The Mysterious Point of Deceit

by Beth Byers

  Severine shook her head. “Anubis and Persephone need to visit the garden, and I have no desire to do anything else today. I was giving serious thought to diving under my covers and not coming out, but I’m also having serious thoughts about something to drink.”

  Chantae snorted and then crossed to the cupboard and mixed Severine a cocktail with fresh juice, lime, and gin. Severine grinned at both Chantae and the daily maid, who seemed surprised at the alcohol. Technically, it wasn’t illegal to drink alcohol—just to manufacture or buy it. And she’d done neither. Mr. Brand had stocked the house for Severine, and she hadn’t asked questions.

  Instead, Severine took her drink and then found Lisette in the library. She looked up from her seat near the fire and then lifted the book so Severine could read the title. It was another Brontë book, and Severine crossed to the shelf and took down a copy of Jane Eyre. She curled up across from Lisette, who asked, “What was in the letter? Do you feel better?”

  “Yes, I feel better, and no, I refused to read it yet.”

  Lisette lifted a brow. Severine laughed and winced at the same time. “I will.” There was a fat edge of a whine in her voice, and she winced at that too.

  She settled back in the comfortable chair, opened her book, and then sighed when she heard the doorbell. Lisette rose to answer the door, commanding Kali to heel. Severine couldn’t help but note the heavy weight in the cardigan that Lisette had put on over her day dress to hide the pistol. So, it had come to being armed when they answered the door. Were Lisette’s worries based upon Severine’s actions or her own knowledge of the man with the scar?

  Severine followed, sticking her head out of the library door to watch as Lisette peeked through the hole and then started to unlatch the door. It wasn’t until that moment that Severine realized exactly how many locks they had on the door. There were a good half-dozen bolts and chains.

  She could remember them from her childhood, and she could envision her father locking them when he came home from the office. Her gaze narrowed as she realized what so many locks meant.

  Her father had felt the need for them. Clearly, she thought, he hadn’t been wrong. Was that why he’d purchased the big mansion in the country? Was it more than having a showpiece? A castle that announced exactly how rich Lukas DuNoir was and how well he’d won the race?

  Lisette glanced back at a sound Severine must have made and said, “It’s Mr. Brand.”

  She considered changing and then refused. She was home and didn’t want to change. If he were her guardian and brother, he could stand to see her with her hair up, her face free of cosmetics, and her swathed in layers of silk in the form of pajamas and a kimono rather than a chemise and a dress.

  Mr. Brand looked between the women. His surprise at all the locks being in place during the day completely bypassed whatever shock he might have felt to find Severine so comfortably attired.

  “What is going on?” he asked.

  Severine saw him take note of the dog at Lisette’s feet, pause on the shape underneath her sweater, and then he turned from her to Severine.

  “We were threatened today,” Lisette told him.

  “Plus the damage to the car,” Severine added.

  “Did they say what they wanted?” Mr. Brand stepped into the house and then glanced back. “Mr. Oliver and Mr. Thorne have just arrived home. Shall I wave them over?”

  “I think we had better,” Severine said. “We don’t know which of our inquiries caused whoever needed to threaten us to lash out after the last few months of nothing other than Andre’s lurking.”

  Mr. Brand nodded and turned, calling, “Gents. Time for a conference?”

  When the men crossed the street and came to the door, Severine lifted her cocktail. Mr. Oliver’s jaw dropped at the sight of her in pajamas, but Severine announced, “Drinks for everyone. I’m sorry I don’t have enough kimonos for all of us, but if you want to dive into the kimono club, Lisette, Meline sent a few for me to look over.”

  Lisette snorted. “I’ll stick with the drinks over the kimonos, but perhaps, I’ll have two cocktails, cher.”

  “Two for everyone,” Severine announced. Mr. Thorne’s eyes moved over her, and he asked, “Are you all right?”

  “She’s not,” Lisette answered before Severine could shuffle off the worry. “Neither of us are, really. We found Madame Cocotte. When we left, there was a man.”

