The Viscount Always Knocks Twice by Grace Callaway

Chapter Twenty-One

The group agreed to split up the tasks. The men were to take on Wormleigh and Burns whilst the ladies spoke to Monique’s maid. Thea and Tremont had been assigned the duty of chaperoning Primrose and Polly.

Ambrose muttered to Thea and her husband, “Sorry to give the pair of you the most perilous mission of all. Polly won’t be a problem, of course—but keep a close eye on my daughter, will you? Of late, Rosie has been attracting trouble the way honey does flies.”

“Don’t worry about a thing.” With a teasing smile in Vi’s direction, Thea said, “How much worse could she be than Violet?”

Seeing the twitching lips around her, Vi resisted the impulse to stick her tongue out at her sister. She felt quite proud of her growing maturity.

“Very amusing, Thea,” she said loftily and left it at that.

They went off on their assignments. As Violet followed Emma and Marianne to the servant’s wing, her anticipation was threaded with worry. What would Jeanne reveal about Monique’s past? Did the maid know about her mistress’ lovers, including Wick? If she did, how should Violet handle the situation?

Em led the way down the servants’ stairs into the kitchen. The large room buzzed with activity, maids and footmen racing to and fro in an orchestrated frenzy. They stopped short at the sight of three upstairs guests in their domain, bowing hastily as Vi and the others walked past.

Vi, for her part, was momentarily distracted from her worries by the scent of baked goods and roasting meat. Her belly rumbled; it had been hours since lunch. She paused and eyed a platter of sandwiches resting on a counter.

“Go ahead and take one, miss.” The cook, a jolly bespectacled woman in a pristine apron, nodded at the sandwiches. “I’ve got plenty.”

Violet didn’t need to be asked twice. Thanking the good woman, she took one of the triangles and bit into it with relish. Buttery bread, spiced ham, and chutney—heaven. She took another and caught up to the others, munching.

“Goodness, couldn’t you wait for supper?” Emma said.

“I’m hungry,” Vi protested.

“Tartarus,” Marianne said with a faint shake of her head.

A woman dressed in dark bombazine approached them and curtsied. Her tidy appearance and air of command conveyed her status as the top female servant of the household.

“Good afternoon, Your Grace. Ladies. How may I assist you?”

“Hello, Mrs. Hopkins,” Emma said. “We’re back to check in on Jeanne.”

The housekeeper shook her head. “Such a terrible business. One can’t blame the poor woman for succumbing to shock. I hope you’ll find her in a better state.”

Em continued to lead the way into the servant’s hall, a long and narrow space dominated by a large trestle table. On one wall hung rows of small metal bells, and Vi spotted the names of the guests written beneath each. Whenever a chime went off, some member of the staff had to abandon their tea or whatever tasks they were doing at the table and dash off.

Violet followed Emma through a warren of hallways and up three flights of stairs until they reached their destination: the garret floor. The cramped corridor had doors on both sides.

Em went to the first door on the right and knocked briskly. “Jeanne? It’s the Duchess of Strathaven. I’ve come to see how you’re doing.”

No reply.

“Do you think she’s asleep?” Marianne said.

“The sleeping draught ought to have worn off by now.” Frowning, Em knocked again.

“Try the knob,” Vi suggested.

Em did. “It’s locked.”

“I’ll go find Mrs. Hopkins.” Marianne was already heading down the hallway.

“Hurry,” Emma called after her. To Vi, she said in worried tones, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

Vi, too, felt a sinking sensation in her stomach.

Marianne returned with the housekeeper, who produced a key and unlocked the door. When she attempted to push it open, it wouldn’t budge.

Vi tried as well, to no avail. “She’s barricaded it from the inside.”

“We’re going to need your strongest footmen, Mrs. Hopkins,” Emma said.

Off the housekeeper went again whilst Em and Marianne implored Jeanne to let them in.

Vi had another idea. Going over to the next room, she knocked. When there was no answer, she turned the knob, and, luckily, the door swung open.

Entering the cramped room, she saw at a glance two small cots, one rickety washstand, and—yes!—a dormer window protruding from the sloped ceiling. She went over and pushed up the pane of glass. Peering outside, she saw that the window to Jeanne’s room was also open… and it was only about six feet away. She gauged the slope of the roof with an expert eye: it was nearly horizontal at the edge and easy to traverse.

True, the ground did look rather far away from three stories up, but Vi had completed far more challenging tasks. This would be a piece of cake compared to balancing on a tree limb, for example, or standing on the back of a moving horse. Decision made, she swung her leg over the sill and climbed out. Keeping her body close to the tiles, she began to inch her way over to Jeanne’s room.

