Meddlesome Madness: A Short Story Collection (The Violet Carlyle Mysteries Book 26) Read online

  Meddlesome Madness

  Beth Byers

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  I. A Duo of Devils

  Chapter 1

  II. Steamships & Shenanigans

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  III. Rum & Roses

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  IV. Terror By Candlelight

  Chapter 1

  V. Warts & Wagers

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  VI. The Brats Outdo Themselves

  Chapter 1

  Also by Beth Byers

  Author’s Note

  This is a Violet Carlyle short story collection. Four of the six stories in this series were previously published in the collections: New Year’s Madness, Valentine’s Madness, Candlelit Madness, and Christmas Madness. Those collections are no longer available and this collection was created for those readers who wanted to read those stories.

  For this reason, these stories are being re-released along with two more short stories from Violet and Victor’s childhood.

  I have so much gratitude for all of my readers. I hope that you enjoy this collection.

  With much love,

  Beth

  Part I

  A Duo of Devils

  Chapter 1

  Summer holidays, the year the twins are twelve. This story has never before been published.

  “Shhh!” Victor hissed to Vi who couldn’t stop giggling.

  “You, shhh!” she said with a grunt and then looked over at him. They were sidling along the wall outside of their stepmother’s rooms. Each of them had their pockets full of toads, and the target was too close to fail now.

  One of the maids exited the stairwell, saw the two of them, lifted a brow, and then disappeared back down the stairs.

  “I always liked that one,” Victor told her.

  “Which one?” she whispered, knowing he wouldn’t know the girl’s name.

  “Does it matter?” he returned and then both of them glanced down the hall again, only the other way. Their eyes were wide with worry because their father’s bedroom door was opening. They both froze, eyes wide with matching horror.

  Only it was Lionel who left their father’s bedroom—not their father. The three siblings eyed each other and then Lionel grinned, putting his hands on his hips. “What’re you two satan spawn up to?”

  He was whispering which, Vi thought, was the most important factor.

  “Nothing,” Victor said low.

  “Are your pockets squirming?” Lionel asked. His eyes were alight with mischief and Violet dared a shrug followed by a wink.

  To her shock, he winked in return. “Father isn’t in there. But you should get moving if you don’t want him to find you. After all, Bertie sent me up here to find him.”

  Vi knew her eyes widened with panic and didn’t need to glance at her twin to know he was doing the same. Despite being boy and girl, they were almost exact copies. They both had big dark eyes and narrow, slender bodies. Given their ages—not having crossed twelve-years-old, they were all elbows and knees. Vi’s dark dress and the pair of long braids down her back was all that differentiated her from Victor.

  His voice, however, had started to crack in the last week, and he was a hair taller than her since the end of their last term. It wouldn’t be long before he would tower over her.

  “Who caught the most frogs?” Lionel asked. Unlike the twins, their older brother was a sort of golden boy. With blondish brown hair, big blue eyes, and ruddy cheeks, he was almost full grown and practically a stranger.

  “Vi,” Victor whispered. He eyed her and then glanced back at Lionel. Vi tried not to glow with pride at being the winner—or from the flash of approval in Lionel’s gaze.

  “Better get to it,” he said. “I am expecting shrieking to bring the house down.”

  Now there was a challenge that Vi and Victor accepted. Violet edged towards the door to Lady Eleanor’s boudoir door. Her suite of rooms connected to their father’s by a door, but neither of the twins were willing to step into their father’s bedroom.

  Her suite included a private bath, a dressing room, a bedroom, and a sitting room. Just nearby was the lady’s maid’s bedroom as well, but Victor had kept watch for Lady Eleanor while Vi waited for Graggs, the lady’s maid, to leave the house. Graggs was taking her half-day and the twins weren’t cruel enough to pull their prank on a day when the maid would be forced to deal with the aftermath.

  The door was locked. Vi’s gaze narrowed and she glanced back to see Lionel watching with a smile on his face.

  “Surely you can figure a way around that?”

  The twins disappeared up to the guest rooms they were using while they visited their father, and Vi found hair pins while her brother brought out a lock picking kit.

  “Where’d you get that?” she breathed as if they were still outside Lady Eleanor’s room. She wasn’t even surprised to see him with it. After all, she’d gotten him one, and how many times had they bought each other the same present.

  “Present,” he replied casually, tossing her the item. “You’re welcome.”

  Her eyes glinted with humor and she dug out his present. It was one of those clever folding knives and she’d had it specially made to contain his own lock picks. Wordlessly, she pulled out her present for him and handed it over with a smirk.

  They tiptoed back to Lady Eleanor’s door after climbing to the attics with binoculars to ensure she was still in the garden with the wart and the family’s princess.

  Violet felt a shock of fury and—it definitely wasn’t jealousy. She shoved all those feelings down and tried her new lock picks, but it turned out you needed to practice with those.

