Available March 1 at the BSB website and March 18 at major online and retail outlets.

The Left Hand of Justice, March 1 at the Bold Strokes Books website, and March 18 from major online and brick-and-mortar outlets.

The water rose in the basin and grew hotter. A bowl brushed her ankle, then poured hot, rose-scented water over her head once, twice, until her hair ran smooth and clean down her back.

“God, that’s good.”

Sophie remained silent, but Corbeau could feel satisfaction radiating from her as she lifted Corbeau’s arm and ran a moist cloth over the dark hair beneath it. Sophie had told her once about resorts where the wealthy could bathe as often as they liked in natural hot springs. Some or other paramour had promised to take her there once, but his infatuation had ended before he could make good on it. Corbeau didn’t share the church’s belief in the sinfulness of bathing. It did seem as if it would be a good conduit for disease if there were too many people involved. But she and Sophie were only two, and how could anything this good be wrong?

Another bowl of water cascaded down her back. A warm, clean cloth followed, over her shoulder, under her arm, over her flat buttocks. She sucked in her breath as another hand cupped one of her small breasts, thumb teasing the stiff brown nipple.

“There’s no sin in a mutual exchange of pleasure,” Sophie purred. Corbeau reached for her, but, giggling softly, Sophie moved out of reach. Her hands continued their exploration of Corbeau’s lean, muscular limbs, fingers deftly applying healing unguents to old scars and new bruises, teasing the edges of her most intimate crevices.

“I don’t care if there is,” Corbeau breathed.

Turnbull House, Coming February 2014 from Bold Strokes Books.   

Coming in February 2014 from Bold Strokes Books.

Many men would have taken cigars at that point, as well, but for health reasons, Goddard abstained from all but the occasional Egyptian cigarette. His one indulgence was fine whisky, which he served in the cut crystal glasses I remembered well. He walked over to hand me the fuller of the two glasses, and then to my surprise, sat down rather close beside me.

“So,” he said, catching my gaze and holding it, “You never told me why you decided to contact me after all this time.”

“Well….” As I searched for the right words, he quietly set his drink on the polished wood floor. “It’s funny you should—”

The kiss came as such a surprise that I scrambled backward across the divan and almost tumbled over its rounded arm. Whisky sloshed over the rim of my glass, splashing silently onto the Chinese rug. What remained I belted back in one go before setting the glass on the floor and wiping my shaking fingers on my trousers.

It wasn’t that I was averse to the idea of kissing him, but I really hadn’t expected it. At all. In fact, if I’d seen him start toward me in the first place—he was remarkably quick for a man in his mid-forties—I’d have assumed he was going for my throat.

Goddard chuckled under his breath. “Sorry. Did I startle you?”

“You might say that.”

The second time, he leaned in slowly, cupping my face in his smooth, muscular hands. Cain Goddard wasn’t a large man, but his devotion to exercise kept every inch of his magnificent form spring-coiled and strong. My blood still racing from surprise, I forced myself to relax. Kissing Goddard felt like coming home after a long, unpleasant journey. For just a moment, all of my troubles dissolved, and nothing existed except his fingers in my hair, the traces of his jasmine and bergamot cologne, and the hard, whisky-flavored slickness of his mouth. This wasn’t what I had imagined at all. It was much, much better. I made a sort of whimpering noise.

Restraint, I cautioned myself. There was still the business of a loan for Turnbull House, and Goddard wouldn’t do business with anyone he perceived to be lacking self-discipline. It was a good thing Marcus had ended my dry spell when he had.

And then as suddenly as he had moved in, Goddard pulled back, leaving me confused, disappointed, and blinking in the gaslight and shadow.

The Left Hand of Justice (March 2013)

“Your timing is impeccable, Monsieur le Prefet,” Corbeau said as she watched Sophie scurry for cover. She turned back to him. “How did you know I’d be here?”

“I looked first at Oubliette, but they told me you wouldn’t be back until you’d settled a little matter of a broken chair and a bottle of red Bordeaux. Hmm. An agent in your position should know better than to be caught in establishments like that. And brawling like a common….” He shook his head. “Not at all the image the Sûreté wishes to project.”

“What I do on my own time is my own affair, Monsieur.”

“Au contraire, Inspector. The king considers public morality to be a top priority. And as a representative of His Majesty, your public comportment is most definitely his affair.”

It was true, and there wasn’t anything Corbeau could say about it. Every week it seemed, Vautrin passed down another list of places, people and activities forbidden to agents of the Sûreté. It was almost as much fun for him as his surprise inspections of agents’ billets de confession–the proof they were required to produce on demand that they had recently confessed their sins to a priest. She was surprised the man hadn’t resorted to bed checks.

Javert frowned, peering closer. “That’s a nasty bruise you’ve got. You ought to get some raw meat on that.”

“Sure. The minute my salary allows me to afford meat.”

“I’ll look into it. We can’t very well have you running to Jacques every month.”

