Meddlesome Madness: A Short Story Collection Read online

  “Did you see two students? They looked the worse for wear.”

  “Went down the garden path towards the sea,” the boy said. “Arguing about what they were going to do.”

  Beatrice followed his pointing finger, rushing ahead. She started shouting, little caring she looked as if she’d gone mad. “Ginny!”

  Nothing.

  The green of the garden path was a blur. It had turned into a grey, rainy day as she’d waited in the tea shop, but a few flowers had been coaxed to life in the winter, giving her slight merry blurs of color between the greyness.

  “Ginny! Geoffrey! Hallo!”

  She finally saw them as Ginny turned. “Beatrice!”

  Beatrice opened her arms and the girl threw herself into them.

  “Oh, Beatrice!”

  “Darling? Are you all right?” Beatrice pulled back and examined Ginny. She was breathing. She didn’t look overly damaged, but she seemed a little fragile.

  “We don’t have any money. We got robbed, and we’ve been gone too long, and Vi has to be worried and worst of all…Geoffrey—”

  Beatrice looked up at the pale boy whose dark circles were prominent crevices under pale blue eyes. He seemed broken inside. Beatrice waved him to her and embraced him as well. He shuddered into her side. His eyes squeezed closed, his mouth gritted tightly, and he trembled.

  “It’s going to be all right,” Beatrice told him and then saw Smith had found them. He paced forward lion-like once again.

  He had that self-satisfied smirk that said he’d be collecting on his wager.

  Beatrice shook her head at him. “We can’t take them home like this.”

  He eyed her, lifting a brow.

  She sighed and then told him, “I need you to get a room with a bath and then get them something to wear that isn’t torn and that looks as though they haven’t been robbed and slept outside.”

  Smith gave her a nod and stalked back toward the village.

  Ginny shuddered against Beatrice. “Is Violet so angry? Is she quite done with the trouble I cause?”

  “She’s worried,” Beatrice told Ginny gently. “Violet’s worried because she loves you.” Ginny glanced to the side and Beatrice turned the girl’s face back to her own. “She loves you, and she is not done enough.”

  Ginny’s mouth trembled, and Beatrice tucked the girl under her arm and walked her and Geoffrey to the inn. Smith had made the arrangements in short order and sent off for clothing.

  While the children were bathing, Beatrice asked Smith, “What now?”

  “What now? The number of hours you have to spend with me, the number of questions you need to ask, the number of kisses I intend to give you?”

  She shook her head. “Is that the future you’re envisioning? I have some ideas on that subject.”

  Her exasperated response was enough to have him grin devilishly. He kissed her forehead. “I suspect we drag them home, invite ourselves to the Wakefield holidays—they’re definitely going to have the good kind of puddings—and spend some evenings walking alone while I answer your questions.”

  “You have a sweet tooth?” Beatrice asked.

  “I’m full of mysteries,” Smith told her. “I love a good pudding.”

  “Questions?” She eyed him and let loose with them. “Your real name, where you’re from, whether you’re entirely disconnected from the world, why you are a private investigator, what crimes you have committed in the last fortnight—I could keep going.”

  “All questions I’ll answer when I have you to myself. What a delightful happy Christmas this is going to be.”

  Beatrice felt as though he might be telling the truth. A happy, unexpected holiday gift.

  The END

  Part VI

  The Brats Outdo Themselves

  Chapter 1

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

  “What are you doing?” Denny hissed.

  “I should think it’s fairly obvious,” Lila told him lazily. “You should calm down or you’ll have an apocalyptic fit.”

  Vi glanced at them and then shrugged. A moment later she threw the grappling hook up to the side of the balcony and waited for a moment before she dared to test it.

  “What are you doing?” Denny squeaked.

  Vi shrugged and then took hold of the rope and walked up the side of the house. The dumbwaiter was removed after their last visit and if Lady Eleanor thought a carefully locked door and a lack of a dumbwaiter were going to keep Violet and Victor from their next prank, she was very wrong.

  If their father was so foolish as to believe that Violet and Victor would be distracted by their friends, well—he was very wrong too.

  They had a weasel in a bag, and Victor was climbing up after her with it. She reached the top of the balcony, listened for a moment, and then slipped in through the doors. Victor waited to release the weasel while Violet poured a jar of purgatives into the sherry. She wasn’t stupid, however, and the last time they’d doctored Lady Eleanor’s sherry, she hadn’t partaken beyond a sip. This time, she would simply throw the bottle out.

  She was, unfortunately, petty. She was not, however, stupid. Violet opened the drawer where Lady Eleanor hid her secret stash of whiskey that she only drank when the twins visited and added the laxative to that as well. Given that the countess didn’t enjoy the drink and swallowed it quickly, Vi rather thought she might end with a good dose of the purgative.

  “Don’t forget Father’s,” Victor said.

  Violet eyed her twin and nodded once. In the last year, her hair had gotten longer and she’d started to soften. He, however, had shot up a good six inches over her, and his voice had deepened to an extent she’d hated.

