by Beth Byers
“May I?” Rita glanced about. “I wasn’t sure that I would be crashing, but well—”
Violet gasped as Jack lifted her and carried her through the gate, running up the steps. “Everyone in,” he called. “No one else is welcome. Quick, shut the door before Algie appears with his tiny female.”
“Really now?” They all turned and found Ham walking down the street. “And what about me?”
“Get in here, old man,” Jack called as Hargreaves opened the door. “The door is getting locked and we’re not at home.”
Jack shifted Violet so she was hanging over his shoulder and moved inside to the shouts of laughter. Slowly, he slid her down his body while everyone else greeted each other outside. “We aren’t going to turn our minds to the nature of mankind,” Jack told her, putting his finger under her chin. He slowly tilted her face towards his and placed a kiss on her forehead and another on each temple. “We are going to turn our minds to our honeymoon and the life we’re crafting after that. Nothing else. Not Theo, not how mankind treats each other, not all the bad things in this life. Just the good.”
She grinned at him. Denny whistled behind them. When they spun, Denny shrugged. “You left the door open and told us to come inside.”
Rita placed a hand over her chest. “That was perfection. The most romantic thing I have ever seen.”
“It was pretty romantic,” Isolde added, wiping away a tear.
“By Jove!” Violet said to Jack, but her gaze remained fixed on her younger sister. Blonde, lush, lovely, and a little green about the gills now that Violet focused on her. “They’re all mad, and Isolde is weeping over us.”
“She’s got to be expecting,” Jack finished, certainly noting all the things that Vi had seen. Their gazes met before turning on Isolde and Tomas. “Someone’s in trouble with her daddy,” Jack said with a smirk.
“Not a good place to be,” Denny told Tomas, who was both somehow pale and blushing. He was grey with circles of red on his cheeks and the tips of his ears.
“The earl is going to slaughter you slowly,” Victor told Tomas, who swallowed thickly.
Kate squealed, and Jack and Violet grinned at each other while Kate threw herself at Isolde, begging for a confirmation of the truth.
“We won that round, I think,” Jack told Vi, who nuzzled his chest before stepping away. She reached her younger sister and kissed Isolde on the cheek.
Hargreaves had opened the parlor door, and a maid had already appeared and left, following Hargreaves’s low order. Denny grabbed Victor and nudged him towards the bar while they all settled into their favorite seats. Violet noted how Ham’s gaze lingered on Rita, but she seemed unaware. She was lovely, Violet thought, but more so, she was adventurous, clever, and fun while Ham was dedicated to his career.
“So, a party then?” Kate asked as she and Isolde snuggled into the same seat to whisper together over their shared experience.
“Tuesday night?” Denny begged. “We’re supposed to go to some official dinner, and we hardly can if our dearest friends are having an— an—”
“At home,” Lila finished as Denny started handing around drinks. “Now someone explain to me why this American fellow thought you’d work for him in the days before your wedding. I wasn’t paying attention when he was speaking.”
“Lila,” Denny told her, “you are the queen of my heart.”
“Mine too.” Violet lifted a hand to her ears and pulled off her earbobs, letting them fall to the table next to her, sliding her bangles off as well. “Did you agree to work for him, Ham?”
He shot her an irritated glance. “Didn’t have much of a choice, really. He ended up pulling in my superior who made it clear that I was to set aside my actual work—but not really—and do this as well. This Roche fellow is the kind of rich that makes everyone sit up and take notice.”
Rita laughed at that, and Violet smirked as she told Rita, “You are too, my dear. Or your father is.”
“As are you,” Rita shot back, taking a cocktail from Victor and smiling happily down at it. “Those G&Ts at the party were so heavy on the gin, I might have grown another eyeball or something equally terrible.”
“I like them heavy on the gin,” Denny told them, propping up his feet and crossing his legs. “We should have a baby too, Lila. Isolde and Tomas are passing us by.”
She just shot him a look. “What did you see, Rita? After we left? Anything? Or before we got there?”
