Mystery at the Edge of Madness

by Beth Byers

  Mr. Thorne and Mr. Oliver glanced at each other once again in silent conversation, and Severine said, “There is a reason for these questions and I assume it is alarming. Will you tell me or will you insist that we gather up Mr. Brand or Grandmère?”

  Again, the two men eyed each other as though insisting the other answer.

  She sighed, hating that she was only eighteen years old and they acted like men rather fixated on honor and chivalry and those other antiquated things and so thought she her delicate sensibilities needed protecting. “I prefer if you take your concerns to Mr. Brand, if you don’t care for my opinion on the matter. If you insist upon treating me like a doll, I rather fear that we have little to discuss beyond the weather, and it is frightful, isn’t it?”

  Anubis’s low growl had them all turning towards the trees. “Ah, perhaps that’s whatever has you alarmed.” Her voice was light.

  “I rather hope not, by Jove,” Mr. Oliver replied.

  Severine laughed before she turned and glanced at Mr. Thorne. “I’ll just step into the woods and see, shall I?”

  Severine took a step towards the tree with Anubis at her side when Mr. Thorne grabbed her arm. “Please don’t. It’s not safe.”

  Severine looked over her shoulder at him. “Why?” she demanded.

  He frowned at her, his gaze raking over hers. “You know that there’s something wrong.”

  “I might not be a man,” Severine mocked them, her gaze moving between the two, “but I am not entirely dim.”

  Severine glanced back towards the trees, noted that Anubis had calmed down but that Mr. Thorne hadn’t, though he did release her arm. She waited calmly for him to decide whether to speak or not.

  “There is a bullet hole in your auto window.”

  Severine blinked rather rapidly. Both of them watched with complete seriousness. She considered the previous day. “Well.”

  Mr. Thorne’s mouth dropped. “That’s it?”

  “I’m afraid you lot have fallen in with scoundrels and ruffians.” She paused. “Why are you here?”

  “Your grandmother said there was spirit activity here since the death of your parents.” Mr. Oliver’s even tone said he had seen little of that nature, and he wasn’t pleased.

  Severine snorted. “She invited you here for Florette.”

  “Florette?” Mr. Oliver demanded in confusion. “Florette?”

  “They’re wondering which of you has the greater income. She’ll have a bit of money on her marriage, but of course, she wants more than that mere pittance.”

  Mr. Oliver cursed. Severine turned to Mr. Thorne. “You’re here for spirits?”

  He nodded once. “It’s something of an obsession, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m sure the house is rife with them.”

  He looked towards the wood again. “I fear you’ll be one if you’re not careful.”

  “I have started to realize that. Shall I haunt you if I am murdered?”

  Mr. Oliver snorted with a surprised laugh. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  She grinned at him, and when he held out his elbow, she took it. “Thank you for moving my car.”

  Mr. Thorne stepped up next to them. “Does she really not care which of us?” he asked, alluding to Florette.

  “Oh, she cares. Whoever has the greater income. Shall I tell her?”

  Mr. Oliver cursed low and then said, “I liked her.”

  “She might be kind.”

  “Might be?” Mr. Thorne groaned. “Don’t you know?”

  “The last I saw her, we were both children. She was spoiled and favored, and I was bitterly jealous.”

  Mr. Thorne glanced down at her. “Why was she favored? Weren’t you the daughter of the house?”

  “She’s just like my mother. I’m the cuckoo.”

  Mr. Thorne frowned and shook his head. “I wish the concept of parents who dream up a specific version of their child and then are disappointed with the reality was a foreign concept.”

  Severine walked with the gentlemen inside of the house and found Lisette pacing in the hall.

  “You went out without me,” Lisette accused. “You said we would stay together.”

  Severine was immediately contrite. She had only wished a few minutes to herself, but Lisette was right. And she might have come to harm.

  Her news wasn’t going to help settle her friend, but she didn’t wish to speak of it openly, so she pulled them all into her suite and firmly closed the door. “It seems someone was taking shots at me,” Severine said calmly.

