Murder By Chocolate

by Beth Byers

  Hyacinth shot Jack a look that told him his interference was unwelcome, as was his judgement on the argument.

  “Do they know so much about not working?” Grandfather Wakefield didn’t seem as disgusted by the idea as Hyacinth. His gaze flicked to Violet and she winked at him, prompting a smile. “I shouldn’t mind learning how to enjoy myself a bit. I was thinking of just fishing some.”

  “They do indeed know rather a lot about not working. There’s an art to not being busy all the time, Grandfather. To allowing your thoughts to linger on other things. It’s hard to suddenly stop being consumed by business.”

  “What would you know about that?” his Uncle Herbert asked, not unkindly. “Have you stopped working?”

  Jack glanced at his uncle and grinned. “Not I. I have, however, learned how to enjoy not working as much as I enjoy working.”

  “How you can enjoy catching criminals I’ll never know,” Herbert’s wife, Matilda, said. She smiled sweetly at Jack. “I suppose it’s like Holmes and the chase or the puzzle or whatever it was that he liked so much.”

  “I believe that was drugs,” Denny said. “I had been comparing my sweet Vi to Holmes, but she’d never succumb to drugs and she’s not quite as clever.”

  Denny’s comment woke Lila, who simply opened her eyes and glanced about as if she’d never been asleep.

  “Drugs! Don’t all you bright young things drink and indulge in cocaine and set things on fire?” Hyacinth’s sour voice rose again, and Violet felt the nearly overwhelming desire to gag the woman.

  “Surely not,” Denny answered as Violet yawned, echoing Lila. “I suppose there aren't so many of us spoiled good-for-nothings as it might seem, but I think if we were all setting things aflame, we’d have burned London down by now.”

  “I suppose you spend every night dancing and having parties in Hyde Park?” Hyacinth said, as though those things were the same as robbing banks and breaking into houses.

  “Violet is known to work many a night, I fear.” He leaned into a stage-whisper. “I once caught her working late reading a business report and then rising early to go to a meeting. It was shocking!” He adjusted his coat at the expression on Hyacinth’s face and gave her a lascivious gaze that had her blushing. “I confess to being a man who has both danced all night and attended an all-night party in a park. In fact, I have danced all night in a park. And, to be perfectly transparent, I rather enjoy a good bottle party or an evening on the Thames on someone else’s yacht.”

  “Hyacinth is the one with the nine children?” Lila asked as the auto headed away from the monstrosity that was Wakefield house.

  “Lila is the woman with a secret,” Violet said, eyeing her oldest friend.

  Lila simply adjusted her hands in her lap and lifted a brow.

  “You’re rounder, but you’re not slimming. You never get so round in the face.”

  “Maybe I’ve given up now that I’m settled.”

  Violet’s gaze narrowed and she hissed, “You’re too vain for that.”

  Father James chuckled.

  Violet glanced at him. “Father James says you have the look.”

  “The look?” Lila examined her fingernails. “Of a woman?”

  “Of a breeder!”

  “Surely he didn’t call Lila a breeder?” Denny said with a bright-eyed gaze. “I win, darling Lila.”

  “Win?” Jack asked. “You wagered that Violet wouldn’t figure it out?”

  “She didn’t figure out Kate,” Denny said happily. “Violet isn’t as clever as you’d think. It’s why she’s not Holmes. She’s some sort of lesser detective. Still, I gave her a chance that she’d figure it out this time.”

  Lila yawned, then met Violet’s gaze.

  Vi’s head slowly tilted. “You lost a bet with Denny about when I would realize you were with child?”

  “He has an over-inflated sense of your wit,” Lila said sourly. “I am not so overcome.”

  “But I won, darling Lila,” Denny crowed. “I won and you lost and I won.”

  “You probably gave me away,” Lila told him, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t care if you won, I am not having the lying-in with your mother hovering over me.”

  “I promised her,” Denny told Lila. “They already think you’re barren.”

