The mystery woman : Ladies of lantern street series, book 2

The second Ladies of Lantern Street novel from Amanda Quick explores the crimes, passions and paranormal secrets of Victorian London. Under the plain gray skirts of Miss Beatrice Lockwood#8217;s gown, a pistol waits at the ready. For Beatrice is a paid companion on a secret mission#8212;and with a secret past#8212;and she must be prepared to fight for her life at any moment. Yet she is thrown oddly off guard by the fierce-looking man who joins her in foiling a crime outside a fancy ball#8212;and then disappears into the shadows, leaving only his card. His name is Joshua Gage, and he claims to know Beatrice#8217;s employers. Beyond that, he is an enigma with a hypnotically calm voice and an ebony-and-steel cane. . . . Joshua, who carries out clandestine investigations for the Crown, is equally intrigued. He has a personal interest in Miss Lockwood, a suspected thief and murderer, not to mention a fraudster who claims to have psychical powers. The quest to discover her whereabouts has pulled him away from his mournful impulses to hurl himself into the sea#8212;and engaged his curiosity about the real Beatrice Lockwood, whose spirit, he suspects, is not as delicate as her face and figure. He does know one thing, though: This flame-haired beauty was present the night Roland Fleming died at the Academy of the Occult. Guilty or not, she is his guide to a trail of blood and blackmail, mesmerism and madness#8212;a path that will lead both of them into the clutches of a killer who calls himself the Bone Man. . . The second novel in the Victorian 'Ladies of Lantern Street' novels features paid companion/private inquiry agent Beatrice Lockwood and burned out ex-spy Joshua North in a mystery involving paranormal forces and Egyptian antiquities.A mad scientist has preserved his dead lover in an ancient Egyptian embalming formula, and has convinced himself that he can revive the dead woman, but he needs Beatrice Lockwood's psychic abilities to 'ignite' the formula. And he will do anything to capture her.Joshua North - scarred and forced to use a cane due to the disaster that occurred during his last case - is all Beatrice has in the way of a bodyguard . . Targeted by a disabled former spy for the Crown who wrongly believes she is blackmailing his sister, Beatrice Lockwood offers her assistance in tracking down the real culprit and eventually falls for the spy only to find herself hunted by a mad scientist who would resurrect a dead lover