by Beth Byers
“I’m not running,” Aunt Agatha said. “I’ll be damned if I flee a cowardly poisoner. I didn’t make my fortune just for some scoundrel to try to steal it from me in my old age.”
“No!” Violet led her aunt to a chair and seated her before dropping onto her knees in front of her. Violet took Aunt Agatha’s hands and said, “You escape first and live. Then find vengeance later while you’re living the high life. It is not cowardice to be smart.”
“She’s not wrong, Agatha,” Mr. Wakefield said. “Ah…here’s Jack.”
Violet glanced over her shoulder and saw the massive Jack in the doorway. He took in the scene and then rather than crossing to them, he said something low to Hargreaves who nodded several times and then took the drink cart from the drawing room.
“Where are the others, my boy?” Mr. Wakefield asked.
“Victor Carlyle is telling them a ghost story.”
Violet laughed a rather wet laugh and then said, “Please Agatha? Won’t you please just leave? Let us figure it out for you? Victor and I will stay and help Mr. Wakefield. Whatever you need to feel like you aren’t running and just taking your life back.”
“I am no coward,” Aunt Agatha stated. “I’ll be damned if some blighter thinks he or she can come into my home like a cuckoo in the nest and eat my vittles and drink my booze and snuggle their way into my will only to stab me in the back!”
“But at least you’d be alive!” Violet shouted, losing patience.
“Alive and a coward!”
“Better than dead!”
“Is it?”
“Yes!” Violet said, “Haven’t we lost enough? Mama and Peter and Lionel and baby Iris and then you? I’d rather you lived!”
“Well you’re not me, girl. I don’t want to just live. I want to live proud of my actions.”
Violet shoved herself to her feet and said, “Isn’t that clear! I would rather be smart and safe than send my loved ones through another round of loss and mourning!”
She glanced at the others and said, “I’m going to my room. If you need me, you know where I’ll be. Do me a favor, Aunt. Don’t die.”
Violet slammed out of the room and ran up the stairs into her room. Her hands were shaking, and she wasn’t sure what to do. How could someone think that killing Aunt Agatha was worth any cost? They weren’t even sure who was in the will. Even if the others knew that Aunt Agatha wasn’t going to leave the money to some hospital, that didn’t mean that person would inherit.
Violet grabbed her pillow and beat it against the bed for several minutes, but it did no good. Oh! She needed to be able to be a man and just give something a good knuckle sandwich.
Violet locked her bedroom door and made her way to the bath. She placed the stopper in the bath and started the water. While the bath filled, Vi used her cold cream to remove her makeup. Once her face was clear, she dropped her robe, added bath salts, and slid into the water. Her mind was skittering through possibilities as she relaxed into the hot water.
Her and Victor’s letter from Aunt Agatha hadn’t said anything about being left out of the will. Was that because she and Victor hadn’t been suspects, or because Aunt Agatha had known they’d come either way and didn’t need to threaten them? Aunt Agatha certainly hadn’t objected when Mr. Wakefield had assumed that Violet was trying to poison them both.
Had Agatha truly thought that Violet would try to murder her so openly? Just handing them a cup of poison and then batting her lashes to whatever detective showed up? Surely Aunt Agatha knew Violet wasn’t quite so thick. Had Aunt Agatha just been startled and afraid? It felt like Violet’s own mother had thought her capable of murder. She didn’t want it to be true—that Agatha could think such things of her—but maybe she was wrong.
Violet finished her bath, toweling her hair dry as quickly as possible. With the short bob, it didn’t take too long to dry. Rubbing cream into her body, she dressed, putting on both a nightgown and a dressing gown before she worked on her hair again. By the time she’d arranged a turban over her locks to keep them straight, there was a knock on her door. She had thought perhaps it would be Agatha or Victor, but it was Jack Wakefield.
“Oh,” she said lamely, startled to see him at her bedroom door. “I…”
“I’m sorry to bother you, Lady Carlyle,” he said. “Especially so late.”
