by Beth Byers
Table of Contents
Kennington House Murder
Dedication
Summary
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Also By Beth Byers
Also By Amanda A. Allen
Sneak Peek of Spaghetti, Meatballs, & Murder
Author’s Note
Copyright
Kennington House Murder
The Violet Carlyle Mysteries
Book 2
By Beth Byers
Pam. Gurrrllll.
<3 you.
April 1923.
After a winter on the Amalfi Coast, Lady Violet Carlyle returns home for her little sister’s wedding. The last time Vi was with her family, she was the pauper daughter who needed to wed before she lost her chance. After the events of the holidays, Vi’s richer than Midas.
When Violet meets her sister’s fiancé Violet knows something must be done. This is no love match or even a good match. Before she can stop the wedding, she finds herself embroiled in another murder investigation. Yet again, she and her family are the suspects.
This time, instead of being a suspect, Chief Inspector Jack Wakefield knows she’s innocent. He’s not eyeing her for the crime, but she’s captured his attention. Can they find the killer, so they can explore what’s growing between them? And just how will her family react when they discover she’s falling for a Scotland Yard detective?
Chapter 1
“Ah,” Violet said merrily, glancing up at her brother, “home sweet home.”
The drizzle turned to a downpour, and she laughed as the boat rocked beneath their feet. Each of them were drenched through their clothes and would require hot baths and hot toddies the earliest possible moment. The cliffs of Dover were in the distance but rather hard to make out with the rain—still…it was home.
“We’re going to get horrifically ill. Sniffles for days.” Victor glanced back towards the entrance to the cabins and then shuddered as he called what was happening in there. “How many stone do you think Gwennie is currently…expelling?”
Violet nudged her brother with an elbow and ignored the statement. Poor Gwennie got notoriously ill whenever they were in an automobile, train, or boat.
Violet gripped the railing and leaned down until Victor grabbed the back of her overcoat. “After the Amalfi coast, the English Channel is something of a disappointment, isn’t it?”
“Grey water, cold that seeps into your bones, and storm clouds? Yes, rather. I’d give buckets of money for a patio overlooking the sea and a cup of Turkish coffee.”
The twins stood on the deck holding onto the railing. The water was rough but not dangerously so. The cabin they’d taken was filled with the scent of sick, so they’d escaped to the wetter but fresher air. Without a regret, they’d left their friend Lila and the maid Beatrice to deal with the sick Gwennie as both of them erred on the side of sympathetic illness.
When the two of them were side-by-side, they proclaimed their status as twins. They were both slim with dark hair, dark eyes, elfin faces, and clever expressions. Both of them had a merry and lively look to their eyes.
“I’m having rather a hard time imagining Isolde married,” Violet confessed. “I know that’s why we’re going home, so I suppose it must be happening, mustn’t it? I keep thinking of her when I first saw her. You remember. We’d had the measles, so we didn’t meet Isolde until after she was several months old. Pink, chubby cheeks, that long white dress on her. The little bonnet. The scent of sour milk under her chins.”
“Well,” he said rather lightheartedly, “I had been having a rather hard time imagining her out of the school. It took me a bit to realize that last time I saw her she was in the school room, and that I’ve never yet met this grown up version of our little sister.”
Violet nudged her brother. The twins and Isolde didn’t share a mother, and the two of them had spent rather a lot of time with the relatives on their mother’s side while Isolde had done the opposite. In many of ways, they were strangers.
“I feel like we’re losing her before we’ve even gotten to know her,” Violet said. “Is it losing Aunt Agatha that makes me mourn Isolde in advance?”
Victor pressed a kiss to Violet’s head and then said, “You lost two mothers, Vi, and not very much time has passed since the last one. Isolde isn’t dying. She’s just marrying. We’ll see her again, and she’ll present us little cherubic, double-chinned offspring to cluck over.”
“Isolde is following the path Lady Eleanor laid out before she’s even had a chance to form wants of her own. It’s…sad.” A concerned look crossed Violet’s face before she added, “Do you think she really wants to be married? Could she, truly? She’s within a breath of eighteen. Surely this is all Lady Eleanor’s engineering.”
“Certainly, Lady Eleanor has a lot to do with this, Vi. You know our dear stepmother sees marriage as the moment when she can wash her hands of you. Perhaps it’s the same for her own child.” Victor let the smooth carelessness of his expression fade and continued, “Thinking of myself at Isolde’s age, the idea of being married is…terrifying.”
“Darling,” Violet said, winding her arm through her brother’s elbow, “the idea of strapping on the old ball and chain at your current age is terrifying. Admit it.”
He grinned and winked at Violet before he said, “You know me too well, love. As for Isolde…do I believe that Lady Eleanor has pushed this sham of a marriage? Of course I do. Yet darling, I also think that Isolde won’t hear our objections. She always was a romantic little thing playing with baby dolls at the age you were racing to the swimming hole. It’s better to let this one go. Perhaps, if we handle things just right, and she needs us later, she’ll come our way.”
