So she’d abandoned yet again her vow to be obedient, but instead had gone for a walk. The dizziness had returned, and Violet wanted to clear her head, clear her body, forget everything she so desperately wanted to forget.
Everything started with Trevelton, with things she’d done with him, with what she’d said to him and what he’d said to her, with what he hadn’t said to her, with the horrible letter he’d written her when he thought he was about to die, and with vaporous images of Charlotte, a woman Violet had never seen.
Maybe the sight of the marquess with his arm around the tall, snooty Lady Katherine would help wipe out some of those memories. Could a memory be replaced? she wondered as she strolled across the great lawn, lit up under 5730’s trio of full moons, nearing one another as the syzygy approached.
I’ll just forget him, she told herself. Although she’d been a failure at forgetting Booker, as she was regularly faced with having to repay his debts. And she hadn’t been married to Trevelton, hadn’t had so much as an implied promise from him, and except for the obvious fact that he was Ephraim Croft and not really some Regency-era marquess, it was possible he’d never lied to her, as Booker had done nothing but.
Although her ability to discern a lie from the truth had been severely degraded by her facilely duplicitous dead husband.
She was walking toward the lake path, she realized. The planet seemed to spin about too furiously for a moment, and Violet sat on one of the benches on the manor’s front walk and held on to the seat for balance.
What a terrible time to be dizzy, she thought. At a dance, the only dance she’d been to in many years, and certainly the only one she’d ever go to at Hollyhock, at this majestic, or really at any majestic.
She closed her eyes. She was about to be a star, a celebrity. She could feel it. Mirage had called for her. They’d remembered her—someone had, someone who’d seen her and understood her true worth. Just as she’d always known someone would.
Even with her eyes closed, Violet still felt the turning of everything. This was the turning of her very life. First Violet Aldrich, aspiring actor, then Booker Holm’s wife and widow in the space of a week, then failed actor and lady’s maid in a majestic. Then Rafe Blackstone’s plaything.
Now, though, she was an almost-successful actor. Wanted, appreciated, called for. She got up off the bench, the dizziness having subsided. She hoped Lady Katherine had gotten something to drink—she had looked rather shaken, and that bruise on her neck was ugly.
Before she realized where she was headed, she found herself on the lake path, the very place where the arrogant Trevelton had first been with her. And, like that night, it was starting to rain.
Better get back to the manor house. Can’t ruin the duchess’s dress. Why is the lake water moving like that? The moonlight’s fading under the clouds.
Then she saw him, saw the same macabre black mask still on his face, his true expression unreadable. Maybe without her mask on, though, he wouldn’t recognize her.
“My lady,” he said.
“My lord,” she said, and kept walking, but he was blocking her path.
“I was hoping to see you again, fair maiden,” he said.
“I must get back, sir,” Violet said. No matter where she moved, he was there, so she turned around and started walking the way she’d come.
She should’ve run instead, she thought as she felt his hand on her upper arm, his strong fingers pressing hard into her flesh. The sight of Lady Katherine’s neck arose in Violet’s imagination. Was this man responsible for that bruise on her throat? They’d been dancing together when Violet had gone out to the terrace.
Violet turned around. “I must get back, my lord,” she said with a firm politeness. She saw the sparking interest in his eerie, penetrating gaze.
“You’re such a marvelous dancer,” he said. “I was hoping we could do more.”
“I’m married, my lord.” Violet said the first thing she thought of.
“That will only make it more enjoyable for you,” he said as he looked at her. As though he owns me, she thought, wrestling her arm away from his hand. But he held tight, and a deathly chill overtook her, joining with the dizziness. Violet fought for control of herself, of her very life.
“My husband will be here shortly,” she said.
“Then he may join us,” the man said. “That will make it more interesting.”
The lake water splashed as the tide rose under the disappearing full moons.
Chapter 130
Nicholas closed the door to the study behind him.
“Idrest,” Wyatt said. “He’s killed the duchess’s lady’s maid.”
“Wait,” Ephraim said. “What the deuces are you saying?”
