The Sans Pareil Mystery (The Detective Lavender Mysteries Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

attraction she felt for Stephen Lavender.
    Inevitably, Magdalena’s eyes were drawn back to Lavender’s figure. As usual, the cravat above his striped silk waistcoat was spotless and gleamed like cream in the soft lamplight. His boots shone with polish. He was smart and had exquisite taste. If only he would smile more often. But he was naturally serious, rather enigmatic and the responsibilities of his position as a principal officer with the Bow Street Magistrates’ Court often weighed heavily on his shoulders.
    Magdalena sighed. She had never paid much attention to men who worked for a living before: it wasn’t the social class she had been born into, or generally cared much about. But Stephen was different. She enjoyed his intelligent companionship and his dry humour, and appreciated his generosity. But most of all she loved it when his mouth curled up into a smile and he teased or flirted with her. He was also a wealthy man – or so Betsy Woods had intimated last week. Magdalena had been startled to hear that the principal officers were paid a guinea a day in expenses when they went out into the provinces to help the local magistrates and landowners solve difficult crimes. As his assistant on these trips, Constable Woods was also generously rewarded. But the thought of the work Stephen did made her shudder slightly. What unpleasant crimes had he been forced to deal with this week? She braced herself, smiled and resolved to make him laugh tonight.
    As Stephen disappeared into the ground floor of her building, she noticed that he had not let his hansom cab go. The driver remained outside in the street. Was something wrong?
    Teresa was still crashing around with the crockery so Magdalena glided across their spartan room and opened the door to greet Stephen. The dueñas amongst her friends and family would have been horrified at this loss of status, but Magdalena didn’t care any more. Her world had been turned upside down since she had fled her home in Spain and found refuge in these cramped lodgings in Spitalfields. She made her own rules now.
    The young son of her landlady answered Stephen’s knock at the main door downstairs. She heard movement, then the step of his boots on the flagstoned floor. Their voices drifted up on the chilly air towards her. Stephen’s was deep, calm and polite. Then she heard the thunder of feet as the boy raced down the gloomy hallway to his own family’s rooms. ‘Ma!’ he shouted. ‘That papist bitch ’as got a gentleman visitor!’
    Stephen’s face was dark with anger when he rounded the bend in the narrow stairwell and came into view. She smiled sympathetically and moved towards him. He ignored her proffered hand, grabbed her elbow and pushed her firmly her back into her room, slamming the door shut behind them. Teresa glanced up startled, with a rattle of saucers.
    ‘I hate you living here, Magdalena!’ he said as he yanked off his gloves. ‘It is deplorable that you should be subjected to that kind of insult.’
    She smiled again, amused at his protectiveness and the ferocity of his anger. ‘It is all I can afford, Stephen,’ she said slowly. ‘I’m a Spanish Catholic in Protestant London; there will always be some prejudice. I have got used to it – and you should too.’ She shrugged. ‘Besides which, these lodgings have a great blessing.’
    He eyed her quizzically. ‘Which is . . . ?’
    She led him over to the tall, bare window and pointed out into the heaving street below. Despite the falling darkness, it was still a hive of activity. Market traders stamped their feet and clutched themselves against the biting cold behind their stalls, stubbornly determined to sell the last of their produce. Their icy breath billowed from their open mouths as they called out their wares. An Italian organ grinder turned the crank of his ancient box as a tiny monkey bedecked in a little jacket trimmed with silver bells danced around to the delight of a group of street urchins.