by Beth Byers
Violet followed Victor inside and told Rouge and Holmes to stay. Holmes tried to follow Violet, but she snapped, “Stay.”
His big brown eyes looked up at her with a heart-broken expression.
“Stop it.”
He whimpered and Violet sniffed, picking him up. He nuzzled his face into her neck, tail wagging. “It’ll be all right, baby,” she told him, letting him kiss her chin before she turned him over to the nanny and left to his barked cry.
“How did it happen?” Victor asked Jack when they entered the library. Every piece of furniture had been shifted to search for any other snakes and it was being moved back.
“There was a rash of deliveries all at once. One boy arrived with a box and disappeared before he could be dealt with. No one questioned it with the meat, milk, and bread arriving all at once.”
“Must’ve known where to go,” Victor said, stepping into the hall and staring down towards the kitchen. “He would have to have been a sneaky thing to get past your Cook and Hargreaves.”
“Indeed.” Jack sighed and helped the driver-gardener move the heavy desk back into place. “There’s no reason to believe that there was anything else. The door to the library was shut all morning. No snakes could have gotten out of the library. There isn’t another one hiding in here.”
“Why would someone do this to us?” Violet asked, glancing at Jack.
Jack shook his head, as mystified as Vi. “I have no idea, Vi.”
Chapter 4
Violet stood on a small stool in her parlor while the fit of her witch’s costume was checked before she accepted the final delivery. It was a fitted black dress that had been embroidered with spider webs. The embroidery was accented with small, silver beads just often enough that in the candlelight of the party, they’d twinkle. Her mask, unlike her dress, was terrifying. It had a long green nose and a large mole near the exaggerated cheekbone. It would cover her face entirely so no one would be able to see who she was.
She had a pointed hat wrapped in black silk with a stuffed raven on the brim. Violet preferred to avoid meeting the creature’s gaze, so she pulled the hat off as soon as she checked the fit.
“You should wear jet black beads,” Lila told Violet. “With that new black diamond choker. Let’s go shopping for jewelry.”
“I just did.” Violet frowned. “Do you hear that?”
“Cheap jewelry. I can’t buy myself heirlooms on a whim,” Lila said and yawned. Unlike Kate, Lila very rarely caressed her baby mound, but Vi noted the careful placement of Lila’s palm at that particular moment.
“I heard it,” the seamstress said, nodding, pins in her mouth. “It’s like the skittering of tiny nails. You said you have puppies, right? Perhaps they got out of their box?”
“Aren’t the puppies at Victor’s?” Lila asked.
Violet carefully stepped down from the stool and crossed the parlor to the hallway. She cautiously opened the door and then—to her shame—screamed like Denny meeting a snake.
Jack burst from the library as Violet cut off her shriek. Lila grabbed Violet’s bicep as they stared in horror at the good fifty mice that had been put in through the letter slot.
“Bloody hell!” Jack shouted. “Hargreaves!”
Violet closed her eyes and ran to the front door, swinging it wide. It was a good move as at least some of the mice went fleeing out the opening and down into the street. Violet ignored them even as she stepped up onto the rim of a large stone flower pot to avoid them touching her. She stared down the street and just saw the figure of a person in a long black coat and black hat fleeing around the corner.
“They’re already gone,” Violet said, glancing back at Hargreaves. The hallway had emptied of mice, but Violet had little doubt that some were hiding under furniture or behind doors. “We’re going to need some cats.”
“I’ll take care of, Mrs. Vi,” Hargreaves said, glancing back at Jack. “What is happening to our home?”
Violet stared at Hargreaves while Jack lifted Violet down.
“I like your costume,” Jack said almost absently. “Find us some cats,” he said to Hargreaves. “Hire some more servants. Let’s see if more eyes solve the problem.”
Violet returned to the parlor and found the costumer packing up her things. “S-s-some of them came in here. I have—I have quite a terrible fear of rodents, ma’am. I’m sorry. Your dress looks lovely. It’s quite all right as it is.”
