Page 3 of The Finest Print

2

In the Constabulary was a Notice Board: missing persons, missing property, and in one memorable occurrence, a missing parrot (the bird in question was expeditiously located in a ruby-encrusted birdcage at a pawnshop near Whitechapel, unharmed but for its unfortunate proximity to such a garish enclosure). Day in, day out, the Notice Board was afflicted with scraps—desk clerks pinning up and constables tearing down, until it was nothing but a vertical jumble of lost things everyone forgot to notice at all.

Everyone, that is, except Clementina Bloom.

—Excerpt from The Sensational Cases of Clementina Bloom

Prologue Chapter 1 (Draft 2)

Belle Sinclair’s nickname preceded her, a fact which had always felt significant. She was Belle before she was Belinda; she was Belle before she was born.

Having the diminutive of her name selected prior to her first greedy breath served as a reminder her existence was anticipated. She was as meant to be as her parents’ unlikely introduction—which, according to family lore, transpired one long-ago evening at the Belle, a coaching inn where a penniless governess upended a tankard of beer over the head of a lonely barrister.

Because Gavin and Emilia Sinclair were sentimental, they’d contrived to name their first child after the establishment. And thus, she became Belle, though her mother insisted on Belinda as a formality. She’d never been quite certain what the plan was if she’d turned out to be a boy.

“—Miss Sinclair.” Doyle, her favorite guard at the Old Bailey, interrupted her narrative with an indulgent shake of his head. “You told me this story three times before.”

“Ah, but it’s an important story, Doyle.” Belle leaned against the paneled wall of the corridor. “My name has meaning . I don’t take the thought of changing it lightly, even for a nom de plume.”

Behind her, the muffled but distinct drone of the defense counselor rumbled from the courtroom. Court was in session, which on a slow afternoon might see Belle discreetly tucked into the back of the spectator gallery with her journal. Unfortunately, the courtroom was crowded today, so she’d decided to wait with Doyle in the passage between the judge’s parlor and the Old Court while her father patiently doled out justice.

“You hear back from that fancy journal then?” Doyle lowered his thick gray eyebrows. “They accept your story?”

“No.” Belle bit her lip. “Nothing from Blackwood’s . Yet. But I want to be prepared, should the occasion arise.” She frowned, fiddling with her hair. A pin was askew, buried somewhere in the thick waves. “You know, men don’t need to think of such things. They can be whoever they like. Even themselves. Take Mr. Dickens—he certainly doesn’t need to debate the merits of publishing under his own name. Except when he used Boz, I suppose.”

“Well, Dickens is a good name,” Doyle mused.

“Yes, it is,” Belle allowed. She found the hairpin and neatly tucked her light brown tresses into place beneath the short brim of her bonnet. “Charles Dickens is a very good name. Then there’s Mr. Poe.”

“No,” Doyle said emphatically. “Don’t start.”

Belle ignored him, rummaging through her basket for a battered copy of The Ladies’ Companion. “I was recently revisiting ‘The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.’” She flipped through the journal. “Goodness, Doyle, there’s something visceral about it. Did you know Edgar Allan Poe based this story on a true, unsolved case? Mary Cecilia Rogers—she lived in New York, and they called her the ‘Beautiful Cigar Girl.’”

Doyle considered. “Now that is a good name.”

Belle nodded her agreement. “I thought the same. Perhaps a missed opportunity for a title, just between us. Regardless, what Poe did is fascinating—he used factual details of a crime, writing about it even as the investigation was ongoing.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Miss Rogers was found floating in the Hudson River.”

Doyle signed the cross and looked askance at Belle. “You shouldn’t talk such, Miss Sinclair. It ain’t right for a lady?—”

“The police never found out what happened. All signs point to murder . And then Poe turned it into one of his C. Auguste Dupin mysteries.” She raised one slender eyebrow. “You know, that’s essentially what I’ve been attempting to do. It has me thinking.”

“You don’t need any more thinking.” Doyle shook his grizzled head.

“My father’s docket alone—these trials are ripe fodder. We’re here day in and day out, Doyle. Why else, if not for inspiration?”

“I know why I’m here all day,” Doyle said dryly. “It’s nothing to do with inspiration . As to why a pretty, clever girl like yourself sits around this hovel with a graybeard like me?—”

“Don’t speak so about my beloved,” she teased lightly. “The Old Bailey is not a hovel.”

It wasn’t strictly true, but she cherished the hours she spent here with her father. When he wasn’t at the bench, the two of them would sit in his judge’s parlor, working in companionable silence—he, reviewing briefs; she, copying trial notes into her journal. Better still were the early evenings when Papa would put away his papers, pour her a scant finger of whisky, and ask for her thoughts— Had the witness been led by counsel? What did she think of the plaintiff’s presentation of evidence? Had she gleaned any useful information for her manuscript?

