A Zestful Little Murder Read online

  Ham knew these fellows better than Vi did and yet he stiffened in offense.

  Mrs. Lavinia Forman, seated closer to their end of the table, tutted. “Oh, Benedict, you have heard all about the Wakefields and their accomplishments. Rita and Ham speak of them in every story of their adventures.”

  “I don’t listen to the children, you know that.” His tone was as rude as Rita had described in her passing tales of her father’s friends. Why had this man brought his whole family down here for a random village fête?

  Vi hid her reaction, but Ham was not a child. Rita and Vi, for that matter, weren’t children either. Perhaps once they could have been accused of acting immature, and might even still do so from time to time, but Vi had stopped being a child the day her aunt Agatha was murdered.

  Mrs. Forman sputtered. “Hamilton Barnes is hardly a child. He’s a decorated war veteran and well-known investigator.”

  “Which means little to me. Meaningless accomplishments,” he said, letting his voice carry. “You know me, Lavinia. You know what I care about.”

  There was something insidious in Brantley’s tone and Rita’s gaze narrowed while Vi turned back to him, her head cocking inquisitively.

  “What is it that you care about?” Vi asked. He wanted to be abrasive, obviously, so why not indulge him and find out his game?

  Benedict cleared his throat. “Warm weather you’re having here.”

  Oh, sidestepping? And being utterly obvious about it. Vi’s gaze narrowed further, and she wondered if she didn’t look a bit lizardish with slitted eyes and a cold expression.

  “Unlike yourself,” Vi told him, not bothering to attempt manners any longer, “I haven’t heard tales of you. In fact,” she added, her tone bright and merry, “I didn’t even know you existed until Rita said her father was bringing some of his friends down.” Lies, of course, but he didn’t need to know that. “Tell me, how are you related to Mr. Russell?” She asked it as though that should be the only reason for him and his relations to be included in their party.

  “Philip?” Benedict Brantley shook his head and then cleared his throat. “Philips was rather good friends with my brother, Mina’s husband, before he died. All of them in India together. Philip came up to check on her when he returned to England and stayed for the fishing. I suppose we just settled in nicely together. Rubbing along together almost like family.”

  “Did you?” Vi didn’t believe that for one second. Not even a tic of a breath. What utter nonsense this fellow was selling.

  “We make far more sense than you and your friends,” he accused. His gaze moved over Vi dismissively and then he muttered, just loud enough to be heard, “Daughter of an earl, a couple of bobbies, some useless bright young things, and—if I am not mistaken—a former street child? That’s the one spending so much time with Isobel?”

  “Benedict!” Mrs. Forman hissed. “Stop.”

  “Let’s be frank, shall we, Brantley?” Ham cut in. “You’re upset with Philip and you’re taking it out on his daughter’s friends. No one is keeping you here if you’d rather spend your evening elsewhere.”

  “Don’t know what you mean,” Benedict Brantley said, turning to Vi. “Are you really twins with that long stretch of a fellow?”

  The clunky attempt to change the subject had Ham so irritated he growled low and Vi loved how Rita reached out and tangled their fingers together.

  “Victor is, in fact, my twin,” Violet told Mr. Brantley. She glanced at her twin seated at the other end of the table with Jack. Vi considered sending Mr. Brantley from her table. Why were they feeding him and putting up with his behavior? They weren’t friends.

  No, Vi thought. Rita was Vi’s family. Mr. Philip Russell was Rita’s family. If he needed their support, he could have it. Vi pasted a patronizing expression on her face worthy of her stepmother as she asked, “How are you related to the rest of your party?”

  “Josiah there is my brother. Neve’s m’wife. Mina was married to my brother, Dennis, before he died in India. Young Delilah is my niece through Dennis and Mina.”

  “And you have no children?”

  “I’ve two boys. Both are established in Edinburgh. Only Delilah is still lingering about. Needs to get settled, but she’s not quite fashionable.”

  Vi prevented her face from reacting, but Delilah must have heard because she paled with bright circles of red appearing on her cheeks.

  “She’s lovely,” Rita told Vi. “You’ll like her, Vi. Delilah’s got a clever sense of humor behind her quiet facade.”

