by Beth Byers
A Cozy Little Murder
A Violet Carlyle Historical Mystery
Beth Byers
Contents
Sunmmary
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
A Sneak Peek of Mystery at the Edge of Madness
Also by Beth Byers
Sunmmary
September 1926.
Vi and Jack have settled into London for the fall, and they want nothing more than an excess of cocoa, coffee, good books, and time with friends.
They should, however, know better. Jack is brought in to consult on a case in the coziest of houses. Only all is not what it seems and no one is surprised when they find yet another body.
Chapter 1
“Promise—” Vi begged. She knew it was begging, and she didn’t care in the least. She’d have gotten onto her knees, given him the puppy dog eyes, and batted her lashes. Whatever it took. She needed a break. She needed to have a few weeks without treasure hunts and stumbling over a body.
“It’s just a simple case that Smith passed on, Vi. Honestly—” Jack shook his head.
“You’re addicted to investigating,” she told him.
He lifted his brows and the look of stark disbelief on his face had her giggling into her hand. With a growl, he ran his fingers down her side, making her squirm with laughter.
“Stop, stop, stop!”
“Beg for mercy and tell the truth,” he told her, his lips directly next to her ear.
“Never!” she cried and tried to get away. She failed instantly and instead wrapped her arms around him and bit his chin with just enough force that he cursed low. She laughed into his ear.
“You,” he told her fiercely, “are the one who is addicted to investigating.”
“I’m just interested in people,” she tried. His groan told her exactly how effective that whopper of a lie was. She then went straight to whining. “I don’t get to have any fun.”
Jack tangled their fingers together and sat up, lifting her along with him. “According to Smith, the feel of the case is off, but he doesn’t have time for it.”
“It’s just an old woman?”
“Just an old woman,” Jack promised, sitting near the fire and reaching for the coffee he’d requested earlier. Speaking of being overly attached to something, they were both almost incapable of starting the morning without coffee. Lately, they were ordering it to their room when they woke and then having more with breakfast.
“An old woman who wants what, now?” Vi took her coffee from him, snuggling into his side in the overstuffed chair. Was there any better way to wake than curled into Jack’s side with an oversized cup of coffee while laying her head on his oversized shoulder?
She glanced up through her lashes at him, noticing how he quietly took in the smell of his coffee before taking a sip.
He answered a moment later. “She said her grandson is behaving oddly, and she wants us to find out what is wrong and help him fix it. Her son has passed away, and the grandson is her only family.”
“Her only, only family?” Vi demanded.
“I don’t know,” Jack replied. “Who can tell if he’s just her only progeny or if she’s got a slew of cousins, nephews, and nieces.”
“Or, she has way more children and grandchildren, but this grandson is the favorite.”
“Well then,” Vi told him, “I suppose you’re bringing Ham with you?”
“He is my business partner,” Jack said as though they weren’t halfway to partners with Smith as well. Ham, however, was Jack’s best friend. Smith had somehow become part of their hodgepodge family, but they all knew what they had in Smith, and the man was about as shady and nefarious as you could get without being a full rogue.
“That means I get Rita,” Violet told him, and then made sure she grinned as largely and wickedly as possible to send off all the red flags she could.
His gaze narrowed on her, but she rose, taking her coffee into the bath. She started the water, throwing in salts and then sank into it with her coffee. She lingered in the water until her coffee was gone and then rose to wrap in her silk kimono.
With a glance outside, she saw the skies were grey, and when she breathed in deeply, she caught the scent of rain in the air. It was just what she needed, so she closed her eyes and continued inhaling the glorious scent. After weeks of too much heat in the summer, Violet needed nothing more than drizzly days, coffee, long baths, and days of typing to feel like herself again. Especially since Victor, Kate, and the twins were a mere two doors down.
She searched through her closet until she found a dress to match the weather. It might have been grey, but the dress wasn’t drab. It was a straight drop to past her waist, with a sort of jagged hem that looked as though it was both torn up and intentionally ragged. The fabric had been woven with silver thread, so it glistened in any light. She wrapped her long black pearls around her neck, put on her spider ring, and then added black pearl earbobs and a bracelet.
Her brother was on her mind, given they were finished with the werewolf-pirate story, which they had written more as a dare. Now that they were done, should they publish it? And if they did, did they want to use their pen name, V.V. Twinnings?
They knew, after all, it was a story of madness that appealed to their most ridiculous humor. Vi’s mouth twisted. She wasn’t sure it was a story that matched the rest of their admittedly light fiction. Their stepmother hated the kind of things they wrote. They weren’t even trying for an epic novel for the ages. They wrote fun fiction for the joy of it.
Vi knew she needed to make a choice before she went to her brother. She slowly put on her cloche hat and grey wool coat. She belted the coat around her waist and told Hargreaves she was off to have breakfast with her twin. She loved that it was so easy.
