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  THE LADY OF ASHES MYSTERIES

  Lady of Ashes

  Stolen Remains

  ALSO BY CHRISTINE TRENT

  By the King’s Design

  A Royal Likeness

  The Queen’s Dollmaker

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  STOLEN REMAINS A Lady of Ashes Mystery

  CHRISTINE TRENT

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  THE LADY OF ASHES MYSTERIES

  Title Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Copyright Page

  To the memory of

  Barbara Øvstedal, a.k.a. Rosalind Laker,

  British historical romance novelist

  1919–2012

  The dearest and sweetest of women, who was not only

  my inspiration for picking up a pen to

  scribble out the words for my first book,

  but who graciously welcomed this American traveler

  into her home and into her life.

  and in honor of my English friends

  John and Jo Maginnis

  Daphne Moon

  Susan Keane

  Barbara’s spirit continues to live in you, much to my great happiness.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There are many people who push and prod me along to the completion of each book, and it is only proper that I acknowledge their contributions to this story.

  My appreciation goes to Audrey LaFehr, my editor at Kensington Books, whose idea it was to turn the Victorian undertaker’s adventures into a series. I’m also indebted to my agent, Helen Breitwieser, who is not only a consummate professional, but just plain fun.

  I extend thanks to Janeen Solberg and Beth Rockwell at Turn the Page Bookstore in Boonsboro, Maryland, for their ongoing support of my books. Ladies, it is always a pleasure working with you.

  Jackie Buckler and the entire staff of The Hair Company always allow me to hang around for hours, writing away in the chaotic environment of a busy salon. You’re not only marvelous hair professionals, but wonderful friends.

  Carolyn McHugh has turned herself into my dedicated (and totally unpaid) research assistant. She is responsible for many historical nuggets of Victorian life in my books.

  Diane Townsend spent a lot of time reading my manuscript and providing valuable input.

  From beginning to end, this book was truly a family affair. My brothers-in-law, Christopher Trent and Paul Trent, helped me through plot issues in the initial stages of the book.

  My brother, Tony Papadakis, also helped with plotting, then returned to edit the book at the end.

  Despite many health challenges, my mother, Georgia Carpenter, pores through every manuscript and fixes my grammar (I still have no idea what she means when she tells me to quit splitting infinitives). Maybe that’s what moms are for, but I think my mom goes above and beyond the call of duty.

  James and Lois Trent are my biggest fans, and always purchase a pile of my books to mail off to friends and family. I am so grateful for such wonderful in-laws.

  I am the luckiest of women to be married to my husband, Jon. He helps me plot my books, edits the finished works, takes all of my ideas seriously, lets me collect cats, and builds me all the bookshelves I want. After fifteen years of marriage, I am still in awe of how blessed I am.

  Deo gratias.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  VIOLET HARPER’S FAMILY AND FRIENDS

  Violet Harper—undertaker with a penchant for stumbling into macabre situations

  Samuel Harper—Violet’s husband

  Susanna Harper—Violet’s adopted daughter, living in Colorado

  Benjamin Tompkins—Samuel’s law clerk, living in Colorado

  Eliza Sinclair—Violet’s mother

  Arthur Sinclair—Violet’s father

  Mary Cooke—mourning dressmaker and friend of Violet’s

  THE UNDERTAKERS

  Harry Blundell—co-owner of Morgan Undertaking

  William “Will” Swift—co-owner of Morgan Undertaking

  Julian Crugg—the Fairmont family undertaker

  THE VICTIM’S FAMILY

  Anthony Fairmont, the Viscount Raybourn

  Stephen Fairmont—Lord Raybourn’s son and heir

  Katherine “Kate” Fairmont—Stephen’s wife

  Dorothy Fairmont—Stephen’s elder spinster sister

  Eleanor “Nelly” Bishop—Stephen’s younger sister

  Gordon Bishop—Nelly’s husband

  Tobias “Toby” Bishop—Nelly’s son

  Cedric Fairmont—once the eldest Fairmont child until he was lost in the Crimean War

  THE HOUSEHOLD STAFF

  Mrs. Peet—Lord Raybourn’s housekeeper

  Madame Brusse—the cook

  Larkin—the valet

  Louisa—the new maid

  THE DETECTIVES

  Pompey Magnus Hurst—Detective Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard Langley Pratt—Second Class Inspector at Scotland Yard

  FRIENDS, ENEMIES, AND BUSYBODIES

  Ellis Catesby—newspaper reporter

  Adam Farr—a friend of Toby’s

  James Godfrey—an old wartime friend of Cedric’s

  Rebecca—the maid from next door

  HISTORICAL PERSONAGES

  Victoria, Queen of England

  Albert, Prince Consort—dead eight years but forever alive in the queen’s mind

  Albert Edward, “Bertie,” Prince of Wales

  Alexandra of Denmark, “Alix,” Princess of Wales

  William Gladstone—Queen Victoria’s prime minister

  John Brown—Scottish-born personal servant and great favorite of

  Queen Victoria’s

  Lieutenant Colonel Edmund Henderson—Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis (London)

  Alfred Nobel—inventor of dynamite, founder of the Nobel prizes

  1

  Musafirkhana Palace, Cairo, Egypt

  March 1869

  “This has been a profitable trip, has it not, my dear?” The Prince of Wales gazed down at his prime acquisition from their tour of Egypt: a mummy, which the seller said dated to Egypt’s twenty-sixth dynasty.

