by Beth Byers
Violet’s expression was unimpressed. “Eventually, he’ll have to shift his primary love from me to her. Then she’ll get the worst of him, yes?” Violet glanced to the side, looking at her bedroom in this house. Would they eventually kick her out of it? Replace her with a child? Would she mind? Oh, she was glum, coming off of an illness. Violet needed someone to smack her out of the doldrums.
“You’re acting off, Vi. Not just because of your illness, I think. Or the body. Whatever is the matter with you?”
Violet shook her head. She wasn’t ready to put words to the feelings that were carousing through her. Instead, she asked Lila, “What have you written down then?”
“Wife,” Lila admitted and then handed Violet the paper and pen.
Sketching out murder suspects on a piece of typing paper felt wrong, so Violet stood to get her journal instead when Denny knocked on the door.
“Vi, darling,” he said. “I wonder if you might want to take Victor off of my hands. Even Kate has pled a headache.”
Chapter 8
“I think this is where I apologize profusely.” Victor was leaning back in his chair. His face was white while his cheeks were brilliantly red, proclaiming a fever. Violet leaned against his bedroom door, waiting for the tea tray she’d ordered to his room. She lifted her brows, silently.
“You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”
She stared blank-faced at him.
Victor flushed. He sniffed once. “I’m an insufferable ass.”
Violet crossed her fingers over her stomach and waited, her heel bouncing against the hallway floor.
“I abuse you when I’m sick every time, and every time afterwards I tell you I’ll be better, but I never am.” He crossed to her, taking her hand and pulling her to one of the chairs near his fireplace. “I don’t mean any of the nasty things I say. My head pounds, my stomach roils, I feel like I should be able to just push through, and I don’t know—everything bothers me.”
She cocked her head and lifted a brow as he finished his statement with a racking cough. She wasn’t going to just blithely accept his apology. She just wasn’t. She was well and truly tired of him acting the way he did when he was ill. The way he’d turned not just on her, but with snide comments about Jack, well…Violet didn’t like that at all.
“Your cough wasn’t this bad.”
She uncrossed her ankles and then recrossed them the opposite way.
“It’s because I didn’t go to sleep immediately. I know it. Jack told me I was sick and to go to bed. Denny told me I’d owe you jewelry with the way I was behaving. I wonder if a matching black pearl bracelet would be enough.”
“I can buy my own jewelry. You know what I want.”
“I can’t go to bed while Jack is a hunting a murderer—by Jove! Violet, this fellow killed our gardener. What if they’re around here? You’re here…Kate…” He stood to pace, a hand pressed against lungs she knew were burning with the effort. “You found him. What if the killer was nearby? We don’t even know—”
“We don’t even know if it is murder yet. It could be anything. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe he was ill.”
“He was a strong man. I’d just seen him this morning. He caught me when I…”
Violet waited for the end of his confession, but Victor didn’t finish it. No doubt, Victor had nearly passed out trying to do something he shouldn’t have while ill. She was unamused, and despite his apology, she was unappeased.
Victor took the seat next to her and reached out, taking Violet’s hand. “I won’t lose you, Violet. You aren’t allowed to be hurt or in danger when I’m around.”
She laughed. She’d been in danger more than once when he’d been around.
“Don’t say it! I know I can’t be there every second. We should leave. We should leave like Agatha should have left when there was a killer in her home. Damn it. Damn it, Vi.”
Violet winced at Aunt Agatha’s name. She glanced around his bedroom, seeing it for the first time. It was blue and gold art deco with a massive black bed that she knew was brand new. He had two windows that were directed towards the gardens. Despite having an office in the house, she noticed his typewriter on a small table near his bed.
“We can’t leave,” she told him gently. “Jack will get called in to help. What local police force would turn down the help of an excellent Scotland Yard detective right here?”
“They might,” Victor said, but he didn’t sound convinced and Violet certainly wasn’t convinced either.
She squeezed his hand. “There isn’t any reason to believe that—if Philip was murdered—that it has anything to do with us.”
Victor went back to pacing even though his lungs were rattling as he did. “The issue remains that we’re here. In this house, where he spent the vast majority of his time. His murder probably has something to do with the house.”
Violet shook her head. “Jack and I saw him with a married woman. It was evident, from what we saw, that they’d just been intimate. This afternoon when you—”
Victor winced. “I shouldn’t have said what I did about…”
She wasn’t going to excuse him. He should not have said what he did about Violet and the gardener. As though Violet would somehow be attracted to a man who wasn’t half the creature that Jack was. Philip had made…her head tilted. He had made her feel uncomfortable from the moment she’d met him, and she’d been ill at that point. What if she wasn’t the only one who’d been so bothered by him? What if he’d pushed someone else beyond their limits?
“I don’t want Kate here around this. I should send her home.”
Violet laughed at him, shaking her head.
“You don’t think I should send her home?”
She rolled her eyes at him. She wasn’t gentle or easy when she replied, “Has Kate suddenly become incapable of thinking for herself?”
