Stolen Remains (22 page)

Violet restrained a mild laugh of amusement. Here she was, relegated to the servants’ quarters of a squabbling family, hoping that their patriarch’s dead body would soon be recovered and his killer identified, so that she might finally have permission from the queen to go home.

Free, indeed.

Dorothy couldn’t contain herself. “And what of me? The famed Fairmont Spinster, without even a son to dote on. At least Father permitted you to be married. And Gordon isn’t so bad. I’d have called it a fine day if Father had picked him for me. You’re an ungrateful snob, Nelly, and always have been.” Dorothy was loud and shrill.

“Hah! As if even a mouse like Gordon would have looked twice at you after meeting me. But isn’t that just selfish old Dorothy, worried about her own marital status when my husband has been arrested—
arrested
—for no good reason and now sits rotting at Newgate. But don’t worry, dear sister, I have no real venom for you. I blame this on Stephen. Don’t you think it’s time you shared your secret?”

“Why? What bearing could it possibly have on Father’s death or disappearance?”

Nelly’s voice dropped lower. Violet crept down several more stairs in order to hear her. “It would show that you are a liar and a bit of a . . . thief, wouldn’t it? You might not want Inspector Hurst to know that about you, but I imagine the inspector would be very interested in it.”

Someone gasped. Violet wasn’t sure if it was Katherine or Dorothy.

“You are trying me, Nelly. Be very careful with what you choose to bandy about to the police. Any secrets we keep are merely for the good of the family. Since you are a member in good standing of this family—for now—I advise you to keep your simpleminded blathering to yourself.”

Violet heard a couple of grunts and a sound as though a chair was being rolled along the floor. Had Stephen just pushed Nelly into the same slipper chair she’d been in when Violet visited her? The sound of footsteps in the room drove Violet back up to the servants’ floor. She waited until everyone dispersed before heading back downstairs again and seeking Stephen out.

He was in his father’s study, grinding a fist into his palm as he stared out the window.

“Excuse me, Stephen?” Violet said. She had no idea how explosive his mood might be after what had just happened.

“For heaven’s sake, what is it? Oh, Violet, sorry, do come in. Louisa said your things arrived earlier.”

“Yes, I was just upstairs unpacking and thought I’d find you to let you know I’m here. Since I’ve already spoken with Mrs. Bishop, I thought I might talk next to Miss Fairmont.”

“As you wish. You don’t need to—”

Stephen was cut off by Nelly’s screech, which pierced through the air like a cat whose paw has been caught underfoot.

“What the deuce . . .” Stephen ran out of the room and down the stairs, with Violet on his heels.

Gordon Bishop stood in the drawing room, clutching a babbling Nelly, who could scarcely contain her train of thought.

“Why did they release you? How did you get home? Your suit is so very crumpled; we must have it pressed. Did they feed you well? I’m sure we have something left over from dinner. Were they cruel to you? Toby will want to know straightaway that his father is home.”

Gordon was completely unable to get a word in edgewise, yet reveled in his wife’s attention. For a man who had just spent time in a cell with others he undoubtedly considered his inferiors, Gordon Bishop glowed like a full moon.

“I see Mr. Hall finally had some influence,” Stephen said, clapping his brother-in-law on the back.

“He must have. All I know is that an officer came and released me without explanation, told me to go home.”

So Inspector Hurst had lived up to his end of the bargain. Now Violet would have to live up to hers.

S
tephen Fairmont, the new Viscount Raybourn, gave his wife a reassuring squeeze on her elbow as the family settled in on an overcast morning to hear Mr. Hall read from the will.

Poor Katherine was just exhausted from the entire ordeal. Her constitution wasn’t as strong as, say, Nelly’s. Nelly sat several seats away, her face nearly obscured by the fashionable black hat she was wearing. Where did she get such a hideous thing? The flowers on the brim were large enough to attract a swarm of bumblebees.

As impassive as Nelly was, Gordon was sitting forward eagerly in a freshly pressed suit, while Toby sat away from his parents at the back of the room, with his nose in a book.

Why so disinterested? The boy was certain to inherit quite a bit from his grandfather.

Dorothy’s usual sour expression was unchanging. She probably assumed that Father would be as kind to her in death as he had been in life. Stephen resolved to use some of his inheritance to help make her independent.

Mr. Hall cleared his throat noisily, as if a bumblebee from Nelly’s hat had flown over and gotten caught in his throat.

“We are all saddened by the loss of Anthony Fairmont, the Viscount Raybourn,” he began. “It is my duty and honor, as the family solicitor, to inform you of the dispensation of Lord Raybourn’s worldly goods.”

The solicitor covered various minor bequests to friends and colleagues, followed by gifts to various Willow Tree estate servants. Madame Brusse and Larkin, who had disappeared somewhere with Father down in Egypt, were given thirty pounds each.

“Now I will read the more, er, significant bequests.”