Violet didn’t argue. She sent a maid in to help the woman clear her things out and sent her down to Victor’s house to help with Ginny’s costume. Violet faced the room. She shivered as she remembered the sound of all those small claws on her wood floors and then glanced at Lila.
Lila had been fitted first and her renaissance princess costume floated about her feet as she stood on a chair.
“A few did come in here.”
Violet lifted a brow at Lila and sniffed dramatically
“Stop it,” Lila said, shuddering. “I hate mice.”
“They’re just tiny little animals.”
“You screamed like Denny as if it were raining snakes.”
“You’re on a chair like Denny as if it were flooding snakes.”
Lila choked on her laughter and then gestured imperiously for Jack. He crossed to her and she jumped into his arms. “Carry me to the stairs, my liege, and don’t tell me if mice can climb stairs. I’m changing and going home to nap in safety.”
Violet heard a skittering noise and hurried up the stairs after Lila. Vi wasn’t going to be driven from her home, but she had to admit that she was at a bit of a loss. She was nearly certain that skittering noise she’d just heard was entirely in her imagination.
“Get a good half-dozen cats, Hargreaves. Set them on the halls as though we’ve been invaded by felines. Feel free to issue them muskets for mouses.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She ran up the stairs, carefully hung her dress in her closet and changed into a pinky-nude day dress. Violet added several bangles and a pretty gold ring to play with as she paced her bedroom floor. As she paced, she paused to straighten her perfume bottles or the shoes in her wardrobe. Violet paced and thought and paced and thought until she was entirely without an idea of what to do.
Why was this happening to them? How were they going to find the culprit? Once could have been a simple prank, but twice? It was like guerrilla warfare with the carefully planned attacks on the unsuspecting household. Someone wasn’t going to get away with shoving things through the letter slot again. Someone wasn’t going to get away with sneaking in a disgusting package with their regular deliveries, but what was going to happen next?
How did you defend against an unknowable action? Had they enraged someone? Violet immediately thought of Mrs. Partridge, but really—the woman ran a girl’s school. She might have a good idea of the effect of pranks, but she was also an adult who had to be above such shenanigans.
As Violet’s youngest brother had been sent down from school again, she’d considered him seriously. She had asked her father about Geoffrey after the snake prank. Supposedly, he was doing well this year at school, Father had said. Given that Father had been dropping in on Geoffrey at school without Lady Eleanor, Vi thought he might be right about Geoffrey.
Would Ginny do this? Violet shook her head immediately. Ginny wasn’t stupid. She would never put the dogs or the babies at risk. She might be a schoolgirl, but she wasn’t cruel or mean. Especially to Violet.
Vi tapped her finger to her chin. They hadn’t owned the house all that long. Perhaps it was a prank directed toward the previous occupants of the house? Vi shrugged off that idea almost immediately. The man who had lived there before with his hangers-on children and grandchildren had been old and kind.
What if it had something to do with one of the cases that Jack worked or Violet had meddled in? She thought back to the last one. It had been a murder and a drug-smuggling enterprise. Violet thought that if someone were out for revenge, it would be a crueler, m
ore violent revenge than rodents through the mail slot.
The case before that one was a woman who had killed her husband. Violet knew all too well that Pamela was in a sanatorium and well along in her pregnancy. The woman would be giving birth any day and, aside from the fact that she was locked away, wouldn’t be able to rabbit down the road with the same speed that today’s culprit had accomplished.
Violet’s mouth twisted. Most of Jack’s cases were murderers. They weren't the type for this petty level of revenge, were they? Surely if you’d taken a life once and felt the need for revenge, the next step wouldn’t be a snake and mice?
On the other hand they might as well have Hamilton check in on those they’d helped lock up. Perhaps something had happened and they needed to be concerned?
Violet started to make her way back down the stairs and then reconsidered. She changed from her day dress to a solid gray, pleated skirt topped with a white blouse, a blue jumper, and finished with her knee-high black riding boots.
