The Violet Carlyle Mysteries Boxset 1 Read online

  “What a wonderful idea, brother dear. You are a brainy one, aren’t you? Well dear,” Violet said to Gwennie, “shall we have a dinner party in the new home? Invite the dashing Mr. Davies and perhaps our little lamb of a sister, winner of the race to the altar?”

  “We do need to assess this future in-law,” Victor said with a shudder, adding, “Isolde is welcome to the prize of first to be married, though I should much rather see Gwennie in possession of that crown than our Isolde. Gwennie has the look of a pair of shackles one would wear happily. Whereas little sister is too fresh and new to be quite sure what kind of shackles she’ll become.”

  “She is horribly spoiled,” Violet sighed. “She might be a little too tight and needy.”

  “Unlike you,” Victor teased.

  Lila snorted. “Violet will be the shackles whose love will ever be trying to locate and put back on.”

  Gwennie laughed, all sign of illness gone except for the dark circles under her eyes. “Ah…Violet, the elusive shackles.”

  “I am not shackles,” Violet declared and then sniffed virtuously. “I am a prize.”

  “A pearl of great price,” Victor called as he tapped off his cigarette.

  “More valuable than rubies,” Lila added, holding out her cigarette for Victor to light.

  Violet scowled at both of them, waving the smoke out of her face. With a scrunched nose she said, “Oh! You spent rather too much time with missionaries on our boat.”

  “We couldn’t all snuggle into the stateroom with a pile of French novels, darling,” Victor said. “Do not disparage my friend, the fine brother Malachi. Not only was he a great imparter of the good word, he is quite an excellent gambler. I haven’t had a series of games that hard-fought since Oxford.”

  Violet cast her brother an appalled look. “How much did you lose?”

  “Enough to keep God’s work rolling for a good long time,” Lila laughed. “Sister Hannah objected at first until she saw how effectively Brother Malachi was pulling in the filthy lucre. Then she snapped her mouth shut and watched with an avaricious gaze.”

  “One must support the good work when one can, dear old thing,” Victor said righteously and winked.

  “Well…” Violet mused, pushing her plate aside for her wine glass, “if it’s for God’s work. It’s decided then. Victor is no longer allowed to gamble with anyone except missionaries, John Davies will come to our dinner and adore our Gwennie, Lila will return to the lonely arms of Denny, who has, no doubt, consoled himself with moving pictures, chocolates, and fountains of wine. I shall abstain from hunting up my little sister and trying to persuade her to embrace the rights of women and turn away from the same old downtrodden path.”

  “Alrighty then.” Lila tapped a finger to her lips and took a drag of her cigarette. “Enough of degrading married women. As a married woman, I object. Also, I won the race to the altar. You see before you a pair of rusted, tarnished shackles.”

  “You don’t count, love,” Gwennie said, pushing her own plate aside and glancing around the restaurant. It wasn’t very full, but the food was good and the fires were lively.

  “Denny is your chattel,” Victor told Lila. “Not the other way around.” His eyes glinted in the low light, and his smirk seemed almost devilish with the way the light cast his elfin face in shadow.

  Lila scowled before she laughed. “We are each other’s chattel. Take it from this wise old married woman, true love is being the other’s chattel. Or something like that. Something more poetic and clever. I can’t be sure of cleverness after two Gin Rickeys, wine, and a day of travel. Violet, darling, if you aren’t going to marry, you must get a pug.”

  “Oh, no.” Vi shook her head frantically.

  “Or perhaps one of those tiny smooshed-faced spaniels.” Lila swirled the contents of her glass, staring at it rather dazedly. After the baths and food, exhaustion was hitting all of them like a load of bricks.

  Violet shook her head again, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear and adjusting her pearls. “A dog requires walks.”

  “A job for beloved Beatrice,” Lila stated. “Or Victor’s man. Beatrice looks like a girl who’d love to take a dog for a walk as part of her work. She’d probably squeal, clap her hands, and ask if it was really so.”

  “Dogs need love,” Violet countered.

