A Gilded Grave Read online

  ACCLAIM FOR SHELLEY FREYDONT’S MYSTERIES

  “Evoking the luxurious and extravagant world of the Gilded Age, Newport heiress and feisty amateur sleuth Deanna Randolph is a force to be reckoned with in this lively mystery.”

  —Tessa Arlen, author of the Lady Montfort series

  “Utterly captivating! Freydont skillfully combines the glittering excess of the Gilded Age and a believable upstairs-downstairs dynamic with a thrilling murder mystery. Readers will fall in love with this intrepid new sleuthing pair and the dashing young men they assist. A must read for fans of historical mystery.”

  —Anna Lee Huber, bestselling author of the Lady Darby Mysteries

  “A wealth of secrets lies beneath the surface as spunky heiress Deanna Randolph and her maid Elspeth navigate the glittering waters of Gilded Age Newport’s high society while working to catch a murderer. Charming and colorful characters, a richly detailed setting, and a compelling mystery make A Gilded Grave a thoroughly captivating read.”

  —Ashley Weaver, Edgar® Award–nominated author of Murder at the Brightwell

  “This well-crafted mystery is an absolute delight. Freydont has brought Gilded Age Newport to life with the skill of a historian and the insight of the keenest social observer. Deanna Randolph is my favorite new sleuth.”

  —Tasha Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The Counterfeit Heiress

  “All the charm of a Norman Rockwell painting, but with a much more colorful cast of characters!”

  —Cynthia Baxter, author of Crossing the Lion

  “An entertaining mystery in the classic tradition.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “An enjoyable slice of small-town life.”

  —The Mystery Reader

  “A delicious read filled with interesting characters.”

  —Joyce Lavene, coauthor of the Missing Pieces Mysteries

  “An engaging whodunit.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  “Successful and entertaining.”

  —Library Journal

  “[A] terrific new amateur sleuth, competent, intelligent, with a few surprising skills. Freydont introduces an interesting cast of characters.”

  —Lesa’s Book Critiques

  “Entertaining fare.”

  —Booklist

  “The mystery is well developed and proceeds nicely. This is a promising new series with colorful characters and seasonal festivals that create endless possibilities for future story lines.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Shelley Freydont

  Celebration Bay Mysteries

  FOUL PLAY AT THE FAIR

  SILENT KNIFE

  INDEPENDENCE SLAY

  Newport Gilded Age Mysteries

  A GILDED GRAVE

  Specials

  COLD TURKEY

  TRAWLING FOR TROUBLE

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  This book is an original publication of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Copyright © 2015 by Shelley Freydont.

  The Edgar® name is a registered service mark of the Mystery Writers of America, Inc.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME design are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  For more information, visit penguin.com.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-16568-7

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Freydont, Shelley.

  A gilded grave / Shelley Freydont.—Berkley Prime Crime trade paperback edition.

  pages ; cm

  ISBN 978-0-425-27584-9

  I. Title.

  PS3556.R45G55 2015

  813'.54—dc23

  2015007911

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime trade paperback edition / August 2015

  Cover illustration by Aleta Rafton.

  Cover design by Lesley Worrell.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For Pearl Wolf, friend and colleague, always up for a road trip and a good dinner

  Contents

  Acclaim for Shelley Freydont’s Mysteries

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Shelley Freydont

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Chapter

  1

  NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND

  JULY 1895

  Deanna Randolph eased away from the hairbrush that was scraping her scalp.

  “Miss Deanna, would you please hold still? Everyone will be ready to go and you’ll still be sitting here.”

  Deanna glanced up and smiled at the mirror image of her maid, Elspeth. The filigree that surrounded her dressing-table mirror framed them like a portrait. The seated figure, dark hair piled up on her head and clothed in a white dressing sacque, dark eyes peering out at the painter. The smaller figure standing behind, barely a head taller even with her mistress seated. Her fair complexion, made even rosier by the gaslight of the bedroom, almost luminescent above the black and white that was her daily uniform.

  Deanna would like to paint them just this way. Not in the style of the Pre-Raphaelites, with their vibrant colors and play of dramatic lighting. And not like the pen-and-ink covers of the dime novels featured in the windows of the Bellevue Avenue newsstand. Something less defined, their figures softened and made slightly hazy by the gaslight, like the brushstrokes of the Impressionists.

  But all she was ever given were pears and vases and landscapes to dutifully reproduce.

  Oh, to be like Mary Cassatt, painting and living in Paris. Or Nellie Bly, traveling around the world. Or even Kate Goelet, the dashing lady detective of the dime novels she and Elspeth secretly read each night as Deanna got ready for bed.

  “Miss Deanna!”