  “Let me try,” Victor hissed and Vi slid to the side, taking over watch duties. She wanted to tell him that he wouldn’t be able to do it either, but half the fun was in the trying. She tiptoed down to the end of the hall and peaked down the stairs. No one was coming but the more time that passed, the more likely they were to have toads expire in their pockets or run out of time to deliver their ‘gift.’

  “Do you think this will get us sent home sooner?” Vi asked. She wasn’t sure what she wanted the result to be, but she wanted to know.

  “Yup,” Victor said as if he didn’t care.

  Vi nodded firmly as though she didn’t care either. Neither of them met each the other’s eyes and they both turned back to the door. The edge of the fun was fading, but Vi wasn’t going to give up if Victor wasn’t going to give up.

  “This isn’t working,” Victor groaned.

  “There has to be another way in there,” Vi said. They made their way up the servants’ stairs, so they wouldn’t be seen leaving Lady Eleanor’s floors. On the next floor, they peeked down the hall and then Vi’s eyes widened with surprise.

  The maid from earlier was taking a tray from the dumbwaiter and heading towards the room where Aunt Agatha had remained in bed. She had a headache, but Violet’s gaze wasn’t fixed on her great-aunt’s door. It was, instead, fixed on the dumbwaiter.

  Vi’s eyes widened. The upstairs lady-of-the-house suite was so large the dumbwaiter was in her stepmother’s dressing room.

  “Victor!” Vi hissed pointing.

  He knew her well, so he merely had to follow her gaze. His eyes lit with matching mischief.

  “Should I lift you?”

  “I think we should lift each other,” she said, not really wanting to enter the dumbwaiter shaft alone.

  His grin was as wide as hers as they sidled into the shaft. If they were even a little wider, they wouldn’t have fit. As it was, they were crammed together having to curve their bodies to give the ropes room to move. Victor started the movement, but Vi was nearly as strong as he was, and she helped to move the pulley elevator down a level without them flying to the bottom floor of the house.

  Vi had to slide out of the shaft first and then Victor crawled out after her. Lady Eleanor’s suite looked as if a rainbow of poorly chosen pink satins, velvets, and laces had attacked the walls, beds, and floors.

  “We should leave by the door.” There was enough tension in Victor’s voice that Vi knew he didn’t want to crawl back into that shaft any more than she did.

  Vi nodded, but she was already moving to Lady Eleanor’s personal bath. She was trying very hard not to remember those vague memories of her own mother in this room. The grays and silvers that had decorated the space. The clean lines of the furniture, and the way it had always smelled of either jasmine or rose.

  Violet shook off the memory and the desperate wish to remember her mother’s face and focused on the toads. First, they refreshed the toads, though Vi had to admit their future looked dark. Hopefully whichever servant ended up having to gather them up would let the poor creatures go.

  While Victor left one in the bath and two more in the bed, Violet took their specially purchased itching powder and added it to Lady Eleanor’s face powder. They put vinegar in her bottle of sherry wishing they could could her face as she took a sip.

  “What else should we do?” Vi asked.

  “I dunno,” Victor replied. He turned his gaze
to the room. “If we’re too thorough, she’ll have her bed checked before she pulls back her covers.”

  “She probably doesn’t pull back her own covers,” Vi mused and then carefully moved the toads from by the pillow to near Lady Eleanor’s feet. It seemed obvious that there was something there, but Graggs was rather likely to be focused on Lady Eleanor’s near incessant demands.

  Vi put her hands on her narrow hips and examined the bed from a distance. As she did, Victor rushed towards her, slapped his hand over her mouth, and then shoved her forward. “Under the bed!”

  Vi dove without a sound or need for a question and Victor rolled in next to her from the other side.

  “Mama!” Isolde whined. “Mama!”

  “Where is Nanny?” Lady Eleanor demanded. “Go bother your father. He’s in his office and back from shooting.”

  “Mama!” Isolde said again, voice high-pitched and frustrated. “I—”

  “Here ma’am,” the deep voice of Isolde and Geoffrey’s nanny said.

  “Take them away.” Lady Eleanor’s voice snapped with irritation, and Vi glanced at Victor. The two of them winced for their half-siblings and then again when Isolde let out an unholy wail. “Bring me tea.”

  “Spoilt,” Vi mouthed to Victor. She meant Isolde but realized it applied to Lady Eleanor even more than the blonde princess of the house.

  “Brat,” Victor mouthed in return.

  “Ugh,” Lady Eleanor muttered. She let out a series of curses and Vi and Victor eyed each other in alarm. Surely she’d found the toads? But no, her feet were across the floor.

  “We’re going to get in trouble,” Victor mouthed.

  Vi shrugged and then because he couldn’t see it, she said, “So?”

  Lady Eleanor kicked off her shoes and then dropped dropped into a chair. It took a good ten minutes for the tea to appear and once it did, the maid carried the tray in and was quickly shooed away. Only she didn’t leave.

  “Excuse me, my lady?”

  “What?” Lady Eleanor snapped.