He flushed, though it was hard to tell given the brightness of his feverish cheeks. “I…”
“You love her.” Violet’s tone and expression didn’t give him room to hedge, but he opened his mouth to protest all the same. Violet held up a hand. She hadn’t fully forgiven him, so she was snappish when she repeated, “You love her.”
“I love you.” He folded his arms over his chest, and Violet lifted a brow. He was on the edge of snapping again, and she waited to see if he’d give into it. She could see the wildness in his eyes, the frustration in his expression, the need to lash out. He coughed into his handkerchief before he said, “I’m just saying that I love you. It’s not like I could possibly…be…damn it!”
Violet pressed her fingers into her forehead. He was bringing back her headache. Or perhaps it was simply the pressure of a dead body on her recovering one. “You love Kate. You want to keep her safe. With Kate, you might be able to order her home. The question is whether you’d be able to entice her out again.”
Victor seemed at a loss.
“Kate is a full-grown woman who is smarter and more capable than us both.”
“Me anyway,” Victor said petulantly. “Why does she even put up with me?”
“You’re kind and charming.”
Victor grunted, and Violet rolled her eyes. As she did, Beatrice tapped on the door and stepped in with a tea tray. Her gaze met Vi’s. Beatrice took in the irritated Victor and went about setting up the tray without a word.
“I don’t want tea.”
“You’re drinking it anyway,” Violet told him. She crossed to the table, turning her body to block his view, and sent Beatrice out. It was chamomile and mint tea. Violet poured something from the vial in her pocket into the teacup, added some whiskey, and then the tea with an excess of sugar. She’d have tested it to make sure her concoction wasn’t too sweet, but she had no intention of sleeping the day away.
She had no patience for this nonsense on the best of days, adding in a murder to Victor’s poor behavior, and Violet had reached her limits. “Victor, I am not going to listen to you whine. If that’s what yo
u want to do, by all means, try to see if Kate will indulge you. She’s got stars in her eyes where you’re concerned, so perhaps she won’t mind.”
“You’re an awful fishwife. Is Jack aware you’re like this?”
“Perhaps,” Violet snapped, “but you can be assured that Kate has noticed your churlishness.”
“You could be kinder. I was nice to you when you were sick.”
“And I slept until I was well, didn’t I? The worst that you can lay at my feet while ill, brother, is that our guests were neglected by me.”
Victor scowled at the tea and Violet picked it up from the table where he’d set it down and placed it back into his hands.
“It doesn’t taste right,” he harrumphed.
“That is unfortunate. Drink it.”
“I want a new cup.”
“I will not make my maid who has been waiting on me hand and foot get you a new cup of tea simply because you’re being a child. Drink it.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Victor Lawrence Carlyle. Drink it or I will think of the worst stories I know of you and tell them all to Kate in a massive outpouring. She’ll flee, whimpering and crying for her mother.”
Victor drained the teacup in several large swallows and slapped it down on the table next to him. “Are you satisfied?”
Violet smirked at him and nodded. His gaze widened when he saw her expression. “What did you do?”
“Me?” Violet asked innocently and his entire body shuddered into a massive yawn. Violet rose and crossed to the bell pull, summoning his servant.
“When I was sick, I went to bed and you had to step in here and there. Call a doctor perhaps? Interview your own servants. For the most part, you probably played with your cocktail concoctions and smoked too much.”
“Soooo…” He trailed off into another massive yawn, and his eyes were drooping. “What did you do to me, Vi?”
“Go rub your chest down with vapor rub and sleep off your doldrums before I am forced to save us all by murdering you.”
“I am not a child.” His eyes were watering with his exhaustion and his fight against returning to bed.
“You could have fooled me.” She picked up his teacup and returned it to the tea tray, finishing the last of the tumbler of whiskey.
He stared her way and she slowly lifted her brow.
“I…”
“If you want me to forgive you, go to bed.”
He yawned again and slowly stood. “I…you…”
“It’s simple mathematics, Victor. I don’t like you like this and no one loves you more than I do. Do you want to drive Kate away while you bound around the house making everyone miserable?”
Violet pulled back the covers on his bed and fluffed his pillows as he shuffled towards it. Giles, Victor’s man, opened the bedroom door just then and Violet said, “Dear Giles, would you be a dear and steady Victor’s arm? I fear he’s rather overdone.”
“What did you do, Vi?” Victor asked as Giles took his arm and led him to the bed.
“Take off his tie and shoes, dear Giles. Get him into pajamas if you can. I fear the laudanum is working rather more quickly than I expected.”
Giles’ gaze widened and he turned to stare at Victor, who was yawning around a horrified expression.
“You’re welcome, brother dear. Don’t come out of this room until food sounds good to you or I fear I shall be rather more direct next time.”
Victor took off his suit coat as Violet crossed to leave the room. “More direct than drugging me?”
“Perhaps next time, I’ll just use a blunt instrument and put you down for the count. You are welcome, brother dear. But mostly Kate is welcome. You may thank me more effusively later.”
Chapter 9
Violet left his room, laughing to herself. She should have done something like this far sooner. She hoped that finally snapping and taking matters into her own hands would teach Victor to control himself while ill. Otherwise, she really might have to find a large cage and lock him inside with broth and vapor rub.
