Read an Excerpt From Freya Marske’s Magical Murder Mystery

When I first received my palms on A Restless Truth, I instantly dove in. A lesbian Romance (sure, Romance with an uppercase “R”… Romance readers know what I’m saying) on a luxurious cruise ship? With magic? Ms. Marske, say much less. I used to be there. What I discovered was a fast-paced e book stuffed with delightfully witty repartee, splendidly lewd sexytimes, and a really biting class and gender commentary that doesn’t waste time with subtlety. I extremely advocate this e book, and I’m delighted that io9 is internet hosting an unique excerpt to your enjoyment.

Here’s a abstract, the complete cowl, and an excerpt from the brand new novel.

Magic! Murder! Shipboard romance!

Maud Blyth has at all times longed for journey. She anticipated loads of it when she volunteered to function an previous woman’s companion on an ocean liner, with a purpose to assist her beloved older brother unravel a magical conspiracy that started generations in the past.

What she didn’t count on was for the previous woman in query to show up lifeless on the primary day of the voyage. Now she has to take care of a lifeless physique, a disrespectful parrot, and the beautiful, dangerously outrageous Violet Debenham, who’s additionally returning house to England. Violet is every thing that Maud has been educated to mistrust but can’t assist however want: a magician, an actress, and a magnet for scandal.

Surrounded by the open sea and a ship stuffed with suspects, Maud and Violet should first drop the masks that they’ve each realized to put on earlier than they will unmask a assassin and one way or the other get their palms on a magical object price killing for—with out ending up lifeless within the water themselves.

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Bright and cheerful the corporate was certainly as Maud entered the first-class eating saloon for dinner that night. The large room was abuzz with folks. One lengthy fringe of the saloon had doorways main out to a deck promenade, and at this darkish hour of evening the home windows have been nothing however a canvas reflecting the brightness inside. Electric lights and desk candles fought each other for prominence, illuminating the greens and reds of the carpet and the darker inexperienced upholstery of the chairs.

A couple of teams of richly dressed folks nonetheless lingered standing, like clusters of jewels hung from a girl’s throat, however most have been seated. The steward who’d opened the door for Maud cleared his throat meaningfully.

Maud had meant to be early, and now she was late. She was not accustomed to dressing for formal dinners with out the help of a maid, and a number of the buttons on her night robe had confirmed fiddly. The costume had received the battle with Maud’s shortening mood; one button had come off completely within the battle. She’d thrown a wrap round her shoulders to disguise it.

“Shall I sit . . . ?”

“Wherever you fancy, miss. Only the captain’s table requires an invitation.” The steward nodded throughout the room to the place the gilt trim of the captain’s hat caught the sunshine as brightly because the polished glasses and silver place settings.

Maud skimmed her eyes over the throng. There have been empty seats scattered at numerous tables. She’d by no means attended a dinner the place her place at desk was not predetermined. She’d by no means been requested to select. She was crammed with the sudden conviction that if she selected wrongly, the hubbub of dialog would flip directly to a stony silence and each eye would discover her.

Maud clutched the strings of her night bag tightly in a single gloved hand, prepared that hand to not shake, and turned her head in unthinking response to amusing too loud for propriety. At a close-by desk sat a girl with merely dressed yellow hair and a dark-blue robe cradling the creamy pores and skin of her shoulders, which shook with the aftermath of that chuckle. She was taking a gulp of champagne. To her proper, a middle-aged lady was looking at her with a glance of blended horror and pleading, which

manifested as a mouth clenched tight sufficient to crack walnuts.

To her left was an empty seat. Maud realised this in the identical second that the blond lady lowered the glass from her lips, revealing the agency and putting profile that adorned the center pages of Robin’s pocket book.

Maud’s coronary heart gave a pound.

The subsequent second, she was on the transfer. She trod with out disgrace on the foot of a portly gentleman with a monocle, who had clearly espied the blond lady and was simply as desirous to fill the empty seat, and slid herself triumphantly to put a hand on the chair’s again.

“Good evening.” She dimpled on the desk at massive. “Is this seat spoken for, or may I intrude?”

Seven pairs of eyes landed on her. The first individual to talk was one of many solely two males on the desk, seated immediately throughout from Maud’s purloined chair. He regarded round Robin’s age, with heavy brows and brown hair pomaded again however starting to curve rebelliously behind the ears, and a critical however not unkind expression.

