Mrs. Martin's Incomparable Adventure: The Worth Saga

By Courtney Milan

Mrs. Bertrice Martin—a widow, some seventy-three years young—has kept her youthful-ish appearance with the most powerful of home remedies: daily doses of spite, regular baths in man-tears, and refusing to give so much as a single damn about her Terrible Nephew.

Then proper, correct Miss Violetta Beauchamps, a sprightly young thing of nine and sixty, crashes into her life. The Terrible Nephew is living in her rooming house, and Violetta wants him gone.

Mrs. Martin isn't about to start giving damns, not even for someone as intriguing as Miss Violetta. But she hatches another plan—to make her nephew sorry, to make Miss Violetta smile, and to have the finest adventure of all time.

If she makes Terrible Men angry and wins the hand of a lovely lady in the process? Those are just added bonuses.

Author's Note: Sometimes I write villains who are subtle and nuanced. This is not one of those times. The Terrible Nephew is terrible, and terrible things happen to him because he deserves them. Sometime villains really are bad and wrong, and sometimes, we want them to suffer a lot of consequences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Courtney Milan
• Release date: Mar 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781937248697

Courtney Milan

Courtney Milan lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, an exuberant dog, and an attack cat. Before she started writing historical romance, Courtney experimented with various occupations, none of which stuck. Now, when she's not reading (lots), writing (lots), or sleeping (not enough), she can be found in the vicinity of a classroom. You can learn more about Courtney at http://www.courtneymilan.com.

Book preview

Chapter One

Surrey County, England, late autumn, 1867

Miss Violetta Beauchamps had made a terrible mistake. It wasn’t the taxing journey from London. Nor was it the coin she’d spent—money she could ill afford—on hiring a cart to come to this large country house that belonged to one Mrs. Martin. Waiting in the parlor for half an hour with her doubts eating away at her certainty had not been a mistake, even though she had spent the entire time wondering if the reason she’d not been offered tea or refreshments was because the target already knew the truth.

No. She was beginning to think this entire scheme had been a very bad idea.

Well. Technically, she had known it was a bad idea the moment it came to mind. It had just been the best bad idea out of a truly rotten lot. She should apologize. She should go. She should—

She heard steps behind her, finally, and her circling thoughts fled like a flock of geese rising from a pond at the crack of a shot. She stood slowly, her back cracking audibly as she did.

Well? What do you want? The woman who came into the parlor did not look the way Violetta had imagined. She’d expected someone around her age, but stuffier in every regard—her hair, her gown, her corset, her manners. The woman who stood in the doorway had hair of pale white, tugged up into an unpretentious bun. She wore a loose, pink gown, probably silk—comfortable and opulent all at the same time.

Violetta had done her research. She always did. Mrs. Martin owned this massive home and had a fortune in the tens of thousands of pounds stashed in the five percents. Apparently all that money wasn’t enough for her to purchase a little politeness. This comfortable woman had the gall to demand what Violetta wanted, without so much as an introduction or an exchange of polite talk?

True, Violetta was here to swindle the woman. But Mrs. Martin didn’t know that yet.

Violetta considered her options before inclining her head. And how do you do? You must be Mrs. Martin. I am Miss Violetta Beauchamps, up from London. I hope your morning has been going well.

Mrs. Martin’s nose wrinkled at these pleasantries. She acted as if Violetta were some sort of an interloper.

Violetta was not just some sort of interloper—she was the worst sort. She was here to put one over on this woman. But from what she had seen of the massive house, Mrs. Martin wouldn’t miss what little Violetta would take, not in the slightest.

Mrs. Martin continued the conversation as she had begun it—with an unpleasant huff. Blah blah blah, she said. "Imagine I just uttered all the greetings that politeness requires. What do you want? Answer now, truthfully, or get out."

What did Violetta want? She wanted not to starve. Moralists would undoubtedly tell her that it was too early to turn to crime out of desperation. She knew this; she had done the calculations (impeccably, perfectly—as always) for two nights running. She had spent all her life being careful, and she would not run through her savings for another five years, if she were frugal. She might—perhaps—at the age of sixty-nine find gainful employment once again, at a comfortable wage that allowed her to put aside a small sum on a monthly basis.

Just because she’d never been struck by extraordinary luck before didn’t mean it couldn’t happen.

The woman hadn’t invited her to sit, but then again, Mrs. Martin had told her to imagine whatever pleasantries she wanted. She sank back onto the white and gold damask sofa in this fussy parlor and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Violetta had not made it to this age with the pleasant fortune of having fifty-seven pounds in the bank, with no debts, without being excessively practical.

