Murder by the Sea Read online

  “Of course sister…ah, Violet, if it makes you uncomfortable.”

  “It does.” Violet took his hand, squeezed it once, and then took Jack’s arm. She didn’t bother glancing up at her husband’s face, but she had little doubt that it was filled with quiet amusement.

  In the break, Denny added, “What I meant, of course, was that though that phrase is a scripture, Martha learned it from Violet. Not from study.”

  Martha’s gaze narrowed on Denny. Her glance was hate-filled before she looked up at Brother Samuels with a saccharine sweet expression.

  “Of course, of course, sis—ah, Violet is clearly a great studier of scripture. A virtuous woman. I am sure your husband has no fear of you.”

  Victor snorted and Lila choked back a laugh while Bidlake and Denny laughed out hard. Jack shifted slightly as Violet saw red. Before Vi could find anything to say, Martha tried simpering up at Brother Samuel.

  He said, “I’m sure you’re aware that Martha is a willing student of God’s word. I find her to be a bit like a hummingbird, don’t you? Her attention is hard to keep, but she is a fine and delicate creature, created by the Lord to be shepherded, guided, and safeguarded.”

  Violet’s fingers dug into Jack’s arm and no one had a reply to Samuel except Martha, who gazed up at him with besotted eyes as she said, “Of course, of course.”

  “Bloody hell,” Denny muttered. “I didn’t think she could get worse. Victor, I need another drink. Something stronger.”

  Victor muttered something low and pulled Kate after him as they went towards the bar.

  “Whatever happened to your gaggle of lovers, Rita?” Ham asked as only Bidlake had remained behind. He sounded just irritated enough for his feelings to be evident, but then he cleared his throat as he met her gaze. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s nice to see you again.”

  The words were so starkly not all he wanted to say that it seemed as if the rest of them could feel them in the air. His love was there, however, in his gaze, his expression, the way his head tilted and his eyes moved anxiously over her to ensure that all was well.

  What surprised no one was how Rita seemed to be doing the same. Her gaze moved over Ham with quick little movements that checked that he was also well. What was even more fascinating was the way that Bidlake followed both of their gazes. He might have been obtuse when it came to thinking he could slap out a title and have people awed. However, he wasn’t at all imperceptive when it came to being aware of Rita.

  “I’ve heard you’ve been doing good work,” Rita said to Ham, attempting merry and failing. She sounded as though something were caught in her throat. “Catching killers. Making the world safer.”

  Ham didn’t answer until Jack nudged him. “Oh yes, I—suppose. You know, same as usual with these ones about. Jack doing half the detecting. Violet meddling and discovering things she shouldn’t. We’ve a new friend, Jovie. You’ll like her, I think.”

  “That’s what Vi said,” Rita started, but Bidlake cleared his throat and then cut into the conversation.

  “It’s good to have those plebian working souls about, don’t you think, Rita?”

  Rita’s gaze narrowed and she shot a nasty look towards Bidlake, but he was too busy looking triumphantly at Ham and Denny to even realize he’d infuriated Rita.

  Denny held up his hands at Bidlake. “Don’t look at me, boyo. I’m neither a good worker nor Rita’s lover. If, however, you think that insulting her family will gain you her heart, you’re dumber than you seem.”

  Bidlake pretended to laugh before he scowled at Samuels. “What are you doing here? I told you I wouldn’t be donating to your futile mission.”

  “He’s here with me,” Martha hissed. “You’re the interloper.”

  “Now, now, always kind, Sister Martha,” Samuels said, making Denny groan again and look at Lila with a plea.

  “The railing is so close,” he told her.

  “And why are you here?” Bidlake muttered to Martha. “No one wants you about either. Pretended righteousness is even more irksome than projected righteousness.”

  “Oh man,” Denny said, eating an olive off of his martini. “I wanted to hate him.”

  “You still can,” Ham said and Denny guffawed. Neither of them were bothered when Bidlake seemed offended.

  Bidlake tried to laugh. “I didn’t think your friends were religious. Why do you have these ones about?”

