by Beth Byers
After that, Victor and Violet were left alone in silence. They sat on yet another Chesterfield, side-by-side as they always did. Her head was on his shoulder, and she was trying very hard not to think of what she’d seen.
“I didn’t realize what a gift it was not to see Aunt Agatha…”
“Don’t think of it,” Victor told Vi, refilling her teacup with the decanter of scotch. She shivered and nodded, laying her head back on his shoulder until he lifted her teacup to her mouth.
“Do you suppose we’re suspects?” Violet asked a few minutes later. “Jack knows we hated Danvers and were trying to ruin the wedding.”
“I doubt very much that you will be, love,” Victor said. “Drink your tea now.”
Violet sat up and turned on him. “Tea?” she scoffed. “It was barely tea before you started refilling it.”
Victor grinned without a smidgen of repentance and said, “I suppose that party we were going to have isn’t quite the thing, now.”
The tenor of the question struck Violet as ridiculous and she broke into giggles. She was still laughing several minutes later and wiping her eyes with Victor’s handkerchief when Jack and Mr. Barnes entered the parlor.
“Is she weeping?”
Violet giggled and said, “Hullo there, good sir!”
“I suspect I pushed too much scotch into her,” Victor said staidly, glancing down at the giggling, shivering, and weeping Violet. “I take full responsibility.”
“What happened?” Jack demanded as Violet sniffled and then giggled a little more.
“I didn’t realize how enjoyable the burn of scotch could be,” Vi told Jack. “Do you like it?”
Her voice was high-pitched and cheery even as she shivered again and wiped away a tear.
Victor recapped the events while Violet tried and failed to get herself into control. Once Victor had done, Jack squatted down in front of Vi and said, “Are you all right?”
“You have rather remarkable eyes, did you know?”
Victor’s snort seemed to make Jack blush. Vi grinned in delight at the slight rosy tone to his cheeks. He wasn’t so large while he was before her like this. Well, he was, but he didn’t make her feel quite so small when he wasn’t towering over her. She discovered that his effect on her had no change.
“Don’t be shy,” Vi told him. “Not everyone has nice eyes, you know.” Her tone was very serious as she leaned in and whispered, “Lady Eleanor’s are rather faded and watery.”
Jack’s lips twitched and he said, “I know where they live, Barnes. I think Victor better get Violet home. We can question them after Violet has a nap and perhaps another sandwich to sop up all the booze Victor poured into her.”
Violet shivered again, a tear sneaking out of her eye, “It was awful.”
“You see…” Victor said, looking helplessly at Violet as she shivered once again, breaking into a new case of gooseflesh. “I can’t…”
Violet’s lower lip quivered and she said, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just keep…I just keep seeing it. Vic didn’t let me see Aunt Aggie.” Violet was crying fully then and Jack cleared his throat. “I didn’t like it at the time, but now…”
“I see…” Jack said, clapping a hand on Victor’s shoulder.
“I had to,” Victor said.
“Had to what?” Vi asked glancing between the three of them, who were all looking at her rather seriously.
“It didn’t stop her crying though, did it?” Barnes shook his head and said, “We can’t protect them from everything.”
Victor glanced back at Violet and swore, “But damned if I won’t try. Not sure she’ll let me take her home without Isolde though. I don’t suppose I can have her too? She can’t have done this.”
“Not if the murder is as you say,” Jack said. “It would have to be someone larger than either Violet or Isolde.”
“Couldn’t be Isolde,” Violet told them all. “Doubt she was alone since the moment she woke.” Violet suddenly yawned, placing a hand over her mouth, but the yawn shook her whole body. “Shouldn’t be happy. I’m not happy. But it’s better he’s gone. Better for Isolde. Solves a lot of the trouble for her. I keep seeing it.”
“Don’t think of it,” Victor and Jack said in unison.
Vi yawned again and shivered, not even noticing when another tear fell. Jack stood and pulled Violet up. “Get your other sister, Victor. Take them both to your house and don’t leave. We’ll be by.”
