Mystery at the Edge of MadnessThe Mysteries of Severine DuNoir
Beth Byers
Contents
Summary
Quote
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Also by Beth Byers
Summary
July 1925
Severine DuNoir was twelve when she discovered the bodies of her parents, and the day after the funeral, she was sent to a convent in another country. By the time she resolves to go home, her sole focus is to reveal what happened to her parents.
Coming home, however, unveils a far more sinister plot than she could have expected. It’s clear from her first night that something is afoot. The motives are many and the target is clear: Severine herself.
We are not effusive creatures.
—Sister Mary Chastity to Severine DuNoir
Chapter One
“I don’t understand,” Severine said, feeling particularly dim.
The gentleman smiled kindly. “I’m your guardian.” He had said it more than once, and his tone and delivery had turned slow to the point of speaking to someone who wasn’t quite capable of understanding.
It wasn’t that she didn’t know he was her guardian. Of course, she did. Regardless of her confusion, she was not an idiot. She’d heard of the mysterious Mr. Brand who watched over her inheritance in trust, but she hadn’t expected this fellow. He was not that much older than she. She’d expected a life-long school chum of her father or perhaps one of his mentors. A much older man filled with wisdom and a shared history with her father.
That was the key factor. Severine would turn eighteen in two days. This fellow had to be in his late twenties. Which meant, given her parents had died almost exactly six years ago, that he had control of the DuNoir estate when he was barely old enough to have his legal majority. He looked as if he were a mere year or two older than herself, so how had he looked six years before? The fellow had pale, nearly white, blonde hair, the sort of pale skin that showed every passing emotion with the shade of red he turned, and the blue eyes that revealed his thoughts. He was tallish, broad-ish, thinnish, and handsome-ish. He was very medium, Severine thought. Unremarkable really, except for that pale, pale skin, which wasn’t very remarkable to her considering her own pale, pale skin.
“Your father came to me just before he died, and he asked me to look after you. We had quite a long conversation, really.”
Her father, who had two brothers, business partners, a best friend, and a slew of friends, had discussed her with him when this man was barely a legal adult himself..
Severine took a deep breath. “It’s not that I don’t understand your words,” Severine repeated. “It’s that I have a half-brother who could have served if Father was going to choose someone so young.”
“Your father didn’t want your brother to look after you. He wanted you to have your freedom. Your half-brother is of quite a different cloth than I am.”
“But Father didn’t love me. Mother either.” Her gaze moved to the convent where she’d lived since her parents’ death. Being raised in a convent didn’t inspire one to imagine a future of early freedom, let alone control of her inheritance and the two houses.
He coughed and avoided her gaze as he cleared his throat and blushed enough for her to be sure that Mr. Brand had suspected the same thing she’d known since before she could read.
“Perhaps rather than trying to understand your father’s reasoning,” Mr. Brand suggested softly, “we can accept him at his word. He wanted you to be safe as you grew up and be free of the meddling of his friends and relatives.”
“Father was murdered,” Severine told him precisely.
“He was,” the man said, looking sympathetic but without answering.
Why! Severine wanted to shout, but she guessed this man was being purposefully vague. He wasn’t looking at her at the moment. He was staring at the statue of Mary and baby Jesus in the garden and taking in the magnificent stained-glass windows. He was avoiding her gaze and side-stepping her questions and offering her the money that belonged to her, without explaining why her father had come up with such an irregular future for her—all just before he had been murdered.
She knew the answer of course: because he had known he was going to die. Or suspected it enough to put plans into place. Plans that meant her father hadn’t been sure of any of the regular choices for guardian. Which suggested, Severine thought with a sudden chill, that she could trust no one.
She listened without commenting as her guardian explained that she would have control of her money, of the houses, of all of it, the moment she returned to the United States. He finished with, “Your father said he trusted you to look after yourself, the fortune he was leaving you, and the accoutrements of being a DuNoir.”
She didn’t repeat that she’d been a disappointment to her parents. Even her name, which they tried to make a joke of later, had been a glaring symbol of that disappointment. Father had told her the story once.
“Sevie,” he had said, using the nickname she’d despised even at ten years old. “We expected you to enter the world screaming. I was prepared to laugh indulgently, press a kiss on your sweet forehead, and tell your mama what a good job she’d done, but you were the most serious little thing I had ever seen—looking as though you were possessed by Lady Justice.”
That had been when he’d laughed nervously. “It’s why we named you Severine, of course. So serious from the moment you entered the world.”
Severine snapped back to the present, completely having missed whatever nonsense the man had been telling her.
When she focused back to him, he blushed again lightly. He cleared his throat a few more times and said, “So, you’ll need me to sign off on