  “We believe in God,” Lila told him lazily. “He’s clearly smiting us now for what we’ve done. I blame Denny’s gluttony.”

  “I don’t understand,” Samuel said, glancing between Violet’s friends.

  “There, there,” Lila told him. “Why would you?”

  “Lila!” Martha scolded in a hissed whisper. “Stop it!” To Samuel, Martha said, “She’s teasing you, Brother Samuel.”

  “Did she call him brother?” Denny demanded, looking to Jack for confirmation.

  “She did,” Jack and Ham agreed.

  Victor turned to Kate. “Dance with me before I sick up.”

  “Does the good word offend?” Samuel asked, glancing at Martha for an answer. “Does the good word make him ill?”

  “He doesn’t like the way Brother Bidlake was talking about working souls,” Martha lied smoothly. “Victor, like all my friends, is spoiled but good. You’ll see. Once you look past their flaws, they’re exactly the kind of people to help finance our missionary work.”

  “Our?” Lila snapped.

  “Brother Samuel and I are going to wed,” Martha told her sister triumphantly before she slapped a pious expression back on her face.

  “She did it again,” Denny told Lila. “She called him brother. Make it stop or it won’t just be Victor sicking up.”

  Lila stared between Martha and Samuel and then said lazily, “I’ll pay for your next five years of missionary work if you leave my sister alone.”

  “I’ll help with that,” Violet shot out.

  “Me too,” Rita agreed.

  “Lila!” Martha shrieked, not whispering.

  “We’ll make it twenty years if you leave before morning,” Denny added. He really did look sick to his stomach. “And if we never hear you use the terms ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ again.”

  Brother Samuel looked between the friends and then faced Martha. “Maybe it’s for the best.”

  She stared at him, jaw dropping open. “Are you shamming me?”

  “Sister Martha, we must put the good work first.”

  “But—”

  “Think of the good I could do.”

  “But we could get donations from other people,” she tried, tears welling in her eyes.

  Violet winced. She thought that Martha might actually be heartbroken. The look on her face was devastating until Violet followed Martha’s gaze to the man who’d thrown her over in a moment, publicly, for money.

  “Not for twenty years,” Brother Samuel told her regretfully. “I trust that the good work we’ve done on your soul will continue. I will pray for you.”

  She gasped.

  “I will look back at you with fondness.”

  Martha asked slowly, “What do you mean?”

  “Sister Martha, I was never convinced….”

  Her gaze narrowed.

  “God must come first.”

  Martha slapped him hard.

  “If you give him one half-penny,” she said crossly to Lila, Violet, and Rita, “I’ll never forgive you!”

  “Deal,” Denny said for the rest of them. “Go away Brother Samuel, before we toss you over the side of the boat for playing with the emotions of our hideous Martha.”

  At that, Martha wailed and ran from the room. With a sigh, Lila followed.

  Chapter 4

  Violet knocked on Rita’s bedroom door early the next morning and found her friend already dressed and sitting near the window of their rented house. Vi, Rouge, and Holmes entered Rita’s room and Vi curled up on the bed and looked at Rita. Rouge leapt onto t
he bed with Violet, but her newer spaniel, Holmes, joined Rita.

  “Don’t say it.” Rita didn’t even look up, so she didn’t see the box of chocolates waving in the air between the two of them until Vi groaned.

  Rita took in the embossed box, wrapped in amethyst ribbon.

  Violet handed Rita the box of chocolates that Violet’s newest business partner, Mariposa Jenkins, had sent just before Violet and Jack had left their London house. Rita opened it and breathed them in, noting the gold decoration painted on a few of the chocolates. There was one with a pistachio on top because Mariposa refused to let the events that occurred after she met Violet ruin her love of pistachios. Violet’s favorite was the small rose made of swirled white and dark chocolate.

  Violet had invested in Mariposa Jenkins because Vi believed in the woman. A single mother who was working hard and continuously for her children deserved a little help. The periodic box of chocolates to show what Mariposa was doing was unexpected and welcome.

