Bonfire Night by Deanna Raybourn

Chapter One
    London, 1890
    “Julia, how did you misplace the baby? Again?” my sister asked with more than a touch of asperity.
    I gave her the most dignified look I could muster under the circumstances. “I did not misplace him,” I informed her in lofty tones. “I forgot him.” The fact that this was now the fourth time I had walked into the park with the child and left without him was mortifying—and not something my siblings would let me soon forget.
    “Oh, that makes it quite all right then,” chimed in our brother Plum. I put my tongue out at him, but before I could form a suitable reply, my husband spoke.
    “It’s my fault entirely,” he said, his voice silken. “Julia was generous enough to take on a case of some delicacy. She was rather preoccupied with breaking the alibi of a jewel thief.”
    Plum twitched in his chair. “The Enderby case? I thought that was put to bed last week,” he protested. The theft of the Enderby opals was the most important investigation that my husband had allowed Plum to undertake on his own authority. He had been single-minded in his pursuit of the culprit—so much so that Lady Enderby’s maid had nearly been arrested for the theft after only an hour’s investigation.
    I smiled sweetly at my brother. “Yes, the maid was the most obvious thief, wasn’t she? But the solution seemed a little too simple to Brisbane. He refused to have her arrested until I had spoken with her.”
    Plum flushed pink to his ears and shot an accusing look at Brisbane. “It was my case,” he repeated.
    “And it was mishandled,” my husband returned coolly. “The case against the girl was damning, but I was not persuaded.”
    “She confessed,” Plum retorted, his jaw set stubbornly. But the more enraged he became, the calmer Brisbane remained. It was a trick I had seen him employ a thousand times, and usually upon me. Brisbane had learnt long ago the most effective way of handling any member of the March family was to remain utterly unmoved in the face of strong emotion. Goading him out of his sang-froid was one of my favourite pastimes, but my decidedly intimate methods would never work for my brother, I reflected with a delicate frisson of remembered passion.
    “She confessed because she is French and therefore away from her home, her country, her friends. She told me about the accusations you lobbed at her,” I chided. “You practically called her a thief the moment you sat her down. What did you expect her to do?”
    “I expected her to tell the truth,” he said.
    “Careful,” Portia warned. “Plum’s getting into a pet and you know his sulking puts me off my food.”
    I waved a hand. “If we have dinner at all, you may count yourselves fortunate. The workmen have moved into the kitchens and twice this week Brisbane and I have dined on bananas.”
    “Why bananas?” Portia asked.
    “Gift from a grateful client,” Brisbane returned. “His Excellency the ambassador of the Emir of Ranapurcha was very generous with them. We have forty pounds left.”
    Portia blinked. “He gave you forty pounds of bananas?”
    “You misunderstood, dearest,” I corrected. “We have forty pounds
remaining
. There were one hundred to begin with. Mrs. Lawson has put them into, salads, sauces, soufflés—I think at one unfortunate meal she even managed to make them into soup.”
    “Do not remind me,” Brisbane put in with a curl of his handsome mouth. “It was grey.”
    I went on. “But she has left us at last, bound for a peaceful retirement at her sister’s cottage in Weymouth, and we are left with a new cook and a larder full of ripe bananas.”
    “That explains the smell,” Plum said. He still looked a trifle sulky, and I knew he was not over his mood. His next remark confirmed it. “So,” he said, fixing me with a gleeful look, “you were telling us about losing the baby. Again.”
    I cursed him inwardly. Plum had only ever been third favourite amongst my brothers, and I was