Mrs. Martin was pretty in the way that conventional, comfortable women often were. She came and sat opposite Violetta with something near perfect posture. Of course. She had no burdens weighing down her shoulders. She had no fears dragging at her future. Her head was held high; her neck was long and graceful.

Violetta had never been pretty, not at any age. She’d always been too round, and one of her eyes had never moved as it ought—it’s disconcerting, a man had told her once. It’s unnatural.

She’d learned not to look at people directly.

Now that she was older, she was even less exciting. Everyone wished she would disappear, and she would be happy to fade into the background so long as she had enough to eat for the rest of her life, thank you.

Nobody was going to hire her again—not for the wage she was used to earning, at any rate. She was sixty-nine and unmarried—one of the so-called surplus women who choked up the attics and rooming houses of London. Never mind her experience, her meticulous calculational capabilities, her voluminous memory. She was old and unpretty, and she could either scrape and grow more and more desperate as the years passed…or she could do this.

All she had to do was tell one lie. Everything else would be God’s honest truth. One lie, and if it was believed, she’d be able to spend the rest of her days in her comfortable room, taking nice walks in the park and enjoying the sunshine when it came.

One lie, and she’d have all of that, instead of a slow slide into desperation.

She started with that one lie: I am here on a matter of business. I own a rooming house in London.

She did not own the rooming house in question; she had managed it for Mr. Toggert and his father and grandfather before him for forty-seven years, along with twelve of his other properties. She’d made them a reasonable sum of money. For decades, the reigning Toggerts had praised her diligence, her book-keeping, her careful work. The latest Mr. Toggert had promised her a pension if she worked for him until she was seventy.

He’d sacked her two days ago, eleven months shy of that goal.

Mrs. Martin rolled her eyes, looking singularly unimpressed. Good for you. I hope you like it.

Violetta pressed on. I rent rooms to several men, including—

Well, interrupted Mrs. Martin. "There’s your problem, right there. I have no idea what cockamamie story you’re about to tell me, but don’t rent rooms to men. They get drunk, piss in the corner, and who knows what else? If you’d desist in that one thing, I’m certain your life would improve immensely. There. Problem solved. Are we finished?"

In Violetta’s forty-seven years managing Mr. Toggert’s rooming houses, men had done every single one of those things. Monthly. She fixed her face in a smile. Allow me to explain. One of the men who has taken a set of rooms in my house is Robert Cappish.

The look on Mrs. Martin’s face changed from annoyed to something far worse. Her nose wrinkled. Her eyes rolled. She looked upward and shook her head.

Well, she said after a moment. That’s an even worse problem. You have my sincerest condolences on your lack of intelligence in letting rooms to what has to be the worst specimen of humanity on the planet. We do not use that name around here, I am sorry to say. If you must refer to him, you may call him the ‘Terrible Nephew.’

Violetta had not wanted to lease the room to him at all. She had wanted him tossed out years ago. Mr. Toggert had insisted. He has not paid a penny in twenty-seven months.

That’s because he doesn’t have any money, Mrs. Martin replied. He did his best to spend his mother’s allowance when she was alive. After she passed away a decade ago, he ran through his inheritance in a matter of five years, and my patience two years after that. Throw him out on the street. Sell his belongings. Salt the earth behind him as he leaves. What on earth has taken you so long?

Mr. Toggert had said that if they pressed the matter, they would lose his custom, which would be considerable once Mr. Cappish came into his inheritance. The current Mr. Toggert had insisted they wait, and only make occasional gentle inquiries. Then he had demanded to know why his profits had gone down. Violetta had explained that it had been his decisions that had led to the result, but he hadn’t listened. He had sacked her.

She had realized, watching his eyes glaze through her careful explanation, that it had all been a pretext. He had wanted to sack her and avoid the pension. He’d created the excuse to do so.

Mr. Cap— Violetta caught herself at the other woman’s ferocious glower. Your, ah, Terrible Nephew claims you will pay on his behalf.

He lies. Mrs. Martin sighed. He is very good at that, you know. I have far more experience denying his creditors than you have in collecting, I am certain.

But when we let him the rooms, you signed as surety.

I would never have done so. That was also a lie.

Violetta had never considered this possibility. It had seemed so perfect, the opportunity. Still, she could not give in so easily.