  Rita sighed as she took a truffle from the box. “Am I sabotaging my happiness by not…not…leaping into his arms and swearing my eternal love?”

  “The fact that you’re here is something of a sign,” Violet said carefully.

  Rita glanced up and then popped the pistachio chocolate into her mouth. “It’s not enough, is it?”

  “What if you were honest?”

  “I haven’t lied,” Rita snapped.

  “What if you told Ham that your feelings were hurt?”

  “Then he’d know.” Rita frowned fiercely down at her twisted hands.

  “If you think he wasn’t destroyed by you leaving, you’re wrong,” Violet told Rita. “He disappeared on case after case for a while and even still—it’s not like it’s been cigars, dancing, and cocktails. It hasn’t. My goodness, I bought him dogs to cheer him up.

  Rita looked unaffected.

  “He lost weight because he had no appetite.”

  Still nothing.

  “I know you were hurt. I understand, believe me. Jack and I didn’t just fall into each other’s arms, and there was a fair amount of thinking I was going to love him from afar forever. That I’d either be alone for the rest of my life, looking onto Victor’s children—poisonously jealous—only to eventually settle for someone like that Bidlake fellow.”

  Rita’s mouth twisted and she huffed a little before clucking to Holmes until the dog crawled into her lap and began licking her chin.

  “I just think you should tell him how he made you feel. Let him say whatever he is going to say and then determine if his response is something you can live with. Especially given how you love him and he loves you.”

  Rita nodded, deliberately not replying, and stood, carrying Holmes with her. “You look nice, by the way.”

  Vi looked down at her sapphire blue day dress and tan t-strap shoes and then at Rita who was wearing a powder blue dress that was cut nearly exactly the same. Vi winked at Rita and followed her down the stairs for the breakfast room. Violet saw Rita pause as she hit the doorway and then heard, “Good morning, Hamilton.”

  Instead of going in, Violet sidestepped to head down the hall towards the back patio with the intent of giving them some time. Before she got more than one step, she heard Rita say, “I—didn’t intend on all those gents—that just happened.”

  Ham’s reply was too low to hear, but Violet heard Rita laugh.

  “I missed you,” Ham replied a little louder and Violet felt a burning at the back of her eyes. She prayed silently that things would work out between them. “I—”

  She turned when she heard the creak of a step behind her and found none other than the red-headed fellow from the steamship.

  “Hello there,” he said to Violet, who narrowed her gaze. He saw her expression, but ignored it when he asked, “I was wondering if Rita was available?”

  Vi looked beyond him to the front door, wondering who allowed him to make his way through their house when she saw a furiously red-faced maid, wringing her hands, shooting dark looks towards Ian Fyfe.

  “Did you just push past the maid?”

  A flush crossed Ian’s face, but he cleared his throat and repeated, “Rita? Rita Russell? She’s staying here. The boy who delivered her bags from the ship told me she was.”

  Because Violet had moved from irritated to furious she demanded, “So you bribed a servant to provide you information that Rita didn’t give you herself?”

  “I’m sure it was just an oversight.”

  “Or she didn’t want you showing up during breakfast,” Violet snapped. “What are you trying to do? Beat the other boys out of the gates?”

  The blush had become brilliant. “Would you just get Rita?”

  “She’s in there,” Violet told him smoothly as she nodded at the doorway only a few steps beyond, giving him a quiet, evil grin. They were close enough that Rita couldn’t have missed their conversation.

  The look of fury in his eyes was enough that Violet grinned cheekily. The low curse word he muttered wasn’t loud enough for Rita to hear, but Violet wasn’t going to be playing games. And if she was, she’d be playing a dirty trick if necessary. Violet was on Ham’s side.

  She waited until he stepped into the breakfast room and then asked loudly, “Did you just call me a —”

  Rita gasped as Violet followed. Ham met Violet’s gaze, and she saw that same quiet humor in his gaze that matched Jack. They might be years apart in age and unrelated, but they were the same in so many ways. You had to know them to know when they were amused, and at the moment, Ham was holding back a guffaw.