“Please call me Violet.” She glanced down at herself and then shrugged. Her dressing gown was one of those monstrous things that was good for frigid castles and covered her from her neck to her toes. “What can I do for you?”
“I would like to talk to you about what happened with the sherry.”
Violet paused, considering him, and then slowly stepped back, letting him into her room. She left the door half-open for a shade of propriety and then examined him. He’d changed since dinner. His clothes were the same, but gone was the flirtatious light in his eyes. Something cold was there instead.
“Why you?” she asked
“We weren’t invited by accident, you know. I have worked for Scotland Yard as a Chief Inspector. I was also in the military police during the war. When your aunt needed help, she remembered that and asked my father and I to come visit and see if we could sort out what was happening.”
“So you’re here to find the would-be killer?”
He nodded and she gestured to the two chairs in front of the fire. Jack crossed and took a seat as he said, “My father and I overheard the conversation on the train regarding Mrs. Davie’s will.”
Violet paled at that and bit her lip. She had to admit that looked bad. Her brother keeping that book was hardly a good thing in the face of these attempted murders. She sighed and said, “Look…it isn’t what it seems.”
“It isn’t a betting book about the death of someone?” He didn’t seem to like her half-explanation, and she didn’t blame him. It wasn’t what he thought, but it also wasn’t as bad as it seemed.
“Well. No. It is…it just…Victor started that when we were children. Perhaps fourteen?”
“But he still carries it? He’s hardly fourteen anymore and far past the age when he could claim the foibles of the schoolroom.”
“He dabbles in writing.” They both did, but it was neither here nor there. “Victor asks questions like that all the time, keeping track of people’s answers and using them to fuel his stories. He keeps those pages at the beginning of the notebook he carries along with any other notes he’s taken from similar questions. Things he hasn’t used in a story yet. It’s habit. Not some nefarious scheme.”
No one knew that Victor—and Violet—were behind the stories that were published in the The Story-Teller magazine under the name V.V. Twinning. They published often and had quite a little following for their pseudonym.
“Are you so sure of that, Violet? I know he’s your brother. Perhaps you don’t see him as he is.”
“He’s my twin,” Violet shot back. “I know him better than I know myself. I could look at him and tell you if he wanted coffee or tea. I could tell you his reaction to a picture show before he’d seen it. I could tell you if he’d like a lady before he’d met her. He would never, ever hurt Aunt Agatha. Both of us see her as our…near mother.”
She rose and paced in front of the fire while Jack watched her from his place nearby. His gaze was too sharp, too likely to notice any stumble. He was too likely to pick up clues even from things that shouldn’t be seen in a nefarious light.
Jack cleared his throat and then said, “His man stocked the drink cart when he arrived. Giles? He said that your brother brought rather a lot of sherry for your aunt.”
“I did,” Violet shot back. “Victor might have ensured it got here, but I bought it for her. I bought her a whole case when Victor and I went to Spain last summer. We…” Violet found a tear on her cheek, wiped it away with a frustrated gesture, and said, “I met this gentlemen who owned a vineyard at a party. Victor and I and our friend Tomas went and visited the vineyard and sampled his wines, and I was gifted a sel
ection of wines from this man. I bought a case of sherry just for Agatha. Even I liked that one, and I don’t care for sherry, really. But Aunt Agatha loves it. Victor and I always look for some for her if we’re somewhere where it might be a little different.”
“So you are responsible for the sherry served this evening?”
“I am,” Violet said. “But just the sherry. I certainly didn’t add bitter almonds to it.”
“Yet you delivered it to her,” he said carefully.
That sharp, penetrating gaze was on her face. She felt as if he could read her very soul. She hoped he could. Her and Victor’s. As much as she wanted this to all be a mistake, she would throw Algernon and Meredith to the wolves in a shred of a moment for Victor. “I did. Anyone, however, could have.”
“Do you often bring her sherry?”
“Every time we come, Victor or I will make sure Agatha has her sherry after dinner. It’s him as often as I. It’s been years since we’ve been here with the others, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did the same when they visited.”
