by Beth Byers
She’d been writing to Anna Mathers, who was going back to school soon and had spent the holidays with her expecting sister on the Amalfi Coast, but Violet had only heard what was happening with Ginny Heyer because their butler, Hargreaves, was keeping an eye on the child. An unacceptable set of circumstances. Ginny had helped Violet recover the kidnapped Isolde. Violet would be damned before the child fell back onto the streets. She’d been placed into a school in London but she didn’t want to go. Violet could understand that all too well, but she wouldn’t see the girl get sucked into crime when she could rise above. Not after Ginny had been so instrumental in saving Isolde.
It was only last December when Vi and Victor had gone to their aunt’s home to spend time with her and she’d been murdered. In the end, the murderer had ended up in asylum and Violet had become disgustingly wealthy. Victor, on the other hand, had become enviably wealthy.
The twins had gone from Aunt Agatha’s home to the Amalfi Coast and then to London, where they’d met the dastard who had been betrothed to their little sister, Isolde. During the attempt to stop the wedding, the fiend had been murdered. The twins had been involved in both murder investigations.
Those investigations had thrown Violet and Victor into the path of Jack Wakefield, a sometime investigator for Scotland Yard. Violet might just be head over heels. Her rational brain told her to slow down to be certain what she was feeling was love, while her heart screamed that she was well and truly gone in love. Both parts of her worried that he’d meet another woman while she took care of Isolde. The poor lamb had needed to leave London after the murder of her betrothed on her wedding day.
Violet pasted a smile on her face that Victor recognized as a lie. She bounced onto her feet and said, “I better just go powder my nose before we go dancing.”
Chapter 2
“Violet, darling,” Tomas said, kissing her cheek. He had taken both of her hands when she arrived, squeezed them tightly for a moment before letting only one go. Tomas pulled her right hand through the crook in his elbow. “Come, meet all my friends.”
She could feel him shaking slightly under her fingertips and guessed that he was having one of his poor days. “Tomas.” Her tone was half-indulgent and half-scolding. She squeezed his arm tightly, letting him take refuge in her presence. She was an anchor for him, helping him to avoid memories from the trenches. He’d survived the Great War, but he hadn’t done it unscathed. What he was thinking throwing a loud party like this, she did not understand.
Victor had parked the auto while they entered, and Violet had been forced to hunt through the crowd for Tomas while Gerald had taken one look at the cloud of smoke and the dapper men who eyed Isolde like a prize, and tucked her arm through his, escaping with her to the dance floor.
Tomas handed Violet a glass. “It’s a Collins on that tray, love. Is that all right? We can hunt up a waiter with champagne or another with G&Ts.”
“This is lovely, Tomas.” Violet referred both to her drink and the massive house he’d rented. “This canal house is just like a fairytale.”
“It is supposed to be, I think. These Belgians are a fanciful lot. Have you seen the Church of our Lady yet?” Violet nodded, but his invitation was undeterred. “Surely, you’ll go with me all the same, won’t you? Catch up about the old days? Perhaps tomorrow?”
She knew she wasn’t going to avoid what was coming, so she smiled merrily and said, “Of course, my friend. Seeing you again is always a trip back to our childhood. How many times did we race through the woods like changelings?”
“All of the wonderful days,” Tomas said. “I used to think about the woods and our swimming hole every day in the trenches. I swore if I lived I’d swim every year in that hole.”
Violet flinched inside, hating to think of him like that. “And did you swim this year?” she asked brightly.
“I did,” he said, with a grin down at her. She saw him from their shared childhood. As he was only a year or two older than Victor and Violet, they’d spent many a summer day barefoot together. “I went in March. It was so cold. It felt good until I caught the sniffles. All bunged up and held captive in front of a fire. Woolen blanket, buckets of tea, handkerchiefs for days, poor Mrs. Newstone having to listen to me whine.”
“Oh, poor you,” Violet laughed. “You should have known better. Are you yet a boy?”
He grinned as he replied, “All man, love. All grown.”