Violet walked down the stairs and into the kitchens. Cook was working on a chicken noodle soup and some fresh bread. Violet begged a cup of tea and went into the gardens. She hadn’t truly explored them and when she worked her way down the path, she paused in sheer shock. The rose bushes had been planted in a petal pattern with paths that formed the framework of each petal.
Vi hadn’t bothered to look out Victor’s windows but as she glanced up at the house, she was betting they looked down on this scene, allowing him to truly appreciate the splendor of the layout. There should, however, be more than one room to overlook these gardens. A wind whipped up around Violet, causing her skirt to snap against her knees, and she decided to view the garden from above until she’d grabbed her coat.
Violet wandered quite happily through the house, forcing her mind to bend towards what she was seeing rather than what she had seen. She had no desire to have her mind linger over the death of the gardener.
There was a portrait gallery that overlooked the back garden with a long balcony running along the length of the house. Violet stepped out on it and paused to take in the beauty.
As she’d imagined, the garden paths formed the lines of a rose that worked together to make a circle of petals. At the center of the circle, there was a fountain.
Beyond the rose garden was a hedge maze. To the right and left and very back of the gardens were orchards laid out in straight lines. The orchards formed a block around the garden. Because they were blooming, it was as though the garden was lined with pink and white blossoms.
She imagined the front of the house with the long drive that was guarded by fanciful hedge beasts. Philip Jones might have been a lot of things, but if there was one thing he surely was—it was an out and out genius with gardens. Had he designed this himself? Or had he executed someone else’s vision? Violet very much wanted to know. She wasn’t sure any garden could be lovelier than the one laid out before her, despite the tales of even finer gardens in the area.
Violet stared in awe and then turned to go back inside. Kate was waiting in the doorway, so Violet smiled a greeting.
“I wasn’t sure—” Kate began.
“That you’d be welcome after my day? It was rather awful, wasn’t it? Perhaps I should throw myself on your bosom and beg you to comfort me.”
“Is there anything more comforting than Lila, novels, and stolen chocolates?”
“They do taste better.” Violet examined Kate’s face. The woman was a little pale. Her delightful freckles stood out against her face. “Are you getting ill? Or perhaps we’ve just made you sick with our behavior?”
Kate bit her lip. “I was afraid I couldn’t be human with the way you two are so loving. You understand each other with a glance. Seeing you…ah…”
“Jabbing at each other?”
Kate pressed her lips together, but the grin still escaped. “It was rather refreshing. It feels a little as though nothing could measure up to what you two have.”
Violet didn’t laugh. She knew people tended to be intimidated by the twins’ closeness. Especially if hopes were being laid on either twin. Women especially. Men seemed to think that Violet was both theirs for the taking and she would instantly turn all of her love and affection at whoever deigned to want her.
“Is he always so awful while ill?” Kate’s voice was soft, but Violet’s mostly unamused laugh was not.
“I should lie, so you’ll still love him, but I’m afraid so. If you want to know what Victor was like when we were four years old and told he could not have a jam tart, well…you’ve just learned.”
Kate laughed. “It’s almost—but not quite—nice to see a little humanity from him. He’s been…”
“He loves you.” Violet probably shouldn’t queer her brother’s pitch, but sometimes a woman just needed to know she was wanted. Violet wasn’t sure if Jack loved her. The more that time passed between the two of them, the more than she needed thos
e words.
“Want to explore the gardens with me?”
“It feels a little…”
“Haunting? Like you’re invading the land of the dead?”
Kate nodded, but they went out to the gardens anyway, staying until it was past time to come inside. They had a late tea with cucumber sandwiches, and rather than telling Kate terrible stories about Victor, Violet told Kate the best stories of him.
* * *
Jack came in with a storm. The skies darkened with clouds before the sunset, so it seemed as though the sun had gone down early. Violet had been reading Victor’s manuscript while she waited. It was nearly time to dress for dinner when an auto stopped outside and Jack exited. He seemed to unfold and stand against the storm as some sort of otherworldly warrior. His broad shoulders didn’t bow to the storm. His hair moved with the wind, but that seemed to be the only part of him that gave in to the power of it.
She heard the door open below and considered going down to him. He probably wanted to wash up and change. She didn’t want to press in on his time. She tried to focus on the pages before her. She’d been trying for some time, but all she could do when she started to read was see the body of Philip Jones there on the path in front of her.
Those glassy eyes staring at the boughs overhead but not seeing. She thought about the way he hadn’t been cold. She hadn’t noticed it at the time, but now, she was sure he’d been warm to the touch. How long did it take a body to cool? Had she just missed the killer? Had the killer seen Violet discover Mr. Jones? Had the killer seen the shock and horror on her face? The fear? The way she’d run for her life as though they might strike against her as well?
Violet shuddered, feeling as though they could be watching her at the moment, even though she could be nothing more than a shadow against the glass. There would be no reason for anyone to look up at the old Higgins house, see a body in the glass, and know that it was Violet instead of any of the others. Even Victor, at a distance, might be mistaken for Violet, as slim as they both were.