The Wicked Fringe of Mystery: A Severine DuNoir Historical Cozy Adventure Read online

  Would it be Charles Brand coming along to tell of Uncle Henry’s fury at being denied? Perhaps it would be Severine’s half-brother who had been attempting to both keep his allowance and manipulate her until she was under his thumb rather than Mr. Brand’s. The fact that there were so many options made her head hurt, but she continued to dress.

  She’d risen and found a lukewarm cup of Bernadette’s special tea. Lukewarm made it even worse than usual, but she choked it down before putting on her stockings and shoes and then applying her red lipstick.

  There was something about accepting that she was naturally pale that provided her permission to feel off. Or maybe it just disguised when she was unwell. Those who loved her, except the ever observant Bernadette, expected the paleness, and noticed only the contrast between the red lipstick and her pallor—never realizing that her pallor had intensified.

  Severine took a deep breath and placed her hand over her chest. The racing of her heart had passed while she’d lain down in her bed, and now she felt ready to face the others again. There was something so weak, she thought, about having such a reaction to her uncle when he wasn’t even threatening her.

  But, no. She shook her head as she added a flowered and feathered dark gray headpiece to her hair. It wasn’t weak to have a reaction to someone who intended that of her. Her uncle had wanted Severine to feel intimidated, Severine was certain of it—so if recognizing that and having a reaction made her weak, maybe she was weak after all. But she preferred to think instead that she might have won because despite his intent and her reaction, she’d held her ground.

  Severine left her bedroom with Anubis at her heels and paused when she heard the upset below. She had known something was wrong and lingered too long. She hurried down the steps and found that it was the unflappable Bernadette who was pale instead. Next to her was a weeping young woman who was, perhaps, twenty years old.

  “What happened?” Severine demanded just as Fabian opened the door and let in Mr. Brand, Mr. Oliver, and Mr. Thorne.

  “One of my ladies is missing,” Bernadette said. “Lucille Copley didn’t go home after watching one of the addresses last night.”

  Those who had just heard paused in shock.

  “Which address?” Charles Brand demanded.

  “Is this unusual?” Osiris Oliver asked, far more gently.

  “What can we do?” Greyson Thorne asked next.

  Severine bypassed all of them and crossed to the weeping young woman. She knelt down and took her hands and squeezed. “We’ll do what we can.”

  The young woman clutched a handkerchief tightly. Her eyes were swollen with crying, and she moved as if she hurt. Severine knew too well that worry and fear could do that to you, and empathy for the woman rose in her.

  She was a ginger with a light scattering of freckles and light green eyes. With her pale pink lips and curls that had been bobbed, she was practically a technicolor film while Severine was an old black and white silent film.

  “This is your fault,” the young woman hissed to Severine, gaze screwed up in fury.

  Severine leaned back, startled at the rush of anger, and glanced behind her.

  Mr. Thorne stepped forward and lifted Severine to her feet. “Why don’t we step into the parlor and see what we can discover?”

  Bernadette rose, circles of color on her cheeks much in contrast to Severine’s pale ones. On Bernadette, however, it was so different than her usual tanned and ruddy cheeks that Severine felt the need to cross to her and put her arm around the woman’s waist. She knew she’d be rebuffed and instead glanced at Fabian and asked him, “Send coffee and tea please. And, whatever Chantae thinks would be wise.”

  He nodded and then waited until they stepped into the parlor, carefully securing the door and then hurrying down the hall. She saw him check her office door, make sure it was locked, and then set Persephone to guarding that door. There was little doubt that the garden door would also be secured with Kali guarding the back door.

  They seated themselves as Fabian and Lisette returned. Lisette slipped into a chair at the back of the room while Fabian watched from the doorway. Severine waved Lisette over as Bernadette asked, “You’re Lucille’s niece? Wanda?”

  “Yes,” the girl said, nodding. Her anger hadn’t faded, so it sounded more like she’d ground the word out than spoken it.

