Murder in the Shadows Page 2

  Violet was surprised by the flash of concern. She had been coming to the realization that there was a level of kindness in Lady Eleanor when she nudged the twins towards Aunt Agatha. Was it wrong to not love your stepchildren if you recognized you couldn’t and helped your partner hand them to someone who would? Maybe, but Violet had to think that she was better for the honesty. She wasn’t sure, however, that she could credit Lady Eleanor with that level of self-awareness. Perhaps the fact that Aunt Agatha was everything the twins needed was simply a lucky by-product.

  That was all besides the current point, however. Something was happening in Lady Eleanor’s mind that made it hard for her to keep still. Perhaps why Lady Eleanor immediately tried to put Vi and Victor on the defensive. It wasn’t going to work.

  “What are you doing here?” Lady Eleanor asked, scowling at Victor before her mean gaze fell on Violet. “Still as slim as ever. Are you barren or have you and Jack had a falling out?” Her attempt wasn’t going to work. Things like that hadn’t worked in years and all three of them knew it.

  Violet glanced at her brother in order to cleanse her visual palette. His grey pinstriped suit was accented by a bright yellow shirt. He’d finished it with a black and grey paisley tie and shining shoes. He looked like a spoiled, useless man. She supposed it was mean, but every time she saw him so shiny she thought of how the number of men who’d inherited enough to be lazy were dwindling.

  “Is there a reason you’re starting out vile?” Victor’s gaze shot to Violet. “I understand you need Vi’s help.”

  Lady Eleanor’s mouth tightened and then she said, “Always united. Even married. You two are here together instead of where God intended you to be.”

  “If you mean hunting murderers with Jack in Leeds?” Violet asked calmly.

  Lady Eleanor’s gaze narrowed darkly at the reference to Jack’s career.

  “Or attending to the sickbed of my mother-in-law?” Victor added helpfully.

  Lady Eleanor closed her eyes and breathed slowly in. She struggled for composure, which was so typical of the woman. She went on the attack and then was offended when the twins united.

  “Where are all your hangers-on? I’m surprised there isn’t a snarky and unwelcome audience.”

  Violet was not a delicate flower despite her name, so she wasn’t gentle. “Are you referring to the family we created for ourselves? Because if so, Lila and Denny are in Paris. Rita is in Scotland with her father. Kate is taking care of her mother. The twins and nanny are with her. Jack is assisting Ham in Leeds. Isolde and Tomas”—Violet took mean and wicked delight in Lady Eleanor’s dark look—“are in Yugoslavia, and Ginny is at school. There are, of course, others we love, but you inferred that time was of the essence when you summarily summoned us to London. Perhaps you’d like to get on with what you need.”

  The replacement family that they’d created, after their own had been unsatisfactory, didn’t bother Lady Eleanor in the slightest.

  “What do you want, Lady Eleanor?” Victor’s feelings were clear. Violet had heard them in detail as they motored up. Lady Eleanor helped Violet trap the evil brat of a prankster, an act that should have been done because they were family. Instead, Violet was going to be harassed into dealing with a matter that Lady Eleanor didn’t want to do. Would it have been too much to just help Violet when she needed it?

  Lady Eleanor blushed brightly, licking her lips. She glanced between them, pausing when the teacart arrived. Violet poured her a cup of tea, handed her a plate of sandwiches and biscuits and then glanced at Victor. He’d poured his own coffee while Violet was playing hostess and had already finished all of the liver pâté sandwiches that he’d loaded onto his plate.

  Vi poured her own coffee and ignored the food. Despite the comfort of tea and food, Lady Eleanor’s ruddiness didn’t fade.

  “I helped you. You’re supposed to help me. That was our agreement.”

  “I promised you a favor when you helped me around All Hallows. It is a promise I will keep. May we get on with it?”

  She considered prodding her stepmother further but decided to wait. Violet drank her cup of coffee while her stepmother said nothing at all. Victor followed Violet’s lead and they sat in awkward silence for far too long.

  “I assume I can count on your discretion?”

  Violet nibbled on her bottom lip as she considered. Finally, Violet said, “As long as my morals aren’t compromised, I will keep your secrets from everyone but Jack.”