  Lisette crossed her arms. “You? I could have been the intended victim.”

  Mr. Thorne cleared his throat while Mr. Oliver said, “We must tell your Mr. Brand.”

  Severine waved him to it while Mr. Thorne replied, “I’m not sure we should leave her alone.”

  “We can’t leave,” Lisette told both of them. “Have you realized that? And someone is trying to kill Severine. Who might they kill along the way to get to her?”

  Severine snorted and Lisette spun on her. She held up both hands in surrender, but Lisette groaned.

  “Why is it funny, Miss DuNoir?” Mr. Thorne asked. He had maneuvered his friend out of the way, and Severine had enjoyed the act even if she hadn’t decided if it was for the liking of her or for the saving of his friend from her.

  “What is the difference? Being hunted here or there? Either way, they’re coming. At least you aren’t the target.”

  “If you think we’ll abandon you to it, Miss DuNoir, you’re wrong.”

  Lisette laughed. “It’s because she’s striking, isn’t it? All that white skin and those cheeks flushed by cold but not by fear.”

  “I’m sorry?” Mr. Thorne asked.

  “She’s a waif.”

  “She’s hardly a waif,” Mr. Oliver countered. “Miss DuNoir is—”

  “Beautiful,” Lisette told him flatly. “Different from the other girls. Self-possessed, but alone. So very lost. Even in her own mind. She’s practically begging to be rescued, isn’t she? Even I fell for it.”

  “I didn’t ask you to save me, as you recall” Severine told Lisette. “I don’t need saving.”

  “From the villain?” Lisette asked. “Maybe not. But from yourself, very much so. You said you needed a friend to save you.”

  “And you’ll do it?”

  “Do you have anyone that loves you?” Lisette demanded.

  “Sister Mary Chastity. Sister Sophie. Sister Agnes. Sister Bernadette.”

  “None of your family?” Mr. Thorne asked. “Oliver and I have met much of your family.”

  “Of course not. She wouldn’t have been in a nunnery if they cared,” Lisette answered for Severine. “Mr. Brand cares out of a promise to the man who saved his life.”

  Severine tilted her head. “Anubis and the girls love me, and I them.”

  “Dogs and nuns,” Lisette snapped. “Hardly a family.”

  Severine smiled easily. “Feels rather pathetic, doesn’t it? Don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t. I have been loved deeply. I’m quite wealthy. Intelligent enough. All shall be well.”

  Lisette groaned. “Do you see what I’m dealing with? It’s like she doesn’t care.”

  “I do care,” Severine said mildly. “I’m just not afraid.”

  “Don’t you fear death?” Mr. Thorne asked her with a surprising understanding.

  “I suppose not.”

  “Why?” Lisette demanded. “Why aren’t you afraid?”

  Instead of answering Lisette, Severine turned on Mr. Thorne and Mr. Oliver. “Grayson, isn’t it?”

  Mr. Thorne nodded.

  “And you?”

  Mr. Oliver snorted. “Osiris.”

  “Oh,” Severine winced. “That’s worse than mine.”

  “Indeed. Oliver is fine.”

  “If we’re going to face murderers and killers, I do think we should be friends, shouldn’t we? Severine is my name. I don’t mind Sev, but I despise Sevie.”

  “So, we’re all
friends here,” Grayson agreed. “Maybe you can tell your friends why aren’t you afraid?”

  Severine rubbed the back of her neck, appreciating the lack of pain. “I suppose I’m not afraid because I don’t have anything to fear. I have no great sin behind me. I believe in the next life, and I have been loved in this life. I have much to be grateful for. Dying now would hardly be a great tragedy.”

  Lisette’s mouth dropped open and she stared. “You’re mad, I think.”

  Severine laughed. “Not mad.”

  “You could go to Paris or anywhere but here. You could get out of this house and then out of this country.”

  “But then I would have something to fear.”

  “What?” Grayson Thorne asked.