Violet sighed and nodded and turned back to the ocean, placing her head on his shoulder. She rather feared her brother was correct about Isolde’s fate.
Docking at Dover was what one would expect. Busy, wet, and fraught with frustration. They gathered up a porter and their bags and determined to stay in a hotel before they caught the train to London. Gwennie was so green and frail looking they weren’t quite sure her health wouldn’t have been irreparably harmed by adding in yet another journey. And there was the lure of a hot bath and a hot drink, which sounded more important than getting to London before another day passed. They found rooms, baths, and hot drinks in that order.
It was only afterwards that they thought of dinner. The hotel restaurant served an excellent roasted chicken dinner. After the luxurious Italian food they’d enjoyed for months, the familiar British roasted potatoes, veg, and chicken felt almost as much like coming home as the drizzle. They all partook heavily, but Gwennie tucked in like a starving urchin.
“Darlings,” Lila announced, raising her glass of wine, “thank you for the lovely time abroad. Here’s to our own beds, seeing my love again, and a day where Gwennie isn’t sicking up in the background.”
/> Gwennie blushed brilliantly. Violet nudged her and said, “The woebegone lamb look is good for you, darling. Perhaps a certain Mr. Davies will be in London for business?”
“If so,” Victor said, enjoying Gwennie’s flush even more than Violet, “we should have a dinner party. I did buy rather a lot of spirits that need a party to be appreciated.”
“What a wonderful idea, brother dear. You are a brainy one, aren’t you? Well dear,” Violet said to Gwennie, “Shall we have a dinner party in the new home? Invite the dashing Mr. Davies and perhaps our little lamb of a sister, winner of the race to the altar?”
“We do need to assess this future in-law,” Victor said with a shudder, adding, “Isolde is welcome to the prize of first to be married, though I should much rather see Gwennie in possession of that crown than our Isolde. Gwennie has the look of a pair of shackles one would wear happily. Whereas little sister is too fresh and new to be quite sure what kind of shackles she’ll become.”
“She is horribly spoiled,” Violet sighed. “She might be a little too tight and needy.”
“Unlike you,” Victor teased.
Lila snorted. “Violet will be the shackles whose love will ever be trying to locate and put back on.”
Gwennie laughed, all sign of illness gone except for the dark circles under her eyes, “Ah…Violet, the elusive shackles.”
“I am not shackles,” Violet declared and then sniffed virtuously. “I am a prize.”
“A pearl of great price,” Victor called as he tapped off his cigarette.
“More valuable than rubies,” Lila added holding out her cigarette for Victor to light.
Violet scowled at both of them, waving the smoke out of her face. With a scrunched nose she said, “Oh! You spent rather too much time with missionaries on our boat.”
“We couldn’t all snuggle into the stateroom with a pile of French novels, darling,” Victor said. “Do not disparage my friend, the fine brother Malachi. Not only was he a great imparter of the good word, he is quite an excellent gambler. I haven’t had a series of games that hard-fought since Oxford.”
Violet cast her brother an appalled look. “How much did you lose?”
“Enough to keep God’s work rolling for a good long time,” Lila laughed. “Sister Hannah objected at first until she saw how effectively Brother Malachi was pulling in the filthy lucre. Then she snapped her mouth shut and watched with an avaricious gaze.”
“One must support the good work when one can, dear old thing,” Victor said righteously and winked.
“Well…” Violet mused, pushing her plate aside for her wine glass, “if it’s for God’s work. It’s decided then. Victor is no longer allowed to gamble with anyone except missionaries, John Davies will come to our dinner and adore our Gwennie, Lila will return to the lonely arms of Denny who has, no doubt, consoled himself with moving pictures, chocolates, and fountains of wine. I shall abstain from hunting up my little sister and trying to persuade her to embrace the rights of women and turn away from the same old down trodden path.”
“Alrighty then.” Lila tapped a finger to her lips and took a drag of her cigarette. “Enough of degrading married women. As a married woman, I object. Also I won the race to the altar. You see before you a pair of rusted, tarnished shackles.”
“You don’t count, love,” Gwennie said, pushing her own plate aside and glancing around the restaurant. It wasn’t very full, but the food was good and the fires were lively.
“Denny is your chattel,” Victor told Lila. “Not the other way around.” His eye glinted in the low-light, and his smirk seemed almost devilish with the way the light cast his elfin face in shadow.
Lila scowled before she laughed. “We are each other’s chattel. Take it from this wise old married woman, true love is being the other’s chattel. Or something like that. Something more poetic and clever. I can’t be sure of cleverness after two gin rickies, wine, and a day of travel. Violet, darling, if you aren’t going to marry, you must get a pug.”
“Oh, no.” Vi shook her head frantically.
“Or perhaps one of those tiny smooshed-faced spaniels.” Lila swirled the contents of her glass, staring at it rather dazedly. After the baths and food, exhaustion was hitting all of them like a load of bricks.