“Tommy,” a thick Italian voice called, and Violet turned with him to meet the woman. Her voice was deep and a touch too loud. When Vi faced her, all she saw at first was dark brown curls floating wildly around an olive face. The woman was a curvaceous bundle swathed in scarlet and black with jet beads and black fringe. The deep vee on her dress showed off far more of her chest than Violet would have been comfortable with.
The woman slid her hand into Tomas’s free arm. “Who is this scrawny thing? She makes me feel three times the size I am.”
There was just enough of a shimmy on her shoulders to indicate that she felt Violet’s small chest was something to bemoan, and enough of an edge in that too-loud, husky voice to tell Violet she was unwelcome by at least one of the two.
Violet smiled prettily and tilted her head. She winked at Tomas, who didn’t seem to quite know what to do with the loud woman. The Italian was leaning into Tomas’s space, and Violet could feel him stiffen under her hand.
Violet turned so that Tomas was pulled towards her and out of the woman’s hands. “Violet Carlyle. Tomas is my dear friend.”
“Odd,” the Italian woman purred. “I’ve never heard him talk of you. I am Bettina Marino. No doubt you’ve heard him speak of me.”
Violet smirked as she set her glass down on a tray and took a new one. “If you haven’t heard of Vi and Vic, you must not know Tomas very well. Lovely to meet you, Bettina.” Vi leaned in and whispered, “Oh dear. I fear your beauty mark has smeared.” In a louder voice, Violet added, “Tomas, you must meet Isolde. She’s all grown up. I must warn you, Lady Eleanor has decided you’re rich enough for Isolde.”
Tomas laughed. He was a bit serious when he added, “You know my feelings on the matter.”
“Mmmm.” She did indeed and knew that he’d hunted her down to once again throw his heart at her feet.
Violet and Tomas moved through the crowd and found Gerald and Isolde. The house was lit dimly, with waiters carrying trays of drinks and a jazz musician singing to the side.
“Tomas, really? A band? Where did all of these people come from?”
“Some are traveling with me,” he said, with a flush to his cheeks. “Some the others met in the last few days. I was a bit under the weather, I’m afraid, before I was able to look up you and Vic and send a note round.”
Violet smiled up at him, ignoring the heat in his gaze. There was too much going unsaid between them. Under the weather meant he’d descended into the memories again. She wished she could tell him it would be all right. She wasn’t sure it would be.
The first time she’d seen him descend into the memories, he’d been curled up in the corner of his bedroom, wild-haired and wild-eyed, rocking back and forth and seeing things again and again that he should never have seen or experienced the first time.
If that weren’t enough baggage between them, there had been how she’d sat down next to him, rubbed his back, and talked to him until he’d come back to himself and looked at her as his personal savior. She and Victor had stayed with Tomas for weeks while he’d pulled out of the memories and learned to apply a few techniques that seemed to work for him. Walks alone when the visions started, focusing on other memories. Pushing out the bad with other ones. Good ones. The two of them had picked some out together when she’d realized that talking about their childhood grounded him more than anything else.
She knew when her attempts at help had given him a measure of solace that the history of proposals between them would not stop. They had started half in jest when she’d turned ten years old. She wished there
was a way to comfort him, to be able to kneel by his side and talk of swimming or running through the woods, without having to offer him the rest of her. What he needed, she thought, was new memories with another woman. Someone else who could whisper of the first time they’d realized they were in love, or their first kiss, or their wedding day. Someone who wasn’t Violet Carlyle.
She wasn’t convinced he loved her as he said he did. He loved her, certainly. But she felt sure he loved her as Tomas loved Victor. Tomas just wasn’t capable of realizing that you could love a woman without being in love with her. He knew he loved her, he knew that she wasn’t his sister, therefore she must be his wife. She’d make him miserable in the end.
An outcome he didn’t see. Tomas needed someone sweet, someone who wanted to be the center of his world. Someone who wouldn’t mind spending weeks on end in the country for the quiet. Someone who wanted to be his other half, to bear his children, to live for him. That wasn’t Violet. Not for Tomas anyway.