How odd. Father didn’t mention a small legacy for Mrs. Peet. It was almost as if he knew she wouldn’t survive to receive it.

Mr. Hall outlined specific monies and items for Dorothy and the Bishops, all of whom nodded happily. Ironically, Father left his entire tobacco collection to Gordon, who seemed fully recovered from his short imprisonment. What would Father say if he knew it had been responsible for nearly destroying his son-in-law’s life?

“For my eldest son, Stephen Francis Fairmont . . .”

Naturally, Father passed Willow Tree estate and its contents not otherwise bequeathed to Stephen. He stood.

“Thank you, Mr. Hall, I prefer not to belabor all of Father’s holdings in front of my siblings.”

The bumblebee rattled around in the solicitor’s throat again. “I’m sorry, Lord Raybourn, but I’m not quite finished with your father’s bequests.”

Stephen frowned but sat back down. What else was there?

“As I was saying, ‘The property known as Willow Tree and its surrounding acreage, plus all furnishings and goods not otherwise assigned are hereby willed to Stephen in accordance with English law and tradition. The property known as Raybourn House, plus all furnishings and goods not otherwise assigned, are also willed to Stephen. The remaining cash and securities I own not otherwise assigned, including my interests in the Great Western Railway and Union Bank of London, I leave to my dearest friend and companion, Harriet Peet.”

Stephen blinked. Did the solicitor just say that his father was leaving the bulk of his cash to
the housekeeper?

Thank God she was dead.

He immediately regretted that uncharitable thought. Was everyone else as shocked as he was? He turned again to look at his other family members, just in time to witness Dorothy pitching forward to the floor in a dead faint.

Violet joined the family for a relatively peaceful, if peculiar, dinner that day. The Fairmonts were probably the first aristocratic family in England to have their undertaker sharing their supper table with them.

The food delivery from Pye’s was piping hot and fresh, and conversation focused on Lord Raybourn’s will.

Poor Dorothy, she had a blackened eye and her lower lip was swollen from a fall in the solicitor’s office. Her appearance was even more forbidding as a result.

As discussion about the devastating will faded, a pall of gloom descended over the dining room table, impacting everyone except Toby, who seemed to find the entire situation mildly amusing.

Not even Violet’s suggestion that Mr. Bishop was looking well after his stay at Newgate elicited any significant comment, other than Nelly’s offhanded “He was happy to return to his insects.”

Now that the excitement surrounding Gordon’s arrest, imprisonment, and release was wearing off, replaced by other, more pressing news, Nelly was returning to her normal self.

As they finished off cups of baked lemon pudding, Louisa entered the room with a sealed note in her hand. “Sorry, my lord. I just found this pushed through the mail slot with a message that I must give it to you right away.”

Stephen attempted to remain calm as he opened the note, but his glance at Violet across the table told her that he shared her own fear: that this was from Lord Raybourn’s kidnappers.

He scanned the contents quickly and dropped the note to the table. He spoke quietly. “The money is due in two days. They will let us know tomorrow where to drop it off. What a penny dreadful this has become.”

Violet pushed her plate away without comment, lifted her skirts, and ran for the hallway, scurrying quickly out the front door. She clutched the porch railing, looking right and left in Park Street from her perch seven stairs up from the hive of activity. Although there was little carriage traffic in this genteel neighborhood, there were plenty of people moving to and fro, including the young boy hawking newspapers in the street itself, as well as a flower seller encouraging wealthy men to buy a bouquet before returning home to their wives.

Violet did not see anyone suspiciously running away from Raybourn House.

Not that the note couldn’t have been delivered by anyone she saw in the street below her. Perhaps the newspaper boy had been paid to deliver it.

She went to where the same grimy boy was selling newspapers and purchased a copy of
The London Illustrated News
from him.

The boy insisted that he had not delivered a note to the Raybourn home, nor had he noticed who had done so. Violet gave him an extra halfpence, which he happily pocketed.

The flower seller said the same thing, so Violet returned to the house, now carrying both a newspaper and a bouquet of fragrant peonies.

She had no idea the detection business could be so costly.

Back inside, the family members had apparently been revived by dessert or the note, for they were arguing over how to pay the upcoming ransom. With Mrs. Peet’s death mucking up the remarkable contents of the will, Lord Raybourn’s accounts would not be turned over in a timely enough way for the kidnappers, so something else had to be done. Violet listened quietly from the hallway, and quickly determined that the battle was ranging between Dorothy, Nelly, and Gordon, who thought the ransom was entirely Stephen’s duty, and Stephen, Katherine, and, surprisingly, Toby, who felt that it was a family responsibility and that some household items of value should be sold to pay the ransom.

Violet had never been more grateful for her own familial harmony. She even missed her mother’s complaining in light of what was going on inside this home. Rather than listen in on the Fairmonts’ continued warfare, she went up to her own room and wrote a letter to Sam, inquiring as to when he would return from Sweden and letting him know of her new living arrangements.

