Haunting Violet by Alyxandra Harvey

He shrugged as Colin took a gulp and passed the flask back.

  “Bloody little else to do around here,” Peter drawled.

  I knew that drawl.

  I’d heard it in the garden coaxing Caroline for a kiss.

  One mystery solved, several more presented. Why was Mr. Travis spying on them? And what did an earl’s son and a governess have to whisper about in the dead of night? Did Caroline know something about Rowena’s demise that she wasn’t telling anyone? Or did Peter, who apparently had a beastly temper? I’d have to ask Elizabeth, but for the moment I’d lost her to Frederic’s questionable charms.

  “You hate Madeira,” she said to him.

  He blinked at her. “How do you know that?”

  She shrugged, blushing. “Are you enjoying your stay?”

  Peter laughed. “He’d be enjoying it more if Tabitha’s uncle hadn’t just booted him off the estate.”

  Elizabeth’s smile slipped. “You went to see Tabitha? Why?”

  Frederic shrugged. “She’s pretty, rich, and bored.”

  “Like you,” I muttered under my breath.

  “Wentworth wouldn’t hear of it though,” Peter added.

  “He booted us both off, if you’ll recall,” Frederic felt compelled to say. “He didn’t exactly ask you into the library for a glass of port, old boy.”

  Colin straightened away from the oak as the two boys bickered. “Pretty Violet,” he said. “What are you up to?”

  I tried not to blush as well. It wouldn’t do for both Elizabeth and me to giggle and tumble like lovesick puppies. Besides, it certainly didn’t matter a whit to me if Colin thought I was pretty. Really.

  I scowled.

  “Solemn little flower,” he said, too softly for the others to hear. He reached out and traced the lines on my brow. I had to swallow, my throat inexplicably dry. I thought for one wild moment that he was going to lean over and kiss me, right there in front of everyone.

  Xavier was about to propose. He was the one I ought to be kissing.

  Still, Colin was close enough that I could smell the sweet wine on his breath. And then, just as I wondered how much closer we were going to get, he reached out and snagged the book from my hand, quick as a spring storm. I made a grab for it, but too late. “Damn it, Colin.”

  He clucked his tongue. “Such language for a young lady.”

  “I am about to kick you in the shin.”

  He ignored me, reading the book’s title. I lifted my chin. I had no reason to feel embarrassed or vulnerable. So there.

  “What are you up to?” he asked me quietly.

  I flashed him a brief and patently insincere smile, which basically amounted to me baring my teeth like a wild dog. I snatched the book back. “Nothing,” I declared with false dignity. I stuck my nose up in the air for good measure as I grabbed Elizabeth’s hand. “We are taking a turn about the gardens.”

  He took a step toward me. “Violet.”

  I hurried away. I did not like how my breath was suddenly hot in my chest.

  “He’s very handsome,” Elizabeth whispered. “I never noticed. Even with the accent.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “You two bicker like brother and sister.”

  “He’s not my brother,” I snapped.

  She didn’t say anything else as we rushed across the cropped grass. By the time we reached the pond, we were out of breath. And now that we were here, with the instruction book in my hand, I felt a little silly. “Perhaps this isn’t such a good idea.”

  “It’s our only idea, Vi.”

  “True.” I skimmed the pages one more time before tucking the book away again. I pushed my hair off my face. I shifted from foot to foot.

  I felt like an idiot.

  Elizabeth grinned. “Have you got fleas?”

  I wrinkled my nose at her and stopped fidgeting. “Fine. Here we go.”

  I rolled my neck back and forth to loosen the muscles.

  “Vi.”

  “All right,” I muttered. I tried to calm the blood rushing in my ears, tried not to remember the feel of ghostly eyes turned my way at the ball. Part of me hoped this wouldn’t work at all. I’d spent so long fighting to be nothing like my mother that the irony of having actual medium talents hardly sat well.

  “Sp—” I had to stop and clear my throat. “Spirits, I invite you.” Elizabeth motioned for me to keep going when I hesitated again. “Rowena Wentworth, we call you to speak to us. Rowena!”