Court personnel, like Doyle, thought it a strange habit, but for Belle, nothing was more familiar. These parleys were born in her childhood, in the years when Gavin Sinclair had been a young barrister building a busy practice from the first floor of their town house. So long as she didn’t cause disruption, Belle had been permitted to play beside his desk. She used to sit against her father’s shins and covertly observe the dark skirts of frightened women seeking his measured counsel. Her imagination was first sparked on the worn carpet of her father’s study, and it had been crackling ever since.

She still shadowed her father, but her view expanded with his reputation. As a common law judge at the High Courts, Papa divided his time between Westminster and the Old Bailey, where Belle was privy to entire proceedings of the criminal court. She found it endlessly fascinating, a veritable testament to man’s best and worst instincts. Even in recent years, when the gallery was too crowded for comfort, she would listen from the corridor, enthralled by the endlessly delicious knots of crime. She couldn’t stop the machinations of her brain; she couldn’t stop the scratch of her pen.

In her father’s world, justice was sadly not always served. But in the world of her creation, she could change that. Her greatest aspiration was to bring a tale of courtroom mystery to life. If only she could find a literary magazine whose greatest aspiration was to publish the gruesome musings of the unmarried twenty-five-year-old daughter of a respected judge.

Her ruminations were interrupted by dear old Doyle, loyally fretting over her social calendar. “But, Miss Sinclair, you don’t want to be here all hours, do you? Surely, you got friends?” He narrowed his eyes, as if doubting the truth of his notion. “ Lady friends, I mean.”

“Well, I have Helena, of course.” Belle shoved The Ladies’ Companion into her basket. “And Cecily…though my sister and cousin tend to ration my discussion of the criminal court.”

“As they should.” Doyle crossed his arms. “I should do the same. I’m telling you, this business ain’t proper.”

“Propriety has never been much of a concern to Belinda Sinclair.”

Belle prickled with cold shock as the smooth, derisive voice echoed down the corridor.

No .

Absolutely not.

Doyle’s eyes widened in warning, but there was no need to alert Belle who approached. She knew that voice, just as she knew she had no desire to see its owner.

After all, she’d managed to avoid doing so for four years.

Detective Sergeant Lawrence Duncan. No. Detective Inspector Lawrence Duncan. To her infinite chagrin, she’d heard he received his blasted promotion sometime after reassignment to Nottinghamshire.

Belle turned around to see the lanky man stalking toward them and warily smoothed her dark green skirts.

“Inspector Duncan.”

He came to a stop in front of her, his aggressively polished boots a clipped staccato on the floor. She stared at those boots, wondering if he ever got them dirty. It would be just like him to expect his constables to build his reputation.

“I…I heard you were returning to London,” Belle finally said, constitutionally unable to wait him out. “I didn’t realize you were already here.”

He looked her over in a way that set her teeth on edge. “Asking after me, Belinda?”

“Hardly.” She swallowed. “The superintendent mentioned it to my father, I believe.”

Duncan, for his part, seemed perfectly at ease in this situation. His superior calm made sense; he loved nothing more than putting her off-kilter.

“You know, it’s quite fitting one of the first people I would happen upon today is you, Belinda. You’ve been on my mind this afternoon.”

Belle steeled herself. “Is that so?”

“Quite.” Duncan propped one arm on the wall beside her, and Belle was immediately reminded of his habit of leaning too close while he talked, as if sniffing out what wasn’t said in order to steer the conversation in the manner he wished. “Your hair is coming loose.”

Damn . She half reached up to adjust the blasted pin but blanched at the thought of doing anything at his suggestion. Let her hair come loose. She hoped a dozen people walked by to see him in conversation with an unkempt woman. It would be his worst nightmare brought to life.

“I’ve just come from a bookstall on the Strand.” Duncan watched her closely. “I was looking to purchase some paper and reacquaint myself with London’s latest.”

He paused. Belle wanted to both meet and avoid his gaze.

“Is that so?” she repeated. She needed to stop saying that. She needed to stop saying any words to him at all.

“Indeed. The shop had a marvelous selection of fiction in addition to the news. I perused the offerings in great detail.”

She stared over his shoulder at the closed door of the Old Court. It was terribly unfair the very same man who ensured she was uncomfortable in a crowded courtroom was now making her uncomfortable in the corridor outside of one.

“It’s the funniest thing.” Duncan cocked his head. “I didn’t see your novel anywhere. In fact, the bookseller hadn’t heard of you. I wrote your name out for him…but no. Nothing . As though you don’t exist.”

