

  ¼ teaspoon fresh lime juice

  3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

  1. Heat cream in saucepan on medium heat until steaming. Remove from heat and add dark chocolate, stirring until melted. When mixture cools to room temperature, add rum and lime juice. Refrigerate until firmly chilled.

  2. Form 1-inch balls from the chilled mixture using a melon baller, teaspoon, or your hands. Roll in unsweetened cocoa powder.

  3. Store in airtight container between layers of waxed paper.

  The scent of burnt sugar swirled in the air, its sweetness melting with the darker spice of cacao and cinnamon. Candles flickered, the tiny tongues of flame licking out as the footman set the plate on the dining table.

  “Ahhhh.” The gentleman leaned down and inhaled deeply, his fleshy face wreathing in a sybaritic smile. “Why, my dear Catherine, it smells . . . good enough to eat.”

  Laughter greeted the bon mot.

  “Oh, indeed it is, poppet. I’ve had my chef create it specially for you.” The heavily rouged lady by his side parted her lips, just enough to show a peek of teeth. “And only you.”

  “How delicious.” Plumes of pale smoke floated up toward the painted ceiling and slowly dissolved in the shadows. His lazy, lidded gaze slid past the glittering silver candelabra and took in the empty place settings of the other half dozen guests. “And what, may I ask, is it?”

  “Chocolate.”

  “Chocolate,” he echoed, sounding a little puzzled. “But—”

  “ Edible chocolate,” explained Catherine. “A new innovation, fresh from Paris. Where, as you know, the French have refined sumptuous indulgence to an art form in itself.” She lowered her voice to a sultry murmur. “Aren’t you tempted to try it?”

  All eyes fixed hungrily on the unusual confection. Soft mounds of Chantilly cream ringed the porcelain plate, accentuating the dark, decadent richness of the thick wafers arranged at its center. Ranging in hue from café au lait to burnished ebony, they rose up from a pool of port-soaked cherries.

  “I must warn you, though,” she teased. “Chocolate is said to stimulate the appetite for other pleasures.” Her lashes fluttered. “But perhaps you are already sated after such a rich meal.”

  “One can never have enough pleasure,” replied the gentleman as he plucked the top piece from its buttery perch and popped it into his mouth.

  A collective sigh sounded from the others as he gave a blissful little moan, squeezed his eyes shut . . .

  And promptly pitched face-first into sticky sweetness.

  There was a moment of dead silence, followed by a slow, slurping shudder that sent a spray of ruby-red drops and pink-tinged cream over the pristine tablecloth.

  “Good God, send for a physician!” screamed one of the guests. “The Prince Regent has been poisoned!”

  2

  From the chocolate notebooks of Dona Maria Castellano

  Chocolate was served during religious rites and celebrations. It was often mixed with such flavorings as vanilla, cinnamon, allspice, chiles, hueinacaztli—a spicy flower from the custard apple tree—and anchiote, which turns the mouth a bright red! The Aztecs also believed that the dried beans of the cacao tree possessed strong medicinal properties. Indeed, warriors were issued cacao wafers to fortify their strength for long marches and the rigors of battle—a fact that Sandro will undoubtedly find of great interest. I, too, have remarked on the nourishing benefits of hot, sweetened chocolate. . . .

  Spiced Hot Chocolate

&nbs
p; 8 cups milk

  ¼ cup achiote seeds

  12 blanched almonds

  12 toasted and skinned hazelnuts

  2-3 Mexican vanilla beans, split lengthwise, seeds scraped out

  ¼ ounce dried rosa de Castillo (rosebuds)

  2 3-inch canela (soft Ceylon cinnamon sticks)

  1 tablespoon aniseeds

  2 whole dried serrano chiles

  8 ounces 70% dark chocolate

  sugar to taste

  1. In a heavy saucepan, heat milk with anchiote seeds over medium heat. Bring to low boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low and let steep for 10 minutes, until milk is brightly colored with the anchiote.

  2. Grind almond and hazelnuts together to the consistency of fine breadcrumbs. Set aside.

  3. Strain out achiote seeds from milk and return milk to saucepan. Add the ground nuts, along with the vanilla beans and rosebuds, cinnamon, aniseeds, and chiles. Bring to low boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat.