  A breeze ruffled across the surface. The grasses billowed, tangling. The mud at the bottom loosened, thickening the water. The sun shone brightly over us, indifferent.

  “Rowena!”

  The pond went dark, as if it were full of storm clouds. The water was the color of hyacinth and lilac blossoms, the reflection of my face blurring and changing. The eyes I looked into were no longer my own, my violet-blue went brown as chestnuts, my dark hair unraveled from its knot, like daffodils around the pale throat.

  Rowena floated peacefully in the pond.

  “Rowena, why do you keep coming to me?”

  She pointed to her throat. Her lips moved but no sound emerged. I’d heard all of those other ghostly voices, but I’d yet to hear hers, though I assumed it was the same as Tabitha’s, if less caustic.

  “Can’t you speak?” I asked.

  She shook her head. There were lilies in her hair again.

  “Because you drowned? Or were strangled?”

  A nod.

  “And you won’t rest until your murderer is found?”

  She nodded again. This was work for a constable or a private detective, not the two of us.

  “Do you know who did this to you?”

  Her face changed, turning angry and fierce. Clouds gathered, rushing toward us, like spilled ink. It was growing colder and colder. Elizabeth and I took a step closer to each other. My palms were damp.

  Rowena rose so that she was drifting on her toes, leaving trails in the water. She turned once, her arms out as if she was dancing a waltz. She mimed a laugh, drinking from a teacup, fluttering her eyelashes, flirting. Then she pointed behind us to Rosefield Manor. I gaped at her, not liking where this was going. “Your murderer is at the party?”

  She nodded. I was beginning to hate that nod.

  We’d been waltzing and eating tea cakes with a murderer.

  I shivered as the clouds released a spatter of cold rain and a burst of icy wind. “Was it Peter?” I asked. “Or Mr. Travis perhaps?”

  She looked angrier still.

  “Was it Mr. Travis?” I repeated. Ice pellets stung us through the unnatural wind. My heart stuttered. The rain fell harder, like little arrows. The water churned. We stumbled back, away from the edge.

  “We should go back!” Elizabeth yelled over the sound of the storm. Rowena looked terrified. Her mouth opened on a silent shriek, her eyes like stars burning. There was a sound such as I’d never heard before. She appeared to be struggling, fighting, cursing.

  And then she was gone.

  We stood for a long moment, startled and quiet. Fear opened inside me like a dark, sticky mouth full of teeth as a new face formed under the pond. It was someone I didn’t recognize.

  He reared up out of the water, coming straight at me. His expression was wild, hungry, savage. He wore the torn remnants of a frock coat, smeared with blood. His hair was pale and disheveled, his cheeks gaunt and sharp as knives. There was a gash on the side of his head and more blood in his hair.

  The storm raged on around us, unappeased. The rain added weight to my gown as if lead had been sewn into the hem. The steel ribs of my corset iced. I could see right through him, could make out the grass and the pond and lightning on the hill behind him, and, even more distressing, I could feel him too. He was cold, colder than anything I’d ever felt, clutching and clawing at me.

  I heard Elizabeth screaming, and still his voice was worse—icy and dark. “Revenge,” he murmured, almost as if he was singing a lullaby to himself. It lifted every hair on the
back of my neck and along my arms; it was every bit as terrifying as his attempt to take me over. “Revenge, at long last.”

  I batted him away but made no contact. I was starting to feel as if my veins were frozen rivers. My breath was a white cloud, drifting away. I was weak, dizzy, as if he was pulling me straight out of my body, as if he were either going to toss me out altogether or, worse, trap me inside while he took control. Already, my hand lifted of its own accord. And if he succeeded, I would be worse than dead. I knew this for a fact, even if I didn’t know how to stop of it.

  “No!” I thought I screamed it, but it came out more like a gurgle. My eyes rolled back in my head. I swung my fists as if he had a corporeal body with eyes I could blacken, but I slipped on the wet grass and crashed into Elizabeth. We toppled to the ground. It was enough to dislodge the angry ghost.

