Hijinks & Murder Read online

  Hijinks & Murder

  A Violet Carlyle Historical Cozy

  Beth Byers

  Contents

  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

  Also by Beth Byers

  Summary

  January 1926

  Violet has received an obscure note, a strange request, and the claim of a murder. She’d like to ignore it, but the writer knows too much about her.

  Has someone been murdered? Who is the author of the note and why are they dragging Violet into this crime? Just what is going on and will Violet be able to reach the bottom of this madness?

  Chapter 1

  “Darling,” Violet told Jack as she turned onto her side. “Do you realize that Lila and Denny are having a baby?”

  He laughed at her, but it was with an edge of wondering if she was going to suggest that they too have a baby. He wasn’t against children, but neither of them felt all that ready to have one. If anything, Jack’s recent wound in the line of duty made Violet even less willing to have a child.

  She grinned at him, cupping his cheek and letting her thumb run along his jaw as she added, “Victor and Kate seem to not understand how to… not have babies—” Her twin brother and his wife had very young twins of their own, and Kate was expecting again. Given that Kate got so ill during pregnancy, they were both essentially housebound.

  Jack snorted at that, turning onto his side as well and pulling her closer to him.

  “This means—” She paused long enough that he tickled her. When he stopped and she caught her breath, she continued. “We’ll have to find ways to play by ourselves. Our crew, our team, our… I don’t know. What do we call them?”

  He shook his head in answer.

  She scrunched her nose. “Well, whatever term we use to identify them—they have abandoned their life of frivolity and left us behind. In our time of need.”

  “Our time of need?”

  Violet nodded fervently. Yes, their time of need, if you considered being spoiled and bored and time of need—then certainly.

  “So, we’ll go to dinner just the two of us,” he suggested. “It’ll be hard, I know, to spend so much time together, but we’ll have to persevere.” He sounded aghast, but she knew the sound of his teasing.

  Jack lifted himself on one elbow and loomed over her. She wasn’t all that small for a woman, but Jack was a beast of a man. He was taller than anyone she’d ever met, with broad shoulders, large biceps and a square jawline that she adored. She ran her fingers over his stubble, enjoying the prickling feeling against her fingertips.

  “I suppose I could survive an evening with just you,” she mused idly. “We might have to find new friends if that doesn’t work. I don’t think Kate will leave the country until she can move without sicking up.”

  “She does seem to be the most ill expectant mother I have ever encountered,” Jack told Violet, trailing his finger down her nose. “It quite turns one off of the whole idea of children.”

  “She said her mother was the same. Grandmother as well. It’s terrifying to see,” Violet said frankly. “Mostly because I worry about myself.”

  Jack’s snort of laughter was just the way to finish waking up. She’d dreamed the night before of everyone having babies and immediately dumped her thoughts on him. She nestled against him. “There is something utterly luxurious about waking when we choose and laying about like this. I don’t think Victor and Kate have experienced this kind of luxury since Kate was expecting the twins.”

  “Given that she was expecting before they married, and she’s so sick while expectant,” Jack pointed out, “they may well have never enjoyed these quiet moments.”

  He trailed his finger across Vi’s cheekbones as if experiencing her face for the first time. At times, when he looked at her, she felt as though she might well be the loveliest woman to ever live, but she knew that though lively and pretty enough, her features weren’t noteworthy.

  “So, what are we going to do then?” he asked as he brushed a lock of her bobbed hair out of her face. “Drum up our old friends and beg them to come out with us? Adventure alone? Just stay in bed until Victor and Denny’s children are old enough that their parents will play full-time again?”

  Vi flopped onto her back. “I suspect that I could stand to go dancing with you alone. Or dive into one of those scavenger hunts. Or perhaps we should get a yacht—”

  “If we get a yacht,” he told her flatly, “we’re getting a man to sail it. I have no desire to stay up all night when necessary.”

  “You,” she told him with a wicked twist to her mouth, “are spoilt. Getting a man—” she scoffed, “—saying it like you’re getting a pair of shoes.”

  “This is what comes from marrying an earl’s daughter. I really should have considered that vicar’s daughter from my hometown before allowing you to corrupt me.”

  Vi gasped but couldn’t hold in the laughter. When she quieted, she told him, “Speaking of being spoilt, I think I’ll get some new dresses for going out. I’ll need to attract other men because who wants to dance with just one man? I need to—” She couldn’t finish her comment because he was too quick to silence her.

  Jack had an appointment for lunch with his father, so he was gone by the time Violet had dressed. After lingering in bed, she lingered in the bath, and then over her cosmetics, dressing, and playing with her dogs. She made her way to Beatrice’s office, but her one-time maid had a visitor, so Violet faded away before she could bother them.

  “I am bored,” she told her dogs, Rouge and Holmes, as she walked back to the parlor. Holmes put his paw on her leg to beg for some love. She complied while she considered working on her book. Only, Victor was too far away at his country home to collaborate easily with and she’d already sent him several chapters to respond to. She really should wait for his notes and his chapters. Her mouth screwed up as she considered writing on her own, but it was simply more fun with her brother.