  4. Stir in chocolate. Taste for sweetness, and add sugar to taste. Strain through a fine mesh strainer.

  5. Transfer chocolate to tall, narrow pot and whisk vigorously with a molinillo (wooden chocolate mill) or handheld immersion blender. It adds a wonderful frothy head. Serve immediately.

  Steam rose from the boiling water, enveloping the stove in a cloud of moist, tropical heat.

  “Hell.” A hand shot out and shoved the kettle off the hob.

  Cleaning up after such a feast would likely take another few hours, thought the chef irritably. But that was the price—or was it penance?—for choosing to work alone. A baleful glance lingered for a moment on the kitchen’s worktable, the dirty dishes and pots yet another reminder that the aristocratic asses upstairs were gluttons for decadent foods.

  More, always more—their hunger seemed insatiable.

  But it wasn’t as if their appetites for sumptuous pleasures came as any great surprise to Arianna Hadley. Contempt curled the corners of her mouth. Indeed, she had counted on it.

  Turning away from the puddles of melted butter and clotted cream, she wiped her hands and carefully collected the scraps of paper containing her recipes. The edges were yellowing, the spidery script had faded to the color of weak tea, and yet she could not quite bring herself to copy them onto fresh sheets of foolscap. They were like old friends—her only friends, if truth be told—and together they had traveled. . . .

  Her hands clenched, crackling the papers. Not that she cared to dwell on the sordid details. They were, after all, too numerous to count.

  She closed her eyes for an instant. For as far back as she could remember, life had been one never-ending journey. Jamaica, St. Kitts, Barbados, Martinique, along with all the specks of Caribbean coral and rock too small to have a name. Foam-flecked, rum-drenched hellholes awash in rutting pirates and saucy whores. And from there across the ocean to the glittering bastion of civilized society.

  Ah, yes. Here in London the scurvy scum and sluts were swathed in fancy silks and elegant manners. Fine-cut jewels and satin smiles. All thin veneers that hid a black-hearted core of corruption.

  Tracing a finger over a water-stained page, Arianna felt the faint grit of salt and wondered whether it was residue from the ocean voyage or one of the rare moments when she had allowed a weak-willed tear. Of late, she had disciplined herself to be tougher. Harder. But as the steam wafted over the sticky pots, stirring a sudden, haunting hint of island spices, she blinked and the words blurred. Light and dark, spinning into a vortex of jumbled memories.

  Fire. Smoke. The lush scent of sweetness licking up from the flames.

  “Breathe deeply, ma petite .” Her voice lush with the lilt of the tropics, the mulatto cook leaned closer to the copper cauldron. “Drink in its essence.” She sprinkled a grating of cinnamon, a pinch of anchiote over the roasting nibs. “Watch carefully, Arianna. Like life itself, the cacao is even better with a bit of spice, but the mix must be just right. Let me show you. . . .”

  Dark as ebony, Oribe’s hands fluttered through the tendril of steam. “Theobroma cacao —food of the gods,” she murmured. “Now we must wait for just the right moment to douse the flames. Remember—its magic cannot be rushed.” From a smaller pot, the cook poured a measure of hot milk into a ceramic cup. Adding a spoonful of ground beans, thickened with sugar, she whipped the concoction to a foaming froth with her molinillo. “But patience will be rewarded. Drink this—”

  Then the image of the old servant dissolved, and Arianna found herself staring into the shadows.

  Shadows. She remembered shifting shapes of menacing black, and the rumblings of thunder from a fast-approaching storm. Dancing to the drumming of the wind against the shutters, a tendril of smoke had swirled up from the lone candle, casting a trail of twisted patterns over a bloodstained sheet.

  “Drink this, Papa.” She was holding a glass of cheap rum to her father’s trembling lips. “A physician will be here soon with laudanum to help ease the pain, ” she lied, knowing full well that not a soul would come rushing to help two penniless vagabonds.

  “I would rather have a sip of your special chocolate, my dear.” He tried to smile, despite the jagged knife wound gouged between his ribs.