  At first. Now, however, she was used to the change even if she didn’t like them becoming more and more different from each other. Violet used her lock picks on the door between the rooms and hurried through her father’s suite. His decanter was near the fireplace, and Violet dumped the third bottle of purgative inside, swirled it, and then hurried back out of his room.

  She left the door open, because—when he realized it was unlocked—she wanted him to know that they’d purposefully doctored his preferred drink as well.

  “He might not forgive us,” Victor told her.

  She little cared. This time—again—they’d be spending but two weeks at the house. The main difference was that Gerald, Peter, and Lionel wouldn’t even be there for their visit. Their father only made it for the final four days.

  The absences had given Violet and Victor time to plan. It would, she hoped, be a lesson her father would be wise enough to learn. They added itching powder to face powder even though they knew she wouldn’t use it. Some moves were just the right ones even when they were useless.

  Violet glanced through the room and then paused. There in the jewelry box on the table was a cameo necklace. Black and pale pink, and it had been a gift from Violet’s grandfather to her mother, and it did not belong to Lady Eleanor. Violet reached out and snatched the cameo. Her mind was blind with fury that the horrible woman had defiled something that had belonged to her mother.

  “Vi—” Victor said.

  Her eyes turned to him first before she faced him. Her hand was fisted around the cameo and she squeezed so tightly, she could feel the carving digging into her hand.

  He held his hands up in surrender, but the fury was too strong. Violet reached over and took the weasel bag. She unbuttoned the bag, set it down lightly into the dressing room where one of the most expensive wardrobes of the day was contained, and then closed the door.

  “We’re going to die slowly for that,” Victor breathed.

  “I’m done here,” Violet countered. She took the cameo and hurried back to her father’s room, opening the drawer of his bedside table and finding the small box he kept there. Violet well knew that her father kept it full of cash as well as important papers he didn’t want to leave in his office.

 
She found a stack of letters and glanced at the edges withered in yellow and noticed the black ribbon. There was the merest possibility that those were important. From someone he loved. She wanted to take them, to see if they were from her mother, Lady Penelope.

  Violet left them behind, however, and took the money instead.

  “What are we doing with that?”

  “Leaving,” Violet told him.

  “Leaving?” he asked. He laughed a little sickly and then said, “Vi—they’ll catch us immediately.”

  She eyed him with all her rage and she knew he could see it. She knew he felt it too. Their mother had died and their father had turned them over to Aunt Agatha before he’d even married Lady Eleanor.

  After he married her, did he send for them, then? No. He left them as the outcast children, separated from their older brothers, separated from the siblings that came after.

  “I don’t care if they find us and drag us back, Victor.”

  “Then why go?”

  “Because I want him to know that we don’t want him back.”

  He lifted his brows in surprise and then nodded. Violet handed her brother the money as he had pockets, then they left their fathers room and climbed down Lady Eleanor’s balcony down to the front of the house.

  “It really is a monstrosity,” Violet told their friends. “Too many windows. Too many staircases.”

  “True,” Lila said. “A reasonable country house is really all one could want.”

  “What happened?” Denny gasped.

  “They went up mischievous and came down angry, my lad,” Lila told Denny with deep sarcasm. “Trouble’s ahead.”

  Denny eyed them both and then muttered something about tea.

  “Let’s take the auto,” Violet told Victor. “We’ll use that to get to the train and see if we can make it to London.”

  “Father will kill us.”

  “Will he?” Violet asked snidely. “I don’t think he will. And as he won’t kill us, all we need to do is remember something.”

  “What?” Denny demanded.

  “They only get the power over us that we give them. I’m done chasing Father for his affection. He can chase us.”

  Lila’s brows lifted but all she did was lazily say, “Then we really don’t need to go for the train station. We just need to make your thoughts clear.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that my father will murder me slowly if I take off to London. He barely likes Denny and you two only get approval because your father is an earl.”

  Violet considered and then she eyed her brother. Was he as ready as she to throw down the gauntlet against their father?

  Violet shrugged an agreement to Victor who read her capitulation and knew why she had given in.

  “We’re taking the auto, though,” he said.

  “Something has to change, Henry!” Violet heard. She had expected it to come from her stepmother before Lady Eleanor refused to have them home again. The fierce near-growl, however, came from her aunt.

  “They’re demons,” Lady Eleanor said.

  “You shut your mouth,” Aunt Agatha snapped.

  “How dare—” Lady Eleanor squawked with rage.

  “I said to be quiet,” Aunt Agatha hissed.

  Violet leaned her head onto Victor’s shoulder. At least now that he was so much taller, his shoulder was more comfortable.

  “What do you want from me, Agatha?”

  “I want you to parent your children, Henry. Penelope would be ashamed of you.”

  Violet only heard the blood pulsing in her ears for a few moments and then she realized her father had replied.

  “They don’t want me around, Agatha. I try.”

  The mean laugh that filled the air echoed the one that Violet had bit back. Vi would have thrown herself at her aunt and hugged her tightly for daring to let the earl know how stupid such a statement was.