“Allene Dickens,” Wyatt said. “She’s been killed.”
“Are you speaking about that mousy woman who waits on Marguerite?” Nicholas said.
Not only were all three men’s masks off, but their majestic identities had been stripped as well the moment they’d left the ballroom.
“I believe that’s her,” Wyatt said. He hadn’t been paying that much attention to the goings-on at the manor house, although he had looked in on Marguerite when Nicholas had had to go back to Sunbury.
“That’s her,” Ephraim said. “She has that room at the end of the servants’ quarters. Never says a bloody word.” At least she had never said a word to him the times he’d passed her on his way to see Violet when she’d been so ill.
The door opened and Marguerite came in, followed by Pamela.
“Sophia, are you all right?” Nicholas said. “Lady Patience, how good of you to accompany the duchess here.”
“Nicholas,” Marguerite said. “We don’t have time for this. Clive’s here. Tell them what you told me, Pamela.”
“Good lord, you’re Pamela Hyland?” Wyatt said. He and Ephraim looked at each other. Neither of them had guessed her identity.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Pamela said. “But Lettie was telling me about this man she was dancing with, and from her description, I’m certain it must be Clive Idrest. No one else has those creepy eyes. I’m sorry, Marguerite.”
“Don’t be sorry, Pamela. They’re extremely creepy.” Marguerite sat down and put her hand on her belly.
“Lettie,” Wyatt said. “I almost forgot. I sent Rosie to find Violet. In case.”
“In case what?” Pamela said, suddenly stiff with trepidation.
“In case the person who killed Allene Dickens is going to kill another lady’s maid.”
“Allene was killed?” Marguerite half stood from her chair, then sat back down. “No, that can’t be right. She’s just gone off somewhere. You’ve misunderstood because she wasn’t here this afternoon.”
“I’m afraid it’s true, Marguerite. Wyatt overheard someone talking about it.” Nicholas lifted the decanter of brandy from the shelf behind the desk and searched around for glasses, but couldn’t find any.
“Wyatt?” Both Marguerite and Pamela were confused.
“Wyatt Conroy,” Wyatt said, nodding to both the women. “Lord Saybrook’s been retired from service. And my fellow dueler here is Ephraim Croft.”
“How do you know Allene was killed?” Marguerite said to Wyatt, who told her what he’d overheard.
“Calvert and Jewel Allman were in the ballroom talking with someone,” Ephraim said. “I was too far away to hear anything.”
“Lettie was on the east terrace, waiting for me,” Pamela said. “I hope Rosie found her. Idrest terrified her. She wouldn’t go back into the ballroom.”
Ephraim went to the door. “Excuse me, everyone,” he said as he turned to leave, but Nicholas stopped him.
“We must stay together,” Nicholas said. “Was Idrest in the ballroom when you left?”
“No,” Pamela said.
“He can’t’ve seen me yet, Nicholas,” Marguerite said.
Ephraim’s hand was on the door handle. “Could he have attacked Lady Katherine?” he said. “She w
on’t say who it was. Very cagey about the whole incident.”
“Eph,” Wyatt said, “I saw him. I was dancing in the same group with him. Violet had me take her out to the terrace, and he was partnered with Lady Katherine then. I didn’t think anything of it, of him. Didn’t really look at him.”
“I have to find Violet,” Ephraim said. He turned the door handle and left the room, left the others still talking about what might have happened to Allene, what might have happened with Clive Idrest, and to Lady Katherine.
When he got back to the ballroom, Lady Katherine was deep in conversation with Lord Fitzmore, but she looked up when Ephraim went past and gave him a promising smile, then turned back to Fitzmore and gave him the selfsame smile.
Ephraim made his way out to the terrace. Neither Violet nor anyone else was there. It’d started to rain, so of course no one would be outside. But maybe Pamela—unbelievable that Lady Patience Barrington was actually the heiress Pamela Hyland—had meant the other terrace.
Ephraim went back into the ballroom, fought his way past the rows of dancers, and went out on the opposite terrace, which was occupied only by Johnny, who was cleaning up the leftover glasses and plates.