One foot… two feet… three…

“Good Lord!”

Emma’s voice startled her, and she jerked, kicking loose a tile. It tumbled, shattering on the gravel below. Vi kept her balance and her eyes on the goal.

“Gadzooks, don’t interrupt me,” she said. “I’m trying to concentrate here.”

Behind her, she heard Emma’s muffled prayer.

…four feet… five…

Her fingers grasped the jamb of Jeanne’s window. Holding on, she hoisted herself through the open frame, landing lightly on her feet in the room.

“Sacré dieu!” A wild-eyed Jeanne stood backed against a wall. The bed had been pushed up against the door, blocking entry.

Holding out her hands, Vi spoke in the voice that she would use with a spooked horse. “It’s all right, Jeanne. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

The elderly maid was paler than a ghost, her grey hair loose and tangled over the shoulders of her black dress. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“We’ve met before—I’m Violet Kent, remember? One of Monique’s great admirers. I had the privilege of visiting with her the night before…”

Vi trailed off when she saw moisture well up in the other’s reddened eyes. It occurred to her that this was the first true sign of grief she’d seen from anyone over Monique’s death.

Jeanne truly cared about her mistress, she thought with a pang.

“I am so sorry for your loss, Jeanne,” she said softly.

Silence quivered between them.

“I… I remember you. My mistress, she was quite taken with you.”

“She was?” Vi said, surprised.

“Oui. Jeanne, she said to me, Mademoiselle Kent est charmante et un peu farfelue.”

Charmantewas easy enough to translate. “What does far-fell-loo mean?”

“A little… how do the English say? Madcap.”

Vi had been called worse. “Since I just climbed in through your window, I can’t argue with that,” she said ruefully.

Jeanne’s throat rippled above her dark collar. “My mistress would have done the same. She, too, approached the world with boldness and ingenuity. A disregard for useless conventions.”

“Boldness and ingenuity,” Vi mused, “I like that. It has a nicer ring than impulsive and reckless, at any rate. The truth is I poked my head out the window, and the rest of me just followed.”

“My mistress believed that one’s impulses are the only true guide—”

“Violet, are you all right?” Em’s voice came from the other side of the blockaded door. “Let us in!”

“I’m fine. Give me a minute,” Violet called back. Seeing Jeanne tremble again, she said, “That is my sister, Emma. She wants to talk to you about Monique—”

“I won’t talk to her—or anyone!” The maid’s vehemence made Vi take a step back, as one would from a feral and unpredictable creature. “I’ll not allow my mistress’ name to be soiled by gossip. She was the last of the noble family of de Brouet, God rest their souls, and I’ll not let the memory of their finest daughter be tarnished.”

“But we have no wish to harm Madame Monique’s reputation,” Vi protested. “We only want to see justice done—”

“Justice.” Jeanne spat out the word as if it were an epithet. “Do you know how many atrocities have been carried out in the guise of justice? The de Brouets, the family I have served faithfully since the age of twelve, they were delivered so-called justice—dragged from the house of their ancestors, carted like chattel in front of a drunken mob. The last thing they heard was the cheering of those stinking barbarians before the guillotine fell.”

Vi’s stomach churned at Jeanne’s words. Anguish blazed like torches in the maid’s eyes.

“Madame Monique escaped from The Terror?” Vi whispered.

“Of course she didn’t,” Jeanne snapped. “My mistress was only seven-and-twenty, far too young to have lived during the reign of that devil Robespierre. Don’t you know anything?”

Violet flushed. Dates had never been her forte. “Er, of course. Sorry.”

Jeanne harrumphed. “It was Monique’s maman and I who escaped, with naught but the clothes on our back. The comtesse was forced to sell the last of her family heirlooms for a pittance to pay for our journey across the channel.” The maid’s rheumy eyes swam with tears again. “We sought refuge and instead found ourselves in a different hell.”

Spotting a handkerchief on the dresser, Vi snagged it and handed it over. “What do you mean?”

“Friendless, penniless, what else could she do? What else?” Jeanne murmured, twisting the linen around her fingers.

“What’s going on in there?” Even filtered through wood, Emma’s voice was insistent.

Seeing the crazed darting of the maid’s eyes, Vi guessed the poor thing was a bit let in the upper attics. She needed to calm Jeanne down before the others entered the mix.

“I need another minute,” she called.

Jeanne began to speak again. “Monique de Brouet was conceived in hell, but she survived because she was a fighter.” Pride infused the maid’s voice, and she spread her arms as if she were about to take flight. “She inherited her mama’s beauty and grace, the élan of her ancestors, and so she became an artiste. Revered by audiences wherever she went.”