  Severine saw Bernadette flinch slightly and she asked, “Which address was Lucille watching?”

  “I don’t know,” Wanda snapped. “Shouldn’t you know?”

  “She had several places that she had told me she was going to revisit,” Bernadette replied. Severine saw her friend flinch slightly at the lamp and guessed that her own stress-filled headaches had spread to Bernadette. “She didn’t say why. Only that she had an idea and wanted to see if it played out.”

  “Well, it must have,” Wanda said. “You put her in danger, and now she’s missing, and—and—-” She trailed off, putting her knuckle in her mouth, still covered in the handkerchief, and bit down hard.

  Severine lifted a brow at the sight of a grown woman biting herself, but she said nothing, leaving it to Bernadette.

  “We’ll find your aunt,” she said. She glanced at the other and then said, “I wonder, Lisette, if we might use your rather large family? Severine will pay them for their time. I think we must send those who can blend best and use extreme safety tips.”

  “I’ll get started, ma’am,” Fabian said, so Lisette could stay.

  “We should be more than able to see what there is to be found.”

  “Greyson and I can check the hospitals. Perhaps we’re jumping to conclusions. Maybe there was an accident or she had a heart attack. She wasn’t young, correct?”

  “Correct,” Bernadette replied, but it was clear she didn’t believe that any more than Severine. It was important to rule those things out, but Wanda didn’t give them a chance to explain reasoning.

  “Please don’t fool yourselves. You did this.” She furiously wiped away a tear and shot them all a dark look.

  “We aren’t fooling ourselves,” Bernadette told Wanda. Bernadette’s expression turned dark and considering as she eyed the young woman. “I was very clear with Lucille about what she was getting into, and she knew the risk she was taking. We will do all we can to find her. And we will cover all the possibilities, but let me be clear—Lucille was an adult woman with a fully functioning capacity to understand the path she was on. Blaming us is juvenilizing her, and she deserves better than that.”

  Wanda’s gaze narrowed and she started to reply, but Bernadette cut her off with a gesture.

  “The first thing we’ll do is see if we can find her. Mr. Brand, you coordinate. Severine, you are too obvious to go yourself.”

  Severine started to object, but Bernadette spoke over her. “You manage the base. Wanda, I will go with you to your rooms and see if I can discover where your aunt had gone this evening and see what she was pursuing.”

  Wanda didn’t seem satisfied, but she rose to follow Bernadette to the McFarlan TV6 that had arrived in the weeks before. Bernadette had already known how to drive, and the sensible larger vehicle filled a need for their household.

  In what felt like minutes, everyone left her behind and she stared at the closed door and sighed, turning to the kitchen where Lisette’s grandmother had remained behind. The full dinner was finished and ready to be eaten, but everyone had left.

  “I suppose we shouldn’t let it go entirely to waste,” Severine said, and slumped down at the kitchen table. Sister Sophie entered the kitchen and took in Severine’s expression.

  “Oh,” Sister Sophie said, adjusting her mantle. “Whatever has happened?”

  Edmée answered while Severine rubbed her temples. She’d have given a lot for a redo on this day and far more for a chicory coffee.

  “Oh dear,” Sister Sophie replied softly. “I feel that it is beginning again.”

  “What?” Edmée asked as she started to serve up three plates.

  “The next round of terrible discoveries that will put you one step closer to the killer of your parents and one foot deeper in their corruption.”

  Edmée delivered their plates to the smaller kitchen table, and they ate quietly, each musing in their own way.

  “Is there any hope for Miss Cohen?”

  Severine paused, considering what they knew. “I believe it’s very unlike her to not be in contact with her niece or Bernadette. She had sort of risen through the ranks of Bernadette’s ladies.”

  Sister Sophie frowned and then muttered something low.

  “What was that?” Edmée asked.

  “I fear that those who are behind this type of thing are not unknown to Bernadette and myself. Our Sister Mary Chastity knew them well before she left. During the war there was some direct opposition between herself and Lukas.”