  “A man?” Mr. Brand demanded, his eyes moving between the two of them, and then he took them each by the arm, and pulled them—gently—into the parlor and seated them near the fire. He glanced at Thorne and said, “Drinks, please.”

  Mr. Brand pulled a chair over, fixing his gaze on them equally. “Tell me everything.”

  “His name is Landon Gentry,” Lisette said. “I’ve known him since I was five, and he was eleven, and he was my first love.”

  Mr. Brand leaned back in surprise and his gaze moved to Severine. She felt the weight of it, but she didn’t look at him. She was too busy examining her friend. Lisette’s eyes shone with unshed tears, and even though Lisette had once told Severine that she wasn’t in love with anyone, Severine suddenly realized that Lisette had been in love once. Desperately in love. In love enough that the pain still remained even after the love had gone.

  While Lisette struggled for control, Mr. Thorne handed her a drink and then passed another to Mr. Brand. Mr. Oliver was already pouring himself one while the rest of them turned their attention back to Lisette.

  “He got involved with someone,” she finally continued. “Someone powerful. He never said who. But the way he walked changed, the way he talked, the way he treated people. We went from being neighbors to bugs. Even me. Even though he had cared about me before. Maybe even loved me. But”—Lisette shook her head—“that part doesn’t matter anymore. He changed. The last time I saw him, he had been hurt. Someone had nearly, but not quite cut his neck. He couldn’t go to the hospital. Mama and I took care of him. Nursed him back to health. When we asked questions—”

  Lisette shook her head again, but whatever memory she was experiencing had her hands shaking. Severine put her own drink down to reach out and steady Lisette.

  “I don’t know who he works for,” Lisette said, low. The words were directed to Severine. Those wide brown eyes were shiny with tears and the mascara on her thick, beautiful lashes would smudge soon. Severine might even join in with sympathy tears if things carried on.

  “All right then,” Severine said. “I believe you.”

  “But—”

  Severine shot Mr. Oliver such a dark look, that he held up his hands in surrender.

  “I really don’t know,” Lisette told Severine again.

  “We have a place to start now, don’t we? A man to follow? A face to watch for. We’re ahead.”

  “He’s not a good man, Sev,” Lisette told her. “He’s not. It doesn’t matter that I loved him once, you can’t trust him. Not with any part of you.”

  “I won’t,” Severine replied softly. “We won’t.”

  “What do we need to do?” Mr. Brand asked.

  Lisette’s face was earnest and worried when she said, “Arm yourself. Don’t go anywhere alone. Keep an eye on your cat and our dogs.”

  “We’ll hire guards,” Mr. Brand said. “Severine, I want to bring someone in from outside of here. I know some men from my army days that are honorable and reliable. They’ll look after you.”

  Severine paused, and the fear on Lisette’s face was convincing.

  “No more rotating daily maids,” Mr. Brand added. “Take the one you know the best and who can’t be bought. Someone you can trust and deal with whatever she doesn’t do perfectly.”

  This time, Lisette nodded. “I’ll take care of it. I know who.” She paused and then asked, “Can Granny stay here?”

  “Of course,” Severine told Lisette. “Of course, of course.”

  She leaned back and then glanced at the others.

  “This man confronted you?” Mr. Thorne
asked, and Severine saw the flexing muscle of his jaw.

  “He wanted us to go with him.”

  “How did you get away?” Mr. Oliver demanded. “Surely he was able to overpower you? Neither of you are all that…powerful.”

  “The dog,” Severine said.

  Lisette snorted. “Severine shot the ground at his feet. He ran when people came running to help.”

  Mr. Thorne’s jaw dropped. “You were carrying a weapon?”

  “You can use a weapon?” Mr. Oliver demanded.

  “You felt the need to use it?” Mr. Brand finished. He cursed low and didn’t bother to apologize as usual. Instead he cursed again and rose to pace.

  Severine, however, leaned back and sipped her drink.

  “Then your car.” Mr. Brand cursed again. “You need to take a chauffeur. We’ll have one of the guards drive it. He’ll be armed. I don't want to spirit you away like a princess in a tower, but I can suddenly see the point of those fathers who did.”