  “Who do you think I am?” Lady Eleanor demanded, her gaze enraged. “Morals compromised? What madness is this that you would dare to speak to me this way?” She was winding herself up. “I am your stepmother! Have you forgotten?”

  “If only we could,” Victor muttered.

  “I think you are taking a rather long time to get to the point,” Violet answered her stepmother, “which raises some distinct concerns. We have conflicting points of view about certain subjects, and quite frankly,” Violet told Lady Eleanor with clear precision, “I don’t like you very much.”

  Lady Eleanor’s mouth dropped. “How dare you speak to me this way?”

  Before Lady Eleanor could snap another reply, Vi added, “I know the sentiment is returned, and I appreciate that if nothing else, we can at least acknowledge the truth. Victor and I were horrible children, grieving and lost, and you weren’t what we needed.”

  “That wasn’t my fault!”

  “Agreed,” Violet told her, “but it doesn’t change that there are rivers and oceans of ill feelings and history behind us. Even still, we are family. If you need help, Victor and I will do what we can for you and employ all of our friends and skills. We’d have done it even if you hadn’t helped me with my All Hallows problem.”

  Lady Eleanor met Violet’s gaze. They stared at each other for too long, but unlike with Victor or even Jack, Violet had no idea what was going on inside of her stepmother’s head. The woman could be thinking that Violet had ruined her life marrying Jack. Lady Eleanor could be thinking that Violet looked quite ill in her mustard dress and brown jumper. Perhaps she was thinking about a future appointment with a friend. Anything at all could be happening behind that gaze and for once in her life, Violet gave Lady Eleanor the credit that it probably had nothing to do with Violet.

  Or perhaps, Violet thought, she’d simply finally grown up enough to realize that everything wasn’t about her. Lady Eleanor was the protagonist of her own story, and she was experiencing trauma entirely unrelated to Violet.

  Lady Eleanor sniffed deeply and turned her gaze resolutely to the floor. A moment later her story began.

  “When Mr. Danvers offered for Isolde, I won’t pretend that I didn’t think she could do better. Obviously she could. She did end up wed to Tomas. Handsome, rich as Croesus, kind.” Better than the overweight, too-old, criminal fiancé Lady Eleanor had pressured Isolde to accept. Luckily for Isolde, and unlucky for Danvers, he was murdered before the wedding could go through.

  “Young,” Victor added.

  “In love with her,” Violet added.

  “She loves him as well. She’s not resigned to him.” Victor’s tone made Lady Eleanor scowl.

  Violet bit down on her lip and fiddled with her wedding ring, thinking back to those early days. Her half-sister, Isolde Carlyle, daughter of an earl, had ended up engaged to the supposedly rich Mr. Danvers. Isolde was lovely, barely eighteen, well connected, and well off in her own right. Everything about the engagement had enraged Violet, especially when Isolde revealed she didn’t really want to marry Mr. Danvers.

  Even still, Violet had appeared at Kennington House to support the wedding. She’d tried to convinced Isolde to back out before it was too late. Vi had, in fact, succeeded, left her sister to change back into a normal dress, and gone for their father. Only, Violet had discovered the dead body of Carlton Danvers before she’d found their father.

  Lady Eleanor turned her gaze from the floor to the twins. “Yes, yes. I encouraged Isolde to marry Mr. Danver
s. It wasn’t like I knew he was a fraud. He was too old for her and she could do better, but as far as I knew, he wasn’t…”

  “What he was?” Violet asked. She wasn’t trying to be cruel, but Lady Eleanor winced.

  “You knew he was a villain,” Victor shot back without any sympathy.

  “Yes, I knew he was a villain.” Lady Eleanor closed her eyes. “You have to understand. I love my children. I do. They are my everything, but—”

  An actual tear rolled down Lady Eleanor’s face and Violet turned to her brother, just slightly lifting a brow. Vi wasn’t sure how much she believed the tear. She could tell Victor didn’t believe it at all. They waited as Lady Eleanor struggled, Victor handing over his handkerchief perfunctorily.