“By all means.” The North sang baritone in his phrases. “I’m sure we’d be glad of your company.”

Maud deposited herself within the seat earlier than anybody may gainsay this welcome. As if it had been a sign, one other steward appeared and poured a shallow inch of champagne into her glass, and immediately there was a flock of the lads, like magpies in a flower backyard, starting the dinner service.

Maud shrugged off the wrap. Her again was to one of many pillars; she may in all probability danger it. The air was shut and heat and alive, the scent of meals mingling with the perfumes of lots of of women.

Well. No time like the current to start an investigation.

Before her gloves have been even eliminated, Maud found by well mannered questioning that the Northern gentleman was known as Mr. Chapman, and the majestic pile of furs and diamonds seated beside him was a Mrs. Moretti. To Maud’s left have been two ladies with the identical nostril: a pair of married sisters from Boston who left their husbands at house and did this journey yearly, to go to London and Paris for the fashions. Maud murmured her admiration of the luxurious beading of Mrs. Babcock’s costume and the drip of emeralds from Mrs. Endicott’s ears, after which the sisters turned again to one another and ignored her completely.

Maud inhaled a decided breath to ask the blond lady if she was travelling alone, and was struck with the conviction that Champagne would bolster her braveness. She took a fast gulp from her glass.

Unfortunately, she’d forgotten that she was nonetheless inhaling.

It was completely typical of how this present day was going, Maud thought in wheezing despair, that her first encounter with the mysterious blond lady from Robin’s visions—who was nearly definitely meant to assist her on this harmful and magical journey—was stated lady handing Maud a recent serviette to dab on the now-soaked entrance of her costume whereas Maud coughed round a flurry of chilly bubbles in her nostril. Maud was in all probability shiny purple too. She at all times went purple when she coughed.

“All right?” American, cool and bemused.

“Yes.” Wheeze, splutter. Maud needed to die. “Th-Thank you. Goodness. I’m so sorry.”

“Not in the least. I like a suitably dramatic opening number. Have you considered taking to the stage? I could introduce you to all the least reputable producers in New York.”

“Violet,” wailed the walnut-mouthed lady. “Please, my dear.”

“But that would require me to know your name,” the lady prompted Maud.

“Oh! Maud. Maud Cutler.”

“There. Violet Debenham.” She turned in her seat and held her hand mannishly out to Maud. Yet extra self-conscious warmth stuffed Maud’s cheeks as she shook. Miss Debenham had a agency grip. Her eyes have been a pleasing gray, and so they sparkled.

Miss Debenham was travelling with Mrs. Caroline Blackwood—honest, fussily dressed, and with a determine that put Maud sadly in thoughts of hen bones—and this woman’s son, Clarence, a younger man desperately in want of a portion extra chin. Clarence nodded at Maud together with his eyes fastened someplace under her neckline.

“And what brings you to England, Miss Debenham?” Maud requested.

“Money,” stated Miss Debenham.

A pained noise escaped Mrs. Blackwood. Miss Debenham’s eyes gained much more sparkle, as if the eye of the desk have been a highlight and she or he wished to relish its illumination. “A distant relative of ours recently passed away and named me as her heir. A rich relative. So my dear, concerned aunt and cousin took it upon themselves to come to New York and deliver me from treading the boards in that pit of dissolution known as the Bowery, and restore me to the bosom of my loving family.

I am eternally in their debt. Or so”—with a wealthy chuckle—“they hope.”

Mrs. Blackwood gave a small twitch on the phrase debt. “Don’t speak rot, Violet,” stated the younger Mr. Blackwood.

“Practically had to drag you out of that place by the hair.” “Clarence,” snapped his mom.

“Clarence, you couldn’t drag a kitten out of a bag,” stated Miss Debenham. “The money did the dragging.”

“Violet,” her aunt assured the desk, “is an English gentleman’s daughter—”

“He has five of us, I doubt he missed one.”

“A gentleman’s daughter, brought up in comfort and propriety—”

“And now upon the stages of the Bowery?” Mrs. Moretti regarded to have scented blood. “That must have been quite the scandal.”

“Indeed it was.”

“Violet,” moaned Mrs. Blackwood.