  What revelations would the twenty-sixth dynasty have for the nineteenth century?

  He sipped from his glass of dreadful rosé, wondering if it had been taken from an ancient amphora entombed with the mummies themselves. It tasted like dried wool. The Egyptians had much to commend them, but winemaking was not among their finest talents.

  Albert, or Bertie, as his mother Queen Victoria called him when he happened to be in her good graces, was surrounded inside the viceroy’s palace by the closest confidants of his entourage on this trip through Egypt: his elegant wife, Alix; the British explorer, Sir Samuel Baker, along with his unconventional wife, Lady Florence Baker; Lord Raybourn, the queen’s man, sent along to discuss the canal’s opening ceremonies with Isma’il Pasha, the Egyptian viceroy; and Colonel Christopher Teesdale, the prince’s equerry, who’d distinguished himself during the Crimean
War fifteen years ago.

  All agreeable company except for Lord Raybourn. He was too serious and too concerned with the political events in Egypt, remaining locked up with the viceroy for hours at a time, going over the minutiae of the flotilla lineup and what speeches would be given and by whom.

  Why did his mother need to send a tedious old peer to Egypt for such donkeywork? Surely some parliamentary bureaucrat could have done it. Was Lord Raybourn’s real purpose to serve as his mother’s eyes and ears, to report on the Prince of Wales’s activities?

  To cast a further pall over the trip, there were no interesting women in the traveling party other than Mrs. Baker, whose dramatic life story as a young Hungarian princess, kidnapped and nearly sold into a harem before being rescued by her future husband, stretched credulity a little far. And Mrs. Baker was far too devoted to her husband to consider the prince’s affections.

  Why wasn’t Raybourn working on a private entertainment for the prince, like those involving exotic music and veiled, nubile Egyptian girls that Isma’il Pasha had provided during their cruise down the Nile—rather than worrying about whether the British flag would fly higher than the French one during the opening ceremony?

  Bertie looked affectionately at his wife, Alix, who had taken days to recover from the indignation brought on by his visit to meet Pasha’s harem. She was a good woman, and patient, but didn’t understand his voracious appetite for variety in all things. By God, he wasn’t yet thirty years old and there was so much to experience. At least he knew that she was loyal despite his weakness for beauty, and would never spy on him for his mother.

  Nor would Lady Susan Vane-Tempest. As much as he’d enjoyed Pasha’s entertainments, Bertie was yearning for his current mistress. He’d considered bringing her along, but that would have been asking too much of his tolerant wife.

  Enough ruminating. After days of nodding approvingly at the progress of tons of dirt being shoveled out of the middle of the desert, Bertie was ready for something interesting, and what lay before him was vastly interesting.

  The mummy was part of a cache of some thirty mummies supposedly discovered together in a tomb. Sir Samuel insisted the mummies couldn’t possibly be as old as the seller claimed, but what did it matter? A mummy unwrapping party would be great fun, and Bertie planned to send the rest of the cache to museums throughout England and the world. Maybe he’d even send one to Mother’s ostentatious South Kensington Museum, although the British Museum might have a quibble with that idea.

  “Who would like to be the first to pull on a bandage?” he asked.

  “I’ll do it,” Florence Baker said, getting up from her chair and approaching the table where the mummy lay. She went straight for the corpse’s feet and unwrapped a length of linen from there. “Everyone knows a corpse’s smelly feet is the last place the underworld spirits would search for valuables, so there’s probably a nice nugget of gold hidden here.”

  “Flooey, you are just a pip,” her husband said, laughing.

  Her strip broke free without a trinket appearing.

  “Now I’ll try,” Sir Samuel said. “I’ll go for the opposite end, shall I?” He loosened a strip of tattered cloth from around the mummy’s head. Again, nothing.

  Everyone took turns repeatedly, trying to unravel a strip under which a piece of gold, a precious gem, or other tiny artifact had been hidden for the deceased’s underworld journey.

  It was Lord Raybourn, though, who had the first success, holding up his trinket for all to see. “What is it? Some kind of amulet?” Raybourn said.

  “That’s an ankh,” Sir Samuel said. “It’s the symbol for life. May you enjoy the richness of life here and in the afterworld.”

  “Huzzah!” Colonel Teesdale said, raising his glass. Everyone joined him in the toast, although the prince felt less than enthusiastic over cheering his mother’s spy.

  The group continued playing until the final trinket was found, a scarab discovered by Alix in the mummy’s hand.