  “Which you have in abundance,” Victor said. “I am liking this plan. I suppose, on occasion, I could drop a few nuggets of affection towards the furry little blighter. We’ll have a garden now, darling. It requires a dog.”

  Violet shot her brother a quelling look, but he was undeterred.

  “This is, I think, a matter for serious thought.” He leaned back, crossed his legs, and lit another cigarette.

  “If you want a dog, darling, get one.” Violet took a long sip of her wine. “What I would like is several fluffy pillows and thick blankets. I know it is wretchedly early, and we are supposed to be bright young things, but I am going to give in to my inner old maid and snuggle down with a book, a pillow, and a cup of cocoa.”

  “That does sound divine,” Gwennie said with a wide yawn, followed by murmured apologies.

  “Just imagine how cozy it would be to snuggle up with a pup at your back.” Victor took another drag off of his cigarette.

  Violet once again tried to shoot her brother a quelling look, but he pretended not to notice.

  Chapter 1

  Their servants, Giles and Beatrice, had left for the train station rather early with the baggage to get it all sorted out before the rest of party left the hotel. As the train wasn’t leaving until 10:00 a.m., Gwennie and Lila were avoiding breakfast for lingering in bed. On Gwennie’s part, it was probably because she needed to prepare for her journey, so it was only the twins who were partaking of breakfast.

  Violet had a dark gray dress on, her cloche at the ready, with her coat and a small bag with a novel, a notebook, and a pen to see her through the train ride. Her brother only needed a fresh case of cigarettes and a lighter to be happy.

  “It’ll be rather odd, shan’t it? To go back to a nice house rather than the shabby little rooms we had before?” he asked as he lit a cigarette. “I think I shall miss the simplicity of those old rooms.”

  “Do you think that Aunt Agatha is smiling down on us?” Violet had shaken much of her melancholy from losing Aunt Agatha, but it returned in waves. Familiarity with the pain had made it more bearable.

  Losing her aunt was worse, really, than losing her mother. Vi remembered her mother only in wisps of memory. The smell of her perfume, the way the light had glinted through Mama’s hair when she leaned down to kiss Vi’s head or to scold her with a gentleness that countered any words intended to mold her daughter.

  Aunt Agatha had taken up the space where Mama had resided, evolving from the nice aunt who’d spoiled the twins with toys and treats to the woman who had been Violet’s guiding light. It was because Aunt Agatha was a revolutionary that Violet was so independent a young woman. Aunt Agatha had never allowed Violet to believe that women were lesser in any way.

  What would she have been like, Violet thought, if she’d had only Lady Eleanor? The twins’ stepmother was appallingly Victorian. Would Vi have married as young as Isolde was going to? Would Vi have believed that the only purpose to a woman’s life was to make a good match and bear children? Violet wasn’t against either of those things, and neither had Aunt Agatha been. But that was not all there was to Violet, nor was it all that there had been to Agatha. She supposed that what Aunt Agatha had done for Violet was not to shift her view of the traditional life but to widen her possibilities.

  It was possible to love and be your own person. It was possible to marry and have a life beyond that marriage. It was possible to be both feminine and brilliant at business. The list was as endless as the possibilities of a woman who was determined to reach for her goals.

  “I need a new journal, brother dear,” Violet said. “I have avoided recording my thoughts since losing Aunt Agatha.
I think the time has arrived to discover them once again.”

  “There is a magic in it, isn’t there? I haven’t either. Perhaps I shall join you.”

  “And will you discover the aching need for a wife and children?”

  In a moment of rare seriousness, Victor admitted, “I am not against that, darling one. I just want what Aunt Agatha had. We are young. Contrary to traditional belief, there is no need to speed ahead.”

  The moments of seriousness had occurred more and more since Christmas. Aunt Agatha had been murdered over the holidays. Victor and Violet had both ended up as murder suspects and heirs. They eventually found that their beloved aunt had been killed for the inheritance she provided. She’d given her favorite nieces and nephews sufficient income to change their lives, and their cousin Meredith had been unable to wait until God took Aunt Agatha home. Instead, Merry had taken matters into her own hands.