Corbeau was grateful that the darkness inside the carriage hid her embarrassment–embarrassment that made her want to shrink into the fine leather upholstery when the prefect tossed a small fabric pouch in her direction. The pouch landed on the seat beside her with the unmistakable clatter of coins. Ignoring it, Corbeau said, “You still didn’t answer my question.”

“You’re not in a position to ask questions, Inspector. But if you insist, I knew that if you were half the officer your records suggest, you’d be on top of these disturbances. And I wasn’t disappointed.”

From Turnbull House (In Progress)

“If you don’t mind, sir,” he interrupted.

I turned. “You mustn’t call me sir.”

“Would it be too much trouble if I had a quick scrub?” He nodded toward the basin and pitcher on their stand next to the commode-screen.

“Of course,” I said, relieved that he’d found his own momentary entertainment. “If you’d like, I’ll boil some water, and you can have a proper tub-wash.”

He seemed delighted by the prospect, and as he gave his face and hands a preliminary rinse, I set out a copper tub in front of the fireplace and hung a bucket of water above the coal-fire to boil. When the water began to bubble, I poured it into the tub, added an equal part of cold from the jug beside the fireplace, and arranged the commode-screen to provide him a modicum of privacy—an act that moved the poor man almost to tears.

“Thank…thank you…sir…I mean…Mr. Adler.”

He had completely disrobed by that point, his oversized trousers and shirt in a pool on the floor. Although he’d thought nothing of standing naked before who knew how many other men, he was peeking out at me from behind the age-yellowed screen like a virgin. It was charming.

“All things considered, I think it’s best if you call me Ira.”

A shy smile broke over his face at that, and I found myself mirroring it. I do enjoy standing on ceremony, as anyone who has scrabbled his way up from the gutter inevitably does. But with Marcus, it didn’t seem quite fair. Perhaps because he was in the same gutter I’d been in at his age–my early twenties. No, I’d never been one for the needle, but I had peddled my arse all over the East End, and it was only luck and the patronage of a certain Cain Goddard that had kept that arse out of Pentonville.

“All right, then, Mr…Ira.”

I swear I heard a tinkle of bells when he smiled that time. He ducked back behind the screen, and, shaking my head, I set about gathering a towel, an extra blanket, and a pillow, so that my guest could make a bed before the fire. The great clock struck one-thirty, and soon my lonely flat was alive with happy splashing sounds. I set the bedding on the floor, and hung his clothes over one side of the screen to dry.

Only when I crossed to my chest of drawers to find him a spare set of nightclothes, did I notice the shapely silhouette the fire was casting against the fabric of the screen. A better man would have averted his eyes. He certainly wouldn’t have let his gaze linger on the shadow of young Marcus’s supple limbs, or imagined his own hand guiding the cloth over his smooth skin.

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am, Mr. Ira.” My pulse raced guiltily. Grateful. He was grateful, and I was raking my eyes over the delicious curve of his silhouetted arse. I turned my back to the screen. “I’m sure we can find some way for me to repay you.”

“N-not necessary,” I stammered. When I say it had been a long time, I’m not speaking in terms of days. A better man would have immediately dismissed the images parading past my mind’s eye. A better man would have manufactured some crisis to excuse himself from the flat until young Marcus was safely clothed and asleep, alone and unmolested beside the fire. I’ve said before that I’m no saint, but I like to think I’m no cad, either. The irony of my current predicament—seeing as Turnbull House was in the business of helping people out of the flesh trade rather than into it—was certainly not lost on me.

“Come on,” Marcus said. The splashing had stopped and—God help me, he was toweling himself off—he had traded his supplicating tones for a knowing purr. “There must be somefin’ I can do to show me gratitude.”

“You may have friends in high places, Madame,” Vautrin growled so low that she was the only one who could hear him, “but breathe a word of this to anyone, and I’ll slit your throat myself.”

He gave the baton a final push before tucking it back into his belt and pulling his coat around him. Madame Bernard held Joseph close as Vautrin swept out of the room after the priest. When their footsteps had safely reached the bottom of the stairs, Corbeau slumped against the wall, rubbing her throat.

“Inspector?” Joseph asked after a moment.

“There,” she said hoarsely. “By the foot of the bed. Made of glass. Bring it here.”

Pulling free of his mother, Joseph crossed the room and retrieved the object, a small phial. Corbeau turned it over in her fingers. A drop of clear liquid slid from one end to the other. Corbeau sniffed at the opening, jerking back at the sudden onslaught of familiar scents: valerian, mugwort, poppy, and a few other things she couldn’t identify. It was a strange combination–not one that a ghetto healer would think to put together. But something that an Alchemist would.

“What is it, Inspector?” Madame Bernard asked.

Corbeau’s heart pounded. Her cheeks went hot, and as she turned to this woman toward whom her debt would never be extinguished, the weight of her guilt was a crushing band around her chest. There was another Alchemist working the streets of Paris, and it appeared they were building on her work–work she thought she’d destroyed all evidence of nearly a decade before.

