by Beth Byers
Table of Contents
A Merry Little Murder
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
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Also By Beth Byers
Also By Amanda A. Allen
Sneak Peek of Spaghetti, Meatballs, & Murder
Author’s Note
Copyright
A Merry Little Murder
The Violet Carlyle Mysteries
Book 4
By: Beth Byers
Chapter 1
“I might have done something ridiculous, darling.” Victor grinned and leaned back as he lit a cigarette. The angle of both his head and his smirk told her that his story would be one for the ages.
“Would you be referring to the suit you are wearing?” Violet sipped her tea and watched, evilly, as her brother glanced down at his suit and considered whether it was deserving of the accusation. A moment later, she glanced out the window to watch the rain come down and wondered whether it would ever stop. Normally she loved the rain but not today. Lately, she was finding it difficult to love much of anything.
Victor’s chuckle was forced. “I look dashing in this suit, my darling demon. Aren’t you curious about what I have done? Isn’t curiosity abounding in your mind like a run-away rodent?”
Violet lifted a brow and tapped her lips before she waved her hand as though he were a peasant and she was giving him permission to speak. A moment later the rain distracted her again.
He raised a brow. They knew each other so well that the underlying conversation between them was intense. Without his saying a word, Violet understood that her brother was worried. Without her saying a word, he knew that she was helpless in the face of her mood.
It was easy because they were opposite sides of the same coin. Victor, like Violet, was tall and slender with dark coloring, sharp features, and bright, witty eyes. As twins, they understood each other with a preternatural ability.
Rather than verbally hashing out his worries, he said, “You are a terrible, terrible brat. A bothersome beast. I’m not sure why I bother with you at all. Ignoring me as you are. I am trying to confess here, darling. To bare my soul and you’re staring off into the distance as though plotting my demise.”
Violet laughed again, the smile not reaching her eyes. “I suppose I might be a little glum.”
“A little?” Victor took another drag of his cigarette. “Darling, you are swimming in an ocean of the blues.”
Violet pasted a smile on her face, taking a drag off her brother’s cigarette, remembering why she didn’t like them, and handing it back. The very fact that she’d stolen his cigarette had spiked another level of concern in his gaze. She scowled at him, trying to hide how badly her mouth tasted. It was going to last far too long. She took a long, large sip of her tea, but it didn’t clear the flavor away.
“I know when a smile is a lie, darling, especially with you. You’ll have to do better or I’ll wonder why I like you?” Victor steepled his fingers and raised a brow in challenge.
“I assume,” Violet laughed, “that you love me because I’m charming. Oh! And witty. Kind with a tendency towards too-much latitude when dealing with my twin.”
“There it is…” He un-steepled his fingers as Violet batted her lashes at him. “There’s nothing doing when the girls start flapping those lashes and smirking.” He sniffed. “Can’t believe a word of the nonsense she spews.”
Violet continued extolling her virtues as though he hadn’t spoken. “Hmmm, I believe you’d describe me as a pearl of great price. Yes. Exactly that. Nonsense? Hardly. I only spew words to be hung upon.”
“More valuable than rubies,” Victor mocked. He shifted in his seat, his eyes too knowing and too sharp for Violet’s preference when she was pretending to be merry and bright.
Violet tossed her hair and took a sip to hide the lack of her grin. If she kept the act up, maybe he would stop worrying? “Proceed.” She waved her hand imperiously. “Confess.”
Victor took a long drag of his cigarette before saying, “Perhaps you recall that weekend in October when Denny and I went up to the hunting cabin?”
“Mmm,” Violet leaned down to scratch her puppy’s ear. The sweet little thing followed Violet everywhere she went. Vi hadn’t expected to love little Rouge quite as much as she did. “Yes. When you played at hunting but napped the entire time as I recall clearly. I wasn’t even there, but I know you.”
Victor glanced behind him as though looking for eavesdroppers before he said, “Well, I didn’t nap entirely. We found this little pub where the fella making drinks was brilliant. Brainy in a way that was extraordinary. I…well—you wouldn't have thought they have such good options in the back of beyond as we were.”
Violet refilled her teacup and picked up a piece of ginger cake, taking a bite as she waited for Victor to confess that he had been well and truly sloshed when he’d done whatever ridiculous thing he’d done.
“Well, while we were there, we meet another bloke from near Surrey. He had come for a funeral or something. Spent the whole time talking about the house he’d inherited. Pretty little piece. Brick. Charms of the ages. Ah, rooms galore. The most beautiful rose gardens you’d ever see in a town where rose gardens abound.” Victor’s lips were twitching, and Violet could see he was mocking himself as much as teasing her.
She nudged him with her shoe. “Complete this confession, my good fellow, before I expire of curiosity.”
The story came to a halt while Violet’s spaniel, Rouge, barked as Victor’s dog, Gin, nudged her with his nose. Gin stretched back with his bottom in the air, tail wagging. Rouge growled at him—unimpressed—and circled at Violet’s feet before plopping herself down.