  “Dragons aren’t safer for the princess,” Lisette told him dryly. “And a tower alone sounds like a safe road to madness.”

  Severine crossed her fingers over her chest. “Is it because Mrs. Grantley is working with us? Perhaps someone realized she was?”

  Mr. Brand turned and then demanded, “How could they know?”

  “How do they know anything?” Lisette muttered. “Has anything else changed?”

  Mr. Brand muttered and said, “Since Severine has been home, I’ve stopped maintaining business as usual. Those were my previous instructions. Severine wanted to know what she owned and what the investments were supporting. I’ve been tracking those down.”

  “You’ve been asking questions,” Mr. Thorne repeated, emphasis on the questions. The weight behind the emphasis was enough to convey that questions were dangerous without him needing to say so.

  “Someone is spooked,” Osiris Oliver said for all of them, stating the obvious.

  “Perhaps the status quo is safer,” Mr. Brand sighed. He shook his head, and Severine didn’t need to tell him that the status quo would never be enough for her.

  “My father was a criminal.” Severine’s announcement was unnecessary, but she needed to say it for herself. “I won’t be.”

  Chapter 11

  The letter from Mrs. Grantley was a demand for action. It contained the location of a key at the Grantley mansion and an even more stringent order for a presence in the house that very evening.

  I haven’t slept for days, Mrs. Grantley had written. The haunting has been taken to another level as though whoever is behind this madness has changed tactics entirely. Before the last party, there was some activity near the witching hour which faded within the hour.

  “It’s not good,” Mr. Thorne said, “that tactics have changed. The more casual haunting could have been an idiotic grandchild having a hoax on Grandmama. Leaving an old woman sleepless day after day would speed an already dying woman to the grave.”

  Severine bit at her bottom lip for a moment. “Before I decided to return home, I was sleepless for days. It turned me into a bumbling idiot.”

  “Are you saying that someone is doing that to Mrs. Grantley purposefully?” Lisette breathed in shock. Her eyes moved from person to person and then she mumbled about the privileged rich.

  Mr. Brand rose and paced before the fire as Severine answered, “I just couldn’t help but remember how it felt.”

  “It’s possible that someone is wanting to make her look incompetent,” Mr. Brand said, facing them from near the fire and then letting his hand rest on Anubis. He sighed. “The Grantleys, along with several others, are part of a business investment scheme. Your father was part of it, and you still are.”

  “So?” Severine demanded.

  “So,” Mr. Brand replied. “Her children are part of it too. If someone were wanting her vote to be curtailed, that might be a reason to drive her into seeming incapable.”

  “Or it could be her evil grandchildren,” Lisette said, seeming to like that idea. “It’s good to know that the super-rich aren’t any happier than those of us who worry for our pennies.”

  “Sister Sophie used to say happiness is directly related to the state of our souls, I think,” Severine replied. “Gratitude and the like more than anything else.”

  “Sister Sophie is my favorite,” Mr. Brand told Severine.

  “I like Sister Bernadette,” Lisette announced.

  “I met that one,” Mr. Brand told Lisette with a bit of a twinkle in his eye and a grin on his face. “She was cantankerous.”

  Severine chuckled. Sister Bernadette appealed to Lisette because the nun redefined ornery. Well that, and because Sister Bernadette liked to play in the garden with anything that was dangerous. Severine rubbed her chest at the ache of missing her nuns. If only they weren’t so very far away.

  Mr. Thorne had reread the letter and he said, “She’s demanding both of us, Miss DuNoir.”

  The return to formal names continued to be painful.

  “I don’t like the idea of you going,” Mr. Brand told her, “especially after this afternoon. Even with Mr. Thorne, it’s just—we don’t know why that man wanted to bring you somewhere or to whom he was supposed to bring you.”

  “You can’t trust anything he said. Not even that he was supposed to bring her somewhere else.”

  “It’ll be all right,” Severine told them. “Mr. Thorne and Anubis will be present. I’ll have my little peashooter.”

  “We’ll drop you nearby,” Mr. Brand told Severine. “Whoever is doing this would be suspicious to see an extra vehicle. I can wait in the car in case you need us. I’ve got a whistle that we can use as a signal. You blow it three times, and I’ll come running.”