Violet scowled at Lila. “I know what you’re doing, Lila Lancaster.”
Lila grinned evilly, not admitting that she was trying to draw Jack and Violet into the case. Lila lifted her brows to emphasize her question to Rita.
She answered slowly. “I…there has been a lot of fighting. I even complained to the management.”
Violet glanced at Jack, who reached out and covered her ears. “We’re not getting involved.”
Violet took one hand and pulled it down to her lap. “We could just advise Ham. Our roles have been reversed. He’ll interfere and do things that he wouldn’t normally. Perhaps use the at-the-ready Rita to pry into things, given she’s staying in the same hotel.”
“I could do that,” Rita said, looking interested.
Violet hid a grin behind her hand as she saw Ham struggle with his instincts. He both wanted Rita working with him to spend more time with her and wanted to keep her away because she was calling to the man in him. Ham, like Jack, was a man who’d prefer a woman to be safe and secure.
Before Ham could say no, Rita continued. “The Bartholomew Mr. Roche was talking about just arrived in London after having traveled with his fiancé to Paris. That’s where your cousin met them.”
“Look at Rita knowing more than you and I about Algie,” Victor said. “It’s the woman’s ear for gossip.”
“As if you don’t gossip,” Kate said, rising from her whispered conversation with Isolde to tease her husband. “You’d have all the details if you were staying in the same hotel as Algie. Especially given how loud Mr. Roche is.”
“Tell us about the fiancé,” Lila said. “This good girl with money. Have you met her?”
“I have,” Rita admitted. “Her name is Bettie Keys. She’s quite lovely, quite sweet, and quite rich. The Bartholomew isn’t the son, it’s the nephew. So he needs money a bit more.”
Violet laughed and then told Victor, “It’s Algie’s question. Is it love of the woman or love of the money? Can she really be all that wonderful? Sweet, beautiful, and rich? Surely, one of those is a lie.”
“It isn’t with you,” Jack told Violet.
Victor and Denny immediately said, “Violet’s not sweet.”
“What about Rita?” Lila asked musingly. “She’s lovely, obviously. And rich.”
“She helped trap her aunt,” Rita answered. “She refuses to follow expectations and will travel the world despite her father’s objections to things like African safaris. She’s not sweet either.”
“She’s also talking about herself in the third person,” Victor said, wincing.
Rita grinned wickedly. “She knew that she was too new to the group for anyone to be comfortable telling the truth about her.”
“But she wants to stay?” Lila asked.
“She does,” Rita said, glancing around. “Shall I beg? Or offer to do some sort of entrance hijinks?”
“How do you feel about roller-skating?” Violet asked, as though she were seriously going to give Rita an entrance project.
“I feel good about that,” Rita said. “I’m not sure I ever have.”
“She’s a willing roller-skater, she likes cocktails, she shops, she gossips for clues,” Violet answered. “Turns out we were missing someone and never knew.”
Chapter Five
Their first party was starting in hours, and Violet and Jack had escaped to the local park with her—their—dog. The little red-brown spaniel was running through the park, spinning circles, chasing leaves, and then dodging back to circle her slower walkers. They
trailed after the exuberant Rouge with their arms twined together.
“It feels a little odd,” Violet told him, looking up at him through her lashes, “to be having a party and it being at our home. I felt as if I were an imposter when I talked to the servants about the evening.”
Jack laughed, squeezing her fingers and turning when the wind kicked up, blocking her from the sudden swirl. “I wonder if people always feel like imposters. Sometimes when I go to a new town on a case, I find myself wondering why anyone would turn to me and take my opinion. They don’t know me from anyone else.”
“Perhaps some people are endlessly struggling with the idea that they’re in a position that shouldn’t be there. I can, however, assure you,” Violet laughed, “that Lady Eleanor does not feel like an imposter.”
“Or maybe she does,” Jack shot back with a devil’s twinkle in his gaze. “Maybe she is endlessly comparing herself to your father’s other wives.”