“Ah, well, so apparently I was intrigued by the house,” Victor said. “Taken in, you might say, by the description. My imagination took flight. I could see so many wonderful things. Holidays with garland. Hot summer afternoons lying in the rose garden, listening to the bees buzz. Some very, very distant day in the future with little nippers running over the lawn, fishing poles in hand.”
Violet searched her brother’s face, leaning forward to catch his gaze when he tried to avoid hers. He sipped his own tea to avoid her. “You didn’t!”
“Apparently,” he said calmly, recrossing his legs. “I did. I have only the vaguest of recollections. I thought it might have been a dream.”
“You didn’t,” she said again and as he started to blush, she giggled.
“Darling one,” Victor idly threatened, “Do not force me to gag you. I am confessing here. I am baring my soul. Sharing the deepest, most embarrassing actions.”
A snort escaped her amidst her laughter. “Oh Victor, did you even see the house before you made an offer to purchase it?”
He shook his head.
“Had anyone seen it?”
He shook his head.
“Did you just write up an offer on a scrap of bar paper?”
He cleared his throat before he nodded once. With an air of understanding, he added, “They were mourning, Vi. Burying their…great aunt or second cousin or…well, their loved one. I couldn’t just barge through their funeral to examine the cupboards.”
Violet’s giggles lasted so long, she
cried, the tears rolled right through her powder, smudging the kohl on her eyes and she finally demanded, “How bad is it?”
“The gardens are lovely. Remarkable. Something to behold in awe. Having not seen the house myself, I sent one of Fredericks’ men down to take a look and see what I’d done.”
She laughed again. “The house is horrible, isn’t it?”
“I have only heard reports,” he said imperiously. “Is it righteous to make claims based off of second-hand commentary?”
“Only, it seems,” Violet said, “for the gardens. How much money did you lose on this venture?”
He shifted and then said, “It isn’t too bad. That fine bloke, my good friend, the bosom of my gin and tonic’d heart didn’t take advantage of me too badly. I paid rather more than it was worth, but it’s more the ready money necessary to get the place livable.”
Violet laughed again. A bit of the tea slipped out of her cup and onto her dress, and she didn’t even mind despite the fact that her dress was a nude-ish pink color and she’d have to change. She blotted the spill and then dabbed at her eyes.
“Holes in the roof?”
Victor sniffed then nodded.
“Wallpaper from when Victoria was queen?”
He shrugged, but she knew that for a yes.
Violet wiped another tear away and held her stomach. Her sides hurt from the laughter, and she felt refreshed.
“Feeling better, luvvie?”
Violet nodded. “Perhaps I have been a little glum, darling. Maybe I should gather up Lila and drag her to buy dresses with me.”
“I’ve rung them up, darling, they’re coming to have lunch with us. Afterward, go shopping with Lila. Fill up your armoires again. Buy a new armoire and stuff that one as well. Find a dress for the holidays. Come back my cheery sister.”
“Wonderful!” Violet rose and squeezed her brother’s shoulder and ran up the stairs to her bedroom followed by Rouge, who whined as she tried to keep up. The poor dog didn’t like the stairs, but Violet wasn’t going to carry the furry little thing up every time she went up. Violet paused in the doorway of her bedroom. She had told her maid not to come in if Violet were in the room. Perhaps she’d been spending too much time in there, given the mess.
Vi had to pause in sheer shock at the disarray. It was time to do something about her blues. How had she not seen things laying everywhere? How had she let things progress to this point? Vi never let messes linger. She even tended to straighten up after other people, not just herself.
Violet felt a flash of utter shame that only grew when she remembered the way Victor had watched her so carefully when she’d joined him for tea. This wasn’t her. Nothing about this behavior was the way she normally felt, and Violet didn’t know quite what to do about what was happening to her.
She pushed herself through putting away her makeup, hung up her dresses, and then rang the bell for Beatrice.
“Hello, darling,” Violet said as Beatrice came into the room.
The girl’s wide gaze was on Violet, carefully saying nothing. Further confirmation, Violet thought, that she’d been far too woeful lately.
Violet forced a laugh. “Let’s clean up this mess, shall we?”
Beatrice shook her head, her eyes brightening with unshed tears. “Oh no, my lady. I’ll do it. Oh, I’m—”
Violet laughed and picked up a stack of her books, noting the unread Tarzan novel. She had been off lately. Violet gobbled up the new Edgar Rice Burroughs novels the moment they arrived. “Thank you for seeing me through the last while. I believe I am determined to be merry and bright again.”
“Oh, my lady,” Beatrice said and then tried to unobtrusively wipe away a tear.
Violet didn’t reply. She cleared her desk and realized that she’d stopped writing as well. It hadn’t even occurred to her that she’d messed that up too. She sighed into her hand, the feeling of being blue returning. She just…this was the first round of the holidays without Aunt Agatha, and the fierceness of missing her was more than Violet was prepared to experience. Things had been going only moderately well since they’d arrived in London. Then, with the holidays approaching, so many memories returned.