In the country, their houses were close, but it wasn’t like she could take a two-minute walk to her brother’s home for breakfast. Nothing—nothing—beat being nearly in the same house. She whistled to her dogs and made her way outside. She had little doubt that Jack was on the way to see Ham, and Vi had no desire for a lonely breakfast.
She strolled through her garden, her dogs at her heels, following the path they made between their two houses, and let herself into the kitchens. Cook greeted Vi as she passed through and said, “He’s up and cursing over a new story in his office with his breakfast. Would you like something too?”
Vi nodded with a grin and then made her way through Victor’s house as comfortably as she did in her own. She pushed the office open and leaned down to greet his dogs while her dogs pawed his perfect suit. Given that they’d just walked through the garden, they left little paw prints that caused him to curse low.
“Good morning, brother.”
He scowled at her, dabbing at his thigh with his handkerchief.
“Someone woke up on the delighted side of this drizzly day,” she observed.
His gaze narrowed on her as he reached out for his coffee. “Why are you so cheery?”
“Why are you so foul?”
“Vivi is as loquacious as yourself and she has a tooth coming in.”
“And Papa couldn’t leave her to the nanny.”
“She was crying ‘Papa’,” he said foully, but Vi caught the smile at the corner of his mouth and the light in his gaze.
“You, sirrah, are a good father.”
She had begun with a tone that said she was going to tease, but the subject wasn’t one she found all that amusing. Her eyes met his and the two of them examined each other. They had the same dark eyes, the same sharp features, the same wit in their expressions. They were, of course, not identical, but they were so similar they were almost reflections of each other.
His eyes darted to the side, and she could see the worry, so she repeated, “Victor, you are a good father. Not at all like our father.”
“Are you so sure?”
“Yes,” she said instantly. “Let’s assume for a moment that something happens to Kate.” His eyes widened in alarm, but she pushed through the panic that thought gave him. “Would you just hand over the twins to me?”
He shook his head. The appalled expression was enough for both of them. They were very different from their father, who had lost their mother and then handed the two of them over to their great aunt. There had been a measure of love in the act because they had responded so well to Aunt Agatha. But, even so, neither of them could fully forgive him for never being a regular part of their life after that.
“That’s the difference, Victor dear.”
He cleared his throat, and she could see the tremble in his lip and loved him more for the emotion she knew he felt.
“So,” she cut in, giving him the opportunity to change the subject as she knew he desperately wanted. “The werewolf-pirate book.”
He lifted his brows and waited and she grinned evilly. “We could publish it under E.A. Allen.”
His shout of shocked laughter echoed in the air. “After Jack’s former fiancé?”
“I dislike her fiercely for so many reasons other than just that.”
Victor snorted. “I like it. Now for the next book—”
They considered what they would write next for much of the morning and stopped only when Rita and Kate appeared in the door of the office. Those two women, along with Lila, were the best of Violet’s friends, and she loved them like sisters.
“Isolde is in town,” Kate announced. “There was a note this morning, which I’m sure she sent to you as well. She suggests shopping, lunch at the Savoy, and a general day of indulgence.”
“Sold,” Violet said, and then buffed her nails on her dress. “I, of course, have already worked so long and hard this morning with my righteous good virtues that it is time for a break.”
“Nothing you just said made sense,” Rita told Violet and then eased into a chair. She leaned down to pet the dogs. “Watson woke me with his nose in my ear. Dogs are to be considered carefully.”
Violet grinned. She had been responsible for Ham’s dogs and the fact that they were slightly tormenting Rita gave them all the more value.
“Ours have abandoned Victor and me for the girls,” Kate said, easing herself and the baby that would be arriving soon onto a chair. It had been far too long since Kate had easily left the house. She’d been terribly ill with the pregnancy with the twins, and then it had taken them too long to find a good nanny. “I don’t really want any clothing given my state,” she gestured to her body, “but I should very much like shrimp on toast and perhaps some new books.”
“Books?” Vi nodded. “It has been too long since we’ve lingered in a bookstore.”
Rita groaned and then winked when both Kate and Vi shot her dark looks. “Fine.”
“You like books,” Kate told Rita. “Get your mind in the book game, Rita dear. While you do, I’ll gather my coat and telephone Lila.” She hesitated before standing, giving her wide girth a scowl as she maneuvered back onto her feet. Victor leaped to help before she’d barely lifted from her seat.
“I’ll call for an auto for you,” Victor said, following his wife from the office. He winked back at Vi and then called the dogs along with him. “That way you won’t have to worry about managing it too.”
Vi rolled her eyes at her brother. “Call Hargreaves. He will drive, I’m sure.”