“My lord, sir,” Johnny said as Ephraim stalked around and the rain picked up momentum.
“Johnny, where’s Violet?” Ephraim said.
“Rosie went to find her,” Johnny said.
“She’s not here?” Panic rose in Ephraim’s throat.
“When there was that scream, you know, my lord, Violet left.” Johnny’s tray was full and he bent down and lifted it. A weak lightning flash blinked across the horizon.
The scream, Ephraim thought. That seemed like it’d happened hours ago. That bastard Clive Idrest had attacked Lady Katherine, who was too stupidly polite to name her attacker. And the man had just murdered Allene Dickens. Lady Katherine was damned lucky, he thought. That bruise on her throat was no accident.
“Come with me, Johnny,” Ephraim said.
“I’m supposed to take these downstairs, my lord,” he said, but he put the tray down.
“Forget that, and forget my lord. Name’s Ephraim Croft,” Ephraim said as he vaulted down the stairs behind the terrace. Johnny followed after him.
“Where are we going?” Johnny said, ever happy for an adventure.
“To find Violet, I hope,” Ephraim said. “Can you ride?”
Chapter 131
“Couldn’t you have stopped him?” Nicholas said to Wyatt. “We need to coordinate.”
“He’s in love with her,” Pamela said, and Wyatt nodded in agreement.
“Are you certain Allene’s dead?” Marguerite said. “She . . . Nicholas—she must be the one who gave me the antidote.”
“It seems likely, doesn’t it?” Nicholas said.
“I’m going downstairs,” Wyatt said. “Come on.”
The quartet made their way out of the study and crept down the back staircase. Who knew where Clive would be, what spies he might have at Hollyhock?
In the rear hallway, Wyatt went straight for the gun cabinet, opened it, and took out a rifle and a pistol for himself, then unloaded boxes of ammunition into his pockets. Nicholas followed him, then Pamela, surprising them all, did the same, although the pockets in her gown held very little.
“I had lessons,” she said cryptically. But when she offered a rifle to Marguerite, she shook her head.
“I promised myself,” she said. “I can’t. Because of . . . what he does.”
Pamela gave her a rifle anyway, and Marguerite reluctantly took it. “You might need it,” Pamela said.
On their way out through the kitchen, Cook, who was preparing the hot chocolate, glanced up and Wyatt winked at her. Only after they’d left did she realize what she’d just seen: lords and ladies in their fine evening wear barreling through her kitchen, brandishing rifles, and going out into the oncoming storm.
But the hot chocolate had to be made, the players upstairs were expecting it, and Cook hadn’t had Calvert ride all the way over to Brixton and back only to ruin the intricate preparations now.
If only Johnny would come back soon, and she needed Rosie too.
Even without anyone to help her, though, Cook would come through it. God help her, she always did.
Chapter 132
Dr. Hoffstead held back his emotions. He’d been a physician for three decades and never once had he seen a wound like this that hadn’t been inflicted in battle.
Which is why he was the resident physician at Brixton. He’d seen enough of battle, enough of the cruelty people inflicted on each other, all in the name of something or other that never made sense to him.
He’d heard She died nobly for the cause once too often, and finally even the drink couldn’t obliterate the grotesque sights he’d seen. Working majestics was supposed to have been a vacation of sorts for him, a permanent vacation that he’d never return from.
And now he was crouching by a hedge in an increasingly nasty rain, examining the body of a woman with an arrow through her neck, and looking at more blood than he’d seen outside of a battlefield.
Reflexively, he reached into his jacket pocket, then stopped himself. Not in front of Jewel Allman or the admirably stoic butler, Calvert. Later, he told himself. If there could be enough whiskey on 5730 to help him, which he doubted.
“Oh, Mr. Calvert,” Jewel Allman said as she stared down at Allene’s corpse, lit up to a spooky glare by the non-Regency-era torches she’d brought with them. She shook her head repeatedly. “I never should have hired her. He forced me to, you know. Or—”
“Please step away, Mrs. Allman,” Dr. Hoffstead said. He hoped he sounded like the professional he was supposed to be, not like the drunk he actually was.
