The Deathsniffer’s Assistant (The Faraday Files Book 1) by Kate McIntyre

duchess of SOMETHING
. “Tears are so over dramatic. I’ve never met anyone who cries often I’ve liked. Histrionics, so ridiculous. But your husband did die, and you did find his body in some condition so horrible you don’t want to tell your Deathsniffer about it. If anything warrants a few tears…”
    “
What
exactly are you accusing me of?” the Duchess demanded waspishly.
    “At the moment? Not crying. We’ll revisit the implications of that when I know more.”
    The Duchess’s face went very dark. She looked down to where her fingers were plucking at her skirts, her expression stormy. She said nothing; none of them did. And then, finally, “There have been some difficulties, between Viktor and me.”
    “Oh, and here it is!” Olivia clapped her hands like Duchess val Daren had just declared they were going to a faire.
    “Every marriage has them,” the Duchess continued, jutting her nose up into the air.
    “So I’ve come to see,” Olivia agreed amiably, “but I’m not certain a lack of tears at your other half’s
murder
is all just status quo. Now tell me, exactly what sort of
difficulties
have there been? Don’t worry about ruining my opinion of you. There isn’t much to tarnish.”
    The Duchess turned away, petulant, to look out the window. Chris remained focused on his page,
seems to sulk
. The only sound was the great swooshing sound of the carriage’s wings pushing through the open air. Then Olivia began tapping her feet.
    “Viktor is a devoted patron of the arts,” the Duchess said finally. The petulance was gone from her countenance, and now she seemed distant, quiet. Her eyes were looking out the window, but unfocused, staring at something that didn’t exist. She stroked her collarbone thoughtfully. “
Very
devoted. He wasn’t when we were first married, no, but he had an…awakening, as he grew older, I suppose. At first, it was something I appreciated. Suddenly he had this sensitivity he’d never possessed before. He would find the most talented young persons, those who were just bursting with creativity, and use his means to bring them into the light, immortalize them. I found it all admirable. I thought he’d become the person he’d always been meant to be.” She shook her head. Her eyes refocused. She turned away from the window, stared down into her lap, and smoothed out her skirts. “Well, that was a very long time ago, now,” she said. “I realized, eventually, that things had changed for good. He could never love me half so much as he loved his up and coming sopranos and actresses and poetesses. It became very difficult to compete, so I stopped trying.”
    “And came to hate him?”
    “I never hated him. I just grew tired of hearing, day after day, about a new painter with the most delicate brush strokes, or a girl with a violin who wasn’t even a hymnshaper. A new one every month. They were his life and I was irrelevant.”
    “Was he sleeping with any of them?”
    The Duchess’s head snapped up to confront Olivia’s only semi-interested and thoroughly unsympathetic face. “That is
horribly
inappropriate and none of your business,” she accused, a rough edge in her voice. Chris wondered if she had been about to cry after all.
    “It’s fully valid.”
    The Duchess’s resistance melted and she pressed an elegant hand to her temple. “I don’t think so,” she murmured, shaking her head. “I always had my suspicions, what wife wouldn’t have? He spent all his time with young, talented, pretty women. But no. He loved their minds, and loved loving their minds. I don’t doubt he fell for all of them, but…relations? No, that would have ruined all of the art.”
    “So you have no reason to think he was?”
    “No.”
    Olivia pursed her lips. “And would any of
them
have reason to hate him?”
    The Duchess looked genuinely surprised by the question. “…I…” She frowned. “I wouldn’t know, to be perfectly honest. I barely ever knew any of them. Though