Tasha Alexander - A Crimson Warning

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Tasha Alexander - A Crimson Warning» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Город: New York, Год выпуска: 2011, ISBN: 2011, Издательство: Minotaur Books, Жанр: Исторический детектив, Исторические любовные романы, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

A Crimson Warning: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «A Crimson Warning»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

Newly returned to her home in Mayfair, Lady Emily Hargreaves is looking forward to enjoying the delights of the season. The delights, that is, as defined by her own eccentricities—reading
waltzing with her dashing husband, and joining the Women’s Liberal Federation in the early stages of its campaign to win the vote for women. But an audacious vandal disturbs the peace in the capital city, splashing red paint on the neat edifices of the homes of London’s elite. This mark, impossible to hide, presages the revelation of scandalous secrets, driving the hapless victims into disgrace, despair and even death. Soon, all of London high society is living in fear of learning who will be the next target, and Lady Emily and her husband, Colin, favorite agent of the crown, must uncover the identity and reveal the motives of the twisted mind behind it all before another innocent life is lost.

A Crimson Warning — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «A Crimson Warning», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

This spurred us on. Soon we had pictures to go with each of the symbols—and on each of them, something in the accompanying text had been underlined. From the flowers, there were two letters and two numbers. From his drawings of birds, we got thirty letters.

“The first is easy,” I said. “Between the daphne and the hellebores we have A and E . Given what we already know about Mr. Dillman’s game, it’s reasonable to surmise this should be combined to EA, which is how the catalog numbers for all the items in the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan begin.”

“So the numbers—5 and 9—are the second bit,” Ivy said. “We need EA 59 or EA 95.”

“And the rest?” Colin asked. “This long string of letters?”

“It’s the hint,” I said. “He’s put an additional layer of disguise this time. And, given the number of letters, it’s undoubtedly more than just telling us what the object is made of. Cordelia said he sometimes gave her quotes as clues.”

“So we need to untangle the letters,” Ivy said.

Colin continued to study the parliamentary record while Ivy and I set to it.

W D T E D M O B R E N A T M O E I A R R D L H U I D Y F H R

“Let’s make a list of every word we can find in it,” I said. “And then see if we can string them together in some sort of sensible fashion.”

“Toady rat in tree,” Ivy said.

“Sensible, darling,” I said.

“Hide now or die,” she said. We fell silent.

Over the course of the next two hours, we’d come up with what seemed an unending list of possible words, almost too many to count.

“This sounded like a good idea,” I said, after having strung together another phrase that was almost promising.

Colin came and stood over my shoulder. “I think you’re trying too hard to make it fit the museum,” he said.

“How goes it with Parliament?” I asked.

“I’ve found absolutely nothing,” he said. “I think we need to take that list of Dillman’s at face value.”

“That’s disappointing,” Ivy said.

“Let’s focus on the words you lot have found instead,” Colin said. “Dream of water?”

“Yearn for more?” I tapped my pencil on the table. “This is incredibly frustrating. We have lots of nonsense, but nothing that uses all of the letters.”

“Let me see everything you have,” he said. I passed him our pages of words. He went to his desk and sat down. “The only thing I prefer to word puzzles is chess.”

“Maybe we should just take the whole list to the museum,” Ivy said. “We’ve narrowed down which galleries to search. Perhaps the clue will become evident once we’ve narrowed down the options with the numbers.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” I said. “We should be there the minute it opens tomorrow.”

“I’ve got it,” Colin said, rising from his chair and walking towards us. “It’s obvious, really. Murder thy breath in middle of a word. It’s from Richard III.

“I was really hoping for the toady rat, ” Ivy said.

“You’re sure?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s quite an unusual animal, don’t you think?”

“Not you, Ivy.”

“I couldn’t be more certain,” Colin said. “There are plenty of phrases we could string together with these words, many of which sound like they are appropriate. But no one will convince me that a line of Shakespeare is going to coincidentally appear within this list. Toady rat notwithstanding.”

“But our villain,” Ivy said. “He quotes Shakespeare.”

“My dear girl,” he said. “Everyone quotes Shakespeare.”