  The loss of the woman who had filled the role of their mother coupled with the change in their circumstances had required the twins to spend many an hour discussing everything from their mourning, to business, to how to handle the adjustment of society’s view of them. Neither of them were quite sure what to expect of how their own family would react.

  Only Father they felt certain of. He’d recommend Violet to find a respectable young man, but make a passing comment about frivolous young women and how he didn’t expect she’d follow his advice. Father would offer Victor a cigar and harrumph about not being stupid with his money. Then the earl would go back to late evenings, long smokes, and mild moaning about the state of his horses, fox hunting, and shooting.

  Violet and Victor had gone from being able to live a life of leisure with careful spending to…so much more. Victor would be able to indulge in his delight of old books, cigars, and crafting new cocktails with greater ease than ever before. Violet, on the other hand, had become one of those ridiculously affluent types. Nearly anything was possible with what Aunt Agatha had handed to her niece.

  She wore it well, with a smirk and an ease of generosity that hadn’t changed. If one had known her before, her manner was quite the same. The only major change was the acquisition of a maid of her own and an utter refusal to ever darn another pair of stockings. Well, that and the inordinate amount of money she’d spent in Paris fashion salons.

  Violet had left England with two small trunks. Those had been gifted to the maid and new, significantly larger trunks acquired and stuffed. Vi had even debated a third trunk until Victor had allowed her space in his own. Unlike Violet, who’d kept her old wardrobe, he’d abandoned his and purchased all new. Victor would have teased Vi mercilessly for the excessive clothing shopping if not for the inordinate amount of wine and spirits he’d bought, the boxes upon boxes of cigars. They’d found themselves realizing for the first time they were rich when they’d fallen in love with art and been able to acquire it.

  The call to return hadn’t been so immediate that they’d needed to hurry home, so they’d enjoyed the journey and the purchases along the way.

  Later that morning on the train, Gwennie and Lila went straight for a corner seat while Violet hesitated.

  “I…”

  “Oh.” Gwennie frowned towards Violet and Victor. “Go. I don’t want you to see me sick up any more than you want to.”

  “You’re a doll, love.” Violet and Victor escaped before guilt had them taking a seat with Lila and Gwennie. Vi wound her arm through Victor’s elbow and said, “I want to start writing books again.”

  He grinned at her. “I thought we were going to live lazily in the life of luxury, doing nothing but dancing and seeing shows, with you acquiring new shoes and me finding just the right shirt for my striped trousers.”

  She winked before she honestly admitted, “Perhaps, after a few months of idleness, I’ve realized why Aunt Agatha spent so much time building an empire. Idleness makes me itchy.”

  “Idleness,” he mused. “And messiness, poorly-made clothes, seams in your gloves, the sound of anything that squeaks. I, on the other hand, feel I was made to be idle. It suits me admirably, sister dear, but perhaps if you insist…”

  She chuckled and tugged on his arm, making him lean down so she could mockingly whisper, “If you need to blame me for your American puritanicalness, I’ll accept the blame for you, darling.”

  He laughed, but choked in surprise. “Well I’ll be demmed. If it isn’t Jack Wakefield. How are you, sir?”

  Violet started and followed her brother’s gaze. The shadow of how and why they’d met Jack colored their thoughts but not their expressions. Jack Wakefield was the man Aunt Agatha had called upon when she realized someone was trying to kill her. If only Aunt Agatha had followed either Vi’s or Jack’s advice of leaving them to figure things out, Aunt Agatha might have survived.

  They’d been unable to save her, but Jack had found the killer in the end. With a little help from Violet’s unwarranted interference. Meddling hadn’t caused the awareness between Violet and Jack to fade and neither, it seemed, had distance and time.

  He was a massive man, with rugged lines and a thick shock of hair. Despite not being quite the current fashion for good looks, he did something to Violet that yanked her attention to him and him alone.

  Jack Wakefield was sitting near a window next to a rotund man with a bald head, sharp eyes, and a suit that had seen better days. He looked up at the sound of his name.

  “Ah, if it isn’t the Carlyle twins. May I make you known to my good friend and former commander, Mr. Hamilton Barnes?”

