Murder By Chocolate

by Beth Byers

  Regardless, Victor answered. “Of course I will. Lionel and Peter took me and Vi a few times, you know. Violet refused to bait the hooks, and she fell asleep almost every time.”

  Violet gaped. “Oh, I’d forgotten! They’d catch the train down to Aunt Agatha’s over the holidays and take us fishing for a few days before they went to lark about with friends.”

  “I don’t remember them,” Geoffrey said low.

  Violet’s eyes and nose burned.

  “Who are Peter and Lionel?” Hyacinth demanded. “We don’t know all your friends.”

  “They’re our brothers who died during the war,” Victor answered since he could see Violet struggling. She pressed her lips with her fingers for a moment and then pasted on a bright smile.

  “I wasn’t aware the nobility sent their boys off.”

  Violet clenched her jaw shut to keep herself from snapping.

  “And yet we did,” Victor said, adding too much bitters to a drink for Hyacinth and handing it over. “Sent them off and lost them just like everyone else.”

  “You survived,” Hyacinth snapped and then blushed when she realized everyone was staring at her.

  “I just missed the war,” Victor said.

  Violet glanced at James, who was staring open-mouthed at his sister. To her utter relief the dinner gong rang. Violet glanced at Jack, who hadn’t bothered to hide his disgust with his aunt. Even her children who had been listening to Victor teach Geoffrey how to mix drinks were staring at their mother.

  “Oh,” Violet said brightly, though she wasn’t sure she pulled off the merriness. “Dinner. Shall we go in, Father James?”

  “Father James?” Hyacinth said, a little scathingly. But she pretended her own laugh and added, “What a sweet nickname.”

  “I prefer Papa James,” Denny announced happily and without pretending at all. He was probably semi-gleeful at the way Hyacinth had arrived already upset. “More frivolous. Rather like us, eh Vi? Or did you work the day away?”

  She knew what he was doing, but she decided to let it pass. “I confess to being utterly useful today.”

  “Reading business plans?” Denny demanded brightly.

  She nodded.

  “Sending Beatrice instructions on what to do about that auto company fiasco?”

  Violet nodded again, taking James’s arm while Jack helped his grandfather to the right of his father. “I did.”

  “Agreeing to the funding for the orphanage from Mama Lancaster?”

  Since they had never referred to Kate’s mother that way, Violet stumbled a little at the image of how Kate would reply. “Not today. Though I did write to my sweet Ginny.”

  “Your ward?” one of Hyacinth’s daughters asked. “I believe I met her at the wedding.”

  “Our ward,” Victor answered. “Just because Violet does all the parenting side of it, interacts with the teachers, persuades Ginny to work hard, and generally sees to her every need does not mean I don’t send her money and take her out for ice cream.”

  Geoffrey sniffed and Violet thought she might have caught a jealous flash on the boy’s face. Could he…could he want their attention?

  Before Violet could think on it, she took her seat with Jack’s cousins, Liam and Frank, on either side of her. She glanced at Liam and inquired, “What is it that you do for your grandfather’s company, Liam?”

  He glanced at her. “Generally I see to the supplies. Getting them in place, making sure they’re quality, but we’re getting good prices. It’s all rather complicated.” He said it with the tone that she wouldn’t understand and she immediately replied with a noncommittal, “Mmm.”

  To Jack’s slightly younger cousin, Frank, she didn’t bother to say more than, “Wasn’t it a lovely day?”

  He snorted a laugh and glanced at her with a similar penetrating gaze. “Don’t want to have to bite back another scathing reply. What we see here, gentlemen,” he said low, “is the nobility in the wild. Note how the veneer of manners masks her true thoughts.”

  Violet arched an eyebrow. “What’s all this? You don’t have a half-insulting comment to throw my way?”

  “About your judgement in choosing my cousin over me? Not even that,” Frank said with a grin. His eyes twinkled at her and she noted the way he, too, had a grin that seemed to hover at the edge of his lips.

  Violet laughed, for once not pretending.

  “I understand we’re having a chocolate extravaganza. Uncle James said you were thinking of investing in Mrs. Jenkins’s chocolatier?”

