Meddlesome Madness: A Short Story Collection Read online

  Violet frowned just thinking about it. Even her dead brothers who she hadn’t known as well as she’d have liked—having lost them in the war—would never have treated Violet in such a way.

  Betty opened her tiny bag and handed the love notes to Violet. Vi skipped through them, raising a brow.

  “When did they start?”

  “The second day of the voyage. But, I feel certain I’ve seen this handwriting before. I just cannot recall from where. Something entirely unrelated.”

  Vi was inclined towards disliking anyone not brave enough to declare outright his love. Secrecy and hiding behind the words ‘Secret Admirer,’ left a girl too open to wondering why. Why did it need to be mysterious? Was it because Betty was a wealthy girl? Was it because he was married? Was he just shy? If so, did he have the courage to move beyond notes?

  When she said so, Betty frowned and Jack said, “You might not have felt so a few months ago, Vi. Notes could be an opening act of a love story. They’re not all like the ones Kate received.”

  Perhaps, she thought, frowning at the notes again. Kate and Harriet received notes from the man who had killed Harriet when she thought to escape him. Just because one secret author was a murderer didn’t mean they all were, but Violet didn’t like them all the same.

  “Do you know anyone on the ship?”

  “My father brought some of his men with us. Father owns a company. He’s bringing them to Cuba to set up some business concerns. He’s got his secretary, his assistant…several of the executives…”

  Violet frowned at the girl. “It must be one of them if you know the handwriting. Is it possible that whoever this admirer is that his interest is based off of your father’s position? Your father is the head of the company, I assume?” Violet hated to ask the question, but it needed to be clarified all the same.

  Betty hesitated, biting her lip. Violet didn’t need the answer. It was clear that Betty was worried about that very thing, but Mildred cut in. “Girls! If you catch someone’s interest because of your family, that isn’t a bad thing if the man is also honorable and hard-working. It’s no different than catching someone’s interest because of your eyes or smile or interests. It’s just a starting point. If the fellow lies to you and fakes love, well, you’ll be able to tell if you’re brutally honest with yourself, won’t you?”

  Violet wasn’t sure about that, but Mildred continued.

  “How do they treat their mother? How do they treat their sisters? How have they treated you? Make them angry. Very angry and see if their temper snaps. See if you can catch them being generous and kind. How do they treat their underlings? A man’s honor comes out in the small things.”

  Jack cleared his throat. “Don’t follow that advice about making me angry, Violet.” He slipped her drink from her hand and set it on a passing tray.

  “I would guess I’ve made you angry by now. I didn’t even have to try,” Violet said, frowning at her departing cocktail. She hadn’t even had a sip or two.

  Jack laughed at that and then agreed. “Yes. You’ve definitely made me angry.”

  Violet smiled merrily at him as if she’d done something brilliant, then turned to Betty. “It all comes down to the intent. Is the intent here to jump ahead in business by marrying the boss’s daughter? Or, perhaps someone has seen beyond your role as the boss’s daughter and seen you. Loves you.”

  Violet flipped through the notes, as she realized what she was seeing. As a book woman—both a writer and an addicted reader—Violet both loved the touch of quotes from literature and disliked how the quotes were signed “an admirer.” The lack of cleverness in using someone else’s words and signing the basic “secret admirer” were both deterrents. She’d have liked to see the quotes worked into his own words with concrete examples of why he cared about Betty. The girl was clearly a good one. You could tell from the expression on her face and the curve of her smile, but you’d have to get to know her to see it.

  “Do you know where these quotes are from?” Did Betty realize these clever words weren’t her admirer’s was what Violet really wanted to know.

  Betty nodded. “I tend to have a book in my bag most of the time, you know. Sitting around waiting for father, I have to do something. These are all books I’ve read in the last year or two.”

  Violet held up a quote to Jack: You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought.’

  “Doyle, yes? I’ve been making my way through his books.” Jack recognizing the quote made Violet’s heart beat a little harder.