  “The regrets I’d carry with me. I feel compelled to find the person who killed my parents. Regardless, the concerns of my heart for the next life are no concern at the moment. I cannot leave, so I must find the person who wishes to hurt me.”

  “What is to be gained with your death?”

  “All the money is wrapped up in me,” Severine answered. “The question isn’t who benefits from my death, but who doesn’t?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Severine unlocked her father’s office with Grayson Thorne, Anubis, and the girls at her side. Oliver had gone to find Florette, worried for the other damsel while Lisette had gone for Mr. Brand. Severine walked into the room with a dust cloth in her hand. The furniture had been covered, even the shelves, but the room needed to be cleaned. She’d have to be present when that happened, but for now—she was hoping that she could find what she thought might be there still.

  Severine pulled the first cover off the desk and then the second from the chair behind the desk. She threw back the curtains to let in a murky light as the windows needed to be scrubbed. While she dusted the window to remove the first layer of grime, Mr. Thorne replaced the lightbulbs and pulled off the rest of the covers. He grinned over at her and said, “Let there be light.”

  As the sunlight and the electric light filled her father’s office, she blinked in surprise—at herself. There she was in portrait. Little Severine holding a book and standing next to that globe in the corner.

  “You were a sweet child,” Grayson said. “Your father must have loved you very much to hang your portrait in here.”

  “My mother told me I was a ghost, haunting and disturbing wherever I went. You may well be reading too much into that portrait.”

  Grayson started at her words and his eyes filled with a bit of pain for her. “Why?”

  “She wanted a child to be another version of her. Pretty and flighty and joyful. A little fairy creature full of light and laughter.” Severine laughed as her fingers traced her father’s desk. She could almost see him there, behind that desk. See him there and watch him work. “Or a son.”

  “Of course,” he said. “Your father must have wanted a son.”

  Severine rubbed her fingers together and then sat where her father once sat. “Yes, I think so. But perhaps, he was less disappointed than Mother. I am more like him, I think, than my mother, and he had known a daughter was a possibility. Perhaps he got over me not being a son and was far less bothered that I wasn’t a duplicate of Mother.”

  “He must have been brave,” Grayson said. “If he was like you—”

  “Must he have been? Or are you flattering me?” Severine leaned back in her father’s seat, dispelling the strong memory of him. “Perhaps foolhardy is the better word for both of us. Or too proud to turn back.”

  Grayson huffed a laugh and Severine had to wonder if it was just chivalry that had him accompanying her or if he wanted something. “What happened to your parents?” he asked. “Your grandmother never said.”

  “Father bought this house.” Severine sighed. “He invited everyone he knew.”

  “It’s a place a lord would be proud to own. I can understand why he’d invite everyone.”

  “It’s a mess of architecture gone mad. It’s a place bought with blood money, conniving and theft,” she countered. “My father was not a good man.”

  “How do you know? Perhaps the tales you were told were lies.”

  “They weren’t tales,” Severine countered.

  It was only in that moment that she realized how desperately she had loved her father, the only person to have shown her scraps of love. She had loved him, and he had left her. And this mess. She wiped a tear away and a rush of rage followed after. She loved him, yes, but she had also been desperately ashamed of him.

  “They weren’t tales?” Grayson asked. “How did you know?”

  Severine laughed, a bitter sad sound. “I was the silent waif. I heard too much.”

  “Perhaps you were wrong,” he said gently. “Children don’t always understand.”

  “Perhaps at times,” Severine agreed, “but I am certain that I am not wrong. It is why Mr. Brand so rarely meets my eyes. It’s why my father chose nuns across the world to raise me rather than the villains he’d surrounded himself with. He knew what he was.”

  “And he chose differently for you,” Grayson answered. “He loved you.”

  “He freed me from the world he’d created,” Severine said, sniffing. Mr. Thorne handed her a handkerchief and she didn’t pretend that the occasional tear wasn’t escaping her. “Now what shall I find here, I wonder? What further evidence shall there be of his behavior?”