She finished off her last piece of—now cold—bacon. She then powdered her nose, updated her lipstick, and put her hat on. Replacing her compact in her clutch, Vi grinned at Rita and said, “Well, now?”
“Well,” Rita repeated. “The boys have a new case.”
“Which they wish us to remain out of,” Vi said righteously. She sniffed and then lied, “I’m not curious.”
“Neither am I,” Rita countered with her own easy lie. “Not at all.”
Their gazes met and they laughed in unison.
“We’ll have to find our own way into trouble,” Rita suggested. “Like last time.”
Vi’s snort made her cough, and she cough-laughed until tears were rolling down her face, and she needed to correct her powder and lipstick again. When she finally gathered herself, she asked, “Did we hear from Oscar about what the treasure was?”
“So much money,” Rita replied. “Just so much money. That old man lived in near penury rather than luxuriate just to keep what he had from those he should have loved.”
“I suppose he was determined to take what he had with him. Did he prepay for the bank box?”
“For over a hundred years.” Rita shook her head. “The fool. The least he could do is ensure that a charity received the money. But he was too horrible for that too.”
“Speaking of luxuriating—” Vi turned as Kate opened the door.
Kate looked between the two of them, lifted her brow at the mischief on their faces. “Hargreaves is here. Isolde is going to Lila’s, so we just need to gather them from Lila’s house, and we’ve a reservation for lunch.”
“Perfect,” Vi announced and adjusted her coat. She found Victor in the hall with a twin on each hip. “Darling, Victor. I’m leaving the dogs with you.”
Vivi started to cry and Vi covered Kate’s ears, placed a kiss on each niece’s cheek, leaving behind a perfect red kiss mark, and then dragged their mother out. Kate looked back at the door time and again until Vi said, “It’s good for Victor to have them with Nanny Jane.”
Vi had no idea if that was accurate, but Kate needed to hear it and it was easy enough to tell her.
Chapter 2
Beatrice was in the office when Violet knocked on the door. Vi’s business manager didn’t look up at the noise, and Vi wasn’t surprised given the furious typing. The clanging of the keys sounded much like when Violet was in the middle of writing quite an intense scene in one of her books.
Vi entered, placing the cup of tea she’d brought for Beatrice on the desk, and then took a seat across from her friend, sipping her coffee. She drank it quietly, watching as Beatrice’s nose scrunched. Vi leaned back, having to admit that Beatrice was excellent at what she did. She was fully invested in whatever tirade she was writing.
When she finally pulled the paper from the typewriter and turned to place it on the desk, she gasped, clutching her chest. “Vi!”
Vi grinned wickedly and then nodded to the tea.
“Oh! Oh—” Beatrice took a deep breath in and shuddered. “Oh, my. You nearly scared the life from me.”
Vi sipped innocently from her coffee while Beatrice gathered herself, and then they discussed business for several minutes before Vi suggested that Smith come to dinner in the coming days. When they ate at home, Beatrice was always invited, as she had a set of rooms in the house along with this office. In addition to managing Vi’s business interests, Beatrice looked after the house when Vi and Jack weren’t in residence.
“How long are you here for?” Beatrice’s love and attention to her tea made Vi laugh.
She had to think back to the question once she’d stopped. “We haven’t really decided. Perhaps we’ll go home for the holidays. Or perhaps, we’ll go
somewhere. Jack said something about Christmas in Spain. He also wants to go for the running of the bulls.”
Beatrice paused and then asked, “Why?”
Vi shook her head. She couldn’t imagine anything less desirable than the running of the bulls in Barcelona, but she’d learned from when she was very young that the males of the species often enjoyed things that the more practical females found absurd.
“Smith will come to dinner if he’s not working,” Beatrice said and then shook her head, jerking her gaze towards the door, so Violet followed it.
“Speak of the devil,” Vi said, finding Smith leaning in the doorway.
“Were you offering food?” Smith asked easily. He crossed to Beatrice, placing a soft kiss against her lips before taking the seat next to her, so the two of them were behind the desk while Vi was in the visitor’s seat. She grinned at the move and saw absolutely nothing on Smith’s face. The man was as enigmatic and unreadable as always.
“I was,” Vi said. “Food, drinks, a cigar if you must.”
“I think I must,” Smith said as agreeably as he could. “I was coming to see if I could persuade Beatrice to help with a case.”
“You cannot,” Beatrice said firmly. “Vi’s man of business has sent me a whole slew of things I have to reply to. I will be overwhelmed for the next few days.”
Was that the merest trace of irritation on Smith’s face, Vi wondered? She was so busy trying to decide, it took her too long to realize he’d turned those angel’s eyes to her. The man was, indisputably, the most handsome man Violet had ever seen. He was as beautiful as an angel, which always made the devilish turn of his mind more surprising.
