Haunting Violet (20 page)

Dear Lord Thornwood,

It is clear you are my father. I am certain this comes as a surprise to you, as it did me. I wondered if you would call on us or if I might visit? I understood my father to be dead, you see, and I would dearly love to know if I have any brothers or sisters and if I get my love of butter tarts from you? Mother can't abide the taste. I know this is very untoward but surely, in this matter, family might be more important than etiquette?

Sincerely,

Violet

I read it over three times before signing my name. And then I deliberated over signing Violet Willoughby, which felt natural, or Violet St. Clair, which wasn't exactly the truth but could have been, had circumstances been different.

I wanted to ask if I might come and stay with him, but I didn't.

The next morning I was desperate to get out of the house. It wasn't normal for my mother to be so silent when a crisis was brewing. A long walk in the fresh air seemed a prudent escape; only when I opened the front door, there was a shout and then something sailed past my head. A half-rotted cabbage landed with a
splat
on the floor of the crooked hall. I blinked at it, utterly confused. Why was it raining salad?

I turned to see a lady with a pram, two men with long whiskers, and a gap-toothed eight-year-old girl. The girl grinned and lobbed another missile, this one apparently a handful of squashed radishes. I slammed the door shut before we had a cold buffet in the front corridor. The shouts grew louder, denied their target. If I had better aim I'd have opened the door and tossed it all right back at them. But with my luck I'd hit the sleeping baby or an innocent old grandmother out for her morning constitutional. And then we'd be dragged through the streets for certain.

Dread uncurled in the pit of my stomach.

“Is that cabbage?” Colin asked, coming out of the dining room. Listening to the raised voices, he reached for the doorknob, frowning. I caught his hand.

“Don't.”

“Whyever not?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You'll get a rotted meat tart in the eye for your trouble, that's why.”

“Miss Willoughby?” Marjorie interrupted timidly.

“Yes, Marjie?”

“I thought you should see this.”

She handed me the daily newspapers, which were still warm as she'd just finished ironing them to dry the ink. She chewed her lower lip as Colin leaned in to read the scandal sheet over my shoulder.

It has come to my attention, dear Reader, that a certain Mrs. W— has been recently exposed as a fraudulent medium. She was discovered in a shocking state of dishabille at an influential country house party. Sources say she fled the scene under cover of darkness, with her disgraced daughter. This is yet another scandal in an increasing blight against the good name of the Spiritualist Society. We must be ever vigilant and on our guard against such trickery. Having been privy to the true talents of our day, this writer, for one, was not taken in by Mrs. W—'s decidedly showy tactics.

Mother, of course, chose that moment to come down the stairs for the first time since we'd arrived back home. She was wearing one of my precious new dresses, yellow with white stripes on the underskirt. Even with her trim figure, the dress did not quite fit right, so she had left off her stays. Her cleavage was rather startling. She raised her brows at my double-take.

“Well, since I can't go about in half mourning any longer, why shouldn't I have some fun? I've had precious little of it for myself, haven't I?” She came the rest of the way down the steps, movements graceful and steady, speech precise. Still, the scent of rosewater wasn't enough to cover the sherry fumes. Her eyes glittered, then narrowed.

“What on earth is going on?” she demanded peevishly when the uproar swelled and pushed through the cracks at the door and window. It sounded a little as if we'd removed to a cottage by the sea. I tried to fold the newspaper away discreetly but the crinkle gave me away.

“That's today's paper?” She held out her hand as I winced. “Let me see.”

“Mother …”

She waggled her fingers impatiently. “Now, Violet.”

I handed it over slowly, along with a stack of canceled dinner invitations. Colin and I were frozen as we watched her skim the dark print. Her lips tightened, white lines forming little brackets. When she flung the door open, the light fell over her like a painting of an Amazon warrior. Her hair streamed behind her and rage made her face pale, her cheeks pink. The mob paused for a full moment, baskets of stinking produce temporarily forgotten. The door was smeared with pie crust, moldy cheese, and a single slimy leaf of lettuce trembling in the wind.

“You know nothing!” she yelled at them.

“Liar!” someone shouted, and a tomato landed on the second step, smashing into pulp like a bloodstain. I pushed the door shut with a resounding slam before either side could let loose with another volley. Several more fruits thumped, like the knock of a well-bred visitor.

“Mother, maybe we—” I put a hand on her arm but she shook me off with a snarl. All the other sounds receded, the angry shouts, the carriages passing, the rain of vegetables.

There was only my breath, the push of my blood in my veins, and the
crack
of my mother's hand across my face.

Colin swore. My cheek stung, tears scalding my eyes though I determined long ago not to let them fall. She pushed passed me, whirling toward the parlor, pages wrinkling in her hands as they formed trembling fists. We were frozen, watching her come apart.

“Dried-up old hag,” she shouted. “How
dare
she write about me in such a manner.” Her anger was punctuated by a thump as something wet flung against the window, rattling the panes. “Ingrates!” She tossed the paper away with one hand, hurling a candlestick at the wall with the other. The silver left a dent in the wallpaper. “Louts and filthy know-it-alls!”