* * *

As Colin sketched out his plan for the next morning, Ivy bowed out of coming to the museum. “I’ve tried Robert’s patience enough,” she said. “I think he’d draw the line at my being present when you arrest someone.”

We promised to give her an update as soon as we were finished at the museum. Once she’d gone home, we retired to our bedroom, where I collapsed, exhausted, on the bed.

“Don’t fall asleep just yet,” Colin said. “You’re still in your clothes.”

“I’ll ring for Meg,” I said.

He sat on the edge of the bed and grabbed my wrist as I reached for the bell. “Don’t,” he said, his lips so close to my face I could feel his breath on my cheek. “I’ll provide any assistance you need.” I felt his fingers feel for the buttons on the back of my dress. He undid the top two or three, then pulled me up to sitting. Kneeling in front of me, he started to remove the pins from my hair, one at a time until my curls had tumbled down around my waist.

Blue light had started to force its way around the edges of the curtains before we finally went to sleep. Yet somehow, when Meg brought breakfast to us only a few hours later, I found myself so refreshed, so vividly alive, I felt almost embarrassed.

After eating and getting dressed it was still early enough that we had time to walk to the museum. I pulled on my gloves and made my way to the door. The rain had stopped, though the pavements were damp in spots, and the sun was struggling to make its way through patchy holes in the clouds.

“Sir, I—”

“Not now, Davis,” Colin said. “We must hurry.”

“Very good, sir. Enjoy your walk, sir.” He opened the door. We stepped outside, but he didn’t close it. “It’s dry, so no need to worry where you step. Shall I have it taken care of at once?”

I looked down and saw that our whole front entrance was bathed in red. The steps, the columns of the porch, the front door. All red.

Colin hardly paused. “Very good, Davis. Carry on.” He adjusted his hat and offered me his arm.

“Well?” I asked.

“What?”

“The paint? What’s your secret?”

“I assumed it was yours,” he said. “I’ve lived an entirely blameless life.” He walked a little bit faster, but other than that, showed no further response.

“I know it’s not something I’ve done,” I said.

“I’m not discussing it,” he said. “We have work to do and don’t need to waste our time taking the bait of some disgruntled miscreant.”

I could feel my temples pulsing. “How can you be so calm?”

“Because while there are things in my past others may judge, I’ve neither done anything of which I’m ashamed, nor anything I feel the need to defend,” he said. “So unless you’ve some delicious deceit to share with me, I am not concerned in the least.”

“Don’t you care how I feel about what you’ve done?”

“To an extent,” he said. “But the past is the past, Emily. Why would anything I did before I met you cause a rift between us?”

“So it’s nothing you’ve done since we met?”

“Certainly not since I fell in love with you. Unless, of course it pertains to my work. But if that’s the case, we have a bigger problem on our hands than we know; that would mean our villain has connections in the highest levels of the government.”

“I can’t tell if you’re teasing me or serious,” I said.

“I like to keep you on your toes.” He patted my arm.

“But I—”

“No more, Emily. I’m not going to let us fall prey to this person’s vindictiveness.”

And that was all he would say on the subject. I was still agitated when we got to the museum. Colin stopped and stood in front of me.

“Stop worrying,” he said, taking me by both arms. “You are in your element here, and I couldn’t be doing this without you. I would not have been able to get Cordelia to open up like you did, and I admit freely I probably wouldn’t have taken any note of this game of hers and Dillman’s. So stand tall, and show me where we need to go.”

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «A Crimson Warning»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «A Crimson Warning» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Alexander Grin - CRIMSON SAILS
Alexander Grin
Caisey Quinn - Storm Warning
Caisey Quinn
Tasha Alexander - Dangerous to Know
Tasha Alexander
Tasha Alexander - Tears of Pearl
Tasha Alexander
Tasha Alexander - A Fatal Waltz
Tasha Alexander
Tasha Alexander - A Poisoned Season
Tasha Alexander
Tasha Alexander - And Only to Deceive
Tasha Alexander
John Birmingham - Without warning
John Birmingham
Michele Hauf - Storm Warning
Michele Hauf
Hannah Alexander - Fair Warning
Hannah Alexander
Отзывы о книге «A Crimson Warning»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «A Crimson Warning» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x