The Case of the Missing Marquess (Enola Holmes, #1)

by Nancy Springer

I knew my mother was criticised for failing properly to drape vulgar surfaces such as coal scuttles, the back of her piano, and me. Shocking child that I was.

I did not know then, had no way of knowing, that Sherlock Holmes lived his life in a kind of chill shadow. He suffered from melancholia, the fits sometimes coming upon him so badly that for a week or more he would refuse to rise from his bed.

I wanted my brothers to . . . I did not dare to think in terms of affection, but I wanted them to care for me a little, somehow.

Horses sweat, you know, and men perspire, whereas ladies glow. I am sure I looked all of a glow also. Indeed, I could feel all-of-a-glow trickling down my sides beneath my corset, the steel ribs of which jabbed me under the arms most annoyingly.