“And feeling like the one who doesn’t belong? I don’t know. I think my mother would have been far more the one who felt as if she’d stepped onto the wrong stage. According to Aunt Agatha, Mama was like Rita Russell. Adventurous and bored by society. Perhaps Father was endlessly baffled by her. Perhaps if she hadn’t gotten sick, she’d have disappeared like Rita does. I think Lady Eleanor is just like the nobles’ wives.”
“What about Gerald’s mother?”
Violet shrugged. She had no idea about her father’s first wife. She was the mother of Violet’s three oldest brothers, but only Gerald yet survived. “Will you marry again, if I die?” Violet asked, and Jack scowled at her.
“You aren’t going to die.” It was an out and out order with a bit of a growl at the end. “Getting over Emily was one thing. Actually losing you? No.”
“I’d marry again,” Violet said, but Jack knew her well enough to catch the smirk in her voice.
He spun her around, holding her at her waist and pressed against her body. The look he gave her was so—fervent—she had to fan herself. “You won’t be getting the chance either.”
“There’s the new divorce act,” Violet suggested.
“That only works if either of us have lovers. I won’t be stepping out on you, my love. And any lovers of yours wouldn’t survive the night to admit to cuckolding me, let alone confessing to a jury of any…activities.”
“Oh ho.” Violet stepped back with a dramatic gasp. “Murder, I say! Murder and from a Yard man!”
“I’ve gone back into semi-retirement,” Jack told her. “Practically speaking, I’m just a man.”
“Can such things be?”
He snorted and took her hand again, wrapping it around his elbow. “Of course not. I am a man among men.”
“A pearl of great price!” She laughed, grabbing her side. “Suddenly it’s funny again! My favorite joke given life again. A second, better life! I can’t wait to use it until it’s dead again.”
Jack grunted, but Vi heard the humor in the noise.
“Listen,” Jack told her. “I might be a pearl of great price—”
Before he could finish, Violet was laughing again, too hard to hear him. Once she stopped, she said, “Oh, you are! What lucky woman was clever enough to trap you?”
“A clever minx. Bright-eyed. Vivacious. A little too much devil in her.”
Violet laughed again. “Now tell me…is this woman—this devil of yours—attractive because she’s wealthy? I’ve heard you trapped yourself a rich devil at least.”
“What cares one for such fripperies?” Jack asked, running his finger down her arm. That heated look was back in his gaze, and she wasn’t quite sure how to handle it in the middle of the park, so she called for Rouge instead. “Are we going back?”
“I suppose we must since we’ve sent Beatrice for every pair of roller skates she can find, ordered masses of small mouthfuls to be carried about on trays, and raided Victor’s cellar.”
“Did we raid it?”
“He was rather willing,” Violet admitted. “Possibly because I would have enjoyed taking it anyway given how we took all of that chocolate liqueur.”
Jack laughed again, tucking her closer to him as they cross the street and headed into Victor’s house. Violet’s maid and the other servants had moved most of her things over. She felt a little bit like a traveler to her own house with the final trunk ready to take the last of her things. Her luggage was packed for the honeymoon; however, they still needed to gather up her typewriter, her paper and pens, and makeup.
Certainly Beatrice had a rather extensive list of things to gather for Violet, so she could be as spoiled as always and have whatever she wished. Violet took a long breath in. “Upon a moment of personal reflection, I have been forced to realize that my life is rather wonderful.”
“Is it?” Jack’s mouth twitched at the corners, but he didn’t laugh at her.
“You really are a pearl of great price.” She patted his cheek. “So I think you should be the imposter to make sure things are ready for the party.” She laughed and ran inside, leaving him at the front door, and skipped up the steps to her bedroom.
There were several dresses she’d bought for the parties and teas around her wedding day, but she still had one or two Jack hadn’t seen yet. She wanted to bring back that heated look to his eyes, so she took the most unique of her dresses. It was a nude sheath dress that hugged her from her chest to her knees with enough of an A-line to allow for dancing. Overlaying it all was a black lace dress, embroidered with flowers that reached to her mid-calves, allowing, she hoped, for a short enough dress to roller skate in.