  “Was it my father who hurt her?” Severine demanded.

  Sister Sophie paused for so long Severine didn’t think she would get an answer. But to her surprise, Sister Sophie slowly shook her head. “It’s difficult to say, my darling. There was much that fed into Sister Mary Chastity’s situation and caused her to leave. But of the brothers, your father’s greatest sin when it came to her was negligence and a sense of ownership. I’m not sure that Mary Chastity was a real person to him. Not until she made herself known and by then, her trust had been lost.”

  Severine bit down on her bottom lip and then suggested, “Uncle Henry, however—”

  “Exactly,” Sister Sophie said gently, cutting off Severine’s secondary attempt at information. Sister Sophie perfunctorily patted Severine’s hand and added, “You deserve to know your father was complicit, but you also deserve to know that if he’d been paying better attention, many of the things that happened to her wouldn’t have happened.”

  Severine frowned deeply, her headache intensifying.

  Sister Sophie added, “Sister Mary Chastity’s secrets remain her own.”

  Severine nodded and then took a bite of her roasted chicken just to distract herself. She took a deep breath in and wanted nothing more than to believe that her father wasn’t a villain. There had been so many times at the nunnery when she tried to imagine why her parents had died and when her memories forced her to realize they’d been murdered because of who they were and what her father had been doing.

  Severine glanced at Edmée and asked, “Have you met Lucille?”

  Edmée shook her head. “Most of them don’t come here. I think your Bernadette prefers to see them in the church.”

  “The church?” Severine demanded.

  “It’s a good place for whispered conversations and running into someone ‘unexpectedly.’”

  Severine shrugged. The ladies were hired to help put a scope on the machinations of those who had taken over Lukas DuNoir’s criminal enterprise. The ladies had also been hired to discover as many of the dirty officials in New Orleans as possible. Bernadette had taken over the attic after the children left and her reports of what she had been finding were disturbing, to say the least.

  Chapter 5

  When the others didn’t return, Severine made her way up to the attic. She hadn’t been up there since the updated work had been completed but before Bernadette had taken it over. When Severine had returned to the house, it was full of decades of … things. Bernadette had those things donated, disposed of, or re-employed in the house. Once that had been completed, the windows had been replaced, the flooring had been improved, and the walls had been painted.

  Now, it was well-lit and looked a little like a classroom. There were shelves of books, a cluster of framed photographs along one wall, and a framed map of the city. This was no realm of madness, but an organized collection.

  Severine crossed to the photographs and found herself in the center. The two photographs closest to herself were her parents, and there was a piece of twine going from Severine to each parent. On the twine, notes had been written.

  Severine read the note for her mother first. “Flora DuNoir, formally Florette Charpentier. Marriage to Lukas DuNoir seems to have been based off of spur of the moment passion turned to regret. Lover of Henry DuNoir. Lover of Harland Ruggles. Lover of Matthew Drew.”

  Severine’s mouth dropped open and she stared in shock. She hadn’t realized or even imagined that her mother had so many lovers. Somehow, Severine couldn’t imagine her father being unaware. Was it possible that they had been murdered by a jealous lover?

  Except, Severine shook her head, another possible motive for murder didn’t remove all of the previous possible motives. Regardless, if that was the reason her parents had been murdered, it wasn’t the reason that Lucille Cohen had disappeared.

  Severine turned away and looked at the map of the city. There were small flags pinned into the map, and none of them provided any information. There was an assumption of understanding in this room, Severine thought, and she didn’t have that. Bernadette had laid out her thoughts in this room, and Severine had no idea what her friend was thinking.

  It was nearly as bad as where she had been trying to focus her efforts. Diving into her father’s records while Bernadette had focused on the business as it was now had been a mistake. Severine shook her head at herself. She had been pursuing the wrong information.

  The moment she had realized that someone had been targeting her, she should have switched from her obsessive need to uncover the truth about her parents’ death and focused only on who was targeting her, why they were targeting her, and what else they were doing.