  Grayson Thorne cleared his throat. “I wonder why you are confiding in me, Miss DuNoir?”

  “You seem to understand a little better than the others.”

  “I am, however, a stranger.”

  The unsaid part of that was surely she had a confidant? Not really. Not in the United States.

  Severine smiled, hating her thoughts. “Pathetic answers do not become me, but I suppose in the face of near-death and stark honesty, I’ll admit the truth. I don’t have anyone else. We might not be lifelong friends and allies, but at least you have no motive to want me dead or driven to madness.”

  “Mad?” Grayson looked at her as though she might have already dabbled a little in the state.

  “Noises in the walls. While I slept off my over-indulgence, Lisette was terrified.” Severine laughed. “My being drugged. If I hadn’t drank quite so much wine, perhaps I would have been confused and terrified with Lisette. Maybe the drugs weren’t intended to kill me. Perhaps they just wanted me suggestible. The villain has designed his or her game for someone like Florette.”

  “Did the nuns change you so much? Aren’t you both daughters of rich men, raised in girls’ schools until you left?”

  “They did change me. Of course.” Severine laughed and she surprised herself with true, unadulterated humor. Things had been so dark lately, a real laugh was like a fresh breeze in a bog. “It wasn’t anything the nuns did to me. It was the nunnery itself.”

  Grayson frowned his question.

  “It’s simple, Grayson. Use your imagination. An ancient nunnery, no electricity, I got over strange sounds in the darkness before I had been there a month. Noises in the walls? Hardly something that would pause me now, but if it had been Florette? We’d either have been screeched awake or one of you rich, chivalrous fellows would have found yourself a damsel in the witching hour.”

  She laughed at the look on his face at the idea of Florette pounding on his door, seeking help for scratching sounds. “Was it so bad at the nunnery?”

  “No,” Severine said. “It was fine. Cozy. Idyllic, even. I miss them.”

  She opened the drawer in front of her, looking for her treasure, raking her memories for Father’s secret places.

  “It gets better,” he said. His words felt a little like a vow, and she looked up surprised. “The grief and the guilt for surviving? It lessens in time.”

  Severine examined him with his good looks, his fine suit, his intelligent eyes, and she had to ask, “Do you know that for yourself?”

  He nodded.

  “Is that why you are so intrigued with spiri
ts?”

  He paused. “I had an experience I cannot explain. Quite a life changing one. I seek answers. I find charlatans.”

  She examined his face for a long minute before turning away. His experience, whatever it had been, might have changed him. But surely he felt that someone else’s ghost wouldn’t solve his riddle. Not a problem for today, Severine reminded herself. Today was about finding evidence against the one who was trying to kill her and preserving her place outside of the graveyard or asylum.

  Severine glanced over the contents of her father’s desk drawer and then rose. She turned to face the desk and the portrait of herself surprised her. Pale skin. Too little time outdoors, she thought. She was pale now, but not so ghostly. Not after all her walking in the Austrian woods.

  Her childhood self had hair in tight braids and her dress was an unbecoming color of pink. It would have looked well on Florette and perhaps it was Florette that Severine’s mother considered when she’d ordered it.

  Severine remembered those hours of standing by the globe, playing with it, and being ordered to remain still. A sudden memory flashed before her eyes, and she turned, crossing to the globe where once she’d stood to be painted. She ran her fingers over the globe and her memories served her well. She found the catch and opened the secret compartment in the globe.

  There before her were her father’s master keys for the house. There were but two and each was engraved with an eye on the head of the key. They were laid side-by-side, and they were more powerful than the full ring that Mr. Brand had given her. The full ring held keys to every room individually. The master key with the engraved eye on the head of the key would open any door in all of the property. Severine took her father’s desk key off of the ring from Mr. Brand, put the ring of keys in the globe, and then slipped one of the master keys into her pocket.

  When her father had purchased the globe, he had asked her what to put there, and she had suggested a good half-dozen things before he’d agreed to the keys. Next to the keys, she found a piece of folded paper which she pocketed without examining.