by Beth Byers
Violet and Victor had gone from being able to live a life of leisure with careful spending to…so much more. Victor would be able to indulge in his delight of old books, cigars, and crafting new cocktails with greater ease than ever before. Violet, on the other hand, had become one of those ridiculously affluent types. Nearly anything was possible with what Aunt Agatha had handed to her niece.
She wore it well with a smirk and an ease of generosity that hadn’t changed. If one had known her before, her manner was quite the same. The only major change was the acquisition of a maid of her own and an utter refusal to ever darn another pair of stockings. Well, that and the inordinate amount of money she’d spent in Paris fashion salons.
Violet had left England with two small trunks. Those had been gifted to the maid and new, significantly larger, trunks acquired and stuffed. Vi had even debated a third trunk until Victor had allowed her space in his own. Unlike Violet, who’d kept her old wardrobe, he’d abandoned his and purchased all new. Victor would have teased Vi mercilessly for the excessive clothing shopping if not for the inordinate amount of wine and spirits he’d bought, the boxes upon boxes of cigars. They’d found themselves realizing for the first time they were rich when they’d fallen in love with art and been able to acquire it
The call to return home hadn’t been so immediate that they’d needed to hurry home, so they’d enjoyed the journey and the purchases along the way.
* * * * *
Later that morning on the train, Gwennie and Lila went straight for a corner seat while Violet hesitated.
“I…”
“Oh,” Gwennie frowned towards Violet and Victor. “Go. I don’t want to see you sick up any more than you want to.”
“You’re a doll, love.” Violet and Victor escaped before guilt had them taking a seat with Lila and Gwennie. Vi wound her arm through Victor’s elbow and said, “I want to start writing books again.”
He grinned at her. “I thought we were going to live lazily in the life of luxury doing nothing but dancing and seeing shows, with you acquiring new shoes and me finding just the right shirt for my striped trousers.”
She winked before she honestly admitted, “Perhaps, after a few months of idleness, I’ve realized why Aunt Agatha spent so much time building an empire. Idleness makes me itchy.”
“Idleness,” he mused. “And messiness, poorly-made clothes, seams in your gloves, the sounds of anything that squeaks. I, on the other hand, feel I was made to be idle. It suits me admirably, sister dear, but perhaps if you insist…”
She chuckled and tugged on his arm, making him lean down so she could mockingly whisper, “If you need to blame me for your American puritanicalness, I’ll accept the blame for you, darling.”
He laugh, but choked in surprise.d “Well I’ll be demmed. If it isn’t Jack Wakefield. How are you, sir?”
Violet started and followed her brother’s gaze. The shadow of how and why they’d met Jack colored their thoughts but not their expressions. Jack Wakefield was the man Aunt Agatha had called upon when she realized someone was trying to kill her. If only Aunt Agatha had followed either Vi’s or Jack’s advice of leaving them to figure things out, Aunt Agatha might have survived.
They’d been unable to save her, but Jack had found the killer in the end. With a little help from Violet’s unwarranted interference. Meddling hadn’t caused the awareness between Violet and Jack to fade and neither, it seemed, had distance and time.
He was a massive man, with rugged lines and thick shock of hair. Despite not being quite the fashion for current good looks, he did something to Violet that yanked her attention to him and him alone.
Jack Wakefield was sitting near a window next to a rotund man with a bald head, sharp eyes, and a suit that had seen better days. He looked up at the sound of his name.
“Ah, if it isn’t the Carlyle twins. May I make you known to my good friend and former commander, Mr. Hamilton Barnes?”
Violet smiled charmingly at him while Victor’s lazy grin proclaimed him far more the spaniel than the lion he kept hidden. As was typical for Victor, his veneer lifted the second they were around anyone else.
Jack noted the switch, and Violet suspected Mr. Barnes saw it as well. She supposed that a man who’d commanded Jack in the military police during the Great War and retained both Jack’s friendship and respect would be more clever than a little fat and a worn suit would indicate.