  “You’re not very bright sometimes,” Severine told herself.

  “You’re mourning still.”

  Severine screamed and then found that Sister Sophie had quietly followed her up the stairs. “It’s been years since they died.”

  “There isn’t a time limit on mourning or a right way to do it. Yours was prolonged because it was paused, Sev.”

  Severine would have shook off the comfort, but she respected Sister Sophie too much for such a thing. Instead, she pressed a kiss on Sister Sophie’s forehead and asked, “Can you explain?”

  “There’s no explaining Bernadette,” Sister Sophie laughed, “so no.”

  Severine took Bernadette’s seat and stared at the walls and then slowly pulled the book on the desk towards her. Rather than continue to debate the validity of her mourning, Severine focused on the pages. She wasn’t, however, really able to take them in. She found herself wondering again about her parents. Had she been mourning them?

  She pictured her father in her head, and she knew that she wanted him. She wanted to walk into his office—even knowing what he was—and talk to him. Not just about why he had been doing what he’d been doing. She could guess at that. His family had fallen on terrible times and his machinations had changed their fate. He’d worked quick, hard, and vicious.

  She wanted to talk to him about other things. What he remembered of his grandparents. His favorite food. His favorite color. What he’d thought when she’d been born. Did he have a favorite book? Had he loved her mother? Even if he hadn’t loved her when they’d died, had he loved Flora ever? Had he ever loved anyone else? What about his slew of illegitimate children? Did he have regrets? If he could imagine a perfect day—that didn’t involve crime—what would it be?

  Her eyes swam with emotions. Yes, she thought, she was mourning her parents. Her father in particular. She had known her mother hadn’t really loved her. Severine had still hoped, however, that her father might love her and then he had died.

  She sniffed. What could be more melodramatic? People were missing, some had died, and she was still the little orphan who hoped that someone would love her. Poor little rich girl, Severine scolded. Poor little neglected girl with the silver spoon, the fortune, and the deficit of love.

  Severine took a long deep breath in and she focused on Sister Sophie. Severine had been unloved. Those days were long since past. She fisted her hands and said, “I need to find a disguise.”

  “A disguise?” Sister Sophie asked in alarm.

  “Black dress, red lipstick, long black hair—I’ll be immediately recognized wherever I go. I need to find something that is easily overlooked.”

  Sister Sophie looked Severine over and then she shook her head. “There are any number of those who will step into the alleys for you. Who will watch buildings and help you to tear down your father’s kingdom.”

  “Then what am I supposed to do?” Severine pulled off the flowers she’d pinned into her hair and tossed them onto Bernadette’s desk.

  “You’re supposed to not leave them to it,” Sister Sophie told Severine with the clear understanding of how easy it would be for her to take her father’s fortune and leave the mess behind. That course of action had been one that Severine had said she had turned from. But as each day stretched out dark and with less hope, the appeal of other places rose.

  Had her recommendations to Florette to flee been so easy to suggest because they were what Severine wanted? Was she finally figuring out what she wanted in life, and was it something other than discovering her father’s murderer?

  Severine ran her fingers through her long hair, disrupting the carefully created loose curls, and then tucked her hair behind her ears. She played with the pencils laid perfectly in front of her and considered if she was strong enough to avoid fleeing and stand with those who were helping her.

  “So, I’m the figurehead?” Severine asked, knowing it would not be enough for her.

  “You just need to not leave them behind, darling. If you leave them here, on their own, they’ll be worse off after having helped you.”

  Severine nodded and then rubbed her temples. Being the one who stayed behind was terrible. She’d much rather be out there with Mr. Thorne or Mr. Brand or Lisette, seeing what there was to be seen. Only she’d become rather too famous in the last year. Her name had been in the paper with Mr. Van Ausdell’s death and in association with the death of the children’s parents. She had been in the paper as the daughter of Lukas DuNoir and for her girls’ school.