“It was three years ago. I fancied a change of scenery, and so”—a shrug of these superb shoulders, the place a easy necklace of gold filigree sat draped over her collarbones—“I packed up and got on a ship.”

“All on your own?” stated Maud, who felt moderately as if she have been observing an brisk sport of badminton.

“On my own.” Miss Debenham smiled. Her accent was stronger than Maud would have anticipated for somebody who had solely divorced herself from her native shores for a handful of years. It wasn’t the genteel tones of the Boston sisters both. It was a smoky, brash twang that Maud had heard typically sufficient on the streets of New York however by no means in its parlours.

“So you are an actress, Miss Debenham?” Thrilled questions jumbled themselves up in Maud’s thoughts. In her mother and father’ circles, any lady on the stage could possibly be assumed to have the loosest of morals.

Maud had voiced her intention of turning into such a girl, as soon as, when she was sixteen. Her mom had flashed a glance of heated poison with these inexperienced eyes—so precisely like Maud’s personal—and Maud had gloried in a second of consideration. Then Lady Blyth had given considered one of her gentle, buttery company-laughs, and stated, “What strange fancies you do get into your head, Maud.”

And eliminated her consideration, once more.

“I am a performer.” Miss Debenham sparkled even more durable. “Most of what appears on a concert-hall stage isn’t exactly Shakespeare, you know.”

“Did you ever do any magic?”

The pause was not lengthy. Maud saved her expression innocently hopeful; Miss Debenham’s didn’t change, however there was one other subdued twitch from her kin. Ah. Good.

“Magic?” stated Miss Debenham.

“Isn’t stage magic popular in America? It’s all the rage in London. My friend’s brother took us to see Mr. Houdini perform once, and before he came on there was a mentalist who named every single member of a woman’s family, and another man who made objects disappear. Mr. Houdini is an American, isn’t he? Though perhaps,” Maud mused, diverted, “he came to England because the Americans care less to see that sort of thing.”

Miss Debenham’s expressive mouth was twitching. Maud famous it with the a part of her thoughts that wasn’t now busy questioning if Mr. Houdini was in actual fact a magician. She felt vaguely cheated by the thought.

“My theatre did engage some stage magicians, yes.” Miss Debenham hadn’t moved her glittering gray eyes from Maud’s. “Sadly, there are some frauds in this world who call themselves mentalists and spiritualists in order to fleece a gullible public,” stated Mrs. Moretti. “It does nothing but make life difficult for those of us who are truly gifted in that regard.”

The highlight of the eye’s desk turned. Maud’s abdomen rumbled and she or he realised that she had been neglecting her dinner. She rapidly took the chance to get down just a few massive mouthfuls of herbed carrots and fish in white sauce.

“Indeed, ma’am?” stated Mr. Chapman.

“Oh, yes.” Mrs. Moretti stroked her fur. “Amongst my own circles I am a famed medium, and I was consulted in New York by such ladies as—well, I shall respect their privacy,” she stated impressively, “but rest assured you would gasp if I named them. I am extremely sensitive to the spirits of the departed. In fact . . .” She leaned ahead. A nook of the fur started to gather gravy. “Did you hear that a passenger on board the Lyric has already died? Oh, yes. Barely out of port. I heard some of the stewards discussing it, but of course I already suspected something of that nature had happened. My senses are so attuned. Oh, don’t be afraid, my dear.” She directed her spectacular have a look at Maud, who was making an attempt valiantly to not chuckle round a chunk of carrot. “There is no negative or malevolent energy aboard. Quite the opposite. I’m sure the saintly departed will be watching over us and ensuring our safety throughout this voyage.”

“How reassuring,” stated Mrs. Endicott faintly.

For a ridiculous second Maud questioned if she may get away with pretending the loss of life had nothing to do together with her. But eventually somebody on the desk was going to ask what introduced Maud again to England, after which it might look suspicious that she hadn’t spoken up now.

So she swallowed her carrot and stated, “It was Mrs. Navenby who died. The woman I was travelling with.”

General gasps and murmurs. Mrs. Moretti regarded displeased to have misplaced the highlight. Maud saved her eyes open for reactions as she gave a barely expanded model of the reason she’d given the master-at-arms. This one contained the mandatory falsehood that she was a distant cousin of Mrs. Navenby’s, and had obeyed the summons to America to behave because the snappish previous lady’s companion as a result of she had no prospects in England and felt herself a burden on her brother.

