Excerpt from An Appetite for Violets by Martine Bailey, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

He entered the hall's deep shadow. 'Carinna,' he demanded, blinking in the murky coolness. 'Carinna? I am here.'

He was answered by silence. Ah, not quite. The jingle of a silvery bell reached him from the rear of the house. Someone was at home. Opening his mouth to call again, he found his tongue was suddenly too dry to speak. He heard a new sound that was oddly irregular and – inhuman. A rapid clink and clawlike tapping. And then that musical tinkling of a tiny bell. With silent care he pushed the door open and passed into the first room. It was empty. There were shabby furnishings: a sofa, gilded mirror and ticking clock. Standing on the hearth rug Kitt listened acutely, all the time watching the gaping door that led to the back of the house. Now he could hear no sound save a low irregular buzzing. It was only then, as he inhaled sharply, that he noticed the stench: a gross, high stink that recollected the putrid bowels of the ship he had just escaped from. He gagged and buried his mouth in his linen. In the act of dropping his head, he had only one moment to comprehend a small demonic being rushing across the floor towards him. With a cry he kicked out hard with his riding boot. The creature screeched with pain and then retreated, whimpering backwards against the sofa.

'Bengo!'

By Christ, it was Carinna's little pug, a dog no larger than a rat with tinder-stick legs and doe-eyes. Around his neck was a silver collar hung with a tiny bell.

Crouching, he whispered the dog's name and stretched out his hand to pet its trembling back. 'Where is she, little fellow?'

The dog's saucer eyes flickered with suspicion, his worm's tail twitched. Crusty yellow vomit hung from his snout.

Holding his kerchief to his mouth, Kitt hesitated for a reeling moment. He was a betting man and would have wagered high that death was in this house. Steeling himself, he strode into the back room and forced himself to confront what he had travelled so far to find.

Before him stretched a table laden for a feast. Yet no guests sat at the velvet chairs. No bodies slumped across the cloth. A vast lump of meat had place of honour, rippling as if alive with a swarm of steel-blue flies. The tarts standing on gilded china were blotched grey with powdered mould; the bread sprouted puffy hairs of creeping fungus. A pyramid of sweetmeats had collapsed. Grapes had wrinkled into puckered raisins. Groping backwards, he saw a decanter of wine on the sideboard and reached out instinctively for a restorative gulp. Yet as his hand clutched the glass, a bulbous fly crawled over the rim and buzzed towards his face. Slapping it away, he saw the scene with greater clarity: pearly maggots wriggled amongst dishes of mould. The white cloth was besmeared with trails of hardening dog shit. On the instant he fled back to the hall and the gaping entrance door, where he gasped fresh air in greedy mouthfuls.

The air revived Kitt a little, though it brought no peace to his racketing head. Sweat broke out on his face. Where the devil were the servants? As furtive as a snake, Bengo slinked between his boots and bolted for the undergrowth. That dog had the right notion, Kitt decided. Carinna was not here. Something had happened. His dislike of petty laws and officials made him keen to run away, too. Pretend you were never here, his instincts whispered. Rapidly he reviewed his route: he had kept his destination secret. He could be far from here by midnight. Yet, if he left now, he would never know Carinna's fate. She might be upstairs. She might have left a message.

Turning on his heels he made a rapid tour of the lower rooms. He found a fussy sitting room with signs of occupation by a housekeeper or other damned hireling. Then, a kitchen still in disarray from preparations for the meal. Broken cakes on the table cast up a nauseous fragrance. That scent, like waterlogged lilies, fleetingly recollected a church after a funeral. The downstairs were deserted. He had to pause at the gaping front door once again to refresh his lungs before he could climb the stairs. If she is here, he thought, alive or dead, I must find her.

Excerpted from An Appetite for Violets by Martine Bailey. Copyright © 2015 by Martine Bailey. Excerpted by permission of Thomas Dunne Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.