The Secrets of Wycliffe Manor by Patricia Rice EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Patricia Rice
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Mysteries
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
CAIRO, 1809
“Two PIASTERS, MISS, ONLY ONE ENGLISH SHILLING!” THE EGYPTIAN
merchant shoved an armful of beaded bracelets into nineteen-year-old
Clarissa Knightley’s face, forcing her to halt in the narrow, crowded alley.
Colorful fabrics and birds in cages hung overhead. The heady scent of
spices mixed with the stench of smoke and dung. Baubles and trinkets and
shawls distracted the eye. . .
“Stop looking, birdwit,” Beatrice snapped, forcing past the merchant to
yank Clare away and proceeding through the cacophonous bazaar like
Napoleon through. . . well, Egypt.
A ship through the current? Not original enough. Her sister was a force
of nature. A hurricane through an island?
“Two piasters, miss!” Another young man cried, waving a shawl in her
face. “I have wife, children, only two piasters!”
“Look, we could take one to mama. They’re so pretty and cheap,
Bea. . .” Clare tried to glimpse the offerings as her sister dragged her past
aromatic spice barrels and tables of glittering jewelry.
“Like pretty faces, pretty trinkets are cheap, but once they drag you in,
they won’t let go until they empty your pockets.”
Pretty faces empty pockets. . . Did that mean people with pretty faces
were poor or made other people poor?
Pondering the grammar, Clare shook her hand free to defiantly examine
a shawl. Bea sailed on without her.
The explosion shattered Clare’s complacence. In an instant, a screaming
maelstrom of running soldiers, musket fire, and blood engulfed the colorful
bazaar. She froze in shock at the splatters on her white gown. Their
bodyguard abruptly flung her backward, into the arms of a stranger in
smelly robes. “Run, missy, run!”
More soldiers firing weapons shoved past, propelling her backward into
the escaping mob.
Surrounded by a barrage of noise, shoved heedlessly from one
malodorous stranger to another, spectacles lost in the melee, Clare lost
consciousness—and Bea.
L, F 1815
A , C
sister’s warning as she contemplated the fiasco of last night’s entertainment.
Pretty faces empty pockets. Perhaps if she had a pretty face or a plumper
pocket, she might learn what that meant.
After paying to have her first novel published, her pocket was
considerably leaner.
She handed the toast under the tablecloth for small fingers to grab.
“How did you fare at the soirée last night?” Meera Abrams, companion,
best friend, and trusted apothecary, sorted through the morning’s post.
“Not well.” Clare sighed at the embarrassing memory. “A gentleman
asked if I liked Wellingtons, and I told him the general was a brilliant man,
but I was glad the war was over. When everyone giggled and the
conversation returned to discussing boots, I realized they were talking
fashion, not politics. I fear I had been watching a maid tuck a crumpet into
her apron and imagining a scene of a girl starving in the attic who must
serve in this opulence.”
For More Read Download This Book
EPUB