by Beth Byers
“Ouch,” Denny said. “We’re all you have and I have to say—that’s too bad. We’re cursed.”
“People like us are spoiled,” Violet told Denny. “Spoiled, self-righteous prigs who don’t see the people around them as real souls with depths in their hearts that reach untold levels.”
“What?” Denny gaped.
“Think about it. These friends are breaking with each other and in so doing, they’ll ruin whoever started that brewery they all invested in. Their fight is more important than the man who built the business. That person isn’t real to them.”
Jack stared. His penetrating gaze was fixed on Violet and he was watching her as she paced around the suite.
“It’s like your cousin, Jack. He poisoned those pistachios and sent them to a home of a widowed mother, putting every person in reach of her chocolates at risk.”
“I don’t understand,” Jovie said.
“They call us bright young things, but for the most part, we bring darkness and pain. We aren’t cursed, we just associate with people who’ve lost perspective and feeling. The idea of honor is long since gone from our people and all that is left is expectation that we deserve something that we haven’t worked for.”
“If you were to put us in a hot room,” Jack asked, “and poke at our friendships and loyalties, what would happen?”
Denny glanced at Violet and Lila and then said, “Lila would probably nap.”
“Violet would poke back.” Lila yawned.
“But my friends wouldn’t,” Jovie answered. “You put us in a hot room and start churning up our secrets? We’d turn on each other.”
“Exactly,” Jack said. “We don’t have any evidence. The only one I trust to not be lying to me is you, Jovie.”
Her laugh was hollow in reply to that.
Hamilton reach down to pick up one of his puppies. “You want to pull one of Vi’s tricks? Try to get them to turn on each other? We need to have a theory first. Something more than just the knowledge that one of them is the killer.”
Violet paced past the others. “We could always lie.”
“That could turn on us easily, Vi.”
She glanced back. “Let’s be real here. Fanny didn’t do it.”
“Why not?” Jovie asked.
“Because she wouldn’t have followed Lyle outside. And Michael believed her. She didn’t need to get rid of him.”
“Ricky has an alibi,” Ham added.
“So we’re left with Gervais and Michael,” Jack said.
“Oh no,” Lila said lazily. “Pamela Craft is definitely a suspect.”
Jack and Ham frowned. “She’s very…ah…with child,” Ham reminded her.
“Do you remember Kate?” Vi asked.
“She was sick quite a bit and her ankles were very disturbing.”
“She went mad,” Violet told him, rolling her eyes. “You take Kate, add in a husband who loved another and ignored you, who perhaps found out that you’d faked who the father of the baby was? I mean…Kate would have stabbed Victor in his sleep and then slept next to his bleeding body.”
“Oh,” Jovie gasped.
“Lila’s been a little more terrifying than usual lately,” Denny agreed. “I’m with Vi. A pregnant woman assuming she could kill him physically? On top of everything else? Certainly.”
Jack and Ham glanced at each other and Ham was smiling as he shook his head, but he said, “So we include Pamela Craft in the suspect list.”
“Pamela has a strong motive. Michael an even stronger one. Gervais’s is good enough.”
“So we gather them up, make them uncomfortable, and pick a fight,” Denny told them gleefully.
Hamilton glanced among the friends. “It can’t hurt. Eventually we’ll find evidence if this doesn’t work.”
“It’ll work better if you get Jovie to help.”
Jovie stared, horrified as she realized what they were asking her to do. “I need to think.”
Violet followed Jack into their bedroom. The thick of the afternoon was on them and the heat was heavy in the air. Violet sat down and peeled off her stockings as she watched Jack remove his jacket.
“Do you think it’ll work?”
Jack shrugged. “It might.”
Violet crossed to their bed, flopped onto it, and gazed up at the ceiling. She closed her eyes against the heat and considered. “Who do you think did it?”