  “I’ve got a peashooter myself, cher.” Lisette smiled. “We won’t let the lads step out without backup of the lady sort. Us girls are a little more aggressive, I think.”

  Mr. Brand chuckled, not realizing that Lisette was serious. She winked and said, “We’ll take a separate car in case one of us needs to go for help. Shall we change our clothes?” Lisette’s expression said Severine needed to change from her pajamas.

  Severine winked in reply.

  Severine left them and decided on a simple black dress, a black cardigan, black stockings and sturdy shoes. She had no idea what lay ahead, but figuring out what was happening to Mrs. Grantley would move Severine a step forward on peeling back another layer of her father’s life.

  She examined herself in the mirror before she left her room. She’d left the turban on, so she looked a bit like an acolyte. Simple black clothes, something black on her head. She paused and then reached through her jewelry box, adding the beautiful silver cross that Sister Mary Chastity had given her when she’d left the nunnery.

  Perhaps an emblem of love from the nuns was just what Severine needed to see her through this day. She made her way back down the stairs with a bag over her shoulder. It was the sort of thing a student might carry, and she’d added Jane Eyre, her loaded revolver, a lead for Anubis, and a notebook with a few pencils. She added extra money as a general precaution along with her house keys.

  Severine found Mr. Thorne waiting for her in the parlor. Mr. Brand was pacing again, and both his mouth and eyes were tight with worry.

  “Don’t look like that,” she told him. “I’ll have Anubis and Mr. Thorne, and you and Lisette can have tomorrow night while the rest of us wait in the auto instead, and we’ll be quite uncomfortable like you are tonight. Mr. Oliver?” Severine turned to the man and asked, “Will you keep an eye on our house?”

  He nodded. “I’ll just wait here until you return. Brand and Lisette should take one of the dogs, we’ll keep the other.”

  “We’re taking my love, Kali,” Lisette announced. “Mama has a preference for Persephone, and Persephone is protective of Mama.”

  “Persephone is my angel,” Chantae said, handing over a basket and two thermoses. “What’s all this? Is Lisette going now? I will make more food.
You can’t trust anything from Mrs. Grantley’s kitchens. You might not need the food, but the coffee will see you through the night.”

  Mr. Thorne took the basket, but Chantae only handed him one of the thermoses. Severine watched his mouth tighten as he realized that Chantae didn’t fully trust him with something that Severine might partake of and Mr. Thorne didn’t like it in the least.

  Severine opened the thermos and sniffed. “That does smell good. Café au lait?”

  “Certainly, cher,” Chantae replied. “What else?”

  Severine leaned in and kissed Chantae on the cheek and added, “Keep an eye on sweet Persephone.”

  “I will, cher,” Chantae added. “You be safe, little one.”

  Severine turned to Mr. Brand, whose brow was still wrinkled. “I promised your father I’d look after you. I feel like I’m failing.”

  “I thought you promised him that you’d let me make my own way.” Severine crossed to him and squeezed his hand. “He wanted me to bury myself in my own way.”

  “I did promise that,” Mr. Brand groaned. “I hate myself for it. I should have promised I’d keep you safe instead. I thought it was understood at the time, but I bet you were the same then as you are now. Only smaller. He knew what he was doing, and I was a chump.”

  Severine laughed and told him, “I found courage and conviction after my father died. He had little idea about me.”

  “The seeds of who you’d become were there, Severine. He talked about you often. Say what you will about Lukas DuNoir, he was a good judge of character. I imagine he reflected on yours rather than most.”

  Severine shook her head, disbelieving. “Shall we go, Mr. Thorne?”

  He nodded.

  Lisette just came into the room before they left. She paused, glanced between them and then said, “It’ll be all right.”

  Lisette’s eyes shifted to Mr. Thorne without him seeing the movement of her eyes.

  Severine nodded only the slightest amount to agree. She didn’t like that Thorne and Oliver hadn’t been open with Severine and her friends. On the other hand, a missing sister was a powerful motive.