  Violet grinned at Jack with a cheery wink. “Reasons why you are adored. Reading my favorite books is at the top of the list.”

  “Oh, I do love Doyle. Papa hates that I do,” Betty said. “He especially despises the Tarzan novels. I have to pretend that I don’t love them as much as I do and read them in secret.”

  “Tarzan novels?” Mildred asked, glancing between the younger women, who started to explain them at once. She laughed and asked, “Perhaps I can borrow one from you while on the voyage, should you have thought to bring it. You young people and your frivolities.”

  Betty and Violet glanced at each other and both said, “I did.” They grinned and Violet chucked Betty on the shoulder and added, “I rather like you.”

  Betty blushed brilliantly. “Like my brother said, I’m a solid girl. Everybody’s best friend and no one’s love. I’ve been a bridesmaid so many times I’ve almost given up on the idea that I could marry.”

  Jack cut in, to Violet’s surprise. “Someone took enough note of you to find the books you read, read them himself, write the notes, and send them to you. I can’t promise you that it’s true love, but I can promise you that whoever did that wants your attention.”

  Betty’s gaze was wide and she pressed her lips together.

  “Darling,” Mildred told Betty. “Your brother is incapable of seeing anything other than the worst version of you. You can’t take his opinion as gospel truth. Would you want to marry him?”

  Betty shuddered.

  “It’s the same for him. Siblings are the best and worst for each other. We don’t give our siblings enough room to grow and change, somehow always seeing the schoolboy who cut your hair and stole jam tarts and broke your doll. It is the same for him. He can’t see all there is to love you because he’s remembering the schoolgirl you were. I’d lay a wager on it.”

  Violet wasn’t sure she could comment on what Mildred was saying, though she felt that was possibly only one variation and maybe an accurate version for what Betty and Harold were experiencing.

  Vi had lost two brothers in the war and had been shocked they’d recommended their youngest sister to look to Violet for a role-model and advice. Violet still had a much older brother, her twin brother (who didn’t count), and a younger sister and brother. Other than her twin, they had been mostly strangers, at least until the last year or two.

  “Shall we go gather the next clue, ladies?” Jack rose and took Violet’s hand, pulling her to her feet carefully before handing up both Mildred and Betty. Much of the dining saloon had emptied out. Happily, the grand old clock that they sought wasn’t far and Jack looked it over while Violet re-read the notes for Betty. She’d received three so far. They were all in the same hand and someone had been able to get them to her with little trouble.

  “Betty,” Violet asked, “do you have your stateroom to yourself?”

  Betty nodded. “I’m the only woman my father brought along on this trip except for my maid.”

  “Is your maid in the room most of the time that you’re awake?”

  “Unless I send her away.”

  “And she’s seen nothing? How did these arrive?”

  “She’s seen nothing. They were slipped under the door.”

  Jack cleared his throat, and Mildred let out the half-giggle, half-chuckle—a sort of terrible titter—that had become almost her signature noise despite the length of their connection.

  “What does it say?”

  Jack read:<
br />
  “I have a mouth but cannot drink.

  I have a head but cannot think.

  I have a tongue yet have no lung.

  I can be held or even hung.

  What am I?”

  “Oh, no.” Mildred rubbed her brow and glanced at the others. “I am useless. I declare I haven’t a clue. Or even the portion of a clue.”

  “There was also this,” Jack said, handing over an ivory envelope to Betty. Violet caught the name ‘Betty Grady’ written in a heavy hand. It seemed to be the same writer as all the previous notes.

  Betty’s hands were shaking and her eyes were wide as she took in the note. Her lips moved as she read as though she needed to experience the words with every sense possible. In the soft murmur of her voice, in the way her fingertips traced the words on the page, in the way her eyes took in the note. Violet wouldn’t be surprised if Betty sniffed the page, looking for a hint of cologne to add to the moment.

  “Well, my darling, what does it say?” asked Mildred.

  Violet waited as Betty read, “Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.”

  “Oooh, Hamlet,” Violet said. “Not sure that’s the best choice given the end of that love story.”