  “If I had to choose between them,” Lady Eleanor finally said, “you know I would choose Geoffrey. I wanted the best for Isolde. I did—”

  “Nothing about marrying Isolde off to the old, fat, villainous Carlton Danvers was necessary to protect Geoffrey,” Victor snapped.

  “That’s not quite true,” Lady Eleanor snapped in return, “but I won’t discuss it. It has nothing to do with what I’m experiencing now.”

  Violet didn’t believe that statement. Lady Eleanor began her story with that bit of information. It certainly applied.

  “Obviously, he knew something about you? Something he used to get you to push Isolde into a marriage when she could do better?”

  “He did have positives,” Lady Eleanor defended. “I wouldn’t have thrown her to the wolves. I love Isolde. Of course I do.”

  Violet lifted a brow and glanced at Victor, who cleared his throat. “Positives? His supposed fortune?”

  “I thought. It might not have been a great match, but it wasn’t terrible. Not really. It could have been much worse.”

  Violet closed her eyes and swallowed back her reaction. Mr. Danvers and his mad-as-a-hatter son had murdered each other over their obsession with Isolde. The younger Mr. Danvers had died in the river.

  Violet and her family had thought those times were behind them. Thinking back to that time was enough to make Violet sick. How would Isolde feel? The memory of Isolde shaking in Vi’s arms, and whisper-crying over and over again, “Oh god, Vi, thank god. Thank god he’s dead. Thank god.”

  Violet bit down on her bottom lip to shove the memories away, but she couldn’t. Jack had been stabbed, they’d been in the Thames in the darkness, they heard the fight in the water and been unable to do anything but hope and pray. She never wanted to think of that time again and it all came back, wrapped up in a bow, while Lady Eleanor—cold fish that she was—was watching.

  “I believed Mr. Danvers was acceptable enough,” Lady Eleanor said evenly. She cleared her throat. “Perhaps you know that Harry Mathers has escaped jail?”

  Violet nodded. Harry Mathers had been Danvers’s partner who’d gone to prison for financial crimes. Back when Lady Eleanor pressured Isolde into accepting Danvers’s offer, the countess had done so to keep her own secrets safe at the cost of Isolde’s potential happiness. “You think he knows what his partner knew about you?”

  “I do.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s blackmailing me. If your father finds out—” Her gaze was on the floor again. “Well, he can’t find out.”

  “What do they know about you?” Victor demanded.

  “I’m not telling you that.”

  “How did this person deliver his or her demands?”

  “In different ways,” Lady Eleanor said vaguely. Lady Eleanor was rarely vague.

  Violet took in a slow breath and blew it out quietly. Violet stood because she couldn’t not stand. She had to move or strangle her stepmother. Vi paced behind the Chesterfield while Victor asked a series of questions that went unanswered as Lady Eleanor wept into her handkerchief.

  Vi ignored the tears as she paced. Perhaps Lady Eleanor hadn’t wanted her daughter to marry Danvers, but Violet thought it was more likely that Lady Eleanor had known it wouldn’t be a happy marriage for Isolde, and Eleanor had talked herself into believing that it would be all right all the same.

  “He blackmailed you back then.” Violet twisted her wedding ring around her finger as she paced. “He’s dead, of course, but either one of his other victims, his partner, or a combination thereof have discovered what he knew.”

  “Other victims?”

  “Of course. He was a rat. If he’d had the chance to twist someone else on his string, he would have. Given that he wasn’t a young man—”

  “Haven’t we covered that?” Lady Eleanor snapped.

  “—it wasn’t as though he was new to his crimes when he was dealing with you and Isolde. It makes logical sense that you were neither his first victim nor would you have been his last.”

  “So?” her stepmother wailed. “Why do I care about them?”

  No empathy? Violet wanted to demand. No care for mankind in general? No disgust over the very act of crime? Violet fiddled with her ring as she paced, keeping her disgust to herself. “You were hardly unwitting of the name of your blackmailer. You were just arrogant enough to believe that you were the only fish worth catching.”

  “What did he have on you?” Victor asked Lady Eleanor while she stared at Violet, scowling like a fishwife ready to let loose her rage. “Are there letters or something?”

  Lady Eleanor sniffled into her handkerchief. “There were letters between myself and Carlton Danvers about the wedding to Isolde and the reasons behind her engagement.”

