The Confounding Case Of The Carisbrook Emeralds Read online

  The Confounding Case of the Carisbrook Emeralds

  The Casebook of Barnaby Adair: Volume 6

  Stephanie Laurens

  SAVDEK MANAGEMENT

  This e-book is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be sold, shared, or given away.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  THE CONFOUNDING CASE OF THE CARISBROOK EMERALDS

  Copyright © 2018 by Savdek Management Proprietary Limited

  ISBN: 978-1-925559-10-1

  Cover design by Savdek Management Pty. Ltd.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Savdek Management Proprietary Limited, Melbourne, Australia.

  www.stephanielaurens.com

  Email: [email protected]

  The name Stephanie Laurens is a registered trademark of Savdek Management Proprietary Ltd.

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  Contents

  About The Confounding Case of the Carisbrook Emeralds

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Also by Stephanie Laurens

  About the Author

  About The Confounding Case of the Carisbrook Emeralds

  The Sixth Volume in The Casebook of Barnaby Adair Novels

  #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens brings you a tale of emerging and also established loves and the many facets of family, interwoven with mystery and murder.

  A young lady accused of theft and the gentleman who elects himself her champion enlist the aid of Stokes, Barnaby, Penelope, and friends in pursuing justice, only to find themselves tangled in a web of inter-family tensions and secrets.

  When Miss Cara Di Abaccio is accused of stealing the Carisbrook emeralds by the infamously arrogant Lady Carisbrook and marched out of her guardian’s house by Scotland Yard’s finest, Hugo Adair, Barnaby Adair’s cousin, takes umbrage and descends on Scotland Yard, breathing fire in Cara’s defense.

  Hugo discovers Inspector Stokes has been assigned to the case, and after surveying the evidence thus far, Stokes calls in his big guns when it comes to dealing with investigations in the ton—namely, the Honorable Barnaby Adair and his wife, Penelope.

  Soon convinced of Cara’s innocence and—given Hugo’s apparent tendre for Cara—the need to clear her name, Penelope and Barnaby join Stokes and his team in pursuing the emeralds and, most importantly, who stole them.

  But the deeper our intrepid investigators delve into the Carisbrook household, the more certain they become that all is not as it seems. Lady Carisbrook is a harpy, Franklin Carisbrook is secretive, Julia Carisbrook is overly timid, and Lord Carisbrook, otherwise a genial and honorable gentleman, holds himself distant from his family. More, his lordship attempts to shut down the investigation. And Stokes, Barnaby, and Penelope are convinced the Carisbrooks’ staff are not sharing all they know.

  Meanwhile, having been appointed Cara’s watchdog until the mystery is resolved, Hugo, fascinated by Cara as he’s been with no other young lady, seeks to entertain and amuse her…and, increasingly intently, to discover the way to her heart. Consequently, Penelope finds herself juggling the attractions of the investigation against the demands of the Adair family for her to actively encourage the budding romance.

  What would her mentors advise? On that, Penelope is crystal clear.

  Regardless, aided by Griselda, Violet, and Montague and calling on contacts in business, the underworld, and ton society, Penelope, Barnaby, and Stokes battle to peel back each layer of subterfuge and, step by step, eliminate the innocent and follow the emeralds’ trail…

  Yet instead of becoming clearer, the veils and shadows shrouding the Carisbrooks only grow murkier…until, abruptly, our investigators find themselves facing an inexplicable death, with a potential murderer whose conviction would shake society to its back teeth.

  A historical novel of 78,000 words interweaving mystery, romance, and social intrigue.

  Praise for the works of Stephanie Laurens

  “Stephanie Laurens’ heroines are marvelous tributes to Georgette Heyer: feisty and strong.” Cathy Kelly

  “Stephanie Laurens never fails to entertain and charm her readers with vibrant plots, snappy dialogue, and unforgettable characters.” Historical Romance Reviews

  “Stephanie Laurens plays into readers’ fantasies like a master and claims their hearts time and again.” Romantic Times Magazine

  Praise for The Confounding Case of the Carisbrook Emeralds

  “(An) alluring mystery brimming with red herrings, lots of intrigue, and that perfect touch of romance for which Laurens is rightly revered.” Angela M., Copy Editor, Red Adept Editing

  “Laurens crafts a story as elegant as the gentlemen and women who populate it.” Kim H., Proofreader, Red Adept Editing

  "I really enjoyed this well-written historical mystery novel! The characters unravel exciting plot twists and turns as they investigate the disappearance of a famous set of emeralds." Kristina B., Proofreader, Red Adept Editing

  Chapter 1

  April 7, 1839. London

  “Where is she?”

  The feminine bellow echoed through the front hall and into the breakfast parlor, where Cara Di Abaccio was seated at the table with her cousins, Franklin and Julia Carisbrook. Startled, all three raised their heads; together with the butler, Jarvis, and the footman, Jeremy, they stared at the doorway.