  Violet smiled charmingly at him while Victor’s lazy grin proclaimed him far more the spaniel than the lion he kept hidden. As was typical for Victor, his veneer lifted the second they were around anyone else.

  Jack noted the switch, and Violet suspected Mr. Barnes saw it as well. She supposed that a man who’d commanded Jack in the military police during the Great War and retained both Jack’s friendship and respect would be more clever than a little fat and a worn suit would indicate.

  Of course, Victor’s tendency towards self-mockery and modern clothes did the same for him—disguised his intensity and brilliance. Violet, on the other hand, disguised herself with merry grins and meaningless chatter whenever it suited her. They were, all of them, actors on life’s stage.

  Jack’s grin was nearly as careless as Victor’s when he said, “You’ve come back to the shores of home? Whatever happened to your plans to indulge in the sun ceaselessly and then think upon America?” Jack’s gaze flicked over Violet with the weight of a touch, and she had to fight off a shiver.

  “We’ve been summoned,” Victor declared. “Drawn from our natural habitat in the sun and warmth to the home fires. We will, no doubt, be assessed and found wanting.”

  “Oh that can’t be right,” Mr. Barnes said, as he glanced between the two of them and then indicated the seats across from him and Jack with a silent invitation.

  The twins took up residence across from the men and smiled winningly.

  “Clearly,” Violet said laughing. “It is utterly incorrect for myself. Angel child, that’s me. Victor, however, is a lay-about without good intentions and with a predilection for gambling with missionaries.”

  “Sister!” Victor clutched his chest. “You wound and disparage me. I was but doing my poor best to assist the good efforts of our Godly minded brethren, and now I find how one is treated after contributing to the needy. Violet shall throw me to the wolves to save herself.”

  “Every time,” Violet said, with a cheeky grin at all three men. She adjusted the cuff of her coat before standing and letting Victor help her out of it.

  Jack had stood with them, and his bulk, yet again, sent a shiver of awareness through her.

  “Have you all been in Dover?” she asked as a distraction. “Not that exciting of a place with the buckets of spring rain falling.”

  “Working, I’m afraid,” Mr. Barnes said. “Jack here was good enough to shake off the dust of semi-retirement for me on this last cas
e.”

  Violet glanced at Jack, a question in her gaze, and he said, “Barnes always was the one to drag me into cases. From the war to the present, making a puppet of me. Don’t be confused by his hound dog manner. He’s a master manipulator.”

  “Only of you,” Mr. Barnes replied. “Jack told me of your recent case. My condolences on your aunt.”

  Violet nodded, blinking rapidly. “Thank you.”

  Jack’s gaze moved over her face, warming her. She wished she knew what was behind the shutters of his eyes, what he was thinking of her. Did he dislike how she’d interfered? She’d known he was worried that she had, but the danger was over before he knew of the risk. Would he have raked her over the coals if it had been his place? She’d seen the tight expression on his face, but she’d also noted how he’d verified their travel plans. She’d felt at the time he’d cared that she was leaving and it mattered to him when she’d be back. Was that so?

  All she could be sure of was that it wasn’t disapproval in his gaze at that moment. Not that it necessarily meant anything. He might have a woman back at home he was returning to. While she’d ensured he wasn’t married after they’d met, that didn’t mean he wasn’t attached.

  Violet played with the ring on her finger while they chatted, trying to hide her thoughts. The glint in her brother’s eyes, however, said she was unsuccessful as far as he was concerned.

  Mr. Barnes adjusted the conversation to the weather and from the weather to the new silent pictures. After a few minutes, Jack’s friend turned the conversation again, inquiring about Violet’s likes and dislikes. It wasn’t until they’d stopped at the next station and decided to stretch before the train left again that she realized she’d been artfully grilled.

  Her brother made no mention of it but his lips twitched here and there. The warmth in Mr. Barnes’s gaze as the day progressed told her that he approved of her. If she weren’t being such a love-struck ninny, she’d have realized why he was grilling her. It didn’t occur to her until Victor faded into the London rain after making an excuse about gathering the others, and she was faced with Jack alone.