“My family is not as well off as we once were,” she completed, which had the benefit of being true.

“And now the old lady’s died, I suppose you’re holding out expectation of being left something in the will, for your pains?” Mr. Blackwood laughed at her. Maud, who had been mocked by consultants, felt solely the mildest sting and brushed it away like an ant at a picnic.

She lowered her eyes to her plate. “No. I have no such expectation.”

“At least you had the chance to cross the Atlantic. Twice! Look on it as an adventure, then,” stated Miss Debenham. “Clarence, I know you can’t help being such a toad, but perhaps the next time the urge strikes you to open your mouth, you could shove some bread into it.”

Mr. Blackwood did in actual fact open his mouth. Then he jerked, shot a have a look at his mom, and closed it once more.

“Your dress appears to be of a remarkably fine make, Miss Cutler,” stated Mrs. Endicott.

“Thank you,” stated Maud, “I—”

“Yes, I had one just like it made up for my daughter.” A sweep of unimpressed gaze down Maud’s physique and again up once more. “Several years ago.”

Maud having now been mentally filed within the function of poor cousin, the vast majority of the desk appeared content material to disregard her. She chewed over this downside, together with a slice of uncommon roast beef, whereas Miss Debenham gestured for extra champagne after which flirted outrageously with the serving steward, to her kin’ inflexible discomfort. It didn’t matter what anybody considered Miss Maud Cutler, who didn’t exist, besides that Maud wanted folks to discuss to her. She wanted info.

During the dessert course the captain of the Lyric gave a brief speech of formal welcome. This first evening’s dinner was a particular affair included within the worth of first-class passage; most nights, as with the luncheon service, the eating saloon would operate as a restaurant. The captain defined that the ultimate evening earlier than they arrived in Southampton would once more be a proper occasion of this nature, however nearer to a ball, with an early dinner and a lottery adopted by an orchestra efficiency and dancing.

The captain then launched the musical leisure for the night: the celebrated mezzo-soprano Miss Elle Broadley, recent from an opera firm in New York City, who had been engaged to carry out on the Lyric throughout her personal relocation to England to hunt additional fame and fortune within the Old World.

Miss Broadley was a Black lady with a shocking set of jewels winking at her ears and a purple costume with darker layers of gauze and beads. Her white satin gloves shone towards the darkish hue of her pores and skin. Her posture was immaculate as she gestured her readiness to the accompanist on the grand piano within the nook.

And for the subsequent quarter of an hour, Maud forgot that she’d choked on champagne; forgot that Mrs. Navenby was lifeless and the contract piece gone; forgot that any magic existed besides this. The opera singer had a voice like working one’s hand first the fallacious means after which the appropriate throughout an expanse of velvet. The music carried the throb of craving and the twist of agony, and one thing hotter and darker, which sat low in Maud’s physique.

When the music ended, Miss Broadley bowed low to applause and made her sedate means out of the saloon. A disharmony of spoons on plates stuffed her absence.

“You enjoyed the music, Miss Cutler,” stated Mr. Chapman. Maud, nonetheless struggling up from the nice and cozy depths of her en-

joyment, merely nodded.

“She’s superb,” stated Miss Debenham. “I bet she’s being paid a third of what she’s worth.”

“Perhaps Miss Debenham could contribute to the ship’s entertainment budget by donating her services for an evening,” stated Mrs. Endicott.

“Splendid idea,” stated Miss Debenham. “There’s a trouser act I did last year that would do nicely, though I suspect some of the lyrics would— Aunt Caroline, kicking Clarence beneath the table may shut him up, but I’m not afraid of a few bruised shins.”

Mr. Chapman rapidly volunteered that he noticed no disgrace in cash coming from laborious work, and that his family’s wealth was in cotton mills. He had been to America to be taught extra concerning the state of the cotton business there, and to co sider the acquisition of some trendy machines for his father’s factories.