  Violet glanced at James, who was watching the couple argue with a smile on his face, and then at Jack, who had lost the look of utter irritation on his face. He had calmed down into his normal demeanor; perhaps he was even happy given the smile hovering just about the edges of his lips.

  “You probably gave me away, so it doesn’t count,” Lila insisted.

  Violet could have told Lila that falling asleep had given her away, but kindness was required for those growing babies. “It was the look on his face,” Violet lied.

  “See,” Lila told Denny. “You’ve forfeit your prize. I’m staying with Violet and Kate when I have the baby.”

  “You have to give her the win,” Violet told Denny, who was examining Violet for lies. “Women suffer in childbirth even without their mothers-in-law hovering. What Lila wants, goes.”

  Denny frowned at Lila and then at Violet. “My mother will never let me hear the end of it.”

  “Better your mother than your wife,” Lila told Denny without an ounce of sympathy. “She treats me like the whore of Babylon that stole her baby away.”

  Violet yawned and then told Denny, “Cheer up, laddie, you can always lie and say the doctor told you that Lila couldn’t travel again once you get where she wants to be.”

  “Oh,” Denny said brightly. “That’s a good one.”

  “Your wife is alarmingly good at lying,” James told Jack. “She might be able to pull the wool over your eyes.”

  Denny’s evil laugh chased Violet into sleep and she didn’t wake again until Jack placed her on their bed. She yawned hugely, threw off her evening gown and decided her slip was good enough to sleep in. A moment later she was asleep, though she half-woke when Jack tugged her close and wrapped her in his arms.

  Chapter 7

  Violet woke the next day and realized only then that the room had been redone for them. She knew it was one of the possible master bedrooms in the house, but now the walls were covered with new paper that looked hand-stamped with fleur-de-lis of a slightly darker shade of red.

  “Your father had our room redone,” Violet told Jack and then lay back down, settling her face on his chest. He tangled their fingers together, and she smiled up at him and then breathed in the scent of him. There was something ineffably comforting in the feeling of him holding her, his scent, the sound of his heart beating near her ear.

  “He did.”

  “What a lovely gift.”

  “He was worried you’d want to do it yourself,” Jack said. “But also worried that you wouldn’t feel welcome if it were the grubby room used by my mother’s parents for decades.”

  Violet sat up and looked at him with lifted brows. “Look at you with your secrets. First this family madness, then Lila and Denny’s baby, plus the decorating. You’re a man with worlds behind those eyes.”

  Jack grunted and then tangled his hand in her hair, drawing her down for a breathless kiss.

  She pushed back afterwards to look down at him. “Are you all right?”

  He knew, of course, she meant about the family stuff. They hadn’t even greeted him. Not really. They’d gone about their tired family argument as though Jack hadn’t brought friends and a new wife.

  “Father had said they’d gotten bad. He’d told me he’d been ‘out-of-town’ for as many of those family dinners as possible, but I confess I didn’t expect them to just go on with their argument as though we weren’t watching.”

  Violet sighed and asked him, “Are you all right?”

  He nodded.

  “You aren’t bothered by being the bad grandson?”

  Jack glanced past Violet and then looked her in the eye. “Yes, I am bothered by it. Of course I am. There’s no
thing wrong with following a different path from the family business. My father has been the lesser son since he married my mother. I’ve been the lesser grandson. It mattered to me quite a lot when I was a boy.”

  “And now?” Violet asked, pushing some of his thick hair off of his forehead.

  “Now? It hasn’t mattered since the war, Vi. Everyday I’m grateful just to be alive. Everyday I’m grateful that I wasn’t one of the poor fellows in the trenches. I am lucky, Violet Wakefield. I was lucky before I met you and now? Now that Lord Carlyle’s daughter picked me when she could have had anyone? Now I’m the luckiest fellow in England.”

  Violet leaned down and pressed a kiss against his forehead. She wanted nothing more than to curl up in his arms and spend the day with him, but the worry of just what Geoffrey had done while they were gone was pressing against her mind, along with the determination to have a delightful dinner for when the cousins came to visit.