Jack lay down next to her, tangling their fingers together. “I can see why Michael Browne would have killed Lyle. When this started, I couldn’t imagine killing Ham or Denny. I know they wouldn’t do to you what Lyle did to Fanny, but if they did? I’d have to try very hard to not kill someone over that.”
Violet turned onto her side, propping her head up on her hand. “What if I forced you to marry me by pretending to carry a baby that wasn’t yours?”
Jack huffed a surprised laugh and then kissed her on the forehead. “That scenario only works if I hadn’t wanted you before. I’ve wanted you since I first saw you.”
Violet rolled her eyes. She ignored the heat to lay her head down on Jack’s arm. “You did not.”
“You were on the train with your brother. Joking about that stupid bet book. You noticed that we heard you, and you felt a flash of shame. Your mouth twisted and I thought you had lovely lips. Later, you helped poor Gwennie when she was sicking-up, and you threw yourself at your aunt. I knew you didn’t kill her later even though I wanted evidence. You were too happy to see her.”
Violet’s mouth pinched at the familiar pain. “I told Jovie about how I miss her. The pain doesn’t go away. I have thought since the twins were born that when I have a baby, she won’t be there to hold her.”
Jack pulled Violet in and whispered into her hair. “Just because you won’t see her doesn’t mean she won’t be there.”
“Looking over me from heaven?”
“Certainly.”
Violet closed her eyes, letting him hold her close while she considered the fairytale. Was it possible? Perhaps having found a love like Jack’s she should consider nothing less, but she wasn’t sure she did. There was so much pain in living. And in loving.
In this breathtakingly beautiful hotel crossed with a hunting lodge, someone had been betrayed so deeply that they’d killed one of the people who they should have loved best. It happened over and over again. And over and over again, Violet was surprised at the cruelty and capacity for hatred that mankind held within them.
“How do we believe in something beautiful when things are so dark?”
Jack didn’t answer for so long that Violet wasn’t sure he was still awake. She sat up, examining his face, and found his gaze fixed on her. “Violet, surely in a world with so much love there has to be a corresponding depth of hatred?”
“What love?”
“Ours, yours for the twins, Victor’s for you and yours for Victor. Your Aunt Agatha’s. All of our friends. I know things are dark. By Jove, how could they not be? We need to focus on the good.”
Violet shook her head, but she wasn’t feeling dark. She was feeling something else. Something resolved. “Or,” Violet offered, “we create the good. We decide right now to do better.”
Jack’s gaze roved over her face. “Or,” he agreed, “we create the good. How do you want to do that?”
Violet laid her head back down. “I thought we might start by catching a killer and then help the poor brewer these people are probably going to ruin.”
“And then?”
“Whatever else strikes our fancy.”
Chapter 15
Jack walked into the room the hunting lodge had provided and looked at Violet.
“What have you done?”
Violet bit down on her bottom lip to hide an evil grin. “Who me?”
“Bloody hell, Vi. It’s like Hades in here. What did you do?”
“I had the servants light a fire and close the windows for the last few hours.”
Jack stared at Violet with an edge of humor twitc
hing along his lips. “We’re going to be in here too. It’s like the inside of an oven.”
“We’ll be fine.” Violet crossed to him and kissed his chin. “Be strong, love.”
His gaze moved over her and he knew her well enough to ask, “What else have you done?”
“Me?”
“Violet,” Jack said sternly, but it had little effect.
She grinned at him, letting the mischief fill her eyes.
His gaze narrowed. “What else did you do?”
Vi confessed. “I might have paid their waiter to charge their wine to our rooms and top off regularly. Possibly I sent an ‘apology’ round of cocktails from the management to the table as well.”
“So you pushed them into their cups. We need a confession not drunken blubbering.”
Vi shrugged. They intended to pick a fight between the friends and see what came out. The chances of a confession were low. The chances of discovering more secrets? That was much higher. The chances of discovering those secrets when someone was uncomfortable, a little zozzled, and you were prodding them? Much, much higher.
