Read Online Gilded: The St. Croix Chronicles by Karina Cooper - Free Book Online Page A

stoop of an opium den. How surprised he would have been to learn it was me dressed as a street boy.
    How surprised I’d been to see him enter the very same opium den I’d stepped out of.
    “Don’t they just?” I murmured, and forced myself to cease drumming my fingers into my skirts as I studied the expectant faces around me. I stilled them. “How long—” I caught myself. “Has he been dead for longer than three days?”
    “No.”
    “Is it a crime of passion?”
    The lady’s beauty mark twitched. “Oh, yes,” she said, with much more relish than strictly appropriate.
    All right, I could follow this. So a man who was neither tradesman nor laborer. A man murdered due to some high emotion—my bets hedged on love. That often seemed to spark the worst in others.
    The victim was also a man who had not been dead long, which—if this were a real murder—would mean that his associates had only just discovered the body. But I had no body with which to proceed.
    Clearly, I would need to pinpoint who or what the murdered victim was. Once I had this, I could begin to investigate for clues.
    A lord was a dangerous target for a murderer, but given how long until the next Season, it was entirely within the realms of possibility that a murderer could assassinate a lord just as the Season ends. The body may not be found for— No, no. His staff would come looking, of course, and any crime of passion regarding a titled victim would certainly reach all ears.
    I couldn’t see it. I needed more information, but my five questions were up. “A question as to the rules of the game, if I may?”
    “You may,” Lady Rutledge allowed.
    “How long do I have?”
    This time, her mouth twitched into a smile that wasn’t entirely nice. Something both amused and edged. “That depends entirely, Miss St. Croix. The longer it takes you to solve, the more will die.”
    Much like the Ripper’s victims. Stacking up by the pound.
    “Does this have anything to do with the doxi—” I caught myself, but not in time. A collective gasp went up within the parlor. My cheeks burned. But Lady Rutledge laughed, her bosom heaving with each breath.
    “You are beyond your questions, detective,” she admonished as she sank once more to her chair. “You have more than enough to begin your hunt. Now, who would care for a drop more tea? Mr. Englebrooks, do be so kind as to fetch Miss St. Croix’s cup. She appears to be in quite deep thought.”
    I couldn’t deny it. I had precious little to go on, only a hypothetical murderer and a victim neither a working man nor a craftsman. Where would I go?
    “Do you suppose she’ll figure it out?” the gentleman asked, not so low that I couldn’t hear.
    Miss Dorring sighed. “So few do.”
    I would. I would because every man and woman in this room expected me to fail. I looked up from the full cup placed in my hand and looked not at Lady Rutledge, but at Englebrooks beside her. “Another question as to the rules.”
    “Ask,” the lady allowed.
    “Will I find answers any place else or is the game locked to your parlor, my lady?”
    There. A twitch of Mr. Englebrooks’s mustache, a flicker of an eyelash.
    I would find clues. Scattered by the scheming lady and her retinue? Or common events likely to trigger questions?
    “The game is always afoot,” Lady Rutledge said, mysterious but for the giveaway of the gentleman she now turned to.
    A flounce of pale pink beside me drew my attention to Miss Dorring, who smiled her charming smile at me. “Perhaps you’ll get farther than anyone else has.”
    Faint praise, but I would take it with the grace Fanny drilled into me. “You are most kind. I hope to surprise you all.”
    Her lashes, beautiful and golden, flickered. Interest? Or disdain? I suspected Miss Dorring might even give Fanny a turn.
    As if keen on proving my suspicions, she sat beside me, her smile kind—too kind. “I understand Earl Compton has returned to Town. Has he visited you to declare his