And just like that—as instantaneous as the nick of a razor blade—the old wound opened. Shame blossomed, seeping through the dressing she’d carefully applied for the last four years.

She looked down, acutely aware of Doyle behind her. There was a slow tickle along her scalp, her hairpin again sliding free. It fell to the floor with a tinny echo of defeat.

Her neck reddened as she took a half step back. “Well?—”

The sharp bang of her father’s gavel reverberated from the courtroom. The sound spurred her to action.

“If you’ll excuse me, Inspector.” She tightened her grip on her basket. “I don’t have time to chat. I have a busy afternoon, and I didn’t expect to see you here today.”

“I should say the same, Belinda. The Central Criminal Court is no place for a lady.” Duncan’s lip curled. “But it seems some things never change. Including your penchant for doing whatever you please.”

She had no argument.

The only thing that pleased her was to be left alone.

Belle had planned to meet her father when he finished for the day, but after her disconcerting run-in, it was inconceivable she would wait idly in the judge’s parlor. She needed to move, she needed to…be somewhere . Away from here.

She packed up her things, deciding a brisk walk would serve her well. It was a bright afternoon, unseasonably warm for early April, and sitting in the sun with a tale of murder and mayhem would surely put this whole unsavory business out of her mind.

The walk along Fleet toward the Inner Temple Garden indeed loosened the knot in her stomach. Leaving behind the noise of the street, she checked over her shoulder before slipping through the wrought iron gate. She skirted the formal courtyard and made for a secluded bench tucked into a knot of sleeping rose bushes. In a matter of weeks, these walkways would be crowded with blooms and visitors who came to enjoy them. But today, with the bite of March only recently retracted, there was naught but the sound of the barges on the Thames.

Glancing about to ensure she was alone, Belle pushed back her straw bonnet and tried to settle in with Poe’s gripping mystery. But it was no use. Her thoughts were still wholly ensnared by a grim tale of her own making. Oh, how she wished she’d handled Duncan with more aplomb. Couldn’t fate have at least allowed her the dignity of running into him when her hair was nicely fixed and the man at her side hadn’t been seventy years old?

She listlessly turned a page, reminding herself that, in a way, the scandalous denouement of her betrothal had benefited her. She had a measure of freedom now. Thanks to Duncan’s rumormongering, Belle was decidedly a spinster. And with no presumption of modesty to protect, she no longer required a chaperone the way Helena did. Even so, she preferred to keep to her desk or the courthouse. She knew people found her peculiar, but she’d found her own ways of maneuvering through it.

But for all that, she was determined to make something of herself.

Any day now.

She sighed in frustration and set her reading aside. It seemed she couldn’t even appreciate Poe today.

“Damn,” she muttered, her foul mood returning in force.

“Could it be someone in this godforsaken city is having a worse day than I am?”

Belle startled; she hadn’t realized anyone was in this section of the garden. There, across the path from her, was a man in a dark coat. Blast . This garden was meant for barristers and their clients.

“I’m awaiting Mr. Nichols,” she lied promptly, naming the defense counselor she’d heard at the courthouse. “He’s presently in the Old Court, arguing for a landlord who was overcharging his tenants by ten shillings a month. There’s really no way he can win, the prosecution produced at least a half dozen lease agreements?—”

She broke off as his accent registered—the flat vowels of his warm baritone identified him as American, and something about the way he leaned against the cobbled wall confirmed it. This wasn’t an Inner Temple barrister looking for news of Nichols’s failed stratagem.

“Go on.” The man lifted the corner of his mouth. “I’d love to hear more about Nichols and his landlord. Misery does, in fact, love company.”

“That’s all I know.” She frowned. “I’m actually not meant to meet him. I only said that because you startled me.”

“I didn’t mean to.” He tilted his head toward the new-budding trees, looking up into the starkly blue sky. The stretch revealed an inch of corded throat, briefly visible between the dark beard of his jaw and the collar of his shirt. “I honestly wasn’t sure I was allowed to wander in here until I saw you reading.”

“The garden is meant for the barristers of the Inner Temple,” she admitted.

“Figures.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I saw the river, then the green, and I couldn’t stop myself from cutting through. I think this is the first moment of quiet I’ve had in this city.”

She found her curiosity piqued. “Are you new to London?”

He leveled her a look. “Are you a barrister of the Inner Temple?”

“Hardly.” She fought a small smile. “Sometimes the gates are open for clients, so…” She raised her shoulder. “I stay out of the way, and nobody makes a fuss.”

A refrain that governed her life.

“Hmm.” The man looked around the garden. “I might adopt your strategy. God knows I need somewhere to escape…” He gestured vaguely. “London.”

Her smile widened. “So you are new?”

“That I am.”