  “Ah, ma’am. The twins seem to be missing.”

  “Have you checked the gates of hell?” Lady Eleanor asked and Vi’s mouth spread in a wide grin matched by her twin.

  The maid paused awkwardly and then said, “We’ve looked everywhere, my lady.”

  “Did you try the old woman?”

  Again another awkward pause. “We did check with Mrs. Davies, my lady.”

  “Then tell the earl. They’re his brats.” This time the pause was so long and so awkward it was ended by Lady Eleanor who demanded, “What?”

  “He directed me to tell you, my lady.”

  There was the sound of pouring liquid followed by the snap of a biscuit. “Well, then, I suppose you’ve done your duty.”

  Vi turned her head from the sight of her stepmother’s swollen feet to her twin. She dared to breathe, “I hate her.”

  “She hates us,” he whispered back.

  Matching devilish grins of triumph and a breathy giggle escaped. It had been too quiet for Lady Eleanor to hear over the crunching of her biscuit.

  “We’re going to get in trouble regardless,” Vi whispered.

  Victor lifted a brow in question. Vi, however, made a little chittering sound.

  Lady Eleanor gasped. The twins snapped their mouths closed, needing to hold their hands over their faces until they heard another snap of their stepmother biting into a biscuit. Victor poked Vi and nodded.

  She took a breath, held it for a moment, and made the noise again. She had to cut it off when the giggles threatened to overcome her. Lady Eleanor gasped again, but this time she stood and rushed across the bedroom frantically ringing the bell. She didn’t stay, however, to see what happened and hurried into the hall.

  “Let’s go,” Victor hissed.

  “She’ll see us.”

  “We’ll risk Father’s room.”

  Vi nodded and slithered from under the bed hearing their stepmother call for a servant. While she did, Vi grabbed two slices of cake from the tea tray and raced after her brother. She handed him one piece as they tried the door between the bedrooms. It was locked from the other side.

  The two of them stared at each other in incomprehensible panic and then Violet grabbed Victor’s hand and hauled him out onto the balcony. The sheer curtains were drawn over the french doors, and they huddled to the side of the doors, barely out of sight. They heard the ringing shout of Lady Eleanor demanding that someone find the vermin in her bedroom and then the sound of two footmen searching.

  Lady Eleanor had disappeared, and the twins were faced with the choice of climbing over the balcony and trying to drop to the garden below or waiting until the footmen gave up and trying to sneak through the house.

  Time passed and one of the footmen found the toad in the bathtub. The two footmen discussed the toad and then left the bedroom. Vi and Victor hurried after them, poking their heads out before daring to escape.

  Vi glanced to the right and left and then gasped when she met the blue eyes of her father.

  “I thought so.”

  Vi cleared her throat and straightened her spine, stepping into the hall with her brother a step behind her. He took his place next to her, and they faced their father.

  “She’ll screech about this for months.”

  Neither of the twins made a reply.

  “Shall I beat you?”

  “You could,” Vi told him fiercely. The unspoken promise was that she’d never forget or forgive.

  “You should,” Victor told his father. “Maybe you can beat the hell spawn out of us.”

  Their father eyed them, knowing as well as they did where that quote had come from. “Will I have no peace in my home?”

  The twins eyed each other and then Vi shook her head.

  Their father closed his eyes and asked, “Did you do anything else?”

  Neither of them answered.

  He cursed and then said, “Off with you.”

  Victor grabbed Vi’s hand and they raced down the hall and then up the servants’ steps.

  “That was supposed to be more fun,” Victor told her.

  Vi, however, was still full of wrath for her father. Threatening to beat them? He already had thrown them away. They were spending but a fortnight of their summer holiday with their father and their older brothers and Father had already missed half of it.

  She didn’t reply. The only thing she felt capable of saying with, perhaps, a growling hiss. Words weren’t possible with the amount of anger roiling in her. Instead, she turned towards her great-aunt’s bedroom and knocked lightly on the door.

  “Come in,” Aunt Agatha called.

  Vi stepped through the door, eyes wide with the storm raging within her. Aunt Agatha’s face searched Vi’s and then turned to Victor. He was trying hard to hide how he felt, but his jaw was clenched, his eyes were fixed on the ground, his hands were curled into fists.

  “Are you two the cause of all that shouting?”

  Vi nodded fiercely. Victor said nothing. Aunt Agatha patted the bed next to her.

  “It is difficult being such terrible brats,” their aunt said. Vi curled into her great-aunt’s side and said, “I wish you were our mother.”

  “But your mother was so very wonderful,” Aunt Agatha countered. “How she would have laughed at you two devils.”

  Vi felt the tears form then. Somehow, when Aunt Agatha called them devils and hell spawn, the overwhelming feeling was still one of love. With their stepmother, there was no love at all. With their father, Violet couldn’t tell. She couldn’t tell anything about him.

  “He hates us,” Victor told Aunt Agatha.

  “Does he?” she asked.

  “We’re devils,” Vi swore.