  “Sorry,” Deanna said, falling back to earth. She was eighteen and about to make her second coming-out, the first in New York, and now tonight in Newport for the summer season. She glanced over
her shoulder at Elspeth, only twenty-two but already in service for ten years, the last two as Deanna’s maid.

  They would both be going to the ball at Seacrest tonight, Elspeth to sit at the ready to answer Deanna’s every little need and Deanna to impress the elite of Newport. She straightened her back and felt nerves flutter in her throat.

  Elspeth tapped the brush on Deanna’s shoulder. “You’ll want to make a good impression tonight. So, hold still.” She paused, the brush raised over Deanna’s head. Maid Slaying Her Mistress with Hairbrush.

  “And if you’re worrying about seeing Mr. Joseph tonight, don’t be. Orrin says he never attends any social events.”

  “Ugh.” Deanna slumped again. “I wasn’t thinking about Joe at all. Not until you reminded me.”

  “I’m sure no one will remember anything of what happened.” Elspeth tugged Deanna’s shoulders back.

  “You mean that I was jilted before I was even proposed to?”

  “Orrin says—”

  “I know. Your brother thinks Joe is a paragon of modern society. Sometimes I’m sorry I suggested Joe take him on as an apprentice.”

  That was before Joseph Ballard had shocked her, their families, and all of Newport at the end of last season by announcing that he wouldn’t be returning to New York but planned to remain in Newport year-round to work on his inventions. To add insult to injury, he was living and working in an old warehouse he’d rented in the working class Fifth Ward, when he had a perfectly good mansion on Bellevue Avenue.

  “Oh, miss, you don’t mean that.”

  “No, of course I don’t.” Deanna sighed and pushed at a curl that had sprung from her fringe of bangs. Stupid things, bangs. “I’m sure Joe is a perfect master. Now, let’s not talk about him anymore.”

  Elspeth returned the brush to the dressing table, lifted a strand of pearls and tiny white flowers, and pinned them to the knot of hair that crowned Deanna’s coiffure. Deanna hardly flinched when the pins scratched her scalp. It wasn’t that Elspeth was ham-handed; she was quite gentle. It was just fashion that wasn’t comfortable. No wonder Deanna’s sister, Adelaide, was always succumbing to the migraine.

  “I don’t know why they’re having a ball at Seacrest tonight. They say that Mr. Woodruff has been acting right strange ever since he came back from that heathen place.”

  “Barbados isn’t heathen,” Deanna said. “At least, I don’t think it is. And Cassie says her father always gets seasick.”

  Elspeth harrumphed. “Seasick? He’s been back on land for almost a week and he’s not getting any better. Daisy, she’s chamber maid over there, says one minute he’s all energetic and the next he looks like he’s gonna kick it. She’s had to light a fire in his bedroom every morning. I just hope he didn’t bring home some unheard-of disease and give it to the whole household just so he can show off those guests of his.”

  “I’m sure Lord David Manchester is no heathen and is perfectly healthy, even if he does live in Barbados.”

  “Hmmph. They say he has a valet as black as the night and seven feet tall, who can pull coins out of thin air, but if you get in his way, he puts a curse on you.”

  “Sounds like a carney trick, if you ask me,” Deanna said.

  Elspeth shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s really black magic.”

  “I think black magic only happens in novels, Elspeth.”

  “Maybe.” Elspeth added another tiny spray of flowers to Deanna’s hair.

  “Are you finished?”

  “Almost. They say that Lady Madeline—she’s Lord David’s sister—didn’t even bring a lady’s maid. Said her maid was afraid to get on the boat. Well, I don’t blame her. My ma came on a boat from Ireland, said she nearly died. Anyways, Mrs. Woodruff offered her the use of her own maid, but that Lady Madeline points to Daisy, who was filling the water ewer in her bedroom, and says, ‘That one.’ Now Daisy is a chambermaid and a lady’s maid, and she only came over from Ireland a year ago. What do you think about that?”

  “I think Daisy is going to be very tired before the Manchesters leave for home.”

  “Well, I say, good for her.”

  “So do I.”

  Elspeth stepped back to regard her handiwork. “All done. You look like a princess.” She helped Deanna out of her dressing sacque and disappeared into the next room.

  Deanna stood before the full-length mirror wondering if she would be a success tonight or if people would whisper about her because she’d been jilted. But when Elspeth returned carrying Deanna’s ball gown high above her head, she forgot about Joe, and what people would think, and even about Kate Goelet and her detectival adventures.

  The dress was unbelievably beautiful, with the lightest jonquil bodice, trimmed in Valenciennes lace, and tapering to a fitted waist before flaring out in soft flounces of gold-embroidered gauze. Mama had spent time and money to ensure Deanna’s success at her first Newport ball. Now it was up to Deanna to do her part.