  “How long are they staying for?” Violet asked Jack.

  “We’ll just invite them for a weekend,” he said. “My grandfather is too old to motor over and return the same day. We might as well invite them all. He’s an old man, Vi.”

  “I’m happy to do whatever you’d like,” Violet smiled at him. “You should take him fishing, Jack. Try to build something with him that isn’t connected to his business.”

  Jack’s head tilted and Violet could see the hesitation in his face. She wondered if somewhere in the back of his mind the boy version of Jack was remembering being rejected. If that were so, Violet would hardly blame him.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said.

  “If there’s anything I have learned,” Violet told him, “it is regretting not being closer to my family before they die. He doesn’t have long, Jack. Make a relationship with him.”

  There was a knock on their bedroom door before Jack could reply.

  “Vi,” Denny called. “Vi, you need to come out here.”

  Violet and Jack’s gazes met and then they both stepped out of bed. Violet grabbed her kimono and Jack stepped into the bath.

  “It’s Geoffrey.” Denny’s expression was solemn enough that Violet sighed as she stepped into the hall. “He got drunk off of Papa James’s cognac.”

  Violet closed her eyes.

  “Then he decided to slide down the banister.”

  Violet opened her eyes again, waiting.

  “He got himself up and collapsed into a random bedroom. However, he has broken his arm and given himself a rather spectacular black eye.”

  Violet took in a slow breath and let it out. She was coming to truly and abidingly despise this brother of hers.

  “How did you find him?”

  “Well, it seems your sweet Rouge and Holmes curled up with the lad. Perhaps you realized they were missing?”

  “I thought they were with a maid,” Violet admitted, feeling immediately guilty about not thinking of her dogs since she’d sent them to the train with the servants.

  “They took it upon themselves to yip just often enough to wake Lila this morning, who woke me, and I found the lot of them. I got the lad to a bedroom, but he’s moaning rather dramatically.”

  “He’s an idiot,” Violet told Denny. “Do you think we could pawn him off on Victor?”

  “Yes,” Denny said immediately. The glint in his eye was evil as he replied, “But you won’t.”

  She would, Violet thought. Then she immediately remembered her sister-in-law ready to burst with the baby and knew she wouldn’t.

  “The things we do for love, eh?” he asked with a grin as Jack stepped into the hallway fully dressed.

  “What have you done for love?” Violet demanded.

  “Gave Lila my stash of chocolates in the middle of the night. She ate the whole lot!” He sounded disgusted. “She just shoved them in and didn’t even savor them. She could have had any old chocolate for that, but she wanted mine.”

  Violet laughed at the woebegone expression on Denny’s face and then explained to Jack what Geoffrey had done.

  “His arm is broken?”

  Denny nodded. “You can see it. Turned my stomach to be honest, and I’m ready to eat a horse.”

  Violet agreed with that statement. She was going to throw on the first likely dress and make her way to the breakfast room. She glanced at Jack and he said, “I’ll take care of it.”

  Violet nodded and then went back into their bedroom. Normally, she’d have lingered in a bath, but she needed a cup of Turkish coffee and something to eat rather desperately. It only occurred to her as the memory of her favorite coffee formed in the back of her mouth that they hadn’t brought the coffee themselves and that Jack’s father probably didn’t serve it. He was probably, she thought with horror, a regular coffee man or even a black tea only man.

  Violet sighed as she placed a blush nude dress on, slid her feet into a pair of brown shoes, and dabbed her lips and cheeks with her favorite pot of rouge. Violet found her way to Lila and they went down to the breakfast room together. To Violet’s shock, Anderson Wakefield was in the breakfast room with James.

  When Vi and Lila entered, both men stood. Violet greeted them, glanced at Lila, and the two crossed to the buffet. Vi nearly wept when she found Turkish coffee, and she made a gargantuan plate with a very full cup of coffee and then joined the men. She made a mental note to give Beatrice a very large raise if she could arrange Violet’s favorite coffee while also writing her business letters.