Violet shook her head again, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear and adjusting her pearls. “A dog requires walks.”
“A job for beloved Beatrice,” Lila stated. “Or Victor’s man. Beatrice looks like a girl who’d love to take a dog for a walk as part of her work. She’d probably squeal, clap her hands, and ask if it was really so.”
“Dogs need love,” Violet countered.
“Which you have in abundance,” Victor said, “I am liking this plan. I suppose, on occasion, I could drop a few nuggets of affection toward the furry little blighter. We’ll have a garden now, darling. It requires a dog.”
Violet shot her brother a quelling look, but he was undeterred.
“This is, I think, a matter for serious thought.” He leaned back, crossed his legs, and lit another cigarette.
“If you want a dog, darling, get one.” Violet took a long sip of her wine. “What I would like is several fluffy pillows and thick blankets. I know it is wretchedly early, and we are supposed to be bright young things, but I am going to give into my inner old maid and snuggle down with a book, a pillow, and a cup of cocoa.”
“That does sound divine,” Gwennie said with a wide yawn followed by murmured apologies.
“Just imagine how cozy it would be to snuggle up with a pup at your back.” Victor took another drag off of his cigarette.
Violet once again tried to shoot her brother a quelling look, but he pretended not to notice.
Chapter 2
Their servants, Giles and Beatrice, had left for the train station rather early with the baggage to get it all sorted out before the rest of party left the hotel. As the train wasn’t leaving until 10:00am, Gwennie and Lila were avoiding breakfast for lingering in bed. On Gwennie’s part, it was probably because she needed to prepare for her journey, so it was only the twins who were partaking of breakfast.
Violet had a dark gray dress on, her cloche at the ready, with her coat and a small bag with a novel, a notebook, and a pen to see her through the train ride. Her brother only needed a fresh case of cigarettes and a lighter to be happy.
“It’ll be rather odd, shan’t it? To go back to a nice house rather than our shabby little rooms we had before?” he asked as he lit a cigarette. “I think I shall miss the simplicity of those old rooms.”
“Do you think that Aunt Agatha is smiling down on us?” Violet had shaken much of her melancholy from losing Aunt Agatha, but it returned in waves. Familiarity with the pain had made it more bearable.
Losing her aunt was worse, really, than losing her mother. Vi remembered her mother only in wisps of memory. The smell of her perfume, the way the light had glinted through Mama’s hair when she leaned down to kiss Vi’s head or to scold her with a gentleness that countered any words intended to mold her daughter.
Aunt Agatha had taken up the space where Mama had resided, evolving from the nice aunt who’d spoiled the twins with toys and treats to the woman who had been Violet’s guiding light. It was because Aunt Agatha was a revolutionary that Violet was so independent a young woman. Aunt Agatha had never allowed Violet to believe that women were lesser in any way.
What would she have been like, Violet thought, if she’d had only Lady Eleanor? The twins’ stepmother was appallingly Victorian. Would Vi have married as young as Isolde was going to? Would Vi have believed that the only purpose to a woman’s life was to make a good match and bear children? Violet wasn’t against either of those things, and neither had Aunt Agatha. But that was not all there was to Violet, nor was it all that there had been to Agatha. She supposed that what Aunt Agatha had done was for Violet was not to shift her view of the traditional life but to widen her possibilities.
It was possible to love and be your
own person. It was possible to marry and have a life beyond that marriage. It was possible to be both feminine and brilliant at business. The list was as endless as the possibilities of a woman who was determined to reach for her goals.
“I need a new journal, brother dear,” Violet said. “I have avoided recording my thoughts since losing Aunt Agatha. I think the time has arrived to discover them once again.”
“There is a magic in it, isn’t there? I haven’t either. Perhaps I shall join you.”
“And will you discover the aching need for a wife and children?”
In a moment of rare seriousness Victor admitted, “I am not against that, darling one. I just want what Aunt Agatha had. We are young. Contrary to traditional belief, there is no need to speed ahead.”
The moments of seriousness had occurred more and more since Christmas. Aunt Agatha had been murdered over the holidays. Victor and Violet had both ended up as both murder suspects and heirs. They eventually found that their beloved aunt had been killed for the inheritance she provided. She’d given her favorite nieces and nephews sufficient income to change their lives, and their cousin Meredith had been unable to wait until God took Aunt Agatha home. Instead, Merry had taken matters into her own hands.
The loss of the woman who had filled the role of their mother coupled with the change in their circumstances had required the twins to spend many an hour discussing everything from their mourning, to business, to how to handle the adjustment of society’s view of them. Neither of them were quite sure what to expect of how their own family would react.
Only Father they felt certain of. He’d recommend Violet to find a respectable young man but make a passing comment about frivolous young women and how he didn’t expect she’d follow his advice. Father would offer Victor a cigar and harrumph about not being stupid with his money. Then the earl would go back to late evenings, long smokes, and mild moaning about the state of his horses, fox hunting, and shooting.