  She frowned at the wall in the library, considered re-reading her favorite Edgar Rice Burroughs novels and the idea filled her with exhaustion. She decided instead to call for a black cab, but once inside, she sat staring forward with a frown long enough for the fellow to lift his brows and ask, “You want to go somewhere or not?”

  Violet paused too long and then said, “Ah, oh. Why not Harrod’s?”

  His scoff at her question had her waving him on and wishing she hadn’t been dim enough to phrase it as a question.

  When she arrived, she made a reservation for tea and then wandered through the store. She found beautiful teddy bears in a soft tan and a soft cream for her twin nieces, it didn’t matter that it had just been Christmas. Violet bought the bears for the girls and then went to find something for Victor that would cheer him while Kate was ill. Truthfully, Violet felt only helplessness when it came to her sister-in-law. Poor Kate was ill incessantly while expecting and what could you do for her? Nothing but ginger candies and peppermints.

  Violet wandered until she came across the tearoom, making purchases more out of boredom than anything else.

  “Perhaps,” she mused aloud despite being alone, “I shouldn’t have let Beatrice take over the business side of my life.” Vi didn’t want to go back to working more closely with her business interests, but she truly was just so bored.

  A woman with narrowe
d eyes and round spectacles glanced at Violet, mouth pursed sourly. Violet tried a winning grin, but it didn’t help. Instead she winked and turned back to the tearoom, asking if there was room for her yet. It was still before the time they had given her, but she was bored with shopping as well.

  The maitre’d looked her over. It had been someone else who had put her on the list before. Vi was wearing a nice enough dress to pass, but having tea in a place like Harrod’s was an event, and she was clearly only dropping by. Her grey dress with layers of scalloped edges and embroidery along the wrists was, however, fabulous. But, perhaps, not fabulous enough.

  He paused and then asked, “Name?”

  “Violet Wakefield,” she replied cheerily enough and then heard another voice repeat her name.

  “Violet? Vi! Oh my heavens, I thought that was you. Whatever are you doing here alone? I was just talking about us having been school chums.”

  “Phoebe Rees? Is it really you?” Violet laughed. “Shopping out of boredom,” Violet answered, kissing the air next to the girl’s face.

  “Oh,” Phoebe said happily. “How long has it been? I feel like I was much smaller the last time we were together.”

  Violet laughed again but she glanced down anxiously. Phoebe was also expecting and Vi hid her immediate disappointment. Coming across an old friend had the feel of fate, but it seemed her conversation with Jack that morning had not announced to the world what she needed, for the world had not provided the womanly friend she’d envisioned – one ready for late nights and later mornings, for clubs and dining and frivolity. If she was going to be friends with an expectant woman, it might as well be Lila. She might be lazy and always sarcastic and—at the moment—too round and tired to go dancing, but even on her worst of days, Lila was the best of friends.

  “Come!” Phoebe declared. “Tea with us! Oh do get another chair, my good man! My sister is here,” she continued to Violet. “And my mother-in-law,” Phoebe’s nose wrinkled, but she grinned again. “I fear too many sisters-in-law and cousins-in-law. Did you know that I married Harold? Of course you did. You called me Rees. So funny to change names isn’t it? What’s yours again?”

  “Wakefield.” Violet considered declining, but the man had already sent for another chair.

  Phoebe laughed merrily and then pulled Violet across the floor with her to the table where tiered plates were stacked high with bite-sized treats. Violet let herself be drawn more out of boredom than a desire to reconnect. Phoebe had been one of the girls at Violet’s school and they’d been friendly enough. The kind of acquaintance who enjoyed a good catch-up and never wrote during the holidays.

  “Is this your first?” Violet asked Phoebe under her breath as they approached the table.

  “Second,” Phoebe said with a grin. “My first was a daughter, alas. Harold and I have a bargain that once we have two sons, we’re finished.”

  “Finished?”

  “No more children. Little Alice is a darling, of course. But I should like to be done with children.”

  Phoebe stopped whispering and grinned at Violet before announcing to the table, “Look who it is! Violet Carlyle. Wakefield now.”

  An old woman looked up and scowled at Violet before glancing her over. “Lady Violet?”

  “I fear so.” Violet smiled around the group, knowing that it was a bit untoward that she was jumping into what was clearly a family party, but boredom very rarely was alleviated with manners. “Through my father, I’m afraid.”

  “Join us.” The woman’s head tilted slightly, and Violet guessed this wasn’t the mother-in-law but grandmother or great aunt. Someone of the generation beyond. Her hands were spotted with age, her glasses were held onto her face with pearls, and the jewelry was nearly as thick on Mrs. Stevens as Violet preferred to wear. She had, however, been too bored that morning to layer on the jewels. “I knew your grandmother,” the old woman said.

  “I’m afraid I did not,” Violet replied, maintaining a cheery polite tone even though it was not how she preferred to start a conversation.

  “She was a snob and uppity.”