  A heartbeat passed, then in a rush of heavy footsteps and angrily swishing skirts, Cara’s aunt, Livia, Lady Carisbrook, stormed into the room. She was a tall, full-figured woman with dark hair, perennially pinched features, and jet-black eyes. Currently garbed in a frilly and much-beribboned dressing gown, her hair restrained beneath a silk nightcap, Lady Carisbrook halted just inside the door. Her face contorting in fury, she raised one arm and pointed at Cara. “There you are, you conniving little thief!”

  Her eyes growing even rounder, Cara stared in utter incomprehension. “Aunt…?”

  “Don’t you ‘aunt’ me! I always knew you were a sly little trollop—I warned Humphrey how it would be. But would he listen? No—of course not! He had to give house room to his scandalous sister’s get, and worse, he insisted you be treated as part of the family, living alongside Franklin and Julia. Pshaw!” Her cheeks mottled with rage, Lady Carisbrook advanced on the table. “And now, miss, we see the result. My emeralds—the Carisbrook emeralds—are gone!”

  Lady Carisbrook flung her hands in the air. “Vanished!” She returned her gaze, black eyes flashing, to Cara. “You’ve been here four weeks, just long enough to learn what’s what, and now, you’ve stolen the emeralds.”

  Feeling as if she was having a bad dream, Cara set down her knife and fork and slowly shook her head. “No, aunt. I haven’t—”

  “Don’t bother denying it. The emeralds—necklace, earrings, case, and all—are gone, and we all know who took them!” Lady Carisbrook cast Cara a look brimming with loath
ing and contempt; her lip all but curled. “You’re the only foreigner in the house.”

  With that unarguable pronouncement, Lady Carisbrook turned her adamantine gaze on Franklin and Julia, seated opposite Cara and as stunned as she. “Make sure the thieving minx remains in this room until the police arrive.”

  All the blood drained from Cara’s face, from her head. Giddy, she stared at Lady Carisbrook while Franklin and Julia, equally white-faced and flabbergasted, did the same. Until then standing frozen behind the pair, Jarvis shot a wide-eyed look over their heads at Jeremy.

  Commandingly, Lady Carisbrook swung toward the butler. “Jarvis—send for Scotland Yard. Inform them we have a thief they need to come and take away.”

  Without another glance at any of them, Lady Carisbrook stalked from the room.

  Leaving behind a stunned silence and a cloud of foreboding.

  Sergeant Wilkes stepped over the threshold of Lord Carisbrook’s John Street town house in a state of nervous trepidation.

  A veteran of the force, Wilkes did not like the looks of this assignment; handling crimes in Mayfair was very definitely not his beat. His bad luck that it was Sunday morning, and he’d been the senior man on duty when the Carisbrook footman had come in to report the theft of a set of priceless emeralds. Still, according to the footman, the household had already apprehended the thief and merely required the villain to be clapped in shackles and hauled to the station to be charged. Such action was well within Wilkes’s scope, and he’d brought Constable Fitch to assist if necessary.

  With Fitch at his heels, Wilkes had followed the footman down the area steps and through the staff door. Wilkes looked ahead as the shadows of a long, unadorned passageway closed around them, and he spied a tall, lean, middle-aged butler waiting at the corridor’s end.

  Wilkes removed his helmet, tucked it under his arm, and told himself he could manage this. He walked up to the butler and halted. “Sergeant Wilkes of Scotland Yard.” He flicked a hand over his shoulder. “And this is Constable Fitch. We understand you’ve had a spot of bother.”

  The butler’s features remained rigid. “Indeed.” With a fractional inclination of his head, he turned. “If you will come this way.”

  Wilkes wanted to ask about the emeralds and the thief, but he assumed he’d have his answers soon enough, so he held his tongue and, in his heavy boots, clomped behind the butler up a narrow staircase and into the front hall.

  Before Wilkes realized what the man was about, the butler strode to a door, opened it, walked inside, and announced, “Two officers from Scotland Yard, ma’am. As you requested. A Sergeant Wilkes and a Constable Fitch.”

  From within the room came a cold female voice. “Excellent. Show them in, Jarvis.”

  Despite his rush of nervousness, Wilkes’s feet carried him on. He only just had time to register the oddity in the butler’s words—As you requested? Why had the man phrased it like that?—before he found himself entering a drawing room.

  A gorgon sat on a sofa set perpendicular to the fireplace in which a cheery fire blazed. Through beady black eyes, she watched Wilkes advance. Her lips were thin and tightly pursed, and her expression stated more loudly than words that she was unimpressed by what she saw.

  Wilkes halted on the fringed edge of a thick rug that looked expensive. Feeling Fitch halt just behind him, Wilkes essayed an awkward bow. Straightening, he adopted his blandest expression and assumed he was facing the lady of the house. “Lady Carisbrook. We understand your staff have apprehended a thief.”

  “Exactly.”

  The lady’s voice—tone and diction—reminded Wilkes of steel being sharpened.

  Lady Carisbrook continued, “My husband’s foreign-born niece has stolen the Carisbrook emeralds. You need to take her away, find out what she did with my jewels, and return them to me.” Lady Carisbrook stared at Wilkes for three seconds, then waved her hand in arrogant dismissal. “You may go.”