Her instincts were telling her it was time to pack her bags and head to Aunt Agatha’s home, but those days were over. That particular house had been left to John Davies—it wasn’t the house that Vi missed. It was the tradition, the need to throw herself on her aunt’s bed and pour out her heart—to have that sympathetic and loving ear. That would never happen again. What made it all worse was the way Aunt Agatha had been stolen from the twins, murdered for an inheritance. Violet shuddered at the memory and told herself to set it aside.
Her journal had been tossed to the side of her desk. She picked it up to put it away but ended up flipping to the end. Vi hadn’t written in it for a few weeks. She sketched a very poor rendition of Rouge, thinking about what needed to be done. As much as she wanted to muster up some gumption about being happy, it wasn’t just turning back on. Even a cleaner room wasn’t going to make her feel better. Violet rose suddenly, changed her dress into something warm with wool stockings, a warmer coat. She considered gloves and decided they must be worn even though the feel of them drove her mad.
“Where are you going, my lady? May I get you anything?”
“Just for a walk,” Violet said, fussing with the angle of her hat.
A few minutes later she was wrapped up in her coat with a leash on Rouge. She walked by Victor’s bedroom and saw he’d also dressed warmly.
“What’s this now?” Violet had already realized that Beatrice had told Victor of Vi’s plans. She scowled at him and he gave her a charming grin in reply. They both knew he was spying on her, tracking her out of his worry, but his expression said he was entirely unrepentant.
“My little rogue, Gin, needs a walk as well.”
She grinned at him, but they both knew it didn’t reach her heart. She felt a bit like a millstone around his neck. He held out his arm, and she tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. On the way out, Hargreaves’ gaze brightened as she left, and she sighed.
Victor laughed as she did. “Did you expect to dive into the doldrums and have no one care, darling one?”
“I just—”
“It’s all right, luv,” Victor said. “You’ll just have to accept being loved. Now shake off that woebegone look and let’s just enjoy the drizzle, shall we? Look at this London day—they don’t get this relentless grey and wet in Monaco.”
Victor held an umbrella over both of them, and they walked in silence for a long time. Despite the grey, Violet felt better. The wind in her face, the sound of people laughing and moving, the scent of the rain combined with smoke. It was home. Rouge sniffed every little thing and Gin was racing forward and back to the end of his leash.
“Do you see that little pug over there?” Violet nudged her brother and nodded towards the dog.
It was prancing on the end of its leash, sticking close to the dog walker and keeping under the umbrella. The twins’ dogs, however, were mud-splattered and sopping wet. Neither of the dogs seemed to mind the filth or the chill.
“Ah, yes,” Victor agreed smoothly, “that proper little beast does seem to make our dogs look like ragamuffins. There are the many reasons, I think, that people will look at us and our mongrels and find us wanting.”
He tugged her slightly out of the way of a deeper puddle after watching the person in front of them step down to his mid-calf. “Do you remember the Christmas where the goose burned? And Cook cried into her apron while Aunt Agatha went into the kitchens and helped Cook put together a tray of cold ham as though nothing happened?”
Violet laughed at the memory of Aunt Agatha returning to the dining room carrying the tray herself. She had been wearing a cap and an apron over her evening gown. The sight of her had sent the twins giggling, while their cousin, Meredith, twisted her face up into a smirk and spoke of being unable to find good servants.
“Why did Me
rry have to kill her?”
Victor looked down at Violet and then tugged her a little closer to him. “Aunt Agatha knew that Merry was suffering. She was left to endure, Vi.”
It wasn’t the answer Vi was looking for.
“Why didn’t Merry ask for help? Suffering isn’t an excuse to take her from us.”
“There is no excuse for murdering Aggie, Violet. Merry might have asked for help. Only, we both know she’d have asked for an allowance. You know Aunt Agatha didn’t believe in handouts. Maybe if Merry had asked for training or help in getting a position. In fact, certainly, Aunt Agatha would have stepped in then. Merry would have expected an allowance. Something like Father gives us. I’m not saying that Merry’s actions were right, Vi. Just that she was suffering.”
Violet nodded. She laid her head on her brother’s shoulder as they walked on. He spoke of the happier memories, but so many of them were entangled with their cousin, Meredith. She had murdered their aunt for an inheritance. It had left Violet and Victor nauseatingly wealthy, making Victor’s blunder buying a house sight-unseen as something to laugh over rather than destructive. Both of them would much rather have their aunt, but it seemed that fate had intended something else.
Chapter 2
“And what, darling one, is happening with Jack?” Lila’s voice carried out over the dress salon as she spun in front of the triple mirror, examining the dress from every angle. It was a deep cranberry red with black beading and fringe. The drop waist lengthened her form, which wasn’t as naturally slender as Violet’s.
The dress salon was more like a parlor than a shop, with settees, sofas, and tables tastefully laid out with scarves and shawls. Armoires were stuffed with hand-beaded dresses, and drawers were left open to allow the customers to see the silk stockings. Little tables were set with beautiful shoes placed just so.
Violet leaned back in a chair, legs crossed, foot jiggling. The owner and designer of the dresses sold in this salon had become friends with Violet in the last few months, and the woman—she was a true artist—had set aside several gowns for Violet to try, but she was finding herself uncaring.