She threw a porcelain figurine of a shepherdess next, followed by a shell-encrusted lampshade, a teacup, and then the entire teapot. Dark liquid rained over the settee, staining the cushions.

“Judge me, will they? Had every bloody thing handed to them, didn't they? Never worked a bloody hour in their lives.”

Porcelain and glass glittered on the floor and over the tables. She shrieked and knocked an occasional table onto its side. Colin and I backed away quietly, me cradling my still-throbbing face, and a wide-eyed Marjorie huddled in the shadows under the stairs.

CHAPTER 17

I
stayed out of her way for the rest of the morning. She stayed in the ruined parlor and drank sherry and threw every breakable she could find at the wall. My face still ached but the redness had faded.

When the knock sounded at the door, we all froze. It was the last sound we'd expected to hear. Surely no one would come calling now that we were social pariahs to be shunned and publicly ridiculed. It was unthinkable—and not to be trusted.

“Marjorie, answer the bloody door.” Mother weaved in the parlor doorway, her hair disheveled, her eyes bleary. Marjorie visibly swallowed before opening the door, clearly reaching the conclusion that the mob was preferable to further agitating my mother. I could hardly blame her. And though I knew Elizabeth must be angry, I was still half-hoping it was the delivery of a letter, sent post-haste and addressed to me.

It wasn't.

Instead, it was Nigel St. Clair, Earl of Thornwood.

I smiled hopefully. He must have received my letter and he'd come to call, to meet his daughter. He held an impeccably white handkerchief to his aristocratic nose. Egg dripped slowly down the red paint of the door, behind his head.

“Charming,” he muttered repressively. Nothing else flew through the air though. It was clear he was a gentleman of quality and no one would have dared, enraged mob or not. The bulk of his muscled carriage driver helped.

“I'm here to see … Mrs. Willoughby, was it? Do let me in before the smell sets into the fabric.” He twitched the sleeve of his pressed coat and sailed passed Marjorie, who didn't know what to do. She bobbed a hasty curtsy but he didn't notice. I was sitting on the stairs, trying to decide if there was anything left to salvage in the parlor.

“Nigel,” Mother half laughed, half slurred.

“Mary,” he said, exasperated, when she stumbled and he had to steady her with a gloved hand on her elbow.

She drew herself up proudly. “It's Celeste.”

“I see.”

She smiled like any polite hostess. “Would you care for some sherry?”

“No. Thank you.”

She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

“You're intoxicated.”

“Fancy.” She snorted. “I'm not intoxicated, I'm drunk.” She was turning to wander back into the shattered parlor in search of her teacup of sherry when I stood up. She caught the movement and turned back, eyes narrowed calculatingly. “Oh, you've come about the girl, haven't you?”

I felt myself flushing. Lord Thornwood cleared his throat.

“I suppose I have.” He looked me over carefully and I did the same to him. He was quite tall and rather thin, with those rare violet-blue eyes. His expression was bland, curious and distant all at once.

“Your name, child?”

“Violet, sir.”

“And how old are you?”

“Sixteen, sir.” I didn't know what the etiquette was for your first conversation with the father who hadn't known you existed and didn't look as if he cared overmuch for the news. So I retreated to thick politeness. I'd wanted him to be pleased to see me. I forced my lower lip not to tremble pathetically. He sighed.

“There's little point in denying the family resemblance, is there?”

“No, sir.”

He stared at me for another moment. “I hardly know what to think of this.”

And this was all the man who was my father could think to say to me. He didn't seem malicious exactly, just indifferent. When I was little, I'd longed to believe my mother's tales of a wealthy earl. I thought once he found us I would eat cake with pink icing, have my own pony and dolls dressed in French lace. When I got older, I'd assumed my mother made up the story of the titled son from Wiltshire to make herself feel better. I never imagined the man in question would show more interest in the crease in his sleeve than in his own newly discovered daughter.

“You never mentioned it,” he said to my mother as she smoothed her hair into some semblance of order.

“Would you have married me then?”

“Of course not.” He gaped at her. “You were a housemaid. I had a title to safeguard.”

“Yes, your mother thought so too.”

“Mother knew?” He blinked, taken aback.

“Of course.” She laughed but there was no humor in it, only dryness, like wood about to catch fire. “Women always know these things. She offered me a few hundred pounds to take myself off. Kind really. Most wouldn't have bothered.” She shrugged. “So I came back to London. I'd hardly have made that much blunt polishing your family silverware, would I?”

“Well, you've certainly made a muddle of it, haven't you?” he remarked, not unkindly.

“What would you know about it?” she lashed out. “You've never been hungry or alone, have you?” In her distress her carefully cultivated town accent crumbled under Cockney vowels.

“Mary—”

“I've told you, it's Celeste. Why were you at Rosefield if not to see me?”

“I was invited. Lord Jasper has long been friendly with my grandfather. I thought it might be amusing.” His mouth quirked, tone dry as matchsticks.