The downpour stopped for a moment, a bold swell of lightning punctuating the moment, highlighting two of the moons, then the rain started up again.
“You were correct of course, Mr. Calvert,” Hoffstead said. “We’ll have to contact someone.”
“Don’t you think this was an accident?” Jewel said. She had a hand positioned over her head, but the rain’s intensity was increasing, and her hand was hardly protection against it.
Dr. Hoffstead stood up. “I wish I could tell you that, Mrs. Allman,” he said. “But if this were an accident, it was the confluence of the most unlikely and amazing series of circumstances in the history of accidents. I’m afraid this was a professional shot, meant to kill.”
“Who exactly is there to contact?” Calvert said. Nowhere in his training had this been mentioned.
“I’ll have to look,” Mrs. Allman said. Even she didn’t know. Nothing like this had ever occurred during a majestic she produced. But it was all there in the regulations somewhere, she was sure. “And there’s nothing they could do tonight anyway. Is there?”
“A lot is going to be washed away,” Dr. Hoffstead said as the rain lashed down on them and Allene’s blood ran in rivers between Hollyhock Manor and Brixton Hall.
Hoffstead and Calvert unfurled the tarp they’d brought out with them and laid it over Allene’s body.
“Who forced you to, Mrs. Allman?” Calvert said. The three of them were walking back to the manor house, and walking extremely slowly for three people without umbrellas or raincoats.
“Clive Idrest,” Jewel said.
“Not that investment fellow,” Dr. Hoffstead said. He patted his jacket pocket again, but resisted. He was the authority here for the moment, and he almost laughed at that thought. He truly had only one area of authority left to him, despite his medical degrees.
“Yes,” Jewel said. “His wife is—”
“The duchess?” Calvert said. “I didn’t know.”
“No one’s supposed to know, Mr. Calvert,” Jewel said. “Please remember that.”
“Everyone will know by tomorrow morning,” Calvert said. “Allene Dickens was murdered. Nothing will be a secret.”
“The arrows are all tagged,” Jewel Allman said. “A precaution. Altho
ugh nothing like this . . .”
She trailed off as she saw a group of riders galloping past them. Their lanterns swayed in the oncoming rain, and as her non-period-appropriate torch momentarily lit the group, she was certain she saw the incongruous sight of Lady Patience astride the pinto, the most spirited horse in the Hollyhock stables, the beads of her ball gown glimmering, and a rifle slung over her shoulder.
Chapter 133
Although both Ephraim and Johnny were pushing their mounts as though they were competing in a steeplechase, the rain was conspiring to slow them down as it picked up in force and volume.
If only we had an actual torch and not these sorry lanterns, Ephraim thought. Although at least Johnny had had the foresight to bring these.
They’d already been to the solarium and the rose garden on their way to the stables, had gone through all the stalls even though Charles had assured them that he was the only one present, and had ridden out to the maze, where Ephraim was sure he’d find Violet. But no one was there.
“Maybe they went back to the house, sir,” Johnny said as they stopped their horses on the rise that would overlook the fields below if only the view weren’t being obliterated by the rainfall.
“They’ll be safe there. I hope,” Ephraim said. “So there’s no point in going back to look. Think, Johnny. Where would Violet go off to?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, sir.”
“My God. The tree house,” Ephraim said, and he turned the bay gelding around and headed for the woods, followed closely by Johnny, who was an accomplished horseman.
But standing in the hut’s doorway, shielding herself from the deluge was Rosie, not Violet.
“Johnny!” she shouted as the two men rode up to join her. “Lord Trevelton! I can’t find Vi anywhere!”
Johnny leaped from his horse and put his arms around his sister. “It’s okay, Rosie. We’ll find her. I promise you.”
“Lord Trevelton—” Rosie was interrupted by the arrival of another group of riders.
“Eph,” Wyatt said, pushing the rain out of his eyes and back through his hair. “Rose, what are you doing here?” He leaned down to her and she reached for him as he lifted her up onto his saddle and settled her in front of him.
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