She squeezed his arm. “It’s too loud for you now, Tomas. Are you having a bad day?”
“They’re rarer and rarer, Vi. But I did have bad dreams last night. I’m afraid they’ve chased me into today. No matter.” He gave her the ‘all is jolly-good’ look, which she knew to be pure drivel.
She squeezed his arm again as they bypassed a couple who were dancing as though they had been born with a song in their hearts. Vi paused long enough to watch them, and the man lifted the woman, spinning her.
“That is Juliette and François Boutet. They are a brother and sister team of dancers. They…well, somehow I’ve become saddled with them. They are lovely to watch, though, aren’t they?”
Violet lifted a brow as she faced him, ignoring the rest of his explanation. They had, no doubt, found their way into Tomas’s pocket. They looked rather different and Violet would have doubted the claim they were siblings if she and Gerald didn’t look like strangers as well. Oh Tomas and his hangers-on, the poor fool. “And Bettina Marino?” Violet purred the name the way the woman had.
Tomas’s flush deepened and he stuttered without really speaking.
“Tomas,” Violet told him seriously, “I am not your mother.”
“Oh, I know that too well, darling. It’s not like that, but Bettina would like it to be.”
They had finally reached Gerald and Isolde in the corner. Two gentlemen were standing in front of them, and Vi couldn’t see who they were until Tomas said, “Algie, look who I’ve found.”
Violet froze as Algernon turned, and with him, Theodophilus Smythe-Hill. A flash of his hands digging into her shoulders, of him pulling her hair too hard, of the demand that he wanted her and what she desired was of little consequence. She remembered in an undesired rush the feeling of helplessness, of the realization of how much weaker she was than Theodophilus when he manhandled her.
“Lady Violet Carlyle.” Theodophilus’s sneer mocked her reaction as though she had been the one in the wrong.
Violet froze in the face of his mean eyes and too-strong hands. She tried to shake the ghost of him touching her, but she couldn’t quite do it. Her gaze darted to Algie, who flushed, and to Gerald, who looked on, concerned. Her brother knew something was wrong with Violet, but she’d never spoken of what happened beyond the initial report to Victor.
She knew she was safe, and yet seeing him made her feel very unsafe indeed.
“Vi, are you all right?” Isolde asked, her gaze flicking over her older sister and a rare flash of protectiveness coming from the younger sister.
A moment later, Victor pulled her from Tomas from behind. Her twin came out of nowhere, somehow knowing she needed him. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he asked Theo silkily, “Did we need to have a repeat of our previous conversation, Theo?”
The undisguised threat in Victor’s voice had both Gerald and Tomas turning in consternation to the twins. Most only knew Victor as a jolly spaniel—the veneer he wore over his inner lion.
Violet flushed as Theo shrugged, lips twitching. “Are you the king of Bruges then? You think you can control wherever I go?”
Violet realized she was trembling, which pushed Victor into an effervescent rage. Her twin nudged her towards Tomas and then took Theo by the lapels, slamming him into the wall. “I have told you to stay away from my sister.”
“I’m supposed to avoid every party she attends?” Theo’s sneer belied what he’d done to her and Victor pulled Theo away from the wall to slam him back into it.
“Yes,” Victor growled. “Yes. You avoid her. She arrives, you leave. You don’t speak to her. You don’t look at her. You don’t breathe the air she breathes, or by Jove, you won’t need to breathe.”
“Tomas,” Theo appealed, glancing at the host of the party.
Gerald took a slow sip of his bourbon and declared, “I wouldn’t have thought of you like this, little brother.” The insinuation was pride, not consternation.
“Why does he need to stay away from you?” Tomas asked Violet, his gaze searching hers. He knew her well enough to see the upset despite her solemn face.
Violet shook her head. Her trembling aside, she couldn’t allow Tomas the role of protector. She couldn’t let him step in. She couldn’t let him want or act in that role—not if she was going to convince him to find the woman he needed.