  Violet blinked as the rest of the woman’s party turned towards Violet in horror. This old woman was painfully direct. Violet wasn’t certain if that was going to be good or bad, so she opted for sarcasm. “I would assume so given my father.”

  “Look at them,” the old woman said, gesturing to her family. “They look like a bunch of suffocating fish, gaping at an old woman for telling the truth.” The woman’s mouth turned up at that and she said in her crackling voice, “I, too, am a snob and uppity. Always have been.”

  “I believe,” Violet told her as though confessing but with a twist of her lips, “that I can only claim to be uppity.”

  “Yes, well, your mother wasn’t really one of us, was she? You’re the one who was born to Lady Penelope.”

  “Happily,” Violet said with enough of an edge that the old woman nodded. That had been too direct and entirely unwanted. Violet might only have the merest of wisps of memories of her mother, but they were precious to her, and she’d be damned before she’d let some uppity, snobbish, and rude old woman color those.

  “Indeed. She was uppity too, and I liked her more than I liked your grandmother.”

  Violet shook her head, uncertain how to take that, but the building grudge against the woman was instantly forgiven. Phoebe saved her from needing to respond.

  “Allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Macie Stevens,” Phoebe said. “Harold’s great aunt.”

  “Delighted,” Violet replied. Of all the people at the table only Mrs. Stevens met Violet’s gaze with the same wicked smirk Violet herself was known for. It seemed perhaps that Violet’s wish had been heard after all, though she didn’t expect the woman to be a peer with her grandmother rather than herself.

  Chapter 2

  Violet ordered a cup of tea and then placed a small pot of custard topped with chocolate curls on her plate. She took a single petit-four as Mrs. Stevens asked, “Tell me, Violet. What do you do with yourself during the days?”

  “Nothing much,” Violet admitted. “I fear I’m spoiled as earl’s daughters often are.”

  Mrs. Stevens grinned. “That’s not what I hear.”

  Violet knew immediately of what she was speaking of, of course. “I fear the tales of my exploits are over told.”

  “Are they?” Mrs. Stevens mouth twisted and she said, “Did you know I am quite fond of Miss Emily Allen. I know all about you and Jack Wakefield. I did ask her for news recently after… certain events.”

  Violet snorted. “Those are not tales for an afternoon tea, I’m afraid. When you add in that Miss Allen is not my biggest fan, I fear what tales of horror you’ve been told.”

  “Then you shall have to come to my house party and tell me all about it then.”

  “A house party?” Phoebe asked, frowning.

  “Oh Aunt Stevens, surely not,” one of the older women said. “It’s a little—”

  Whatever the woman was going to say was cut off by Mrs. Stevens firmly stating, “A house party. Two weekends from now. I’ll send you my card. Do come.”

  The last bit was phrased as an order and Violet considered rebellion, and then she reconsidered and decided to go, more out of a desire to make Jack come with her rather than on another one of Ham’s cases. Jack had been shot on the last one and Violet didn’t feel like she was made of the same material as women who sent their men into danger time after time.

  Violet nodded. “That does sound interesting.”

  It sounded boring and Jack would see through her attempt, but she didn’t care in the least. He could see through it and deal with the effects of his being shot. He’d made that choice for both of them. He had pushed her into terror at losing him, gratitude at his breath, and now she was bearing the fury of nearly losing him to his choice. If she had to drag him to some random house party to keep him from another case, she’d do it.

  Mrs. Stevens caught Violet’s lie and was amused at
it. Violet could guess that this woman, with all her age, was someone who had experienced all Vi was currently struggling with and probably all the burdens she had yet to bear. The house party might not be a complete failure then, as observing Mrs. Stevens with a household of guests could prove entertaining.

  Violet listened to the women of the Rees family as they cast each other pointed gibes and smiled in the face of meanness while she barely held back, shaking her head at the pettiness.

  “What will you call your next daughter?” one of the other younger women asked Phoebe. “You’re carrying as though it’s another girl. Won’t that be nice to have two little angels?”

  Violet winched for Phoebe at the gibe and at the term angel said with barely disguised sarcasm. That was what Lila and Denny used for their baby but that child was wanted. Phoebe had made it clear she had no desire for another girl.

  Phoebe had paled at the idea but she tried to cover for it. “Perhaps we’ll call her Macie.” Phoebe turned to Mrs. Stevens and asked, “Would you like that?”

  “My fortune is already accounted for, girl. Naming your babe after me won’t get her something when I die.” With a pause, Mrs. Stevens face softened and she offered, “I think you look as though you could be carrying a boy. What does Delilah know about carrying children?”

  The woman who had spoken so meanly to Phoebe flinched and then paled herself, but she also had a haunted look that went beyond being called out. It seemed that Delilah was not as blessed as Phoebe.

  Was she unable to conceive? Violet cast Mrs. Stevens a dark look. Why would anyone taunt a woman about being unable to carry a child? Vi was already regretting accepting the house party invitation. Not even Violet’s unliked stepmother would make such a taunt, and Lady Eleanor was as snobbish and uppity as a woman in her position could be.