  Vi didn’t spare Mr. Brantley a glance. “Oh of course. I’ve noticed that already.”

  Mr. Brantley, the fiend, snorted and turned back to his roast beef.

  Vi let her gaze flit over the girl and noticed that Delilah was, in fact, near Vi’s own age. Mr. Brantley referenced her as though she were a child, and Vi had to admit that she hadn’t taken particular notice of the woman previously. She was plump in a way that those who loved her would call pleasant. Her hair was a pale blonde that was near-white, but her peaches and cream skin was lovely. Perhaps her lips were a bit too thin and her eyes a bit too far apart, but Vi appreciated the woman far more than the more classically handsome fellow next to her.

  “Your father much of a sporting man?” Benedict seemed to think that his hearty tone would make Vi forgive him of how he’d behaved. She had little doubt that he expected her to smile prettily and forgive. That was not, however, how she was made. “Perhaps I’ll extend an invitation to take him fly fishing up in Scotland. No one fishes like a Scotsman.”

  Violet lifted a brow. “Father isn’t one for traveling to meet friends of friends. I’m sure the day will come when Mr. Russell and the earl enjoy a day of sporting together. Perhaps you can inveigle an invite from Mr. Russell at that time.”

  Mr. Brantley leaned back with furrowed brows and then slurped down his wine in his fury. Ignoring him, Vi turned to Ham. “How was your journey?”

  “Must have been all right in that new auto of yours that Russell bought you,” Brantley cut in with a patronizing grin.

  Why would anyone have a vendetta against Ham? Vi saw his fingers tangled with Rita and suddenly understood. Hadn’t Rita been proposed to by one of the Brantley sons? Both? She’d told Vi something of it.

  Ham’s ears tinged red, but he only nodded.

  “Or perhaps it was Rita who threw the blunt at a new auto?” Brantley said meanly. He thought Ham should be ashamed of such a thing, that Ham’s primary interest in Rita was her money. Of course a man like Brantley, who no doubt thought the same, would think he was striking a blow. He wouldn’t believe it was possible to both marry someone who was wealthy and be unenticed by their wealth. The fact that this was why Ham had sacrificed his love for Rita so long, hurting her in the process, was infuriating Vi.

  Brantley wasn’t bothered by the cold reception he received to the statement. He continued. “Have to admit you’ve landed on your feet with our Rita and her fortune.”

  Rita’s gaze narrowed sharply, she glanced at her father, and then her jaw firmed, revealing her intentions, but Vi beat her friend to the punch.

  “I find that those who focus on the finances of others do so either out of jealousy or pride. I wonder, are you jealous that Rita and Ham are paddling through buckets of ready money or are you simply upset that one of your boys didn’t land so well? I can’t imagine that you’re in the same realm as Mr. Russell. He is, after all, rather obnoxiously wealthy.” She only just held back adding, ‘while you are only obnoxious.’

  Mr. Brantley’s ears turned red at Vi’s bluntness. You’d think he would be prepared for corresponding fire to the attacks he was flinging. “These bobbies have no business with our kind.”

  “Our kind?” Vi’s derision was sharp and mean. She knew it and didn’t care. If they wanted to focus upon the classes that they might claim, Mr. Brantley and his new money and arrogance had little to do with her centuries of noble blood. Vi had no patience for the inherited arr
ogance of her father’s friends and family, but she’d be damned to have this obnoxious fellow look down on Ham.

  “Our kind,” Brantley repeated despite Vi’s disgust.

  “I can only suppose you are assuming that wealth factors equally with honor and wit. I can assure you, sir, as a woman who was chased for her money with the lure of merely good breeding”—her tone was pure sarcasm--“that one’s days are far happier when we set aside monetary considerations, noble lines, and simply look at the man or woman directly.”

  “Romantic tomfoolery,” Mr. Brantley told her arrogantly, but Vi ignored him.

  “Under those more important of circumstances, Ham is a clear winner. He’d have been the belle of the honorable man’s ball should ladies shop for husbands with the same ridiculous entitlement as gentlemen.”

  “Did she just say what I think she said?” Denny hissed loudly. Lila’s bored yawn was the only answer he received.

  Vi ignored them both and lifted a brow at the ridiculous Mr. Brantley.