“Vi?” Tomas almost begged.
She shook her head again and set down her drink, turning to Isolde. “Come with me.”
Violet held out a hand to Isolde, who left Gerald and tucked her arm through Vi’s. The sight of Vi’s shaking hand had Victor pulling Theo from the wall and hauling him towards the front door to throw him out.
Violet pulled Isolde into the water closet and leaned back against the wall. She took in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and then took in another and another.
Isolde, bless her, took Vi’s hand without saying a word and didn’t let go. Vi counted each breath, in long and slow, out even slower. One, two, three. She hadn’t expected to see Theo again. Four, five, six. She hadn’t expected to have to face him.
Seven. Bloody hell. Eight. A shaky breath that nearly ended in tears. Violet had thought that Victor had gotten rid of Theo. That Victor had scared Theo enough. A shaky, shaky breath. Nine.
Seeing him again was more than she had thought it would be. She had thought she’d moved on, but the memory was almost worse than the initial assault. In the moment, she’d been focused. Now she felt like an idiot. She knew it hadn’t been as bad for her as it was for others. She knew she had been lucky. And yet, she could still feel the ghost of his fingers pressing into her shoulders and the horror of what had happened all at once.
It took her a few minutes to stand upright again. Isolde’s eyes were fixed on Violet, but neither of the sisters said a word as Violet reeled her reactions in and placed them in a box. Both had been manhandled. Both had experienced the realization that should the struggle happen—they’d lose. Neither of them needed to discuss what happened. Violet ran cool water over the back of her hands until she stopped shaking and then powdered her nose, freshened her lipstick, and said with a bright smile, “I think a G&T is just the thing.”
Chapter 3
“I thought we might walk,” Tomas said. “Though if you wish…”
“I’d love to walk,” Violet replied. She was wearing a black dress that floated around her knees. It had accents of white at the shoulders, a tie at the neck and around her waist, making her waist seem lower than it was. The whole effect lengthened Violet into a slim stretch of femininity. She wouldn’t wear gloves with a friend like Tomas. The seams rubbing along the sides of her fingers drove her mad, and she didn’t need to stand on ceremony with a man she’d once been a grubby urchin with.
It was a fine enough day that she wouldn’t need her knitted wool cape, but she took her hat and pinned it into place before turning to Tomas with a bright smile. Victor watched it all from the doorway of the library. He had said nothing when she’d returned to the party the previou
s evening, but she’d noted his bruised knuckles. The lion in her brother had come out once again, and Vi regretted her weakness being the cause of it.
He hadn’t stopped watching her carefully, and Violet knew if anyone else were taking her out, Victor would have found a reason to accompany them. Even Gerald, Violet thought. She gave Victor a smile and a wink, but his expression said he didn’t believe it. He shouldn’t. It was as much of a lie as the grin she tossed Tomas.
She knew it wasn’t her fault that she was weaker than Theo, but she wished she had the strength to give him the pounding he deserved rather than having to leave it to Vic. At least with Victor, it was almost as if she’d done it herself.
“Be safe now.” Victor knew what was coming as well as Violet, so the commiserating glance that followed was just for Violet.
The rooms the siblings had rented were on the canals as well. Tomas and Violet would be able to wind through the old city, arm in arm, talking of the old days while Tomas geared up to ask Violet to marry him once again.
They could see the bell tower and were aimed towards the Church of Our Lady as they walked along the canals whenever the route allowed it. The woven bricks of the road as they made their way towards the church were astoundingly lovely. Bruges may have just been the most beautiful city that Violet had ever seen.
“I’ve missed you,” Tomas said. There was a bit of weight in his voice.
“And I rather missed you,” Violet said brightly. Her hand was on the crook of his elbow, and he kept her tight to him, so they were brushing against each other as they walked.
“Life isn’t what we’d thought it would be, is it?” He sounded solemn as they took in the beauty, the sun reflecting off of the water, the details of gorgeous stone mason work in the city.
