Free Recipe for Treason: A Lady Arianna Regency Mystery (Lady Arianna Hadley Mystery) by Andrea Penrose Page A

muttered, letting his fingers fall away.
    “We must have missed the murderer by mere minutes,” said Arianna, staring down at the professor’s lifeless body.
    “Yes, Renard seems to have an uncanny ability to stay one step ahead of us,” said the earl tightly. Wiping his hands on his coat, he began to search through the papers on the desk. “Let’s see if we can spot anything of interest before we go.”
    “Are we going to summon the authorities?” she asked. “Or leave his colleagues to discover the body for themselves?”
    “A good question. I’ll decide shortly.”
    Leaving him to deal with the alcove, Arianna set to work in the main room. She made a methodical circuit of the outer counters, gathering every piece of paper that bore any writing.
    I had better let Sandro and Basil decide what is important.
    While even the most complex mathematical equations and theorems were child’s play to her, she found the simplest scientific formulas baffling.
    On the main worktable, several half-filled beakers sat by a small gas burner. A brass microscope was close by. She hesitated, not daring to disturb anything. “Sandro,” she called. “Should we summon Basil? There’s something here that he might wish to examine.”
    Her husband came out of the alcove and took a long look at the setup. “I’d rather not linger overlong here.” He glanced up at the storage shelves. “I’ll bottle the contents and seal them with beeswax.”
    “Be careful,” she cautioned, stepping aside to allow him room to work.
    “I dabbled in chemistry at Oxford, my dear,” he replied, donning a pair of leather gloves that were lying beside the burner. “I’ve a healthy respect for the fact that potions and powders can maim and kill.”
    “But we are dealing with an unknown here,” she pointed out, “and have reason to fear that it may be a very volatile explosive.”
    He leaned in cautiously and gave an experimental sniff. “Hmmph. Actually, there is no need to take it with us—one is simple sulfuric acid and the other nitric acid.”
    “You are sure?” she asked.
    “Quite.” He took a quick look through the microscope and seemed satisfied. “Yes, it’s a standard experiment, used to instruct students who are just beginning to study chemistry. Girton was, after all, a teacher in addition to whatever darker pursuits he was involved with.”
    Arianna gazed at the crystalline powder in the glass vials and felt a shiver skate down her spine.
    Eyeing the papers in her hand, Saybrook added an approving nod. “Well-done. Tuck them away inside your coat. I’ve found some things that may prove interesting as well. As soon as I fetch them—”
    A gunshot suddenly rattled the windowpanes, followed by two more in quick succession.
    “Bloody hell,” he swore. “That’s a Brown Bess—the standard military musket!”
    “Basil!” Arianna snatched up her weapon from the table.
    The earl raced back to the alcove to retrieve a folder of papers, then returned and grabbed her arm. “Hurry!”
    Relying on speed, not stealth, Saybrook flew down the stairs. Rather than exit by the porter’s door, he turned and sprinted down the corridor until he came to a portal opening out to the seaside lawns. “We’ll skirt around the end tower and see if we can tell what is going on.”
    Pressing close to the stones, they crept to the corner of the building.
    “Good God.” Arianna drew in a hiss of air. The swath of grass was lit by a half dozen red-coated soldiers holding flaming torches. Another six, armed with muskets and fixed bayonets, had formed a line aimed at the porter’s entry. Several more men were standing guard over . . .
    “Basil!” she cried, breaking away from their hiding place and running for where their friend lay motionless on the ground.
    * * *
    Cursing in Spanish, Saybrook hurried after her.
    “I must ask you to step back, Mr. Castellano.” A black ripple stirred in the darkness, but as the figure stepped into the