  “So any woman who’d been lured into marriage would say.” His condescending smirk fanned Vi’s temper, and her gaze narrowed on him. “It’s not like you’d want to admit you made a mistake.”

  Vi’s face flushed with fury and she was tempted to an extent that she’d never been before to throw her wine in the man’s face. How he could speak so while seated at that very man’s table was beyond shocking, and the quiet that had fallen over the dining room proved it.

  However, she calmed, wrapping the persona of Lady Violet around her once again. “I am certain a woman who lured into a marriage might keep quiet, but thankfully I wouldn’t know how that would feel, seeing as I married a gentleman who loves me as unconditionally as I love him. I’m certain Rita must be relieved to have fallen in love with an upstanding man instead of one of the many distasteful cads who tried to lure her into marriage.” She paused, giving Benedict a speculative look. “Wasn’t your eldest son one of Rita’s many suitors? Was he the uncultured one who couldn’t pull his gaze from her chest or the rude one who talked to her as though she were both mute and deaf?”

  Mr. Brantley’s expression became thunderous.

  “They both did,” Rita laughed, though there was little humor in her tone. “Benedict Junior, the rude one, attempted to trade on our father’s friendship while Mitchell was the one with the grasping hands and rancid breath.”

  “Oh!” Vi instantly knew the story. “The mouth breather? Who leaned in to sputter loudly sweet nothings that he’d stolen from pulp novels?”

  “Mmm,” Rita agreed.

  Vi laughed mockingly and then told Mr. Brantley, “Even Tarzan kept his hands to himself when Jane said no.”

  He didn’t get the reference, but it didn’t matter. This fellow would never be invited to dinner at her home again. She wouldn’t turn him away from the fête and embarrass Mr. Russell any more than he had been by this table conversation, but that would be the last time he stepped foot on her property. Mr. Russell or not, Vi wouldn’t allow Jack or the best of Jack’s friends to be insulted in their home. Honestly, she was shocked that Jack wasn’t already sending the man from the house.

  This weekend fête could not end quickly enough. Vi looked down the table and saw Mr. Russell’s furious gaze fixed on his friend. Or, perhaps, Vi thought, his former friend.

  Mr. Russell hadn’t given his daughter any notice about anyone other than Lavinia Forman and her daughter. Was it possible that like the sons, Benedict Brantley had inveigled his way into this party? Why had he gathered his whole family and brought them? Vi’s gaze turned down the table and saw the blushing Mina Brantley, the disgusted Delilah who attempted to hid her reaction by focusing on her plate, Josiah Brantley—the brother—who seemed amused, while Mr. Brantley’s wife was entirely unbothered. If anything, her only concern was the pudding that had been placed in front of her and the wine glass she waved at Hargreaves to fill. If Vi had feared embarrassing her, she needn’t have been worried.

  Why had any of them come? And what was Mr. Brantley’s purpose in forcing himself into this situation and then directly offending them all? Vi reached out for her own glass, wishing it were her favorite ginger wine. She breathed in deeply, let it out slowly, and reminded herself that the arrogance in the seat to her right did not encompass the opinion of mankind. Instead, she spent the rest of the dinner ignoring him in favor of the company of Ham and Rita.

  Chapter 4

  Violet and the ladies left the gents to their cigarettes and port while they made their way back into the parlor. Vi took one look at Rita and Mrs. Forman and crossed to the bar, the two women trailing her as the others took seats around the room.

  “Port?” Vi wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “Why would we do that when there’s so many better options? I’m thinking either ginger wine or something with that chocolate liqueur.”

  “Oh,” Mrs. Forman said, sounding shaken, “I don’t know. I—”

  She glanced behind her and then looked to Vi and Rita. Her blush was fierce and neither of the friends missed the sheen of tears in the woman’s eyes.

  “Oh Lavinia,” Rita said low. “It’s all right. Vi doesn’t blame you for Brantley.”

  “Just another average dinner party among my family,” Vi said brightly. All of her meanness was gone with Mr. Brantley in the other room. “I’m not saying I want to share an auto to the seaside with him, but he’s hardly a blip on my day.” Vi congratulated herself on her lies as she poured them all generous cocktails heavy on the alcohol and light on the juices, seltzers, and ice.