She layered around her neck the turquoise beaded necklace that was as long as her longest strands of pearls. Next, she placed the diamond collar that Jack had bought her for Christmas on her neck. On her wrists were the diamond and turquoise bangles that had been made for her as well. On her fingers, she wore only her engagement ring. She wanted it to stand out like a lantern on a hill. She was affianced and soon to be wed. Nothing gave her greater happiness at that moment.
Violet held her short hair back from her face with a turquoise, black bead, and black feather headpiece. She added makeup rather heavily, ending it all with a wine red lipstick. With her full dress in place, Violet glanced down at Rouge, who gazed up at her with pleading eyes.
“Did you want to go, darling?”
Rouge’s tail slammed against the door frantically as though she could provide a yes using her tail thumps as Morse code.
“You’ll have to get gussied up.”
Rouge seemed to understand well enough to bark twice.
“All right then.” Violet dug through her jewelry until she found a ribbon to tie around the dog’s neck. She added to the bow a diamond and ruby broach that belonged to Aunt Agatha and then kissed the top of the dog’s head, leaving behind a trace of lipstick.
Violet touched up her lipstick and then crossed to Victor and Kate’s bedroom door and knocked.
“Come in!” Kate called. “Come see the spectacle. A beached whale in pearls.”
Violet pushed the door open dramatically and gasped, “Where?”
“Here!” Kate moaned.
“For the love of all that is holy, Violet,” Victor begged. “Tell her she is beautiful.”
“Kate!” Violet moaned, “You are lovely! My goodness woman! Have you seen your skin? You glow! Have you seen your eyes?”
“Look at my feet,” Kate wailed, and Violet glanced down and gasped, which made Kate actually burst into tears.
“Violet,” Victor groaned.
“What happened?” Vi gasped, reaching down to touch Kate’s foot with a solitary finger. “Is it contagious?”
“Yes!” Kate shouted. “Jack will eventually give it to you and then you’ll have pig’s haunches for feet to stumble about on.”
“I don’t think you can skate on those,” Violet told her. “I wasn’t sure it was a good idea before I saw those ham haunches, given my Violet Junior you’re growing.”
&nb
sp; Kate was still crying. Violet cocked her head and examined her sister-in-law. “My goodness woman, stem those tears.”
“But it’s your first party, and I want to go.” She ended on a wail, and Violet pressed her hand against Kate’s mouth to muffle the crying. Kate’s eyes widened in a fury that Violet had never seen from her sister-in-law before.
“You’re in trouble now,” Victor declared. “I tried that once, and she threw a shoe at me.”
Violet’s expression turned evil, and Victor shook his head frantically, but Violet couldn’t help herself. “It’s a good thing, then,” Violet laughed, “that she can’t fit a shoe on those feet.”
Kate gasped behind Violet’s hand and lunged, but the baby mound was too much and Kate fell back into her seat. “I’ll get you,” she shouted and then added on a moan, “when I can run again. I will chase you down and tear out your hair.”
“Victor,” Violet laughed from the doorway. “You married a vixen!”
She hurried into her bedroom, ringing the bell for Beatrice.
“Quick darling,” Violet ordered, “we need those slippers. The ones that just cover the toes and tie with ribbons.”
Beatrice nodded.
“I’m afraid Kate’s feet have become rather swollen, and she’s weeping about it. Hurry now.”
Beatrice darted from the room to where Violet’s already packed trunks were stored. It took her a good quarter of an hour, but she returned nearly breathless with the shoes.
“I think I shall also have to go crawling.”
Beatrice’s gaze widened, but Violet didn’t explain. She crossed to Victor’s door and opened it without knocking, since she didn’t expect them to let her in without persuasion. She found Victor kneeling in front of Kate, dabbing her eyes, and Violet sighed.
“You are my favorite couple.”
Kate’s gaze narrowed on Violet, who held up the slippers.
“I come bearing gifts. They’d look lovely, I think, with your silver and white dress. Though not as lovely as your face or your soul.”
“Bah!” Kate said.