  “When did you get here, Henry?”

  “That’s my Lord to you,” Lady Eleanor tried. She’d clearly gathered her courage, and Vi could just imagine the pretty woman with the round circles of anger on her face.

  “Be quiet, Ellie,” Violet’s father said, sounding exhausted. It took a long moment before he replied, “I got here on Wednesday.”

  “Funny,” Aunt Agatha said scathingly, “I sent them ten days ago.”

  “I thought they’d be distracted with their friends.”

  “Seeing your children a weekend or two a year is unacceptable, Henry.”

  “They can’t come back here,” Lady Eleanor snapped. The shrill strident firmness made Violet want to yank the stupid woman’s hair. As if she wanted to live here with Lady Eleanor? Vi would rather be set on fire.

  “I had a business meeting,” her father tried.

  “I don’t care, Henry.”

  “I—” he started.

  “They don’t care either. You can’t order them to love you. You can’t bribe them to love you. You can only earn their love. That won’t happen by foisting them off on this creature.”

  “How dare you!” Lady Eleanor snapped.

  Violet stood up, pulling the glass she was using to eavesdrop on her father from the door and told her brother. “I think we’re done here.”

  “Father asked Aunt Agatha to leave for a moment,” Victor said as he stood up too. “She’s a tiger, isn’t she?”

  Vi nodded. The fierce love she felt for Aunt Agatha was blinding at that moment.

  “You think Father will send us back with her?” Victor asked.

  Vi didn’t bother to answer as they both knew he would send them back with her. They’d heard Lady Eleanor and their father discussing the rumored wealth of Aunt Agatha along with her promise to see them educated.

  Vi shook her head. It wasn’t like their father couldn’t pay for them. He would just let someone else do it if they insisted. With seven children to educate and see to their careers, Father believed in being careful.

  Victor tugged Violet away from the door they were using to eavesdrop, and they tiptoed out of the area the butler used to wait on the earl. No doubt someone was watching the hallway door, but Vi and Victor had long since learned that the servants’ doors weren’t watched carefully. The only trouble was having to beat the servants to the spot for eavesdropping.

  Violet and Victor hurried back up the servants’ stairs and to their bedroom, only to find Aunt Agatha waiting for them outside of the rooms they were supposed to be locked into as part of their punishment.

  “If you keep this up, he won’t let you come home with me.”

  Violet and Victor glanced at each other and then threw themselves at her. It was Victor who explained.

  “You’re too rich to alienate. Won’t you tell Father you might consider leaving us some of your money?”

  “Are you asking to be my heirs?” Aunt Agatha asked casually. “You know I have many nieces and nephews.”

  “No,” Victor and Vi said in unison.

  “We just want you to make them think that, maybe, you’ll leave us something.”

  “So they won’t take you away?” Agatha asked.

  Vi nodded earnestly and then Victor agreed. Agatha didn’t make any promises, nor did she react when Violet pressed the cameo necklace that had once been Penelope’s into Agatha’s hand.

  “Is this what started it?”

  Vi nodded against Aunt Agatha’s side.

  “For such a smart man, you father really is quite stupid.”

  Neither of the twins disagreed and though they weren’t on their best behavior in the subsequent two days, at least they didn’t shoot their father when he took them hunting.

  It was only on the way back that he said, “I do love you.”

  Neither of them replied and the look of pain on his face was enough that Violet’s rage finally subsided.

  Victor, ever the protector, had the final word. “Father, we might believe you if you were ever here when we are.”

  The earl cleared his t
hroat and then dropped a hand on either of their shoulders. He squeezed once. No promises were made. No forgiveness was given. But, there was a shred of peace slowly growing when they reached the ridiculous house.

  Perhaps it was that peace that gave Father the courage to ask, “Won’t you stop being such horrible brats to your stepmother?”

  Neither of them paused as they replied—in unison, “No.”

  It was, perhaps, for the best that they were gone by the time the earl and his countess dove into their doctored decanters. Each of them sought relief as the twins were carted back to Aunt Agatha’s house for the summer.

  However, neither the Lord nor Lady received any relief until the purgative ran its course and quite a miserable night had passed.

  The End

  Hullo friends! I am so grateful you dove in and read this book. If you’d wouldn’t mind, I would be so grateful for a review.

  If you would like to preorder the next novel of Violet and friends, it is also available now.

  December 1926

  Violet and Jack took the train to Scotland with their friends for the holidays only to arrive and realize that the village has been exposed to scarlet fever. Given the delicate babies in their family, they determine to insulate themselves at the lodge they'd taken.

  Nearly desperate for some peace and holiday cheer, they intended nothing but lolling by the fire, diving into cupfuls of eggnog, and feasting.

  Only, once again, they discover a body. The worst of it is that they were alone at the lodge when the crime was committed. Is it possible that one of them is the killer? Join Vi and friends as they determine their loyalties and hunt a murderer.

  Order your copy here.

  The next book in the Severine DuNoir series is available for preorder now.

  November 1925