Violet wanted her brother, her husband, and Hamilton Barnes. Jack was in the library, a deep scowl on his face, gaze fixed towards the corner of the library. “There’s one over there.”
Violet crossed to him, taking a seat on his lap and distracting him from the mouse. He placed a hand on her thigh to hold her to him and noted her boots with a grin.
“Not a bad choice.”
“Have you called Ham yet?”
“He’s out for lunch.”
Violet considered for a moment, and then she and Jack said in almost unison, “Hotel Saffron.”
Jack stood, holding Violet in his arms, and found Hargreaves in the hall with a suspiciously bloody bundle in his hands.
“There’s one in the library.”
“The cats are on their way.”
“Bonuses for the staff,” Violet announced. “With some sort of special treat as well on their next evening off.”
“That’s tonight, ma’am,” Hargreaves told Violet. “Did you want me to cancel it?”
Violet paused before she answered. “Ah. No. But warn the local constable to keep an eye on our house, please, and lock up with extra precision.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Hargreaves said. He nodded to Jack, who carried Violet to the front door.
“We’re off to Hotel Saffron to find Rita and Ham.”
Chapter 5
Violet was pretty enough. She had a slim figure, animated features, and a bright smile. Rita, however, was the kind of beautiful that stopped you in your tracks and you remembered later. She was an animated painting from a master artist. Her eyes were large and as blue as the Mediterranean. Her blonde hair was marcelled along her face, and her pink lips were the kind of lush that left another girl envious.
When she frowned, as she was doing at that moment, she frowned so fiercely it was as though an evil queen stepped out of a fairytale and into her body. Only someone magical could be that beautiful and that furious. When Rita stood, picked up her cocktail, and tossed it into Ham’s face, Violet winced for them all.
Ham calmly wiped his face as Rita spun and faced her audience.
“You take Ham,” Violet said to Jack and then she followed Rita from the dining room to the penthouse suite.
Rita stormed to the lift, shooting Violet a dark look but not kicking her out. From the lift, she stalked down the hall to the double doors at the end and then into her suite. The first room of the suite was a combination parlor and dining area, with a desk in the corner and stacks upon stacks of Rita’s favorite books littering chairs, end tables, and shelves.
Rita threw herself on the large, comfortable chair. “I don’t want to hear about it.”
“About the mice in the letter slot?” Violet asked, taking a seat across from Rita. She calmly called down to room service for ginger wine, Turkish coffee, and sweets.
Rita’s rage-filled gaze shifted to confusion. “What now?”
“Mice. Letter slot. At least fifty of them, though I feel that the true horror can only be conveyed by magnifying the number to one hundred.”
“Mice?” Rita repeated.
“In the letter slot. Hargreaves is currently acquiring cats.”
Rita stared, her beautiful mouth hanging open. “Cats?”
“Like soldier assassins with a special mouse murdering mission. Do you want to go out for cocktails and dancing this evening? I need to pretend as though I didn’t have them running over my bare toes.”
“Why were your feet bare?”
“I was being fitted for my costume when a strange skittering sound from the front hall filled the air and filled me with an unholy curiosity that ended with unholy fodder for nightmares.”
Rita shuddered as Violet continued. “I thought to myself—whoever did this must be right outside. So like a brave general, I waded into the sea of attackers and flung open the door, leaping to the safety of the flower pot rim.”
“I can see it now,” Rita murmured, rising to open the door for room service. She poured them both oversized glasses of ginger wine.
“Can you?”
“You have a way with words.”
“You have a way with drinks,” Violet said, accepting her ginger wine, but her mischievous gaze met Rita’s. “Almost a—ah…”
“Assaultive?”
“Generous to a fault?”
“A storm of gin?”
“A barrage of Bacardi?”
“Stop it,” Rita laughed. “Oh, he makes me so mad.”
“Well,” Violet said carefully, “you showed him.”