He folded his arms and regarded her, and she felt she had no choice but to do in kind. He was half-propped against the wall, so it was difficult to discern his height, but there was undeniable power in his build, a certain fluidity in the way he crossed his arms, pulling his coat across the expanse of his shoulders. Even if he’d been English, there was no mistaking him for an aristocrat. His clothing was neat but inexpensive, his tie loose around his neck. His face was half-shadowed by a dark beard that, despite being out of fashion, suited him very well.

To her alarm, he addressed her at the same moment she was appreciating his beard.

“Are you reading The Ladies’ Companion ?” He motioned to the journal on her lap.

“Ah, yes,” Belle said in surprise. The publication wasn’t easy to come by in London. Her cousin Oliver had procured it from one of his American investors. “Are you familiar with it?”

“I recognize the typeface.” The man shrugged. “I worked for a year at a letter foundry in New York. Snowden’s typesetter was a bit of a bear.”

“Oh.” She had no other response to a sentence containing such density of foreign concepts.

“I wouldn’t think it circulated here,” he mused. “I half want to congratulate it. I have a new appreciation for anything that survives an Atlantic crossing.” His hat was slanted over his brow, obscuring his eyes, but she sensed a perceptive stare all the same.

She blinked, sharply aware they were alone.

“It’s not a subscription. I’ve had it for a few years,” she found herself explaining. It was strange, that someone would be interested in what she was reading. Interested in her at all. “My cousin had an associate send it to me. There’s a serialized Poe story I’ve been reviewing…”

She straightened in abrupt excitement, just now registering he said he’d lived in New York. A hundred questions came to her as she recalled Poe’s unsolved inspiration.

“Come to think of it?—”

She broke off. None of her hundred questions were appropriate. She’d been desperately close to asking this stranger what he knew of the density of the Hudson River. She could practically hear a barrage of warning voices—her mother, her sister, Doyle the guard—urging her to seal her lips.

“Are you a student then?” He tilted his head. “Or…a critic?”

“Pardon?”

“You said you were reviewing a story? I assume you would have a reason for doing so.”

She blushed. The notion that this man thought she might have a legitimate professional reason for studying Poe was a wonderful novelty.

Bolstered by this small confidence, she considered telling the stranger she was a writer. But then he might inquire where she’d been published, and she would have to admit she’d so far compiled nothing but rejection letters.

“I’m just…a connoisseur, I suppose,” she said lamely.

He waited, but she did not elaborate.

“You’re a puzzle, is what you are,” the American finally observed. “I’ve never met a connoisseur with so little to say about their interest.”

She smiled. “If you must know, literature. Gothic in general, but especially horror, crime, mystery. I’m a bit voracious for intrigue.”

If he found her answer disagreeable, his face hid it well. But he didn’t ask her any more questions, and she didn’t know how to extend the conversation. Too late, it occurred to her she could have benefited from describing nearly any other genre of literature.

Seeming to mistake her quiet for discomfort, the man raised his palms.

“My apologies. I’m still addled from a hellishly long journey and some dismal news awaiting me upon my arrival yesterday.” He grimaced. “I’ve clearly intruded on your solace.”

“I think we might overlook it, just this once,” she said, charmed by his casual irreverence. “Much can be forgiven on the first pleasant day of spring.”

At that moment, a gust of wind blew the loose ribbons of her bonnet, sending the satin ties sliding along her neck, where her hair was still only half minding its pins. She scrambled for her hat, laughing in surprise, again feeling the slow tug of the stranger’s stare.

This time, she held it.

For one brilliant moment, everything lifted in the enterprising breeze—her hat, her hair.

Her spirits.

“I appreciate your graciousness.” The man pushed away from the wall—a long, broad ripple of dark trousers, dark coat, dark beard—and nodded to her. “I’ll leave you to your reading, madam.”

She wasn’t certain what made her do it. All around her, the air was cloying and damp, sweetly scented with hopeful growth, and it suddenly seemed imperative to make something clear.

“It’s miss .”

“Come again?” He turned and looked at her from under his hat.

“You called me madam .” Her cheeks turned pink from more than the sun. “I’m not married.”

To her immense surprise, the American finally raised his hat and smiled, hitting her with green, green eyes and a beautiful flash of white teeth against his dark beard.

She heated unexpectedly, grappling with a surge of instantaneous recognition. This was it. The face of every man she’d ever read about that made her heart skip—princes and pirates and heroes, both dashing and dastardly. She hadn’t realized until she turned into a human candlewick: he’s what they all looked like.

“Well, thank you very much, Miss .”

“What…are you thanking me for?” Her voice sounded strange to her ears.

He tipped his hat. “The first good news I’ve had since I arrived in London.”