  “Oi!” Colin launched himself at us. The collar of his coat was near my nose, already stiffening with frost, as my dress had. I gasped for air. “What the bleedin’ hell was that?” he demanded. The rain continued to fall, but it was softer, warmer.

  I just shook my head, letting the heat of his body chase the last of the shivers away. He smelled of smoke and wine and blackberries. I wanted to curl up into him like a kitten.

  “Oh, Violet,” Elizabeth whispered.

  Colin jerked slightly, as if he’d forgotten she was there. He sat up and then put his arm behind me when I struggled to do the same. When I stood up, my knees were soggy, weak. I felt as if I’d swum in the ocean for days without rest. Everything hurt. I limped away from the pond, wanting only a warm fire and buckets of hot tea. Colin cursed, stalked over to me, and then swept me up into his arms. I could tell Elizabeth, despite her recent fright, thought it all very romantic. I just scowled up at him.

  “I can walk,” I said. My voice was decidedly rusty.

  He didn’t even glance at me. “Shut up.”

  I opened my mouth to argue but something in his face stopped me, and anyway, I hardly had the energy. He shook his head.

  “I knew you were up to no good,” he muttered.

  None of us spoke until we were back on the estate grounds. In the privacy of the grove, he set me down on my feet. The oak trees dripped around us and the sun was already coming out, falling between the gnarled branches like honey.

  “This way,” Elizabeth said, leading us down yet another secret walkway, this one winding past the kitchens to a little-used door. Everything smelled like wet roses. We took the servant stairs and hurried down the hallway toward a small family sitting room. “No one ever comes here,” she assured us, shutting the door behind her. It was hardly proper for us to be behind closed doors unchaperoned, but none of us cared much. Damp wool, soggy petticoats, and angry ghosts tend to put things in perspective.

  Colin crouched and lit the wood prepared in the grate. Soon we were huddled in front of the flames, sprawled like puppies on the ground, fighting for every ounce of warmth. It was so much nicer than the coal fires in the grates of London houses. The smell of the wood smoke was like a warm scarf on a winter day. We left our damp boots on the carpet. I was still racked with the odd violent shiver even though I was beginning to feel warmer. I let my hair down and wrung it out like a rope, holding it out to the fire to dry.

  “Are you going to tell me what that was about?” Colin asked grimly.

  I hadn’t told him before now because I’d been afraid he would only mock me. We set up too many tricks of our own. But given what had just happened, there seemed little chance of him teasing me about it now.

  “I …” I bit my lip and stared into the flames. I could feel him looking at me. I tried to picture Xavier’s polite and proper smile and couldn’t. “I … I’ve been seeing spirits,” I finished in a rush, as if daring him to make a comment. There was a long beat of silence and another. I didn’t know what he was thinking. Finally, I had to give in and look at him. I arched an eyebrow defensively. “Well?”

  Which, I admit, was hardly a gracious way to thank him for rescuing me.

  But I really hated having to be rescued.

  He nodded. “All right.”

  I gaped at him. “All right? That’s all?” I glanced at Elizabeth, whose eyes had drifted shut. Her breathing was even and slow. I knew she wasn’t pretending because she never would have let her mouth hang open like that had she been awake. “After everything?” I whispered.

  “I believe you, Vi.” For some reason it made tears burn behind my lids, but I blinked them away. Bad enough I’d nearly fainted; I wasn’t about to become a watering pot as well. I picked at the lace of my petticoat, tumbling like frothed cream out from under my hem. His ears went red, which was odd. He was hardly the prim and proper sort. I knew full well he’d been to Covent Garden to mingle with the unsavories. He was eighteen years old, after all. “But you have to be careful.” I looked down when he touched my hand. “What were you doing at the pond?” he asked.

  “We went to contact Rowena,” I explained, telling him about the ball and the fact that a murderer had waltzed among us and ending with the apparition that had flung itself out of the agitated water.

  “You little ijit,” he cursed, shaking his head. “Didn’t I tell you there was something off? Did you not even think to protect yourself? Not a speck of salt on you, I reckon.”

  I only blinked at him. “What does salt have to do with any of this?”

  “It protects you from evil.”