“Do the others know your habits?”
Violet paused in her pacing and said, “I don’t know. Victor and I aren’t close with Algie or Meredith. I didn’t even recognize John at first. I haven’t seen Meredith in years. I know she visits Aunt Agatha every summer. Victor and I used to as well. Lately we are only regular in our visits at Christmas. We tend to see her a couple more times every year, but the other visits aren’t always at the same time and we haven’t been here at the same time as Meredith since before she married. Sometimes we see her in London. Sometimes we join her when she goes to Italy. Sometimes we meet up in Bath. It’s never the same outside of Christmas.”
“When was the last time you saw Algernon?”
“Oh, well we see him often enough in London. We have overlapping friends. But here? I haven’t seen him here since before we went away to school as children. Longer than Meredith probably.”
“I understand that Theodophilus Smythe-Hill is your cousin Algernon’s friend? And you and Victor brought Miss Gwyneth Walker, and Mr. and Mrs. Halicourt?”
Violet sighed and said, “When Vic and I heard that Algie was bringing Theodophilus we conscripted our friends to help provide buffer.”
“Buffer?”
“Algie has a rather inflated opinion of his ability to influence who I might marry and Theo has an eye on what I can offer him.”
“What can you offer him?”
“Connections and money. Of late, he’s been more and more overt in his pursuit. Somehow even finding whichever parties or restaurants that Victor and I might patronize. It feels very…deliberate.”
Jack stood, towering over Violet and she shivered. She’d liked the way he made her feel delicate before, but now that she was a suspect and he was the investigator, she felt rather like a mouse before the lion.
“It was my understanding that those of you here are all rather in need of money. The heirs with needs and hopes.”
Violet adjusted her robe and looked up at Jack. “When your father is an earl and you aren’t the heir, you’re poor. It is an accepted, if inaccurate fact. To be honest, in comparison to our brother, Gerald—Victor and I are paupers. The truth of the matter is that we have enough to live on without working, that we have the expectations of more, through our father, and that neither of us are spendthrifts. I hardly think we’re all that hard up.”
“Hmmm.” Jack nodded to Violet, excused himself, and left her feeling as though she’d been turned inside out even though he hadn’t been all that intimidating. Her soul was quaking from someone trying to kill her beloved aunt and having almost delivered the murderous blow herself. Violet took in a deep breath. She and her brother were too embroiled in the suspicion for her to be happy. The fact that a need for suspicion existed at all was her worst nightmare. Jack seemed to know what he was doing, but she didn’t consider her freedom, her brother’s freedom, or her aunt’s life something that you left to others to protect. She’d be seeing to it herself instead.
Chapter 7
Violet left her room as soon as Jack Wakefield was gone and crossed to her brother’s room. She knocked on his door and he called, “Vi?”
“How did you know it was me?”
“It’s not like one of the others will come knocking at my door at night, luv.” He swung the door wide and gestured to one of the two chairs in front of the fire. “Giles has arrived like a savior in the nighttime and has brought all the best things. But he did hand me this for you.”
Violet took the box from Victor and found simply loads of chocolates.
“Apparently, Harold Lannister enjoyed dinner, the play, and your pretty face.”
Violet had enjoyed the play but suddenly Harold was far less intriguing than he’d been before. Somehow, despite investigating her, Jack Wakefield had become the example of manhood and Harold had become a weak worm of a man. To be fair, Harold was quite slender and barely taller than Violet. She hadn’t minded when they’d been at dinner and his stories had been amusing, the food had been delicious, and he’d known all the best dance steps. Now, however, he was overshadowed by the massive and too-insightful Jack Wakefield.
“It was a good play,” Violet said smoothly popping a chocolate into her mouth and handing the rest to Victor. “Brother, Aunt Agatha thinks someone is trying to kill her.”
Victor’s gaze widened and he ran his hand through his hair. “Well…is….is that why she wanted us here? Why she demanded we rally round? Say it isn’t so.”
