The Fatal Flying Affair (A Lady Hardcastle Mystery, #7)

by T.E. Kinsey

“A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the banjo, but doesn’t.”’

Beat about the bush and all you’ll get is a nervous bush. Shrubs are wary of being beaten.’

‘For flying. Don’t tell me you’ve never wanted to fly.’ ‘If the good Lord had meant us to fly He’d have made falling to the ground a great deal less deadly, dear.’

‘One of sour, two of sweet, three of strong and four of weak. It’s not alchemy, it’s just lime juice, sugar, rum and water.’

Asking lacks urgency and gives the mistaken impression that compliance with the request might be optional.’

‘I’m your employee, my lady – I only ever act on your instructions. I’m just an ’umble servant girl doin’ as she’s told.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ I said. ‘Put ourselves deliberately in harm’s way?’ ‘They’ll be frightened of the motor car – they won’t come near us. And we’ll be doing Toby a favour. Come on now, quick sticks.’ Once more I reluctantly did as I had been asked and hastened the tiny, fragile motor car into the path of the oncoming wall of beefy death. The lead cow looked us calmly up and down and altered her course to lead her henchwomen off towards the lane that led to the Thompson farm. I could see the evil in her big brown eyes but held my nerve and waited with the engine running and my foot hovering above the accelerator until the last of her followers had passed.

‘Seventy-three,’ I said as we drew level with the corner of the building. ‘I made it sixty-five,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘And my stride is exactly one yard.’ ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘So if you can just lend me your legs the night we do this, I’ll know exactly how far sixty-five yards is. On the other hand, why don’t we call it seventy-three Flosteps? I carry my own legs with me everywhere and removing yours in the dark will be messy and inconvenient.’

Obviously he might have just been on his best behaviour with a prospective customer—’ ‘Or you’re not his type,’ interrupted Harry. ‘We’ve definitely considered that. But slightly more likely, given my undeniable gorgeousness and your sister’s . . . whatever it is she’s got going for her, is that she bears a grudge of some sort.

I had nothing to worry about – my life was calm and peaceful for the most part – but my beloved brain had decided that a life free of anxiety was a life wasted. To induce what it clearly considered to be the appropriate levels of dread and discomfort, it had trawled through recent events looking for something to fret over. Having found nothing, it had decided to catalogue every mistake I had ever made and every embarrassment I had ever suffered. In chronological order. That did the trick. Well done, brain.

‘Soon be there,’ she said cheerfully as we rocketed down the Gloucester Road. ‘Or dead in a ditch,’ I said. ‘Or that. But at least we’ll have died doing what we love.’ ‘I don’t love being terrified.’ ‘You are funny. You’re sure you have everything you need?’

Gardening isn’t working with Nature, it’s a constant struggle against it.’

What we have in spades is an unshakeable self-belief: the sure and certain knowledge, no matter how ill-founded, that the world is ours and everything that’s in it. He’ll have a fight on his hands if he tries to start a war with Britain – it’ll never occur to us that we’re not entitled to win by divine right.’

‘A conversation with you is just a box of parts we have to assemble for ourselves, isn’t it?’ she said.