But… She leaned down and found her bag at her feet, and withdrew the file she had stolen before she left Mr. Toggert’s office that final time. She had a record of payments (few); here, a copy of the lease, signed in Mr. Cappish’s own hand. And there…

Here. She held out the sheet. This is your signature, agreeing to pay the amount in question if he fails to do so.

That’s not my signature, Mrs. Martin shot back. She stood, waved a maid forward, and—when the woman returned a half minute later with a lap desk—scrawled lazily along a sheet of paper. That’s my signature. She folded her arms. My Christian name is spelled Bertrice. B-E-R-T-R-I-C-E, not B-E-R-T-E-R-I-C-E. I know how to spell my own name. My idiot of a Terrible Nephew does not.

But—

He forged it, I’m sure, Mrs. Martin said. He does that. He can’t be trusted. Not at all. He truly is terrible. A little forgery is the mildest of his crimes.

Drat. Her plan had seemed so simple—go to Mrs. Martin, apologetically demand payment for the two and a half years due, collect almost seventy pounds, and then disappear with her ill-gotten gains.

Was it a crime?

Yes.

But it should also have been a crime to promise a woman a pension and then—after forty-seven years of service—sack her eleven months before the pension came due, for doing precisely what you’d made her do under protest. Two wrongs didn’t make a right, but occasionally they did make an escape.

There was nothing for her to do but beg.

She bowed her head before Mrs. Martin. I am sorry. I ought to have been more zealous in looking over matters.

Mrs. Martin blinked, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. Why are you apologizing to me?

I know you have no obligation to me, Violetta continued, but I implore you. You cannot leave me with this man in my rooming house, his debts unpaid. I’m old.

You’re not old. You’re my age.

I’m sixty-nine, Violetta said. "I’m weaker than him physically, and I have no way to press

Reviews for Mrs. Martin's Incomparable Adventure

[Camilla Hjertø · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Oh, I really enjoyed this book a lot, and I'm so glad I picked it up. I only wish there were more. 

[Ewa P · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Truly hilarious!

(CW past rape) Mrs. Martins gets a visit from a woman who claims to lease rooms to her Horrible Nephew and hasn't received the compensation for it for two years. Naturally, they set on an adventure to kick him out and make his life as miserable as possible. What they didn't plan for is to helplessly fall in love with each other.

[unreachableshelf · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've been awaiting this book since late this summer, and it was well worth it. Bertrice and Violetta are both delightful in their own ways- Bertrice's being rather caustic, Violetta's by necessity more pragmatic although she's got a spine of steel when she needs it. I was curious about what other things they did to the Terrible Nephew during the days that were skipped over, but I understand that for character development and pacing purposes it was probably better to keep things brief, and watching him get his comeuppance was glorious.

[n.w.moors-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I wasn't sure about this book, but I do enjoy Ms. Milan's romances so I gave it a try. Violetta Beauchamps is an elderly spinster who has spent her life managing a boarding house. When she's cheated out of her pension, she comes up with a scheme that involves Bertrice Martin, a wealthy widow who's Terrible Nephew was one of her boarders. Mrs. Martin joins in enthusiastically with Violetta as the two fight back against terrible men in general.This was a great story, one I enjoyed greatly. The two women are wonderful characters, and I loved how they became friends and companions. The Terrible Nephew deserved everything that happened to him. A truly fun story.

[Beata · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

From the Afterword:
"One problem with writing happy endings in a world that seems increasingly irrational is that it is harder than ever to convince myself that they are realistic. But I nonetheless continue to do so. They haven’t managed to win, not in the long term. They have all the money and all the power, and still, here we are. Happiness is not just an act of optimism—it is an act of defiance."

[mickyfine · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Violetta Beauchamps has no other options when she goes to the estate of Mrs. Martin to demand the payment for Mrs. Martin's nephew's debts. However, Bertrice has absolutely no intention of financially assisting her Terrible Nephew ever again. Instead, she and Violetta team up to make his life a misery and prove that just because they are old women does not mean they are not worth consideration.An absolutely charming f/f romance novella with protagonists who are 69 and 73. Violetta and Bertrice are both utterly charming and Milan does an excellent job of crafting complex characters and backgrounds for these two women. While the romance between them does feel a bit rushed (a frequent quibble for novellas), watching the two women discover there is more between them is delightful. Also, the various revenges they concoct against the Terrible Nephew elicited several giggles.

[elenaj-147457 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A pure delight, perfect in every way.