Of course, Victor’s tendency towards self-mockery and modern clothes did the same for him—disguised his intensity and brilliance. Violet, on the other hand, disguised herself with merry grins and meaningless chatter whenever it suited her. They were, all of them, actors on life’s stage.
Jack’s grin was nearly as careless as Victor’s when he said, “You’ve come back to the shores of home? Whatever happened to your plans to indulge in the sun ceaselessly and then think upon America?” Jack’s gaze flicked over Violet with the weight of a touch, and she had to fight off a shiver.
“We’ve been summoned,” Victor declared. “Drawn from our natural habitat in the sun and warmth to the home fires. We’ll, no doubt, be assessed and found wanting.”
“Oh that can’t be right,” Mr. Barnes said as he glanced between the two of them and then indicated the seats across from him and Jack with a silent invitation.
The twins took up residence across from the men and smiled winningly.
“Clearly,” Violet said laughing. “It is utterly incorrect for myself. Angel child, that’s me. Victor, however, is a lay-about without good intentions and a predilection for gambling with missionaries.”
“Sister!” Victor clutched his chest. “You wound and disparage me. I was but doing my poor best to assist the good efforts of our Godly minded brethren, and now I find how one is treated after contributing to the needy. Violet shall throw me to the wolves to save herself.”
“Every time,” Violet said with a cheeky grin at all three men. She adjusted the cuff of her coat before standing and letting Victor help her out of it.
Jack had stood with them and his bulk, yet again, sent a shiver of awareness through her.
“Have you all been in Dover?” she asked as distraction. “Not that exciting of a place with the buckets of spring rain falling.”
“Working, I’m afraid,” Mr. Barnes said. “Jack here was good enough to shake off the dust of semi-retirement for me on this last case.”
Violet glanced at Jack, question in her gaze, and he said, “Barnes always was the one to drag me into cases. From the war to the present, making a puppet of me. Don’t be confused by his hound dog manner. He’s a master manipulator.”
“Only of you,” Mr. Barnes replied. “Jack told me of your recent case. My condolences on your aunt.”
Violet nodded, blinking rapidly. “Thank you.”
Jack’s gaze moved over her face, warming her. She wished she knew what was behind the shutters of his eyes, what he was thinking of her. Did he dislike how she’d interfered? She’d known he was worried that she had, but the danger was over before he knew of the risk. Would he have raked her over the coals if it had been his place? She’d seen the tight expression on his face, but she’d also noted how he’d verified their travel plans. She’d felt at the time he’d cared that she was leaving and it mattered to him when she’d be back. Was that so?
All she could be sure of was that it wasn’t disapproval in his gaze at that moment. Not that it necessarily meant anything. nHe might have a woman back at home he was returning to. While she’d ensured he wasn’t married after they’d met, that didn’t mean he wasn’t attached.
Violet played with the ring on her finger while they chatted, trying to hide her thoughts. The glint in her brother’s eyes, however, said she was unsuccessful as far as he was concerned.
Mr. Barnes adjusted the conversation to the weather and from the weather to the new silent pictures. After a few minutes, Jack’s friend turned the conversation again, inquiring about Violet’s likes and dislikes. It wasn’
t until they’d stopped at the next station and decided to stretch before the train left again that she realized she’d been artfully grilled.
Her brother made no mention of it but his lips twitched here and there. The warmth in Mr. Barnes gaze as the day progressed told her that he approved of her. If she weren’t being such a love-struck ninny, she’d have realized why he was grilling her. It didn’t occur to her until Victor faded into the London rain after making an excuse about gathering the others, and she was faced with Jack alone.
“I didn’t think we’d run into each other again,” Jack said, shoving his gloves into his pocket.
“And yet,” she smiled merrily despite her racing heart, “we met on a random train my first full day back into the country.”
“Do you believe in fate?” His gaze was more intense than she’d been prepared for.