Victor nodded and Violet found herself alone with Jack once again, being bundled into the back of the Silver Ghost.
“Don’t leave me,” she begged. She dared to lay her head on his shoulder while he sat next to her. Not his shoulder. He was too large for that. This monstrous thing under her cheek was his arm. She reached her hand, still trembling, up to touch it and then yawned again. “You won’t go?”
“Not until Victor is here.”
Violet glanced out the window, seeing Markus Kennington and his cousin watching from an upper window. She shivered yet again. But this time it wasn’t memories that were assaulting her. It was the realization that someone she knew had murdered that bounder, Danvers.
Chapter 9
Violet fell asleep in the automobile on the way back to their house, but her dreams were fraught with searching for the people she loved and never quite finding them.
“I’m right here, luv,” Victor said soothingly one of the times she woke herself asking for him, but when she slipped back into sleep, he was gone again. Whatever would she do without him? She couldn’t imagine a future where he wasn’t a daily part of it. Even at college, they’d seen each other so often they might as well have been in the same houses.
“Is she always this melancholy when she’s in her cups?” Isolde’s voice cut through Violet’s fitful sleeping, and she sat up for a moment before turning towards Victor and snuggling into his side.
“It isn’t the scotch,” Victor said.
“It was awful,” she murmured into his shoulder, wishing she could slip deeply into sleep instead of waking and falling back asleep as she was doing.
“I know, darling. Don’t think of it.”
“I can’t make it stop,” she whispered as the dream claimed her again.
The motion of the automobile ceased. She woke when Victor pulled her from the car, and she found herself in his arms.
“Do you remember that time I fell from the tree?” she asked in a sleep-thickened voice.
“Carried you like this then, too.”
“Don’t go?” she asked. It was her dreams speaking, and she was asleep on his shoulder again before he could answer.
When she woke later that evening, it was to Beatrice gently shaking her shoulder.
“M’lady,” Beatrice said quietly. “M’lady. Dinner is to be served and Mr. Wakefield and Mr. Barnes are here to speak with the household.”
Violet shoved off her eye mask and found she’d been bundled into her bed in her dress without her shoes, jewelry, or hairpiece. Someone had taken care to put her eye mask on to block out the sun, but it was long gone now.
“What time is it?”
“Near seven, m’lady.”
Violet pushed back her hair and asked, “How long do I have?”
“As long as you need, m’lady. They all said so.”
Violet slowly stood. She didn’t feel so much sick to her stomach as sick to her heart. She took the aspirin that Beatrice had ready, along with Giles’s concoction, hurried it all down, and decided to take them at their word.
Beatrice drew a bath for her while she brushed her teeth. A quick bath later, and Violet pulled on her most comfortable dress and an oversized sweater. She didn’t feel up to bothering with makeup except for a little color on her lips. If this thing between her and Jack continued, he’d have to discover she had a few freckles on her nose.
They had gathered around the dining table once again. The cook had been informed they intended to bring a few friends home, but not to put forth such
a great effort. So they didn’t have more than the simple repast they would normally have requested.
Violet crossed immediately to Isolde, who was a pale sort of green, and hugged her tight.
“Are you all right?”
“Are you?” Isolde’s bright blue eyes searched Vi’s face. She nodded and they hugged once again.
Violet carefully pushed back one of Isolde’s loose curls. “I know this is awful right now, luv, but I am still proud of you.”
She turned to the rest of the room and found that the gentlemen had stood and were watching the interaction between the sisters.
Jack was standing next to his friend and former commander, Mr. Barnes. They both had the sort of alert, hunting look that Violet imagined had been normal for them during the war.
“There is food,” Victor said, as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Perhaps we might eat and discuss this as though it were a sort of intellectual problem.”
“Rather than the murder of Isolde’s bounder betrothed?” Violet asked.
Mr. Barnes said, “This is all very….inappropriate. We shouldn’t be consorting with…”
“Suspects?” Isolde looked weepy, and Mr. Barnes didn’t answer her. She wasn’t, however, incorrect.