  She held on to Elspeth’s shoulders for balance and stepped into her dress, then stood patiently while Elspeth closed the row of tiny buttons down the back of the bodice and shook out the flounces that trailed down the back of the skirt.

  “There now, you’re as pretty as a peach. You’ll turn heads tonight, miss.”

  “Wonderful, just what I need.” How could she feel excited and depressed at the same time? She was a minnow—no, a goldfish—swimming with the sharks. Smiling, bejeweled, and beautiful sharks, but deadly all the same. She might not have been out very long, but Deanna knew what was what.

  “I don’t mean the old snouts. If one of them looks at you funny, you just out-grand them.”

  Deanna nodded, but it was easier said than done.

  “I meant the gentlemen what will be there tonight. And one gentleman in particular.”

  Deanna shivered, even though the room was oppressively close. “Not Joe.”

  “Not him, though I’m sure he’s kicking himself for how he acted. I meant Lord David. Everyone says he is very charming—and handsome and rich—” Elspeth gave her a saucy smile. “And single. I bet he’ll only have eyes for you.”

  There was a quiet tap at the door followed by the entrance of a diminutive parlor maid. “Miss, you’re wanted downstairs.”

  Deanna sucked in her breath and pulled on her gloves. She waited impatiently for Elspeth to do up the buttons, took her fan and evening bag from the dressing table, and paused long enough for Elspeth to stand on tiptoe to give her headdress a final check.

  “Oh, miss, you look beautiful,” the parlor maid said before she stepped back to let Deanna pass through the doorway.

  Elspeth draped Deanna’s evening cape over her shoulders and followed her out of the room. “You’ll do us all proud, Miss Deanna.”

  “Yes, I will.” If she couldn’t be a painter or catch villains, at least she could marry well. She’d have to be content reading about someone else’s adventures. “Tell me again what you’ve heard about this Lord David Manchester.”

  They were waiting for her in the foyer: Mama, Papa, and her older sister, Adelaide. Her father looked grumpy, an expression he’d been wearing too much lately. He was overworked, poor dear, and he had never quite regained his vigor in the three years since her brother, Robert, had died during the influenza outbreak at Yale. That was why Adelaide was engaged to marry Charles Woodruff, to consolidate the two families’ R and W Sugar Refineries, now that Bob was dead.

  Deanna kissed her father’s cheek and breathed in the lingering aroma of his pipe tobacco. That did more than anything to calm her nerves.

  Her mother gave her an appraising look and nodded. She herself was dressed in deep green Chantilly lace with large puff sleeves and a diamond parure, and beside her, Adelaide was a vision in pastel pink. Her sister looked beautiful and very self-assured, and Deanna felt a tiny spark of envy. Adelaide had been out for three yea
rs and engaged for one. Deanna had only been out for six months; she was still feeling her way.

  “Girls,” her mother said. She didn’t need to say more. The one word contained a lifetime of advice, commands, expectations, and warnings of how to behave. She turned, paused long enough for the footman, who had been staring unabashedly at Adelaide, to rush to open the door, then swept out of the house.

  Adelaide followed immediately after. Her father gave Deanna a reassuring smile, offered her his arm, and the two of them went out together.

  “Heavens, it’s close tonight,” Mrs. Randolph said as soon as they had all taken their places in the carriage. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t come on to pour before we arrive.”

  The sky was indeed overcast, the moon a vague halo behind the clouds. There was no breeze, and both the night and the carriage were dark and oppressive. Deanna could hardly make out her family in the shadowed depths of their seats as the carriage started out, moving slowly and stately down the street.

  Deanna reached to open a window.

  “Your gloves,” her mother said. Deanna drew her hand away from the window.

  “Deanna, please sit still,” Adelaide said languidly. “You’re mussing my skirts.”

  Deanna sat back. Beside her, Adelaide sat perfectly still. She could stay that way for hours. Nothing perturbed her. Deanna, on the other hand, tumbled from excitement to dread with each sway of the carriage.

  “You know, my dear,” her mother continued, “just because you had a successful New York season doesn’t mean you will take in Newport. There are different requirements of a young lady here.” She sighed heavily. “Especially after that embarrassing incident with Joseph Ballard last summer. I don’t know how your father and Lionel Ballard could make such a muddle of something so simple. You’ll just have to brave it out if the subject comes up.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  Deanna concentrated on sitting still while her mind raced with all the instructions she must remember at the ball. All too soon, the carriage took its place in the long line of conveyances slowly progressing up the horseshoe drive to Seacrest, the Woodruff family’s summer cottage.