  “Who called you that word?” Victor asked from behind Violet and then stepped into the room. “This bloke?”

  Ian Fyfe held up his hands in surrender, starting to explain, but Victor grabbed Ian by the back of the neck.

  “Hey now,” Ian said, trying to squirm away.

  But Victor had the look of a man woken a half-dozen times by his twin daughters. Victor shoved the protesting Ian toward the door and told the maid, “Just don’t answer it until we’re done with breakfast. It seems Rita’s money-grubbing lovers have forgotten their manners in their greed.”

  The maid opened the door just in time for Victor to toss out Ian, slam the door closed, and lock it. Violet bit down on her bottom lip as Victor turned. They’d left the breakfast room to watch Ian tossed curbside.

  “What?”

  “You look tired,” Violet told him. Her wicked grin could not be held back.

  Victor glanced at the maid. “Not your fault, Jenny.”

  She nodded and darted down the hallway as Victor continued. “Being this tired is worse now. We’d found that level of sleep exhaustion that was familiar. Getting sleep and then having it snatched back away is perhaps worse than it was before.”

  “Didn’t two nannies arrive yesterday?” Ham asked carefully. He took Rita’s arm and backed up as though Victor were rabid.

  “I don’t know Poppy and Jane well enough yet to know how they’ll be when they’re woken in the middle of the night. Couldn’t be risked.”

  The four of them moved towards the breakfast room the moment they realized they were standing in the hall for no reason. Violet crossed to the coffee pot and poured her brother a Turkish coffee and then returned for her refill.

  Victor looked between Rita and Ham. “Rita, Ham missed you. Ham, I’m sure Rita missed you too. She came back after all. You both love each other, and those blokes are after Rita’s money. Given that she’s beautiful too, they must feel like they found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

  Both Rita and Ham were staring at him as Violet sat down next to her twin and popped him on the back of the head. “He’s tired.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing that I always hated when folks told me. Life really is better when you are married to someone you love. Don’t be stupid and think they’re wrong.” Victor sniffed and then swallowed a large, too-hot gulp of coffee, and then groaned.

  “Are you done?” Violet d
emanded.

  Victor nodded.

  “He’s tired,” Violet repeated to Ham and Rita and then with the echo of her slow, evil grin from earlier she added, “but he’s right.”

  Rita pressed her lips together. “I didn’t intend to become the hunted heiress on the steamship. And, I don’t know—there’s more to like to me than money, right?”

  “Right,” Violet and Ham said instantly.

  Victor pursed his mouth and looked Rita over as though he were judging a horse at a fair. Violet smacked the back of his head again and then said to Rita, “He’s still tired.”

  “I am tired,” Victor agreed. “You’re pretty great, Rita. It’s not everyone who would search hotel rooms with Violet and follow her into trouble. You know, other than all of our friends.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Ham admitted.

  “Jack wouldn’t either.” Violet considered breakfast and then decided that fruit and toast was just what she needed. She rose to make up a plate as Jack appeared. He had gotten up early and gone for a walk. He stepped into the room with just a bit of red in his cheeks from his walk.

  “There’s a fellow outside the house who is pacing and cursing. The redheaded one. I remember you telling me his name, Rita, but I do not recall caring about what it was. The other one, with the spectacles, is there too. He seems to think it’s all very funny. Especially when I had to circle the house and go in the servant’s entrance.”

  Rita sniffed and sipped her tea as if she were completely unbothered.

  “That Ian fellow is no longer welcome in the house,” Victor said. “If Rita goes for him—”

  “I won’t,” Rita replied, giving Victor a nasty look. “Violet told me I couldn’t go for Bidlake either.”

  “Well in that case—” Jack started but Rita’s nasty glance and Violet’s quick shake of the head had him saying instead, “I’m glad you’re back, Rita.”

  Violet was utterly unsurprised when Victor winked at Rita and then handed Violet his coffee cup. She refilled it for him even though she normally would have snapped at him.