  “Oh dear,” Mildred said. “Aren’t you clever, Violet? I’m sure that I wouldn’t have known that play to save my life. Even if I did read it back in school. That was so very long ago.”

  Violet squeezed Mildred’s hand. “We all have our clevernesses. Books might be a favorite for me, but I am a complete fool in so many areas. If we landed on a deserted island, I would die in days. I can’t make food to save my life, not even tea.”

  Mildred tittered and said, “Oh I’m not so bad in the kitchen. Before my dear Niles made his money, I did all the house things. Cooking, cleaning, all of it. I can still remember how tired I was all the time.”

  “See,” Violet said with a cheery grin. “So the question…did someone manipulate which clue we got first? If so, who? They had to realize that clues were being given in different orders, so we couldn’t simply follow each other from the dining salon to our first location.”

  Jack nodded in silent agreement and then waved their clue. Betty shrugged, distracted. “I don’t quite know where to go next.”

  Jack and Violet said in unison, “It’s the bell.”

  Both Mildred and Betty muttered something, and Betty added, “You really are clever.”

  “Books. Remember? Nothing to write the fam about, is it? I can assure you my stepmother wouldn’t be proud. Any area I can claim a level of cleverness is an area she would just as soon I was entirely ignorant in.”

  Jack shot Violet a glance. Like Betty—Violet had more than a pretty smile, bright eyes, or an attractive figure.

  “You know,” Violet said with her wickedest grin. “We know who sat at the other tables, our starting group of suspicious lads, so to speak. We should use the cover of the scavenger hunt to…search their rooms.”

  Jack choked while Betty gasped and Mildred said rather calmly, “That’s not a bad plan. Gather the evidence, find the fellow, set your Jack on him, and see what he can weasel out of the fella. Not a bad plan at all.”

  All three women turned wide gazes to Jack, but he only gave in to Violet’s. With a sigh, he said, “Should I get placed in the brig, I expect excellent food to be brought to me, books to be read to me, and the captain to be bribed to free me no matter the price.”

  “Sworn!” Violet spun a little, wobbled, and Jack caught her, shaking his head while she laughed up at him.

  Chapter 3

  The ship’s bell had a uniformed steward pacing underneath it. When they took the next riddle, he inquired, “Ah, I believe you are Miss Grady?”

  Betty nodded. He dug with his gloved hand dug into his inner coat pocket and retrieved another ivory note with thick handwriting.

  Betty glanced at Jack, pretending a level-headedness regarding her own note that the blush in her cheeks belied. She waved at Jack, who cleared his throat and read their third clue:

  “It has endless stories yet cannot speak them.”

  Mildred looked to Violet, who answered, “A library. I wasn’t aware there was one.”

  “There is,” Betty confessed, blushing a little. “I suspect I have spent rather too much time there. There happens to be a short-cut from here through the first-class staterooms.”

  Violet pressed her lips together to hide a wicked grin. “Perhaps just past the staterooms of certain members of your acquaintance.”

  Mildred gasped as Betty nodded, looking at Jack with a wide pleading gaze.

  Violet grinned. “We really should go shopping should we spend much time in the same part of Cuba.”

  They by-passed several groups of hunters with clues in hand as Betty led them up the grand staircase and down one of the long, wide hallways. There were side tables with vases that must have been attached somehow to prevent them from sliding with the rolling of the ship. The sea had been mild with just a slight rocking of the boat, but Violet expected that it would well and truly cross the line into making Gwennie go from slightly nauseated to sicking up.

  Betty’s father had taken staterooms for the men he’d brought along with him, but his employees were all in double rooms. Of the company, only her father and Betty had their own rooms. The first room Betty indicated was the one her brother was sharing with one of the senior executives. Violet slipped free a hairpin and had the door open in a few moments.

  “I’m not sure I wanted to know you could do that so easily.” Jack blocked the view of passersby with his broad shoulders while Mildred’s titters escalated into nervous giggles.