  “Is Jack still sleeping?” James asked with a look of doubt on his face.

  “He’s dealing with my brother,” Violet told them. “I fear Geoffrey’s ability to be a nuisance has yet to reach its limits.”

  Lila laughed lazily and took the seat next to Violet. Both ladies sipped their coffee, eyeing the other as they waited for Jack’s uncle to explain his presence.

  “I wanted to apologize to all of you at once,” Anderson said. “I—”

  Violet took a bite of her fried potatoes before she said, “Think nothing of it.”

  Anderson sighed. “I’ve never been as inclined to be personally offended as my father at the children’s desires to work in other places. I suppose it’s because I was so very offended when James left me to deal with Father on my own. I carried a grudge about that for years. Stupid really. It almost ruined my friendship with my brother forever.”

  Violet pressed her lips together to keep from saying anything. She was still at the headache end of hungry and needed to eat, drink her coffee, and hold her tongue.

  “Father, I think, could let James go because I was right there and Herbert was coming along behind me. When I never married, however, Father seemed to look about and realized that the only grandchildren who were interested in working for him didn’t carry his name. That’s when he turned a bit bitter about it all. I was the failure son who’d never married. James only had Jack—who neither needed the business nor wanted it. Then there was Hyacinth who was having a slew of grandchildren who didn’t carry his name, and Herbert who married late as well.”

  James grunted. “Poor Father. He’d worked so hard to create something that lasted for his family and we didn’t see it for what it was.”

  “What was it?” Violet asked softly.

  “It was his great act of love. He worked long hours, he missed our childhoods really, he skipped vacations and holidays to keep the business going only to realize it was all for us, and Herbert’s boy is only ten years old. Right now he wants to do what Grandfather does, but the rest of the boys…they don’t.”

  Violet bit down on her lip and then said quietly, “I’m very sorry that Grandfather Wakefield didn’t think to enjoy his life and children along the way, but I don’t believe that excuses treating Jack as some sort of lesser grandson because he didn’t choose to spend his life as his grandfather wanted.”

  “No,” Anderson agreed. “No, you’re right. That’s why I’m here. I suppose I pinned my hopes on Jack too. I knew what Grandfather wanted, and I lost the woman I lo
ved to the influenza. I didn’t want to marry again. Jack choosing the family business would have made things so easy, you know?”

  Violet shook her head. “I’m afraid you don’t understand.”

  Mr. Wakefield lifted his brows.

  “Jack’s work isn’t a pursuit. It isn’t a puzzle. It isn’t a way to alleviate his boredom and show his brilliance.”

  Anderson cocked his head. “I’m not sure I ever described it as any of those things, but what is it?”

  Violet was angry, and she knew it was with the wrong people. Even still, her voice was waspish as she said, “It’s a calling, Anderson. And it’s how Jack deals with the guilt of surviving the Great War when so many he cared about did not.”

  Anderson cleared his throat as what she said fully registered in his mind. “He has no reason to feel guilty.”

  “I’m closer of age than you to those who went to war,” Violet told Anderson. “So perhaps it seems more obvious to me. Feeling guilty for surviving is not logical or rational. Being haunted by those who you lost isn’t fair. What did they do wrong, but get lucky?”

  Anderson shifted, but he nodded at Violet when she met his gaze.

  “It doesn’t matter if it’s logical. What matters is that they are haunted. Jack is haunted. Hamilton Barnes, Jack’s best friend, is haunted. My childhood friend sees his ghosts so strongly, he can’t always tell what is real and what is not. It doesn’t matter if Jack shouldn’t feel guilty. He does. So, he takes his gifts and he makes the country his friends died to keep safe—safer.”

  “I—”

  Violet shook her head. She didn’t want to hear the apology that should have been Jack’s years ago. She sighed as she pushed her barely touched plate away.