Scarlet Widow by Graham Masterton

She was wearing a dark grey cape and grey suede gloves.
    ‘Thank goodness you’re on time!’ she exclaimed. ‘I thought I might catch my death if I had to wait out here any longer! My goodness, girl, you look appallingly wan ! You’re not sickening for something, are you?’
    ‘I’m just tired,’ said Beatrice. Although cousin Sarah was so prickly she found it an unexpected relief after the journey to be met by somebody who cared about her, and she was very close to bursting into tears again.
    The postilion heaved down her brown leather trunk from the roof of the coach and a toothless porter dragged it over to her, grinning. ‘Jeremy!’ snapped cousin Sarah, turning around. ‘Jeremy, where are you? That boy !’
    A young man of about seventeen appeared from out of the crowd, wearing a thick bottle-green coat and a black cocked hat. He was tall and well-built, with wavy brown hair that reached almost down to his shoulders. Beatrice thought he was quite handsome, although his lips were rather full and red, as if he had been illicitly eating strawberries, and his eyes were a little sly.
    ‘This is my youngest son, Jeremy, your first cousin once removed,’ said cousin Sarah. ‘Jeremy, this is Beatrice, my dear late Clement’s girl, and you must make her feel at home.’
    Jeremy lifted his hat and gave Beatrice a deep mock-bow. ‘You’re welcome to Birmingham, Beatrice,’ he told her. ‘I hope you’re happy here. You’ll find it exceedingly dull after London, I expect, but we’ll do our best to keep you amused.’
    ‘Jeremy, behave yourself,’ snapped cousin Sarah. ‘The poor girl is recently bereaved and the last thing she is looking for is amusement.’
    They left the courtyard and went out to the road where their carriage was waiting, a plain maroon chaise with a worn-out leather top. Two tired-looking horses stood between the shafts and up on the box sat an elderly coachman with a tall hat and mutton-chop whiskers who looked even more exhausted than the horses. Jeremy lifted Beatrice’s trunk on to the back and they all climbed in.
    ‘Wup,’ said the coachman, with a desultory shake of the reins, and the horses went shambling off.
    ‘You’ve brought only this one piece of luggage?’ asked cousin Sarah.
    ‘Aunt Felicity is sending more on,’ Beatrice told her. ‘The rest of my clothes, and all of my father’s books and his laboratory equipment.’
    ‘What on earth would you want those for?’
    ‘I could mix medicines for us, whenever we have need of them.’
    ‘ You ? The very thought! You’re only a child!’
    Beatrice thought of what Molly had said to her, about becoming a woman, but she didn’t like to argue. Instead, she said, ‘Papa showed me how to make all kinds of tonics and cordials and pills, for almost any ailment you could think of. And how to make magic tricks, like candles that you can never snuff out, no matter how hard you blow on them, and little pieces of paper that can dance by themselves.’
    Cousin Sarah blinked at her disapprovingly. ‘You’re newly orphaned, Beatrice. I hardly think that frivolities like that are very becoming during your period of mourning. Or, indeed, ever .’
    Beatrice couldn’t help thinking that her father would have loved her to carry on with his ‘mysteries’, especially if they cheered her up. But she turned her head away and said nothing. Even if she was a child, she was old enough to accept that it was very generous of cousin Sarah to have offered to take care of her. More than that, she knew that she had absolutely nowhere else to go.
    *
    Birmingham seemed so small to Beatrice after London, but it was very much cleaner. Although every chimney around the town was smoking furiously, a strong wind was blowing from the high snow-covered moors to the west, so that the air smelled quite fresh. The main street was roughly cobbled and very steep, crowded with market stalls and lined on both sides with shops and houses. The pavements were