  “I am indeed,” Violet agreed. “It’s all but done.”

  “You’re giving money to Mariposa?” Liam demanded, cutting in with an air of disgust. “For chocolate?”

  “This is a man who doesn’t understand chocolate, Vi,” Denny said from across the table.

  “Few understand it like we do, Denny my lad,” Violet told Denny with the same airiness. Violet’s gaze met Victor, who was near Jack. They both looked as disgusted as Violet felt. The good news, she told herself, was that they’d never need to do this again.

  Their simple dinner ended early, and they rose as a group.

  “We’ll have drinks and Violet’s sweets in the parlor,” James said, gesturing with the laziness that said this was a family dinner. Jack helped his Grandfather while Violet took the arm offered by Uncle Anderson.

  “I am quite fond of chocolates,” Uncle Anderson said. “What a delightful idea you've come up with, my dear. Tell me what we’ll be having.”

  “Cakes, dipped shortbread, hot chocolate. I confess to having snuck a cherry cordial, and it was delightful.”

  “I’ve always loved chocolate cake,” he told her. “Especially with nuts.”

  Violet described some of the shops she visited in Belgium with her sister as they entered the parlor and found a uniformed servant attending the display. White plates rimmed in silver were stacked with treats. There was even a chocolate rose that seemed to have been dusted with gold.

  “I see why you would be willing to invest,” Uncle Anderson said. “If it tastes as good as it looks, you’ll be creating chocolate-dipped money.”

  Violet agreed and left him to find a plate while she stepped back to watched Jack’s family come in and ooh and ahh over the treats.

  “This is well done, Vi,” Victor said. “I can see already that we’ll be doing it again.”

  “Again and again,” Denny agreed. Lila yawned into her palm while a servant presented them a tray with small glasses of hot chocolate and flutes of champagne.

  Violet took the champagne and glanced at her twin. “I missed you. I think we should sell both of our country houses and find something massive.”

  “How did you know I love pistachios?” Anderson asked Violet as he took a seat nearby. Hyacinth’s children were still loading their plates as Violet glanced at Uncle Anderson.

  She grinned at him. “That, my friend, is beautiful luck. I had no idea. I didn’t even tell her to personalize the cakes, but I am discovering that Mariposa Jenkins is clever indeed.”

  He grinned at her with a square jaw that reminded her very much of Jack’s. Leaning in, he sniffed the cake and then winked at Violet as he took a bite.

  “That is…”

  Violet looked over when he paused for too long. He cleared his throat and then looked at her in a bit of alarm. Vi handed him her flute of champagne. Had he swallowed wrong?

  A moment later, his plate full of chocolates flipped out of his hand. Violet jumped up from the side of the chair where she was sitting and bent down to meet his gaze.

  “Are you choking? Jack!”

  Jack pulled Violet back as his uncle slid from his chair on the floor. There was a scream, but Violet’s gaze was fixed on the large man whose body was spasming. There was white foam at the edge of his mouth, and his gaze had gone blank.

  Violet gasped and turned away, and Victor was there to wrap her in his arms while Jack shouted. “Stop eating!”

  Another scream, another crash
, and Denny groaned as he set his untouched plate aside.

  “Call the doctor, Father,” Jack said. She felt his familiar touch on the base of her spine and closed her eyes against Victor’s chest when Jack added, “And the constables. This was murder.”

  Chapter 10

  “Of course it wasn’t murder,” Aunt Hyacinth said.

  Violet pressed her fingers against her eyes. She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t speak at all. It was terrible seeing someone die. Of seeing the light in their eyes fade as their spirit left their body. It was worse—it was so, so, so much worse when those eyes were the same color and shape as your love’s eyes. Violet felt as though she’d seen the foreshadowing of what Jack would look like dead, and she was trying not to think at all.

  “Anderson had a bad heart. His heart failed him. We aren’t engaging in…in….in your desire to make yourself important in front of Grandfather!”

  Violet stood, crossed the room, and slapped Hyacinth hard. The force of it stunned Hyacinth into stupefied silence.