“She was the greatest acrobat I’ve ever seen,” Vi said.

“The greatest the world has ever seen.” Jeanne’s mood changed with shocking swiftness, and she began to sob. “Comment cela pourrait-il arriver, ma petite?”

Cautiously, Vi reached out a hand, patting the other’s bony shoulder. “There, there.” When the maid didn’t pull away, she said, “Why don’t you sit a moment?” and maneuvered the weeping woman into a chair.

Then she hurried to the door, pushing the bed away so that Emma and Marianne could enter. The two looked at Jeanne, who was weeping hysterically, too distraught to react to the presence of newcomers.

“How is she?” Em whispered.

Vi widened her eyes and wiggled her fingers by her ears. Her silent way of communicating, There are bats in the woman’s belfry.

“I have failed her,” Jeanne wailed. “Failed the de Brouets.”

Emma went over. “Of course you haven’t, dear. None of this is your fault.”

The maid went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “We should have stayed in London. I should have stopped her from coming here. But she wouldn’t listen… she never listened…”

“You couldn’t have known something like this would happen,” Marianne said gently.

Those words seemed to trigger some internal lever in Jeanne. The maid’s distress vanished like the floor of the wardrobe. An eerily blank expression took its place.

“You are right.” She smoothed out the handkerchief that she’d crumpled. “I couldn’t have known. How could I have?”

“So you mustn’t blame yourself. Instead, we must focus on the task ahead of us,” Em said.

“Task?” Jeanne said.

Em nodded. “I’m afraid we’ve concluded that your mistress’ death was no accident.”

Vi braced for Jeanne’s reaction, but the other only stared blankly at Em.

“We’re trying to identify possible suspects,” Em went on. “If you could tell us which of the guests knew Monique, especially those who knew her, er, intimately…”

Please don’t say Wick. Violet tensed, readying to cut in.

“I beg your pardon.” Jeanne drew herself up, her eyes blazing once more. “Monique de Brouet was no light-skirt. She was a fine lady—the daughter of a comtesse.”

“Even fine ladies have admirers, don’t they?” Em said.

“Oui. But my mistress conducted herself with grace and class, in a manner befitting of her ancestors.” Jeanne’s chin jutted out. “On this, I will never waver.”

Whatever the maid knew, she clearly was not about to betray her mistress’ secrets. Violet exhaled. She didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed.

“What about enemies?” Marianne said. “Did anyone wish your mistress ill?”

Fear seized Jeanne’s worn features once more.

“You can tell us,” Em coaxed. “We’ll keep you safe.”

“Safety is an illusion. The darkness always comes,” the maid whispered. “The only way to escape it is to flee.”

Her eyes shifted like those of a cornered beast. Vi was worried that Jeanne might try to make a run for it… but the maid’s expression smoothed once more.

She’s truly addled, Vi thought with sympathy.

“There were those who envied my mistress’ popularity,” Jeanne said. "Josephine Ashe and Cedric Burns, to name two.”

“Burns, you say?” Vi knew about Miss Ashe’s animosity, but Burns had seemed like an amiable fellow. “He was at the same table as Monique and I that first night. I didn’t notice any tension between the two.”

“My mistress would not squabble in the street with that mongrel.” Jeanne sniffed. “Burns, however, hounded her in private. Wanting to bask in her reflected glory, he proposed that he and Madame Monique perform together… the nerve, thinking he could partner with my mistress!”

“But he has a partner,” Vi said, puzzled. “If he partnered with Monique, what would happen to Miss Ashe?”

“She would be left out in the cold,” Jeanne said smugly. “But my mistress had no interest in Burns. No matter how many times he tried to persuade her, she turned him down flat.”

“Did Miss Ashe know about his proposal?” Emma said.

“Je ne sais pas. But about a month ago, after my mistress turned Burns down for the last time, she went to practice on the tightrope and had a near accident. The rope had begun to fray, you see, and, fortunately, she noticed before it was too late.”

Marianne’s brows arched. “And you think Mr. Burns or Miss Ashe was somehow involved?”

“The tightrope was new. There was no reason for it to fray.” Hostility flamed in Jeanne’s eyes. “It was an act of sabotage.”

“Sabotage?” Vi whispered. “Thunderbolts.”

“We will follow up,” Emma said decisively. “Is there anything else you can think of that might be of use in finding your mistress’ killer?”

“Non. My mistress, she was an angel. What happened to her, she did nothing to deserve.” Tears spilled down the maid’s cheeks once more. “And now that she is gone, I have but one duty left: to protect and consecrate her memory. To preserve the legacy of Monique de Brouet.”