“Let's not quarrel, Nigel.” Mother pouted prettily, clearly deciding to take another tack. “The important thing is that you have a daughter. Why don't you take her home with you, then?”

He gave a bark of startled laughter. “You can't be serious.”

“Why not? She's as much your responsibility as she is mine. More, I'd say. You've never fed her or clothed her, have you? Not a penny.”

“I have a wife,” he said. “And two boys.”

So I did have siblings, after all. I wondered what they were like.

Mother clapped her hands. “Excellent. Violet is wonderful with children. She can take care of them.” I could only stare. I'd barely ever even interacted with children before.

“Celeste, you can't expect my wife, a duke's daughter no less, to accept a bastard into her house. Be reasonable.”

All the blood drained clear out of me. It didn't matter that I already knew I was a bastard; it was another thing entirely to hear it spoken by your very own father. And so casually, as if it were nothing.

“You have to take her.”

I felt weaker still. Neither of my parents wanted me.

“I simply can't. It's out of the question. I shouldn't have come at all.” He handed me back the letter I'd written to him. “I'm sorry.”

“She's a St. Clair!” Mother chased him as he made his way to the front door. “She's one of you—you said so yourself.”

He shook his head again.

“How am I supposed to feed her?” she screeched as he went down the walkway to his waiting carriage. She watched him until he was down the congested road and out of sight. Then she came back into the gloomy hall and seemed to deflate. When she said it again, her voice was tiny and broken. “How am I supposed to feed you?”

I sat on the step until the shadows grew longer and longer, until the crowd outside grew bored and went off to find their supper. Marjorie came to light the lamps and sweep out the parlor. Her eye was swollen and bruised, as she'd made the mistake of knocking on Mother's door to ask if she needed anything. Mutely, I helped Marjorie gather all the broken crockery for the dustbin, carted out a splintered chair that required repairing, and rehung one of the drapes. There was a large tea stain that wouldn't scrub out of the paper, nor would it blend sufficiently into the pattern. We covered it with a seascape painting from the hallway. The drawing room looked sparse now, empty.

I didn't weep until I was alone in my room, with a single candle and the distant sound of hooves from the street under the narrow window. And once I'd started, I couldn't seem to stop, even when my eyes ached and were as pink as hollyhock petals. I hardly knew what to do with myself. When I went to bed, I used the cold water on the washstand to clean my face. Looking up, the reflection in the glass was not my own—instead it had blond hair, white lilies, and dark bruises.

“Rowena,” I murmured. She faded as quickly as she'd appeared, and I was left looking only at myself. “Wait, come back!”

But no matter how I begged, she wouldn't come back. Another ghost did though, but it was an old man who didn't look my way. He shuffled his feet, walking through the wall.

The thought that he could wander through my room when I was asleep—or worse, dressing—had me scattering salt over the spot where he'd been.

I finally went to bed and lay in the dark, unable to sleep, and turned the events of the week over and over again in my head, as if they were good, rich soil that might sprout an answer or two.

Needless to say, nothing grew.

Caroline had lit the lamp at the séance with deliberate intent. I was hardly a threat to her charge, but it was clear she didn't like me poking around and asking questions about Rowena. Were we looking for a murderess and not a murderer? Or perhaps she was protecting Peter? And what could have induced either of them to such an action? How on earth was I supposed to prove their guilt and vindicate Rowena's restless spirit?

I groaned and punched at my pillow. There were too many questions circling in my head, none of them willing to let me rest. Why had Rowena chosen me of all people? Lord Jasper knew other mediums, surely, and she might have showed herself to anyone one of them.

Poor Rowena.

Because if I was her only hope, she was doomed.

It was past midnight when I gave up trying to sleep. I'd been lying there for hours, listening to carriages rolling down the street and making myself mad with the attempt to alternately forget about Rowena and figure out what had happened to her. Neither was terribly successful.

I did, however, recall something Elizabeth had said about the funeral.

Determined to do something, even if it was foolhardy and futile, I put on my most serviceable dress and hurried up the stairs to Colin's room in the attic. I knocked and waited impatiently. I knocked again.

“What's the bloody idea?” He swung open the door, grumbling. “Violet?” He was suddenly alert. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing.” He wore trousers and nothing else. I tried very hard not to stare at his bare chest. The room behind him was tidy and sparse. I hadn't been up here since we'd stopped slipping spiders into each other's pillowcases.

“I'm sneaking out,” I announced in hushed tones.

He didn't waste a moment. “Let me get dressed.” He didn't say anything else, just turned away to fetch his shirt.

It was then that I knew. Really knew.

No matter what happened, I couldn't marry Xavier. I couldn't marry a perfectly nice boy who thought I was a perfectly nice girl because he didn't know me at all. I felt certain that Xavier would have entreated me to go back to sleep, but Colin offered to help me straightaway, without question. And though Xavier was handsome and well-to-do, he had one major flaw.

He wasn't Colin.

“What is it?” he asked, shutting the door behind him and frowning at me.