“Perhaps.” Violet adjusted her coat casually as though she weren’t terribly nervous without cause. She was aware of him and herself as she’d never been aware before. His proximity, the exact color of his eyes, the shape of his jaw and the depths of his gaze were almost overwhelming her and whatever veneer she’d put on was melting under the force of his attention.
“Perhaps?” The question was a light mockery more of himself than her. “Perhaps then you’d be willing to join me for dinner?”
She knew in that moment that her stepmother would never approve. As rich as she now was and the daughter of an earl? Never. It wasn’t that Jack Wakefield wasn’t in the class of the idle rich, but Violet was the daughter of an earl. Perhaps an impoverished daughter of an earl could sink a class beneath her, but a rich one, never. Violet also realized just how much power love could have over her.
She wasn’t in love. Yet she knew that she was on the tip of a slippery slope entirely because when Jack looked at her—he saw her. The loving niece, the attentive sister. The woman who had insisted on being educated and worked hard in school. The business person who could handle her aunt’s investments but wasn’t in love with money. He saw the frivolous side of Vi with her love of clothes and novels. The serious side of her who was generous and kind. She felt as though she’d been stripped bare for the first time in her life and despite her utter lack of defenses, she wasn’t just found approved, she was found admirable.
But he’d asked a question and she’d yet the answer. Dinner. Yes. She nodded, her thoughts making her blush brilliantly. He couldn’t possibly know why, but he gently pressed her hand and they set the date for the very next evening. The arrangements were made as Victor lingered with the porter. Violet had no illusions about what her brother was doing and it wasn’t until Jack took a step back before Victor found he was finished with the porter.
He returned to them at the opportune moment and said, “Hargreaves has sent an automobile for us, darling. Giles and the porter have arranged the baggage. Steady Beatrice has gotten Gwennie and Lila to the vehicle and they wait only for us.”
“It was lovely to see you again,” Violet told Jack, and Victor echoed her and offered a ride.
“Barnes has abandoned me,” Jack admitted. “Work doesn’t cease for the virtuous. Though I can’t claim the same attributes, and I thank you for the offer, I am required elsewhere.”
They said their goodbyes and the twins joined their friends in the automobile. They dropped Lila and Gwennie at Lila’s home before the twins made their way to their new home.
It would be the first time they entered the townhouse as denizens rather than visitors. The realization of where they were going and why changed the moment from excitement to grief.
“It makes her loss seem even more real.” Violet’s gaze was fixed out the automobile window to hide the tears threatening to fall.
“I’d almost rather go to our old rooms,” Victor said.
She could hear the same emotions in his voice, though she gave him the privacy of not looking at him.
“We should have thought it through when we sent Hargreaves to prepare the house and move our things. Our old rooms weren’t so bad.”
Now that they were free of them rather than making the best of them, she could admit they had been a step above awful.
“Cheap,” Violet sniffed.
“Shabby,” Victor admitted.
, “Smelling faintly of mildew when it rained.”
They both focused on the rain through the glass of their automobile, remembering how their old rooms would smell on a day like today. Violet admitted, “The house was a gift from Aunt Agatha to you. I’m going to imagine her smiling down on our cherubic heads.”
“Cherubic?” Victor snorted. “Not for either of us, darling.”
“Cherubic heads,” Violet repeated. “I’ll just be glad that our home won’t smell of mildew, glad to know we’re snuggled up in beds that she purchased. She loved us. This is how it should be.”
“She did love us,” Victor said, swallowing thickly.
“Her love is why…” Violet lost the battle to her tears and took the handkerchief that Victor had at the ready.
“Her love made us who we are. Without her…”
Violet nodded, blinking a tear away and then the townhouse was before them. Her brother handed her out of the Silver Ghost. The townhouse didn’t proclaim buckets of riches in the manner that Agatha had possessed. It was a grey brick house in a good neighborhood rather nearer the portions of London that Violet and Victor frequented.
“You know,” Victor said, frowning at the house, “she sold that other house a few years ago.”