  “It’s not all right,” Mrs. Forman whispered back. “They’re ruining your celebration. Your father is so excited about his plans for a surprise.” Her eyes widened and she was upset as she added, “Which I just gave away.”

  “You didn’t,” Rita said. “Father always looks the same when he has something up his sleeve. I knew he was working on something the second you came through the door.”

  Mrs. Forman laughed with relief. “It’s like he’s Father Christmas with a twinkle in his eye and something up his sleeve.”

  Vi hadn’t noticed any such thing, but she wasn’t one of Mr. Russell’s beloveds, so she let Rita comfort Lavinia while she finished the cocktails. Vi handed the two of them drinks and then carried the tray over to the rest. Lila and Kate were sitting with the two Mrs. Brantleys and Delilah. The look on Lila’s face said that Vi would be paying for stepping in and entertaining the women.

  “What a lovely home you have,” Mrs. Neve Brantley said. There was nothing on her swarthy face to acknowledge that she was aware of how rude her husband had been during their dinner, but regardless, Vi was certain that Neve knew exactly what had happened. “I was under the impression that you lived in London.”

  “We have a home there as well,” Violet told Mrs. Brantley.

  “Oh do you? How nice that must be.”

  “Mmm,” Vi agreed. Her gaze moved to Mina Brantley. “Do you miss India?”

  Mrs. Mina Brantley blinked rapidly. “Well, yes.”

  “Papa was there in India,” Delilah inserted quietly.

  “I fear the loss of India and the loss of Dennis are all tangled in our minds,” Mina said. “I suppose the littler things like running my own house are wrapped up in also missing Dennis. Nothing really compares to that.”

  Vi paused and then said kindly, “I am sorry for your loss.”

  Delilah’s gaze narrowed on her mother and then she turned away, biting her bottom lip. Lila lifted a brow at the move and both of them pretended to not see it. Whatever additional thoughts that Delilah had about her mother and their move and the loss of Dennis Brantley, she wasn’t going to share them. Yet, anyway.

  Vi turned back to Mrs. Neve Brantley, who took a cocktail and asked, “Do you hold a lot of village parties here?”

  “This is the first,” Vi said easily. “Perhaps we’ll enjoy it so much that we’ll beg for them to come back for the next celebration. I believe that Jack, Denny, and Ham
are going to be putting up a May Day pole tomorrow morning.”

  “Delightful,” Lila muttered wryly. “I look forward to Denny flapping about uselessly.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Mrs. Mina Brantley said kindly. Her hand was on her daughter’s wrist as she added, “Rita’s friends do tend to be bracing types. The kind to climb a mountain, ski down it, and then catch their own supper with their hands. They’d have been excellent conquerors. All of them.”

  Lila snorted. “No, no. Rita has come to love us through Violet and Jack. Denny and I are the useless bright young things your brother-in-law said we were. Even before we fell into an inheritance, we didn’t do anything worthwhile. I believe Denny pretended to work and traded on his connections to Victor, the earl, and whoever else he could scrape up to keep from being let go.”

  Mina Brantley stared at Lila. “I fear that never would have worked in India.”

  “Yes, well,” Lila smirked, “he did know I wouldn’t follow him there. I can see that there must be some charm in it given how Rita, her father, and your family all loved it, but I suspect I wouldn’t have been one of those who found happiness and fortune there.”

  “You’d have wilted,” Rita told Lila without a moment’s hesitation. “You’d have laid down on your bed and never gotten up again.”

  “Very likely,” Lila said agreeably. “But I would have gotten up. When I left him and threw myself on Vi’s mercy. Even in her poor days, Vi would have helped me.”

  “Or,” Kate said, “you could have gone home to your parents.”

  Lila shuddered. “That might be worse than the heat and bugs and whatever else India has. Snakes?”

  “Mmm,” Rita agreed.

  “Lions?” Lila guessed.

  “Tigers,” Delilah replied with a laugh.

  “See, it would never do. I am the type who gets eaten by the tiger first.” Lila took her cocktail and lifted it to the other women. “One hears the tales of those who made fortunes in foreign lands, but it wouldn’t have been myself.”