“This is morally shaky ground, don’t you think?”
Vi shook her head. “It’s not like we’re going to publish the secrets they reveal unless they contributed to the murder. We won’t even repeat them. I don’t care. You don’t. Lila and Denny will probably forget by tomorrow and Hamilton has actual morals that will keep him from judging them or repeating their stories. Jovie’s friends will only be a cautionary tale among our friends and everything else will continue to be kept private.”
Jack frowned and then glanced around the room before seeing the drinks table. “Is that only cocktails?”
Violet nodded and then considered. “There are chocolate liqueurs as well.”
“You already mixed the drinks?”
Vi nodded.
“Particularly strong?”
Vi attempted an innocent look and was saved when the door to the room opened.
“Oh my,” Denny moaned. He pressed his hand to his chest as he stepped farther into the room. “Have I stepped onto the face of the sun? What has happened?”
“Violet,” Jack said, taking a piece of dripping ice from the ice bucket and popping it into his mouth.
“Oh,” Denny groaned. “She really is a pretty devil.”
“Probably you should reconsider that drink,” Violet told Denny as he sipped it and then gasped at the burn.
“I’m just here for the show, Vi.” Denny sipped the drink again. “I’m not going to help. Other than to, you know, say something snide or laugh.”
Lila and Hamilton joined them. Lila gasped and then took the heavily iced drink that Denny handed her while Ham glanced at Jack and asked, “Vi?”
Jack nodded. “She’s been sending them drinks as well.”
“Oh, Vi.” Ham ran his hand over his jaw. “We should have known she would.”
“Mmmm,” Jack agreed.
There was a knock a moment later. A constable brought Pamela Craft into the room with her hand on her swollen belly. She gasped at the heat. “What happened here?”
The fire had been out for long enough to hide it had existed at all.
“There seems to be a bit of a malfunction in the heating,” Jack lied. “Unfortunately, the hunting lodge isn’t able to provide another room.”
Denny stepped forward, winking at Vi and said, “This will help.” He pressed a drink into Pamela’s hand and showed her to a seat. A moment later, the door opened again with another constable and the Browne couple.
Michael and Fanny walked into the room with pale skin, dark circles under their eyes, and gazes that carefully missed everyone else’s. It was Lila who handed them both drinks. Before they were even seated, Gervais, Ricky, and Jovie arrived.
“By Jove, has someone turned on the heat in here?” Gervais demanded. He loosened his tie immediately and took his own drink to the window. He tried to open it, but Violet had paid the hotel to nail them shut. “Why don’t the windows open?”
“Apparently the man who was fixing them misunderstood his directions.” Violet’s lie didn’t pass muster for Gervais, who snorted. He took a large drink from his glass and lifted a brow at Violet.
“Perhaps we’ll begin with a timeline,” Ham told them once everyone was situated in the sweltering room.
“Of what?” Ricky demanded. “I have an alibi. Why do I have to be here?”
“Maybe because you might know something?” Jovie’s sarcasm was a bit more vicious than Vi would have expected of her, but they had told Jovie to pick fights.
“Know what? Who wanted to kill Lyle?”
“Yes,” Jovie snapped. “Clearly.”
“Well, I don’t.” Ricky set his drink aside. “I don’t have to stand for this.”
“Sit down, Mr. Hemming,” Hamilton told him. “You’re all under suspicion of murder. You all have motives.”
“But whose motive is greater than Michael’s?” Gervais asked with a bit of a smirk.
“Let’s return to the timeline,” Hamilton repeated calmly.
“Make sure you start at the right place then,” Gervais said. “Back when we were in school and Lyle pursued Fanny because she wasn’t interested in him. Did he ever really want her or did he just want her to want him? It’s a question I’ve debated for years.”
Violet held back her shout of triumph. She had known they would turn on each other if they were prodded properly. The murder had already destroyed them. They just hadn’t realized it yet.