“Inspector?”

It couldn’t be. She sniffed at the phial again, but she had made no mistake. On the night of her arrest those many years ago, Corbeau had consigned her books and notes to the fire. She had taken a chair to her distillery. Nothing remained of her past, and those who remembered her as the Alchemist were few, far between, and not available for consultation.

And yet someone was producing her elixirs again. Or attempting to. And Vidocq was long gone.

Dr. Maria Kalderash lived in a two-story house set into a wall of shops, and apartments along the Rue des Rosiers. The area was home to a variety of immigrants and exiles, and, until recently, had stood outside the city wall. All in all, a fitting place to find an outcast. Outside, most of the windows were still dark, the doors firmly bolted from within. But later that day, the area would come alive with a hundred different languages, and carts bearing comfort foods from distant homelands would spring up like mushrooms on both sides of the narrow, twisting street.

Thanks to Robin Sumnmers for tagging me in the Blog Hop! This is week 28. I’ll be tagging a few authors myself to continue the hop next week. Until then, here are my answers!

There are romantic entanglements and misunderstandings, mistaken identities, star-crossed lovers, and lovers who were always meant to be. And probably none of them are who you might guess they are.


Every week or so before release day, I’ll be posting a tantalizing tidbit from my upcoming novel, The Left Hand of Justice (March 2013). Comment on the excerpts, and one lucky winner will be chosen at random to receive an autographed paperback copy!

EXCERPT #1:

Sophie regarded her for a moment then slipped her arm free. She cleared her throat. “This is the third incident in this area in a week.” She flourished a pencil and a small notebook. “Has the great Elise Corbeau any theories?”

“None that I’m ready to share with the press.”

“How about with an old friend?”

Corbeau let her gaze travel over the other woman’s neat features, her perfectly arranged hair and spotless clothing. She could have gone home with her right then–back to Rue St. Dominique, to Persian carpets, Turkish sweets and heady perfumes. Some pampering and a long nap would do her good about then. She just had to say the word–it was written all over Sophie’s face.

But they’d been playing that game for years. If it hadn’t stuck by now, it wasn’t going to. It wasn’t fair to either of them to keep their connection limping along like this. And, all things considered, Corbeau really could do without the reminder of her past.

“I know better.” Corbeau turned on her heel and began to walk again. Sophie fell into step with her–no easy feat, considering how much longer Corbeau’s legs were, and how much more adequate to the task was her footwear. “Whatever I say to you will end up in whatever rag you sell it to, and Vautrin will have my head. He’d have had it a long time ago if the prefect’s office hadn’t stopped him.”

“Why does the prefect’s office care about you?”

Sophie stumbled on a loose cobblestone. Corbeau grasped her elbow before she tumbled into the muck. Sophie took the opportunity to insinuate herself beneath Corbeau’s arm, pencil and paper at the ready.

“Don’t know,” Corbeau said. Sophie’s small, tightly corseted waist felt right beneath her hand. “But I don’t trust it. Javert is a man of the cloth, and His Majesty’s appointee. Once I’ve done the favor he’s bound to ask of me, I’m sure I’ll be out on my ear.”

“I heard he’s trying to rebuild the Bureau of Supernatural Investigations. Care to comment?”

“If he is, it’d be news to me.”

Sophie opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say a word, a freshly painted fiacre pulled to a stop in front of them, spattering their skirts with a rancid stew of sewage and rainwater. The door opened and Sophie flinched back with a little shriek.

“Inspector Corbeau,” a man said from the darkness of the carriage, “Thought I’d find you here.”

“Speak of the devil,” Corbeau muttered.

Claude Javert, the Prefect of Police, leaned forward into the doorway. He was a sharp-featured man in his fifties with precisely trimmed salt-and-pepper hair and a thin moustache. He perched on the edge of his seat, long limbs folded like an excitable insect. His smile and the lively intelligence in his eyes made him seem benign, but it was deceptive. Javert’s ability to verbally eviscerate his enemies was matched only by his enjoyment of doing so.

 Corbeau saw him register the newsmonger, and her arm still around her waist. But he didn’t comment.

“We haven’t much time, Inspector. Get in.”

Corbeau stood before the open door of the fiacre, blinking in the bright light of the carriage lamps, while Sophie melted back into the shadows. High-level functionaries of the King were no friends of the left. Best for everyone if she slipped away before the prefect could put a name to her face.

How had he known Corbeau was there? What did he want?

 It didn’t matter. She had no choice now but to go with him.

Steeling herself, she stepped onto the carriage’s metal footstep and slid onto the smooth leather bench. The door of the fiacre clicked shut beside her. A clap of thunder shook through the wood, and rain suddenly rushed down onto the street below. Prefect Javert rapped the carriage roof with the handle of his umbrella. Above them, the driver whistled and slapped the reins across the horse’s back, and the carriage began to roll.