  “Listen to me, you fool woman.” Violet barely recognized her own voice, twisted as it was by horror and outrage and shock. “Your brother is dead. He was murdered. Bad hearts don’t end with all the tell-tale signs of arsenic poisoning.”

  Hyacinth stared at Violet, who leaned in and added slowly, evenly, and coldly, “Jack and I neither want nor need your father’s money. Shut your mouth, sit down, and don’t speak again until you are spoken to.”

  Violet stared Hyacinth down until the woman relented first, bowing her head to look at her hands. Vi returned to her brothers, Denny, and Lila. She glanced at Jack and saw his worry. By Jove, she told herself, look at the light in his eyes. It’s still there. He’s fine.

  It wasn’t enough. She sat next to Victor and held out her hand for his handkerchief. He pressed it into her hands gently, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. The doctor arrived a moment later with the constables as well.

  “Captain Jack!” the local bobby said, holding out his hand. “I’m sorry to see you under such circumstances.”

  Jack replied, but she felt his gaze on her. Violet little cared that they had an audience when she pulled her legs under her, and pressed her face into Victor’s bicep.

  “Violet,” Victor said gently, “Violet darling, why is this one worse?” He knew her all too well.

  She shook her head, closing her eyes as she breathed in and out. She didn’t allow herself to think. To imagine or remember. Instead she forced her mind blank and counted. She had reached four hundred and twelve when Jack lifted her.

  She knew it was him. She knew his scent and the feel of his arms on her body. She knew the way his heart beat against his chest when she pressed her ear. Violet wrapped her arm around his neck as he carried her up the stairs. She heard Victor say something and Lila reply, but Violet listened only to the sound of Jack’s heart against her ear.

  He set her down on the bed and turned her face up. His voice was gentle when he asked, “What’s happening, Vi?”

  She couldn’t speak for long minutes, but Jack waited patiently.

  “He had your eyes.”

  Jack nodded, understanding, and he leaned down, pressing his chin against her. After a few minutes, he said, “I have to go help.”

  “All right,” she said, though it wasn’t. Nothing about this was all right. She knew, without doubt, that she’d have nightmares about what she’d seen for weeks to come.

  “Victor is going to get Kate and bring her back here.”

  “There’s a killer in the house!” Violet snapped. “He can’t bring her here.”

  “He can’t leave her, and he won’t leave you. Kate will be safe enough.”

  Violet shook her head frantically. “Victor!” Violet called, knowing he’d be within earshot, and he opened the door to her bedroom. “If you bring my baby and my Kate into this house, I will be the one doing the killing. You keep my Kate and my baby safe!”

  “Violet,” Victor said, his gaze as tortured as hers. “I can’t—”

  “You can,” she said, not needing him to say he couldn’t leave her. “You will.”

  He shook his head, and the silent argument began. They stared at each other in their wordless, intense battle, neither relenting. She could tell that there were those who were watching in the hallway. She wasn’t alone and the knowledge gave her strength. Victor, however, was wavering with the thought of Kate being alone. Finally, Victor gave in with a weak nod.

  “Take Geoffrey too,” Violet told Victor.

  “No,” Geoffrey answered, stepping inside the bedroom. “If Victor is leaving you, I won’t leave you too.”

  Violet blinked and Victor clapped Geoffrey on the shoulder. “Good man.” That seemed to act as permission for Denny and Lila to join them.

  “I’m fine,” Violet lied. “Everything is fine. It’s just…” She couldn’t say it, so she just shook her head.

  “We need to find out where the poison came from,” Jack said. “We need to find out why Uncle Anderson was the victim. Maybe someone else was the target?”

  Violet took a deep breath in. “It had to have been the cake.”

  “Why?”

  “Nothing else was personalized and no one else is dead, Jack. I didn’t tell them to make Anderson a cake with pistachios. Why did Mariposa do that? Who told her to?”

  “Do you think it was Mariposa?” Denny asked, shocked.

  Violet scoffed. “In a family arguing over an inheritance? Of course not. She’s just another unwitting victim.”