  “What happens with our friend here?” Teesdale said, nodding at the table, which now contained the unwrapped body, resembling a piece of petrified wood.

  The prince considered this. “Keep your linen strips and trinkets as souvenirs, and let’s draw straws to determine who the lucky recipient will be to display him in his study.”

  After a brief discussion over whether a married couple should have two straws or one—and deciding that they should have two—the group pulled straws from Teesdale’s hand.

  “Ah, Your Highness, you enjoy good fortune,” the colonel said. “Where will you display your great find?”

  “The princess and I must think carefully on it,” he said, but he was already developing a grand idea for it: somewhere prominent inside Windsor Castle, where it would be sure to give his mother apoplexy. Perhaps then she’d quit sending nannies along to watch over him whenever he left England’s borders.

  Anthony Fairmont, the Viscount Raybourn, was heartily sick of Egypt. The heat, the tourists, the European girls looking for husbands, the shouting in the streets that passed for civilized conversation . . . for God’s sake they even had periodic locust plagues, although it was no wonder the Almighty was still trying to get the nation’s attention.

  How was it that Prince Albert Edward found this place so delightful?

  Even Raybourn’s stay along the lush area bordering the Nile during the Prince of Wales’s tour had been little compensation for his misery. He just wanted to complete his duties and return home to England and what awaited him there.

  Instead, he was in conference every day with Isma’il Pasha, negotiating the fine points of what nation would have precedence at November’s opening ceremonies, then he endured the prince’s activities all night into the wee hours of each morning. Was there anything less dignified than drawing straws over the dusty, mummified remains of some ancient being?

  Now this. His meeting with Ferdinand de Lesseps had started amicably enough inside the Frenchman’s Cairo villa, although de Lesseps was prickly, as though a dung beetle were running up and down beneath his skin.

  “How do you find your stay in Egypt, Lord Raybourn? It ees to your liking?”

  “I am impressed with the progress you have made on the canal.”

  “It ees an achievement magnifique for France. And the prince, he ees pleased with his visit?”

  Yes, the prince’s satisfaction was really the question, wasn’t it?

  “He is very pleased with the variety of, ah, entertainments he has been provided. Attending the bazaar incognito was an especial pleasure for him.”

  De Lesseps smoothed his mustache, his nerves momentarily calmed. “Oui, I recommended that outing to Isma’il Pasha. But I do not think you are pleased here, Lord Raybourn. Do you have zee wife and children at home you miss? Maybe zee grandchildren?”

  Raybourn cleared his throat. This was not a topic he wished to discuss with the Frenchman, no matter how important he was. “My wife died in eighteen thirty-seven, trying to give me another son, who didn’t survive. I have three living children and one grandson to remind me of her, though. What of you, monsieur? Is your family back in France?”

  De Lesseps spread his hands. “I am as you are, my lord. My wife, Agathe, and my son Ferdinand Victor died within weeks of each other in eighteen fifty-three. I still have two other sons still living, but it ees not the same, ees it?”

  “No, although we must bear up and continue on, monsieur.”

  “Oui. It was only when I had the impulse to create the Suez Canal that I was régénérér, made new. You understand?”

  Raybourn knew exactly what it meant to have the heart and mind return from an early grave, but that was his own closely held secret. Unfortunately, de Lesseps wasn’t done probing.

  “Do you look for another wife, or at least an amour, my lord?”

  Raybourn shrugged. “We’ll see. What of you? Will you remarry?”

  “Ah, for now I am wedded to the Suez Canal. But once it ees finished, ma
ybe I will find another wife. I believe I can make a good case as a husband. I have a long diplomatic career, you know, and have been consul to Cairo, Rotterdam, and Barcelona, among other postings. Of course, right now it ees the completion of the canal that is in some jeopardy, non?”

  Raybourn didn’t like the new tone de Lesseps adopted as he started pacing in front of him. The insects were active under the man’s skin again. Maybe it was better to remain on the topic of marriage.

  “It ees my concern,” de Lesseps said, “that your Victoria la reine and your parlement are working against me. They do not wish this project to be successful.”

  “That isn’t true, monsieur.”

  “Then they do not wish me to have my full glory in it.”

  Raybourn was silent.

  “Aha! I am correct in this. It ees why you have ignored my complaints about the blackmailer who threatens to destroy this project.”

  “Monsieur de Lesseps, you can hardly expect the British government to—”

  But Ferdinand de Lesseps wasn’t listening as he paced more furiously, working himself into a righteous lather as he enumerated all of Great Britain’s crimes against him.

  “This blackmail, it ees an outrage! What will your government do to see to my satisfaction? I am, how you say, persécuté by this man. He believes he ees greater than Ferdinand de Lesseps, but this ees not so. I am le roi, like a king, here in Egypt. I tell this man, ‘Go here,’ and he goes here. I say to this one, ‘Dig at this spot,’ he digs until I say stop. The viceroy ees mon ami, will do anything I wish. But he cannot help with what I wish now, which is for this blackmailer to be found and run through with the sword.”