“Do it anyway, old man,” Victor said, with that edge of the lion, the earl’s son, in his tone. He was in full protective mode with both of his younger sisters present and upset. “I won’t have you dragging off my sisters to badger them with questions, not without me there.”
“Victor…” Violet started, but he shook his head.
“Not today, Vi.”
“Violet and Isolde couldn’t have killed him. Given the amount of damage and the size of Danvers, they wouldn’t have been physically strong enough. It was but a single blow that ended him,” Jack said. “And Victor was seen during the likeliest window of when it could have occurred.”
Mr. Barnes searched all their faces and then nodded once.
“Cook made beef stew and Yorkshire pudding,” Victor said, interrupting smoothly, once more back to his usual calm. “Not very elegant, I’m afraid, but it’ll warm our bones.”
The dinner was served with ginger beer. Violet grinned at her glass as she accepted it from Hargreaves, well aware that the drink had been selected because Victor saw the pain behind her eyes. Giles and Hargreaves worked together to serve the dinner and Mr. Barnes kept a notepad next to his plate, making notes as they discussed the history of one Mr. Carlton Danvers.
“How did you meet him?” Violet asked Isolde.
“Mama, of course.” Isolde paused and then explained, “Uncle Kennington and Mama were rather good friends with him before I was ever introduced. Before I was even out of the schoolroom, Mama talked to me about being secure and Mr. Danvers’s name came up again and again. How he wasn’t quite the thing in looks, but such a good man. Such a steady man. A safe refuge for a flighty, romantic thing like me. Mama made it seem as though…” Isolde didn’t finish her thought, but Violet could imagine.
Lady Eleanor had pressured her daughter from the schoolroom, introduced them as a fate already accomplished, an established arrangement, and Isolde hadn’t found the gumption to kick up a fuss.
Father said he’d try to stop things, but what if his little asides had been laughed off by Lady Eleanor? Isolde may have been entirely unaware that Father objected, with his manner of protesting. He was so lackadaisical about things, and one had to be quite familiar with him to be aware of when he was unhappy. Would it be so surprising if Isolde wasn’t privy to that trait?
“I think we see,” Mr. Barnes said gently. “Were you aware of any enemies?”
Isolde shook her head. “Mama kept me focused on shopping and furniture. I just tried to enjoy the jewelry and not think too far ahead.”
Victor set his drink down with a rather forceful click, but he did nothing more than cross his finger in front of him.
Violet despised her next question, but it had to be asked. “What do you know of Helen Mathers?”
Isolde glanced at Violet and blushed brightly enough that Violet thought her innocent sister may be rather aware of more than Violet would have guessed.
“She distracted him from me, didn’t she?”
Victor’s laugh was approving while Barnes looked on confused.
“The lady friend,” Jack said under his breath, and clarity crossed Barnes’s expression. He’d clearly heard enough to know of her existence.
“What do you know of the son?” Barnes asked.
Isolde glanced at the table and blushed. She didn’t quite meet their eyes and Violet frowned. That was the look of a girl who had been pushed.
“Did he express an interest in you?” Violet’s tone was bright, as though the idea didn’t infuriate her.
Isolde nodded just a little.
Vi’s anger was mounting, and she had to move her shaking fingers into her lap so Isolde didn’t see her reaction. The table was awkwardly silent as everyone tried to contain reactions to what Isolde had experienced. Isolde didn’t see it because she was hiding her gaze.
Violet pressed her lips tightly together and then was unable to hold back. “Isolde, you cannot stop interest others might have in you. You cannot stop someone looking at you and thinking you are lovely. You are.” Violet reached over and took Isolde’s hand. “You cannot make a man keep his comments, gaze, or hands to himself. But if he does not, it is not your fault.”
Isolde’s gaze lifted to Violet and the two sisters understood each other in a way that the men at the table could not.
“I, however, can,” Victor said. “If you need me…”
Violet’s laugh was gentle but ungiving when she said, “You won’t always be there, dear brother. If only all men were like you, then Isolde and I would never need to worry our pretty little heads over it.”