Then again, Gervais seemed the sort happy to air the dirty linen in public.
“How can you say that?” Fanny pressed her fingers to her lips.
“Do stop with the weeping. You aren’t prettier crying like Pamela. No one wants to see your act.”
Pamela gasped and then pressed her hand to her baby again.
“Do not talk to my wife like that,” Michael warned Gervais.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore,” Gervais snapped back. “You ruined our business venture and probably poor Harry King’s life.”
“Is he the brewer?” Vi regretted stepping in when they were turning on each other so nicely, but she was shocked that Gervais thought of anyone but himself that she forgot herself.
Gervais nodded as Michael said, “Did you know that Lyle was harassing Fanny?”
“Everyone knew,” Gervais told Michael flatly. “Why didn’t you?”
Michael jerked as though he’d been punched in the stomach and he looked down.
“You decided to ruin us all in order to get revenge on Lyle for pursuing Fanny after you married her, but you were the only one who didn’t see what was happening. How were we supposed to know you didn’t know when it was so obvious?”
Michael mopped his brow. “Can't we open the door?”
“I assumed that you all hoped to keep your privacy,” Ham answered, “but if you don’t mind rumors and half-truths spreading about you, we can. I’m sure the press will be here soon. They’ll be very interested in what you have to say.”
“Back to the timeline,” Violet said when no one agreed to Michael’s suggestion. “In your school days, Fanny was linked to Lyle. Who was Michael linked to? Pamela?”
“Pamela was chasing after a rich banker’s son then,” Ricky said with a snort. “Of course, she always had eyes for old Lyle. He was a handsome enough lad in those days.”
Violet glanced between the friends. Pamela had her hand on her baby, rubbing in circles, but her eyes weren’t filled with grief. They were filled with fury. She did seem to hate Gervais, but it extended to Fanny as well.
“Did you know that your husband wanted Fanny?” Violet asked Pamela. “Here you are growing his baby, and he’s pursuing his best friend’s wife.”
Gervais and Ricky snorted, but Pamela shot them a silent, killing look.
“He was no best friend,” Michael inserted.
Vi tried shooting him a quelling look, but it didn’t work.
Jovie jerked and then said something Vi knew she’d have kept back if possible. “But is the baby orphaned? Surely there’s only a slight chance that Lyle was actually the baby’s father.”
Pamela gasped and then she put her hand to her face as she moaned. “How can you say such a thing?”
“Perhaps because Ricky and I have been enjoying your bed since our school days,” Gervais answered idly. “As easy as you are, you’d have thought that Lyle would have taken a chance with you. You had to get him drunk and then lie to get him to look your way after the banker’s son married someone with money and connections.”
“You bastard!”
“Is the baby mine?” Gervais demanded. “Or were you sleeping with the cricket team as well?”
Even Violet gasped at that one and Pamela looked around. “How can you let him talk to me like this?”
“You trapped Lyle into marriage, Pammy,” Gervais told her after he took a huge drink from his cocktail glass. “Holy Hades, this room should turn you to repentance, Pamela. Take note of the feel of hell and imagine it’ll be worse.”
“You know what I think?” Jovie looked and sounded sick but her friends weren’t paying attention to the emotion behind her words. “I think Lyle realized that Michael wasn’t going to be persuaded back to friendship. I imagine you wouldn’t have cared about that.”
“Jovie, darling,” Gervais said with a laugh, “I knew we were meant for each other.”
Jovie shot him a disgusted expression. “Never. Think of me as your Fanny. Never am I going to want you.” A musing expression crossed her face and she added wickedly, “I bet that was what Fanny told Lyle. Pamela, you finally got him to take you and then he continued wanting Fanny.”
Pamela shot back as if the object of their argument wasn’t sitting in the room. “Fanny isn’t clever or talented or even that beautiful. The only reason he wanted her was because she didn’t want him.”
“Unlike you,” Denny slid in, handing both Gervais and Pamela a second drink.