She took a break from her writing to look out the window to the street scene below. As she watched traffic go by, Toby left the house. At the bottom of the steps, he looked both ways as if worried that someone was watching him, then headed south on Park Street to a destination unknown.

As she finished up her letters, she heard the servants’ bell ringing repeatedly. Eventually, there was a tap at her door from Louisa.

“Mrs. Harper, Mrs. Bishop asks to see you.”

Putting aside pen and paper, Violet went down to Nelly’s room. Gordon’s wife greeted her with a smile. “Please, have a seat. Would you like some?” She poured steaming tea into a fragile cup with a gilded rim, placed it on a matching saucer, and handed it over to Violet.

“Sugar? Milk?”

“No, thank you.”

Nelly added four cubes of sugar to her own cup and stirred vigorously. “How is your tea?”

Violet sipped, confused as to why she was here. “Lovely.”

Nelly nodded as she took her own taste. “How are you getting on up in Mrs. Peet’s room?”

“Well enough. It’s not St. James’s Palace, of course.”

“No, I suppose it isn’t. There are no other bedrooms available in the house, though, and you’re the undertaker. . . .”

Violet smiled. She was like a governess. Not a servant, but not quite respectable, either. “I’m not used to such finery, anyway. It’s rather wasted on me.”

“Oh, that’s good to know. I mean, not that finery is wasted on you, but that you don’t mind.” Nelly took another long swallow from her cup, as though dragging out the moment until she decided what to say next.

“How are your investigations coming along? Have you any idea yet who may have killed my father and stolen his body?”

“It may not have been the same person. Or persons.”

“No, of course not. Do you have any suspects, though? Isn’t that what they say in the detective novels?”

“None that I know of. It’s difficult to fathom why someone would take a corpse and hold it for ransom. Such things are normally done with living people of great importance to their families. You’d think they would have kidnapped Lord Raybourn
before
he died, not after.”

Nelly raised an eyebrow. “If they’d done it while my father was still alive, Dorothy might have insisted that the kidnappers keep him.”

“You would have paid the ransom, though, wouldn’t you?”

Nelly poured herself more tea, another delay as she considered her response. “He is my Toby’s grandfather, so, yes, I would have been as insistent on retrieving his living self as Stephen is about getting back his dead self. Listen to us, such morbid creatures. It’s all this black we’re wearing. I don’t know how you don such bleak attire each day.”

“It comforts my customers.”

“I suppose so. Personally, I’m ready to move on to lilac or mauve. Or at least gray, although that color always makes me look sallow. I wish gray could be completely eliminated from half mourning. I should write—” Nelly stopped and sipped.

“Yes?” Violet said.

“I should write a book to rival
Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management
. I would call it
Mrs. Bishop’s Book of Happy Living,
and I would recommend elimination of all traditions and customs that are boring, oppressive, or ridiculous.”

“Mrs. Bishop, I must confess something to you.”

“Of course, what is it?” Nelly’s eyes lit up as though she were about to receive a state secret.

“I hate Mrs. Beeton.”

For the first time since they’d been together under the same roof, Violet heard peals of laughter ring from Nelly’s throat. “How is it that you can hate the highly regarded Mrs. Beeton?”

“That woman has caused me no end of trouble in my life. When you write your book, Mrs. Bishop, you should also eliminate all onerous housekeeping tasks, too.”

Nelly tapped the side of her head. “I’ll remember that. Well, if you don’t have any suspects yet . . .”

This was Violet’s cue to depart. “No, but I do have a question for you. I was wondering what you know about Toby’s . . . activities.”

“What activities?”

“Where he goes at night, whom he sees, that sort of thing.”

Nelly frowned. “Toby is actively pursuing a wife and a place in society. I imagine he is at clubs, dances, and sporting events.”

Violet nodded but said nothing.

“Why do you ask this? Are you accusing my little darling of something? You don’t suspect
him
of having anything to do with my father’s murder or kidnapping, do you?”

Nelly was quickly becoming a tigress defending her cub. Violet understood it; she’d developed claws many times herself during Susanna’s youth.

“Not at all. I just found it curious how often he goes off by himself. I’m sure you’re right that he’s pursuing his ambitions.”

Nelly was mollified. “Would you like a gooseberry scone? Louisa picked them up from a bakery this morning.”

Violet took the plate upon which the scone was presented, and also accepted the lemon curd Nelly offered. She felt as though she was being rewarded for good behavior, and it troubled her.

The following morning, all eyes were on Violet as another royal carriage drove away, its driver having delivered a message to her. The queen’s note felt like lead in her hands and she dreaded opening it. With the family waiting expectantly, though, she couldn’t very well retreat to her room to read it.

The note’s content and tone were what she had feared. She offered a wan smile to the Fairmonts.

“The queen has asked to see me.”

“Will you tell her what has happened?” Stephen asked.

“I don’t really have a choice. I cannot lie to the Queen of England.”

“No, no, of course not.”