  “You think it’s Harry Mathers, but it doesn’t have to be.” Violet rubbed the back of her neck then reached for her coffee cup for a long drink before speaking. “There might have been others who knew about those things. What about your brothers?”

  Lady Eleanor’s dark look was the only answer to that question.

  “Have you been paying money?”

  “Yes,” Lady Eleanor said. “I had hoped paying the fiend would silence him.”

  Victor made a scoffing noise, but when Violet and Lady Eleanor glanced his way, he was sipping innocently from his coffee cup.

  “I think it’s Mathers,” Lady Eleanor said, flushing deeply and avoiding both of their gazes, “as one of the things they want is for Isolde to return to England.”

  “Why would he care about Isolde? Her over any of the rest of us?” Violet sat and slowly placed her coffee cup on the saucer, set the saucer down with a sharp click, and leaned towards her stepmother, forcing eye contact.

  “Harry Mathers hasn’t been the same. He wants revenge on Carlton Danvers, but he’s dead. His son is dead. All that is left is the woman who had promised to marry Danvers.”

  “What have you done?” Vi demanded.

  “Nothing,” Lady Eleanor lied.

  Chapter 3

  “If you told Isolde to come home while Harry Mathers is free, she would be in danger.” Victor cursed, rose, and left the room. He had gone from the judgmental, lazy spaniel to the protective older brother.

  “Where is he going?” Lady Eleanor wailed. “This isn’t what I wanted.”

  Violet shook her head. Did it need to be explained? Clearly, Victor had determined that an immediate telegram to Tomas and their sister was necessary.

  “I know you two! You’re like demons,” Lady Eleanor shouted, losing all pretense of anything but outrage. “You don’t care about anyone but yourself. Isolde will be fine.”

  “Harry Mathers was declared mad by Mr. Smith. Smith is not a normal man, so if Smith were to declare such a thing, Mathers has descended far beyond whatever line we’d use to judge such a thing. Smith is far more—calloused—about such things.”

  “I know!” Lady Eleanor shouted. “I know! You told me about Harry Mathers, didn’t you? You reminded me of it when you told me and you illustrated it with details. I am not responsible for what Mathers has become.”

  “No one is saying you’re responsible. What we’re saying is that bringing Isolde near Mathers is dangerous if he really is obsessing over
Danvers and avenues of revenge.”

  Lady Eleanor stared, jaw clenching. Her hands were fisted and her face was flushed.

  “Calling her back here could give him the chance to enact whatever revenge he’s been obsessing over,” Violet told her clearly, wanting her stepmother to fully understand the situation.

  “She has Tomas now. He’ll protect her.”

  “Last time she was in danger, she was taken from a busy street. Tomas can’t be with her every second.” And there was the child to consider.

  Vi took another deep breath in and then let it out. The rage was too much and rather than a slow exhale, Violet sounded like a furious owl. She tried again, but it was useless. Her gaze met Lady Eleanor’s.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” her stepmother warned.

  Violet bit down on her bottom lip. She wanted to say, I can’t help it, but she knew it would come out like an enraged shriek.

  “You’ll see when you have children,” Lady Eleanor told Violet. “Should you ever have children.”

  Violet ignored the jab.

  “You’ll see that your love for each child is different. That the drive to protect them hits you differently.”

  Violet swallowed as she dug her fingernails into her hands.

  “Do you think I don’t know Geoffrey isn’t to everyone’s taste?” Lady Eleanor said sharply, grabbing Violet’s wrist and digging in her nails. Violet guessed that Lady Eleanor didn’t even realize what she was doing. “Do you think I don’t see how Isolde is beautiful and everyone loves her? Geoffrey needs me. If Isolde has to sacrifice some of her shine— Well, not all of your children will be brilliant, clever, funny, and likable.”

  Violet twisted her hand away from her stepmother and hissed, “Do you think I don’t know you? Do you think I didn’t see how you approached and loved Gerald—Father’s heir—while you ignored the rest of us? Even at seven-years-old, I knew why. Gerald would matter to you when the rest of us had left the nest, but Gerald would never leave. The nest would be his. Not yours.”