“Apparently all of her potential heirs received letters demanding their presence or they’d be cut out of the will. It’s far worse than that though.”
Victor choked and then cleared his throat. He stood and crossed to a table in the corner and poured himself and Violet a glass of port before he turned to the chair beside the fire.
“Why didn’t she say that to us? Why threaten them and not us?”
Violet shook her head, adjusting her turban before she said, “I don’t think we were real suspects until this evening.”
“What happened this evening?” Victor demanded. He took a fortifying gulp of his port and leaned forward.
Violet took a sip of the port, echoing her brother’s movement, but she swallowed slowly, letting it burn its way down her throat while she gathered her emotions. She didn’t want to blubber on her brother’s shoulder about everything. She wanted to set aside her emotions and engage her brain unencumbered by feeling. She wasn’t capable of that, however. Not with Aunt Agatha at risk.
Violet took a deep breath and said, “I poured Aunt Agatha and Mr. Wakefield a glass of sherry.”
Victor shrugged and raised his brows. It was so very typical of either of them to do that. He didn’t need her to tell him there was more to the story.
“It was poisoned.”
“By Jove! That cannot be true!”
Violet took another fortifying drink of the port and then said, “But it is. Both of them assumed I had murderous intentions until Hargreaves pointed out that everyone knew Aunt Agatha enjoyed sherry in the evening and that the decanter could be poisoned. Once they determined it was, the suspicion faded. It’s not gone, however. Not at all.”
Victor took her hand, setting aside his port and squeezing tightly. “Aunt Agatha was just startled. She knows you better than that, my girl.”
Violet let a tear fall—with Victor she didn’t have to hide herself—though Jack had too much of a glance at her soul. The problem was he thought she could be acting while Victor knew she wasn’t. Victor, in fact, knew what she was feeling before she even let her feelings show. She took the handkerchief Victor offered her and curled into her seat by his fire.
“That’s why the Wakefield gentlemen are here, Vic. Jack Wakefield was one of those military coves who investigate crimes in the troops. He worked for Scotland Yard too. Or does now? I don’t know. I got the impression that he still may. Regardless, Aunt Agatha was afraid enough to call on them. Somethin
g else must have happened to scare her.”
“Aunt Agatha afraid…” Victor mused. “It doesn’t seem possible.” Victor’s mouth snapped shut for a moment and then he demanded, “What are they thinking? That you were going to kill her for the money?”
“I believe so. Everyone talks about us like we’re paupers, you know that. Get a job, Victor. Get married, Violet. That man has a fortune. This one is the younger son of a duke. That one owns half that shipping company. Etcetera, etcetera.”
“They’re so worried about someone supporting you and me marrying some nice young girl and supporting her that they don’t realize we’re not ready for such things.”
“Or that everyone we know is unhappily married. Papa and Eleanor. Gerald and Amelia. The only married couple I know that is happy is Denny and Lila.”
“I know, luv. I know. I agree.”
Violet rose and picked up Victor’s slacks from the end of his bed, hanging them up for him. He had changed into his silk striped pajamas with a loose robe.
“Giles will do that, luv,” Victor said, as if he’d said it a thousand times before. To be fair, he had. Violet had a hard time leaving things lying about she could so easily put away.
“I know,” Violet said. She wasn’t picking up after him out of some need to be domesticated. She was doing it to keep busy. She felt as though eyes were on her that moment. How could they be in this childhood refuge with someone who wanted to kill their aunt? It wasn’t possible, was it?
Yet, she knew it was. She’d smelled those bitter almonds when given the chance. She’d seen the fear in Aunt Agatha’s gaze. She’d seen the suspicion in Jack and Mr. Wakefield’s. Only Hargreaves had looked beyond her after that had happened.
This need to keep moving when things were bad was probably why grandmothers were so good at embroidery. They were stifled into doing nothing and had to at least use their hands, if not their minds. So, their homes were filled with endless embroidered doo-dads.