  So much blood, so much blood. Cursing the stinking wharfside alleys and the shabby tavern room, she pressed her palm to the scarlet-soaked handkerchief, trying to staunch the flow.

  “I—I shall always savor the sweet memory of you,” he went on in a whisper. “I . . . ” A groan gurgled deep in his throat. “God in heaven, forgive me for being such a wretched parent. And for sinking you in such a sordid life.”

  “You are not to blame! You were falsely accused.”

  “Yes, I was—I swear it,” he rasped. “But . . . it doesn’t matter. Not for me.” He coughed. “But you—you deserve better. . . .”

  “Never mind that. You deserve justice, Papa. Tell me who did this to you.”

  “I . . .” But there was no answer, only a spasm of his icy fingers and then a silence louder than the wailing wind.

  Arianna shifted on her stool, recalled back to the present by the clatter of footsteps on the stairs. Her skin was sheened in sweat and yet she was chilled to the bone.

  “Chef! Chef!” Fists pounded on the closed door. “Monsieur Alphonse, open up! Something terrible has happened!”

  Smoothing at the ends of her false mustache, Arianna quickly tucked the papers into her smock and rose.

  Perhaps it was too late for justice. Perhaps all that mattered now was vengeance.

  “Indeed?” Lord Percival Grentham’s expression remained impassive. A senior government minister in Whitehall’s War Office, he was in charge of security for London, which included keeping watch over the royal family. And with the King lingering in the netherworld of madness and his grown children mired in one scandal after another, it was a task designed to test his legendary sangfroid.

  Grentham’s assistant nervously cleared his throat. “But he’s going to survive, milord,” he added hastily. “A physician happened to be treating a patient next door and was summoned in time to purge the poison from the Prince’s stomach.”

  “More’s the pity,” snapped Grentham’s military attaché, who was standing by his superior’s desk, arranging the daily surveillance reports. “Bloody hell, if Prinny can’t control his prodigious appetites, he could at least have the decency to fall victim in his own establishment.”

  The assistant didn’t dare respond.

  Leaning back in his chair, Grentham tapped his elegant fingertips together and stared out the bank of windows overlooking the parade ground. Rain pelted against the misted glass, turning the vast expanse of gravel to a blur of watery gray. Beyond it, the bare trees in St. James’s Park jutted up through the fog, dark and menacing, like the jagged teeth of some ancient dragon.

  “How long until he can be moved from Lady Spencer’s town house?” he asked slowly.

  “Er . . .” The assistant consulted the sheaf o
f papers in his hands. “Another two or three days.”

  “Bloody, bloody hell,” swore the attaché. “If word of this reaches the newspapers—”

  “Thank you, Major Crandall.” The tapping ceased—as did all other sounds in the room. Turning to his assistant, Grentham continued with his inquiries. “I take it that the other guests have been sworn to absolute secrecy, Jenkins?”

  “Yes, milord. And they’ve all promised to be silent as the grave.”

  “Excellent,” he replied mildly. “Oh, and do remind them that they had better be, else their carcasses will be rotting on a transport ship bound for the Antipodes.”

  “Y-yes, milord.” The young man was new to the job and hadn’t yet dared ask what had become of his predecessor. Rumors of Grentham’s ruthlessness were rife throughout the halls of the Horse Guards building, and it was whispered that even the Prime Minister feared to provoke his ire.

  Taking up his pen, Grentham jotted several lines on a fresh sheet of foolscap. “Do we know for certain what poison was used?”

  “Not as yet, sir. The physician says it is difficult to discern, on account of the, er . . . substance that the Prince ingested.” The young man paused, looking uncertain of whether to go on.

  “Well, do you intend to keep me in suspense all afternoon?” asked Grentham softly. “Or is this meant to be an amusing little guessing game, seeing as I have nothing else to do with my time?”

  “N-n-o, sir.” The assistant gave another glance at his notes. “It was . . . chocolate.”

  “Chocolate?” repeated Crandall incredulously. “If this is your idea of a joke, Jenkins—”

  “It’s n-no joke, sir, it’s the God-honest truth.” Jenkins held out a piece of paper with a suspicious-looking stain streaked across its bottom. “You may see for yourself.”