“When we told her…”.
They stared at the house. It was the exact type of place they’d have chosen should they have had the money. Nice, solid, not ostentatious.
“This is what you’d have bought,” Violet said, no longer able to hold back her tears. “She sold her old house and bought this one for you. Look at it…it was made for you. It’s secure and will protect those you care about. But it isn’t so over-the-top that you’d be uncomfortable. And close to the little Chinese food restaurant you love. ”
Victor nodded, his jaw was clenching over and over again and finally he ground out, “How well she knew us.”
“How much she loved you.”
“Us both,” he glanced at Violet and then grinned, losing the melancholy. “She knew you’d eventually give in to the old school fairytale. Love. Children. Home. Is Mr. Jack Wakefield, sometime detective inspector of Scotland Yard, the one who will drag you to the altar?”
“Kicking and screaming,” Violet told her brother, but a part of her was very much afraid she was obfuscating.
Chapter 3
Violet’s bedroom had always been intended for her. It was as clear as the sun in the sky once she realized the house had been a gift for Victor. The walls were papered with light gray with deeper gray stripes. The furniture was black and heavily masculine, but the touches of feminine accent throughout the room were just what Violet would have chosen.
There was even a desk that was perfect for a typewriter. Violet had to send Beatrice away so that she could explore the bedroom’s charms and let her emotions free. She ended up sitting on the edge of her bed, handkerchief in her hand, remembering moment after moment with Aunt Agatha, Victor, and even Algernon and Meredith. Obviously much of those memories with Merry, especially, were bitter sweet. But hate Meredith’s crime as much as Violet did, their childhood had been shared.
Vi and Victor had played with the little metal soldiers in the garden, gone fishing, jumped into the swimming hole, and been read to by Aunt Agatha. How many times had they enjoyed a nursery tea together with Aunt Agatha explaining life and answering their questions? She’d always treated them as capable of learning. She’d been interested in their thoughts, unlike Father and Lady Eleanor who had preferred the children to be silent.
After Vi was through sniffling over the bedroom, she noted the two armoires certainly intended for her love of clothing. There was a red and gray Chesterfield near the window and a pair of matching arm chairs nea
r the fire. The nice chest at the end of the bed likely intended to give Violet a place to tuck things away. Aunt Agatha had never been bothered by Vi’s need for things to be orderly and put away. The final gift was a large, three-paneled mirror.
When she finally had herself under control, she had Beatrice and a tea tray up to her room. The maid dealt with Vi’s clothes, chattering about the traveling they’d done since Beatrice came to work for Violet. While Beatrice carried on her monologue, Violet arranged her pulp novels and magazines in the chest at the end of her bed. She’d need to buy herself a bookshelf for her room eventually, but for now they could be arranged by title and author in her trunk or by publication name for the magazines.
She laughed at herself as she arranged things just so, but there was something about having one’s books unpacked and available that proclaimed one was home.
“Beatrice,” Violet said, “tomorrow have Mr. Giles come up here to review the furniture and then request him to find me a few bookshelves for my bedroom. I won’t be truly at home until I have them. In fact…yes…have him find bookshelves with cabinet doors.”
“Yes, miss. Mr. Giles does have such good taste. I’ve heard Lord Victor say so.”
“Better than both of Victor and me, I’m afraid,” Violet laughed. “Are you ready to work in the city now? Do you wish to return home? I’m sure Mr. Davies would hire you for your old post.”
“Oh no, miss.” Beatrice shook her head a little frantically. “I love working for you, caring for your pretty things and…”
Violet realized that she’d unintentionally upset Beatrice and went about comforting her before she returned to arranging her bedroom. If she were someone else, she might have thrown herself on her bed and rested. She wouldn’t be truly comfortable, however, until her things were arranged.
It was only when she set up her desk that she realized she could have a typewriter of her own now. No longer would she and Victor have to share for their stories. She kept forgetting that she didn’t have to watch her purchases so carefully anymore.