Rita snorted and Violet held up a hand. “Don’t! We’re giving up snorts, sniffs, winks, and the emphatic lifting of brows.”
Rita’s snort turned into choked laughter. “Ginny is a delight.”
“She is an excellent impressionist.”
“She fits in well.”
“She makes us look like fools.”
“Perhaps,” Rita suggested slyly as she sipped from her ginger wine glass, then set it carefully down to throw herself on the Chesterfield, “we are fools.”
“Oh certainly,” Violet agreed. “I’d rather prefer, however, for Ginny not to be.”
Rita’s laughter was muffled as she rolled onto her side and then escaped again as she noticed Violet’s boot armor.
“You’d be wearing them too,” Violet said, “if it had been you with tiny claws digging into your toes.”
Rita propped herself up on her elbow, reached for a chocolate petit four and said agreeably, “I certainly would. Who is doing this to you?”
“I don’t know,” Violet admitted. “It seems a bit childish for our enemies and a bit too cruel for pranks from friends.” Vi paused and told herself not to say it, but she couldn’t quite stop herself. “Rather like throwing a drink in Ham’s face.”
Rita grinned and then callously shrugged as she reached for another petit four. “You aren’t going to let it go, are you?”
Violet shook her head, fighting the desire to snort sarcastically.
Rita noted Vi’s struggle and laughed into her hand.
“I could gag you,” Violet told Rita.
“I could throw my ginger wine into your face as well.”
“What did Ham do?”
Rita groaned and rolled onto her back. She threw her arm over her eyes. “Caught me flirting with Mr. Rothstein from America.”
Violet could not help herself from lifting a brow imperiously. At her silence, Rita raised her arm enough to see Violet’s arched look.
“I know! He’s handsome and charming and it was just a bit of good fun.”
Violet poured herself a cup of Turkish coffee and took a long sip. “So Ham was jealous?” Violet asked.
“He was and he wasn’t. He was jealous, and a little hurt—I think—which made me feel terrible. I wasn’t very nice because I was feeling so bad and now I feel like a beast. I haven’t fully forgiven him, you know. I laid my heart at his feet, and he picked it up and handed it back to me.”
Violet wince
d.
“I know that I came back here to give things a chance, but I just have a giant ball of hurt inside of me, and it hasn’t gone away, and sometimes I just want to hit him over and over again.”
Violet switched back to her ginger wine, unrepentant of her excess and then, to top it all off, she popped a petit four into her mouth and washed it down with another swallow of ginger wine.
“I’m not going to tell you that you were wrong,” Violet told Rita flatly. “If you were waiting for that, you’re going to have to take a deep breath and keep on waiting.”
Rita groaned. “I’m not sure I was wrong for harmlessly flirting. I haven’t made Ham one promise. Not one. However, I am sorry for how I acted afterward.”
“Maybe you could tell him tonight when we go dancing,” Violet said. “Our house is getting locked up tight so the servants can still have their evening off. The cats will hunt, I hope, and I have every intention of drinking enough to forget the sound of mice falling through the letterbox.”
Rita dropped her arm and sat up. “I suppose I should.”
“Mmm,” Violet said carefully, avoiding Rita’s gaze.
“It’s like I’m trying to drive him away,” Rita told Violet. “Why am I doing that? I can’t help myself.”
“Maybe to see if he’ll hand you back your heart?”
Rita scowled and then stood. She noticed the splatter of cocktail on her dress and went into the bedroom. Violet didn’t bother to follow Rita as she changed her dress, but there was a knock on the door of the suite. Vi crossed to answer the door and found Jack on the other side.
He lifted an inquiring brow, and Violet reached up and nudged it back into its usual place.
“Are you well?”
Violet nodded and pushed up on her toes to try to see over Jack’s shoulder.
“He went back to work.”
“Is he upset?”
“He’s smelling of gin and going to work, so yes. The woman he loves is furious with him, and he both knows why and also doesn’t have a clue as to what is going on.”