“There certainly is some very new money aboard.” Mrs. Babcock appeared to resolve that if everybody else deliberate to indulge within the vulgarity of this conversational matter, she wasn’t going to be ignored. “Did you see that red-faced gentleman at the captain’s table? And that woman beside him wearing a prince’s ransom in rubies? That’s Mr. and Mrs. Frank Bernard. He’s an industrialist. They’ve two daughters with them— clearly hoping to marry them off in England. Fancy themselves grandparents to a duke or a viscount, I’m sure. England’s full of gentry families who act like they’ve just come from tea with the king but haven’t two pennies to rub together.”

Maud briefly imagined Robin’s face if she befriended and introduced house an heiress for her brother to marry. The complete desk was now engaged in making an attempt to not appear to be they have been staring within the path of the captain’s desk, whereas staring as laborious as they might.

“Looks like they’ve begun on the right foot,” stated Mrs. Moretti. “Someone told me that young gingery one is the son of a marquess. And Mrs. Bernard’s simpering at that other gentleman, so he must be worth something.”

There was a pillar in Maud’s line of sight. All she may make out was one shorter head—gingery, sure—and one taller one, darkish.

“I say, mater,” stated Mr. Blackwood immediately, “isn’t that—” Another invisible kick was delivered. For some motive, each

Blackwoods now checked out Miss Debenham as if she have been a barrel of gunpowder rolled perilously near a flame.

“Vi,” stated Mr. Blackwood, too loudly. “Tell us more about—” But Violet Debenham’s eyes had widened.

“Oh, look. It’s dear Hawthorn.”

Maud clenched a hand in her serviette. “Lord Hawthorn?” “Are you acquainted?” requested Mrs. Blackwood, sharp. The

entire household now watched Maud with the identical cautious curiosity as they’d when she’d talked about magic.

“No, not for myself. I believe a friend of my brother’s knows him slightly.”

“At one time, he and I were very close indeed,” stated Miss Debenham.

Maud questioned if Mrs. Blackwood was going to wear down the toes of her footwear. “Violet, my dear,” the lady stated between her enamel. “I believe Clarence was asking you—”

But Miss Debenham pitched her performer’s voice effortlessly above the interruption. “What my aunt and cousin are so desperate for me not to mention, Miss Cutler, is that before scandalously ruining myself by running off to become a concert-hall performer in New York, I first ruined myself in a much more conventional way.” A broad, leonine smile. “With Lord Hawthorn’s able and thorough assistance.”

One of the Boston sisters choked. Maud blushed, incredulous, after which discovered her eyes attempting to concurrently swivel to examine Lord Hawthorn and to stay the place they have been, pinned to the happy mouth of the lady who’d simply dropped that explosive little truth at a desk stuffed with strangers.

“I still think of him fondly. In fact, perhaps I’ll see if he has any interest in renewing our acquaintance. It would be only polite to greet such an old friend.”

“Violet!”

The lady pushed again her chair, collected her wineglass as an afterthought, and was on the transfer: a tall, slim determine like a touch of blue ink on the web page, golden head erect as she shimmered throughout to the captain’s desk.

The Blackwoods have been now matching shades of mortified puce. The Boston sisters had their heads collectively, whispering in scandalised cadences.

Maud waited for the blush to settle in her cheeks. She had by no means met anybody like Violet Debenham. How did one attain that form of confidence, and that capacity to not a lot prod one’s kin with sticks as hurl a complete armful of javelins of their path?

Why had Maud by no means discovered the braveness to break herself and run off to a New York concert-hall?

“Miss Cutler?” Mr. Chapman was doing the well mannered factor and turning the dialog elsewhere. Maud sidestepped some queries about her life in England by chattering vaguely concerning the sights she’d loved in New York, however her consideration saved leaping throughout the best way.

Lord Hawthorn. So Robin’s visions had been completely appropriate on that rating.

Maud made her excuses and left the eating saloon earlier than any of the captain’s get together rose from the desk. She made her means shortly to her personal cabin, the place she retrieved an merchandise from her trunk after which left once more, attempting to stroll as Miss Debenham had walked: head excessive, with function. As if anybody questioning her could be made to assume themselves a idiot.

And so the truthful Maud Blyth, introduced up in consolation and propriety if not a lot love, made her means within the harmful hour of the night to baldly lie her means into Lord Hawthorn’s bedchamber.

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Excerpt from Freya Marske’s A Restless Truth reprinted by permission of MacMillan Publishers. 

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske will probably be launched November 1; you may pre-order a duplicate here.

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