A Treacherous Curse (Veronica Speedwell, #3)

by Deanna Raybourn

I regretted the fact that he was fully clothed, but I contented myself with the occasional appreciative glance at his muscular forearms, bared to the elbow.

“Figgy? No one calls a child Figgy,” I protested. “It’s indecent.”

“We have chosen the most auspicious date for the affair—the first of March, known to ancient Egyptians as the Going Forth of Khepri, the date when the scarab god rolls forth the sun and all is reborn.

It is seldom that a gentleman raises the subject of sewage so early in a conversation, I reflected.

Stoker and I had two forms of disagreement, violent and vocal discord or completely mute hostility.

“Self-pity is a gutter from which you will never arise.

“But only because you have the sensitivity of a Russian boar,”

I said nothing of my own hurts, merely gave him a determined smile and plucked a dead rat from my bedraggled hair.

On this investigation, we have already been half-drowned, very nearly burnt to death, and almost suffocated in a sewer.”