  “Victor and I were terrible children.” Vi winked at Mildred and opened the door. A moment later, they’d glanced over the baggage, examined the writing of the letters, and noted the utter lack of books. Both Jack and Violet shook their heads.

  Jack held up a sheet of paper. “This letter is to a girl back home. He seems quite smitten. How many rooms have we got left?”

  Poor Jack didn’t seem to be enjoying the sleuthing. Violet slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow, grinned up at him, and whispered. “I don’t think this kind of adventure is your kind of adventure. Why don’t you play billiards? We girls can run this fellow to ground.”

  Jack tapped Violet on the chin with his index finger and shook his head. “Hijinks and machinations. I know you, Violet, and I anticipate quite a few rounds of them.”

  “Was it hijinks that caused your bruises?” Betty asked as Mildred gasped.

  “Oh, Betty,” Mildred said before Violet could answer. “Never mention another woman’s bruises.” Mildred shot Jack a dark look and then smiled gently at Violet.

  “Jack?” Violet gasped. “You think Jack hurt me? Oh goodness, no!”

  “Darling, we don’t need to hear your excuses. It’s sometimes a woman’s…”

  “No,” Violet shot back, not even wanting to hear the nonsense that Mildred was about to share. “It’s not. By Jove, Jack didn’t do this. A person who killed a friend of ours and tried to kill another did. Jack and my brother are the reason I survived.”

  “Really, I would give credit to Beatrice and Kate.” Jack didn’t seem upset. Why wasn’t he bothered by the accusation? Violet’s eyes filled with tears as she considered it and then laughed at the look on Jack’s face. “Oh, a cocktail. I rather need one. Perhaps a cocktail and a drink. Don’t worry, Jack, I’ll stop up the floodgates.”

  “Ah—” Jack handed her his handkerchief. “Darling Violet, I’ve never seen you this weepy. Let’s break into another room before those tears actually start falling.”

  “But—” Violet ran her fingers over her arms and shivered. “Oh, this happened last time I took that morphine too. I thought I was crying about what happened.”

  “So did I.” Jack didn’t sound nearly as amused as Violet. The tight look on his penetrating features made him seem rather terr
ifying.

  “You’d be quite a shocking villain, Jack.”

  He blinked a little stupidly at her and then cleared his throat. “Violet, I am not sure I can follow the processes of your mind on a normal day. Even with the smaller dose of morphine, I feel like I’m watching a Mexican jumping bean.”

  “What are those?” Mildred asked. Jack glanced out the door to the stateroom before he answered and held up a hand to silence them. They searched the next room as quietly as possible. It was occupied by a married man and the personal assistant of Mr. Grady. The personal assistant had the cursive script of a true artisan, and Betty didn’t even consider the possibility that the married man would be her admirer.

  “Father would fire him instantly. Father has morality clauses in all his employee’s contracts. I’m sure that whoever this is—they’re not married.”

  They were stuck in the stateroom for a good ten minutes while one of the porters worked in the passage. Mildred was doing a sort of whispered titter that sounded like a raspy squirrel dying.

  Violet had to bite her lip to keep her giggles in at the sound of Mildred’s constant odd noise. Jack’s searching glances told Violet he wasn’t quite sure what to make of Violet and was semi-concerned she was having a seizure.

  Violet bit her lip to hold back her giggles but when Mildred went into a particularly terrifying titter, Violet’s expression finally clued Jack into what was causing Violet’s own muffled reactions. His face stayed as silent as ever, but his gaze glinted at her. She cast him a wide grin just as someone started to open the door to the stateroom they were in.

  Mildred gasped, thankfully choking on her shock while Jack calmly called, “I’m in here.”

  Violet glanced around and found Betty holding both hands over her mouth, gaze wide and terrified while Mildred was nearly biting a hole into her bottom lip.

  “Apologies, sir,” the voice called, and Violet mouthed ‘porter’ to the other two women. Mildred hid her blue eyes with clenched lids and let out a relieved sigh. At the same time, Betty’s eyes glittered with excitement.