  Wilkes blinked. Behind him, Fitch shifted his weight. Wilkes cleared his throat. “If I could ask, my lady, if the girl—your husband’s niece—stole the emeralds, where are they now?”

  Lady Carisbrook frowned. “It’s your job to find out, Sergeant.”

  Wilkes clamped down on the desire to retreat. “When was the last time the jewels were seen, ma’am?”

  “I wore them last night. When I returned to the house, I put them in their case and left the case on my dressing table. This morning, after the Italian girl delivered my breakfast, I saw the case was gone.”

  Wilkes frowned. “But you didn’t see her take the case?”

  “No. But I was hardly watching her every move.”

  “Has the girl left the house since the jewels went missing?” Wilkes flicked a glance at the butler—Jarvis—who had moved to stand to one side, maintaining a clear line of sight to the gorgon.

  At Wilkes’s question, Jarvis’s expression grew even more rigid.

  In contrast, Lady Carisbrook bent an uncomprehending look on Wilkes. “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  Wilkes exchanged a sidelong glance with Fitch, then drew breath and stated, “In that case, my lady, we’ll need to speak with the rest of the household and search the premises.”

  “Good God, no!” Lady Carisbrook looked utterly appalled. “I won’t have police tramping through my house—the very idea! Especially as there’s no reason whatever to put us all out. The matter is simple—the Italian girl stole my emeralds. Search her and her room by all means and then take her away. I refuse to harbor a foreign criminal under my roof for an instant longer!”

  Wilkes’s heart was steadily sinking; so much for his hopes of a straightforward case. In his experience, when one of the upper ten thousand suggested a case was a “simple matter,” invariably, said case proved anything but.

  Lady Carisbrook continued, “No one else could possibly be the thief—our staff have all been with us for years. It’s perfectly obvious that Cara Di Abaccio is the culprit.” Lady Carisbrook pointed at the door—this time accompanying the gesture with an arrogantly commanding look. “Do your job, Sergeant, and remove her from this house!”

  Wilkes was out of his depth. He bowed to her ladyship, turned, and with Fitch beside him, made for the door.

  Jarvis moved to hold the door for them, then followed them from the room. After closing the door with a soft click, the butler paused, looking at Wilkes. Jarvis hesitated, but then, strengthening what appeared to be a rigid control over his features and especially his tongue, offered, “Miss Di Abaccio is in the breakfast parlor with her cousins—Mr. Franklin Carisbrook and Miss Julia Carisbrook. If you’ll come this way.”

  Wilkes cocked an eyebrow at Fitch, who dutifully pulled out his notebook and started scribbling as they walked.

  Jarvis led them to a room on the other side of the house.

  Wilkes followed Jarvis inside. A highly polished round table with six straight-backed chairs arranged around it stood at the center of the room, and a sideboard sporting numerous covered dishes sat against one wall. Large windows looked out on a small square of garden and admitted the weak sunlight of the April morning, illuminating the three people seated about the table.

  A gentleman in his mid- to late twenties with dark-brown hair and a young lady of perhaps twenty-one years sat facing the door; they looked up as Wilkes and Fitch entered. Their features were tense. Both looked helpless; their gazes locked on Wilkes as if hoping he would rescue them. From what, he had no idea.

  The third person at the table was another young lady. Glossy black hair hung in heavy ringlets from an artfully fashioned knot at the back of her head; when she swung to look at Wilkes, he saw that the black mane was drawn severely back the better to reveal a countenance of quite startling loveliness. Wide, black-lashed, emerald eyes fixed on his face. The young lady had a finely drawn and straight, if longish, nose—a Roman nose without a doubt—and her lips were deep rose and lushly curved above a softly rounded but determined chin.

  From the honeyed tint
of her complexion, Wilkes took her to be the Italian girl—Miss Cara Di Abaccio, their supposed thief.

  Wilkes halted a few paces into the room and managed to suppress a disbelieving snort. He’d collared more thieves than he could count, but, he reminded himself, this was the ton, and he knew better than to allow appearances to sway him. Still…

  He favored the three with a short bow. “I’m Sergeant Wilkes, and this is Constable Fitch. We’ve been sent by Scotland Yard in response to Lady Carisbrook’s summons.”

  Wilkes studied the three faces turned his way; all remained pale and expectantly tense, as if waiting for some axe to fall. He wouldn’t have said he was a sensitive sort, yet even he felt certain that there was more going on than simply a misplaced accusation of theft.

  He returned his attention to Miss Di Abaccio.

  She met his gaze steadily, but, he sensed, with bated breath.

  “Miss Di Abaccio. As I assume you are aware, Lady Carisbrook has accused you of stealing her emeralds.”

  “I didn’t take them.” Cara Di Abaccio’s voice was low and husky. She shook her head. “I would never do such a thing.”

  She spoke calmly, evenly—with transparent honesty. But underneath, Wilkes sensed she was afraid.