  “I’ll have the doctor test that cake,” Jack said. “I’ll ask Mariposa. Listen,” Jack glanced around. “Stay together. Geoffrey, I’m entrusting you with Violet while I work. Denny, don’t try to lead Violet into trouble.”

  “Violet leads me into trouble, my good man,” Denny said, with a laugh and then looked immediately apologetic for his joke. “I’m sorry. I—”

  Jack simply nodded and left, Victor following and closing the door behind them after a final, silent gaze for his twin that was both worry and warning. Violet glanced at the others. “Someone killed Jack’s uncle in our country home.”

  Geoffrey shuffled. He was naturally too pale and after the death, he was out and out ghostly. “You have to stay out of this, Violet. It’s not safe.”

  Violet shook her head. She rose and paced. She wasn’t thinking. She wasn’t trying to figure out who had killed Anderson, who wasn’t hurting anyone. She wasn’t doing anything more than pacing and trying to calm down. She was trying to box up the memory of Anderson dying and the way the light faded from his gaze. The way he’d met her eyes as he died, as he tried to make sense of what was happening to him.

  She wiped away a tear and glanced up. Denny, Lila, and Geoffrey were watching as Violet paced herself calm.

  “Feeling better?” Denny asked.

  Violet shook her head.

  Denny nodded and then glanced at Lila. “Why kill the uncle?”

  Violet shook her head again.

  “We need chalkboards,” Denny said.

  “No,” Violet snapped. “No!”

  “How are you going to figure it out?”

  Violet shook her head a final time. Her mind was raging, but it was entirely undirected. She didn’t have a thought process. It was just random madness. A scattering of thoughts that were too wild to control.

  She glanced outside. It was full dark, she saw. She fiddled with her wedding ring and paced. She wanted to talk to Mariposa Jenkins.

  Violet glanced at the others and then said, “Mariposa Jenkins is step one.”

  “Why?” Geoffrey demanded.

  “Regardless of who killed Anderson or why, they used Mariposa to do it. She was their unwitting weapon, and knowing how she did it is necessary.”

  Before Violet could get the others to come with her to find Mariposa, there was a knock on the door. Denny rose and answered it and found a constable. “Captain Aina was wanting to talk to Mrs. Wakefield.”

&nbs
p; “That’s me,” Violet said from behind Denny. She nodded at the policeman and held out her hand. He lifted both brows but shook her hand. “Ma’am.”

  “You are?”

  “Bennet Hutchins, ma’am.”

  She nodded and followed him through the house. It was odd, she thought, to follow a bobby through her own house. She pressed her lips together and told herself to gather up her thoughts. She followed the policeman into the library, noting her typewriter on the desk near the window.

  She glanced over and found the man who had referred to Jack as Captain. Violet crossed to him as he rose to greet her.

  “Ma’am,” he said. “I’m sorry to disturb you.”

  She nodded, eyeing him. He had a bad leg, she noticed. She noted the scar on his jaw and the way he looked at her gently. This man was one of Jack’s soldier brothers. Violet shook her head a little as he met her gaze. Jack had layers and layers of secrets, she thought with a sigh.

  “The captain said you were quite upset, but if you could answer my questions it will help me get started.”

  Violet nodded, pressing her fingers against her eyebrow. She went to the desk a moment later and dug through the bottom drawer, pulling out the bottle that was hidden there. Violet flashed a weak grin at Jack’s friend. “What is your name?”

  “Nielsen Aina, ma’am.”

  Violet poured herself a measure of the alcohol and then dug around until she found a bottle of aspirin. “I’m afraid Jack told me of his father’s stash. Did you want a glass?”

  Aina shook his head.

  “You knew Jack in the war?”

  Aina nodded. “One of the boys in my regiment died. It was a murder. I’m afraid I was the main suspect. Jack saved my life.”

  Violet smiled just a little. “He does that.”

  “He does,” Aina said gently, eyeing her as though she were going to collapse into tears.

  She didn’t think she would, and she rather hated how much she felt like a damsel in distress. She was stronger than this, she told herself, but the memory of Anderson’s gaze as he died crossed her mind again, and she shuddered.

  “You know,” she told Aina conversationally, “I write books.”