Violet’s mocking tone made everyone relax, so she squeezed Isolde’s hand and took a sip of her drink before changing the subject. “Isolde, what about those business partners. Gulliver and Higgins?”
“I only ever regularly met Uncle Kennington and Mr. Mathers. Mr. Mathers and Mr. Danvers had done business for quite some time, I believe. Uncle Kennington and Norman Kennington only invested in the last year or two. They never really discussed business around me. Or anything really. We’d just eat and see a play, and I’d be delivered home. It was all very…”
Again Isolde’s manners prevented her from expressing her real feelings, but Violet could imagine. Uncomfortable? A terrible foreshadowing of the future laid out for her? Vi made a mental note to talk to Victor about taking Isolde away as soon as this case was resolved. A little travel, school in the fall, a new step forward—perhaps her sister would learn to craft her own life.
The questions Isolde answered filled out the picture that Mr. Danvers was a snake in the grass, Lady Eleanor an idiot woman who’d focused only on the piles of purported bullion, and the motives of the killer were still amorphous. It wasn’t that they didn’t exist, it was that none of the possible motives took shape with any clarity.
Isolde excused herself when the questions were finished, and Violet gazed after her sister. She was tempted to follow, but a glance at Jack and the slight shake of his head told her that they weren’t finished questioning the twins.
Violet rang the bell for Hargreaves and had him send Beatrice to care for Isolde while the rest of them adjourned to the library.
Victor seated Violet in a chair near the fire, and the others joined her while Victor requested a coffee tray. Violet murmured a request for a mix of chamomile and mint tea, and his mouth tightened as he nodded. He knew that was the drink of choice when she didn’t feel quite the thing.
“What a dashed mess!” Victor said, shoving his legs out before him and steepling his fingers. “By Jove, I won’t pretend to be sorry it happened. Thank god it did!”
“Where were you in the hours before?”
Victor answered even though it seemed Jack and Mr. Barnes had a pretty good i
dea. Violet curled her legs under her and leaned her temple on her fingers in a fruitless attempt to push back the pain in her head.
“Vi and I arrived together. We left Giles with the automobile. The wedding was scheduled for 10:00 a.m., but we’d gotten there early since Vi wanted to love on Isolde a little. Let the dear thing know that we loved her even though we had tried to talk her out of the day. It was our attempt to form a bridge to see Isolde through after the wedding. So she’d feel safe coming to us if she needed to.”
“She seems the type to put on a brave face and square her shoulders.”
Victor nodded, displeased at the thought, before continuing. “It was around 9:00 a.m. when we made our way to the house. On the way, we saw Markus Kennington and Mr. Gulliver in quite an argument with Danvers. I sent Vi to our sister and remained behind.”
“What happened?”
“They walked it off, each of them taking off in a different direction. Our presence had burst whatever that argument was about.”
“Did you see many of the guests?” Barnes asked.
Victor considered before listing names. He suddenly turned to Vi. “Mathers. He and his girl were there at the wedding. She didn’t look well.”
Violet nodded. “Oh yes…I saw him and Higgins and Gulliver too. Right before I noticed the body. They were on the lawn through the French doors.”
“Did you notice anyone else at that moment?”
Violet shook her head apologetically.
“The…” Barnes glanced at Violet and then said quietly. “It is doubtful that any regular-sized woman would be strong enough to commit this crime.”
Violet shuddered and closed her eyes.
“Don’t think of it,” Victor told Vi, and she tried to smile for him.
Hargreaves appeared with the tray. She pushed herself forward to pour for everyone, but Victor commanded her back, handing her a cup first and then pouring coffee for the others.
“You’re an excellent hostess, brother.” Vi smiled into her tea. His smirk told her he wasn’t bothered.
He’d made it sweet and lemony, and it helped settle her stomach, especially after the ginger beer. She had mostly pulled apart the Yorkshire pudding and shuffled the stew around her dish at dinner.