  “Salt?” Disbelief all but dripped from my voice. I couldn’t help it. “Table salt? How is seasoning myself going to help? This isn’t a dinner party.”

  “It may as well have been, the way you invited that spirit like you did. You leave yourself open that way, as you found out. You have to be careful, Violet.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  He shrugged, looking uncomfortable.

  I tilted my head. “How, Colin?” I asked again.

  He jerked a hand through his hair. His blue eyes gleamed. “Because me mam had the gift.” He said it so fast I almost didn’t understand him.

  “Your mother?” I repeated uselessly. In all the years I’d known him, he’d never talked about his family. “Truly?”

  “Aye,” he said quietly.

  “But … you don’t believe in spirit gifts.”

  “I don’t believe in your mother’s spirit gifts.”

  I made a face. “Fair enough.”

  “Me own mam saw things,” he said, looking at the fire as if she might be there behind it. “And they always came true. She didn’t say anything about spirits. She just called it the Second Sight. Said it was hereditary and dangerous sometimes, if you didn’t take care.”

  “Do you have it? Do you see things?”

  He shook his head.

  “Colin.” If he thought I was going to be fobbed off with a vague reply, the day’s events had clearly addled his wits. He had to know I had no intention of letting this lie.

  “She told me about a girl with violet eyes,” he said quietly, rising to his feet.

  I looked up at him, startled. “She did?”

  “Aye.” He nodded. “I should go.” He stalked toward the door, opening it slightly to make sure the hallway was deserted. His hair was still damp, tousled. I couldn’t help but remember the weight of his body pressing me into the grass.

  “Colin?” I said quietly.

  “I have to go.” He didn’t turn around.

  The door closed behind him.

  CHAPTER 12

  The next day, Elizabeth leaped out at me from behind a wall of ferns on my way to the library.

  I only shrieked a little.

  She grinned at me. “Are you ready?”

  “For what?” I asked suspiciously.

  She tugged on my arm. “Come on.”

  We sped through the drawing room, pausing for a quick curtsy to Lady Lucinda and another woman I didn’t recognize. We were out the back doors and into the garden before they even finished a return greeting. We ran across t
he lawns and through the fields, clambering over the fences. The sun was out again, shining on the last of the raindrops clinging to leaf and grass. A startled rabbit dove under a hedgerow.

  “Where are we off to? Back to the pond?” I asked, lifting my hem clear of a mud puddle. “Is that wise?” I could still feel the cold push of the spirit trying to enter my chest.

  “We’re going to Whitestone Manor.”

  “Aren’t you forbidden to go there?”

  “I can’t worry about that. There’s something going on and I mean to find out what it is. You could have drowned yesterday.”

  “What are we going to do once we get there? I can’t imagine Tabitha will be overjoyed to see me,” I pointed out.

  We climbed over another fence, this one with a few wooden steps on either side, which made it much easier. Corsets were not conducive to wriggling.

  “No, she’d probably have you thrown out.”

  “Thank you,” I said dryly. “That’s very helpful.”

  She just laughed. The field was dotted with fat cows, all placidly munching away. There was easily a thousand acres of orchards and farmland. No wonder Tabitha’s uncle was so concerned about fortune hunters marrying her for her wealth.

  “We’re going in through the back where no one will see us. Old Mrs. Moon is still the housekeeper, and she’s always been kind to me. Maybe we can get some information from her.”

  The house was as big as Rosefield, made of pale stones that gleamed like pearls. The windows shone brightly, like dozens of eyes watching our progress. All the flowers in the gardens were white as well: roses, foxglove, dahlias. It was lovely, like a fairy tale. We followed a wide dirt path around to the servant’s entrance. Elizabeth didn’t seem to mind overly, even though ladies never used the back doors. She just smiled as if we were being naughty. The servants curtsied as we passed or tugged their caps. I felt awkward, as if I were intruding. I was more like them than I was like Elizabeth. Three years ago I would have been curtsying to her in the same manner. Oblivious, Elizabeth just sailed right through the kitchen.

  “Wentworth has a French cook,” she whispered. “He always made the most delicious sauces. Better even than Uncle Jasper’s chef.”