“Hiking?” Severine laughed. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Better to face off with gators or panthers than men with guns.” Lisette patted Severine’s cheek lightly. “I like you, Severine. Not enough to die for you.”
Mr. Brand’s mouth dropped and Severine laughed at the look on his face. It wasn’t the words but the affectionate sarcasm that had him staring between them.
“I would never ask it,” Severine said seriously. “We’re disadvantaged because the fiend has started ahead of us. We are not, however, helpless. And, I’d like to believe that we’re cleverer than the drunk, spoiled Andre, who is leaning back on his superior blood and sex.”
“Andre?” Mr. Brand demanded.
“If he gets away with it, he gets everything,” Severine told him. “Clive and Erik would have a better chance pursuing me as they plan rather than murder.”
Lisette snorted. “Those cousins of yours have been roving the halls looking for you. Flower in the buttonhole, slicked back and sharp, too much cologne. Heavy handed in their pursuit and they haven’t even caught you yet.”
“I haven’t rejected Clive as I could have. I haven’t taken away his belief there is a chance. Why would he murder me for his allowance when he has a chance at the whole vault?”
“What about your grandmother?” Mr. Brand asked and then muttered, “I can’t believe I’m even saying that.”
“My grandmother would get her inheritance in full, right?”
Mr. Brand nodded.
“But that’s no more than she has now. She isn’t poor since she has her own funds, her own mansion in New Orleans, and status. But she enjoys playing mistress of this ridiculous house.”
“You can’t discount her, Severine,” Mr. Brand told her gently. “She doesn’t like you.”
Severine winced even though she knew it was true.
“She does, however, seem quite fond of Andre,” Mr. Brand continued.
“So for him she might?” Severine asked.
“For him,” Mr. Brand agreed as carefully and kindly as possible.
“It doesn’t matter who we think it is,” Lisette told them both. “What we need is proof, cher. And a way out of this house before that brother of yours kills us all. Or,” she said, brightening, “you send him away. It’s your house.” Then her expression fell. “Not likely to wade through the water, is he?”
“No. And I wouldn’t want to give him any warning that I’m on to him.”
“Still, we’re trapped in here with him. I don’t want to be killed in my sleep.”
“Agreed,” Mr. Brand added. “I’ll be damned if you’re murdered on my watch, Miss DuNoir. Your father trusted you in my care.”
Severine ignored him for Lisette, who met her gaze. She added, with her plain honesty, “If it were my family, my grandmother would know the whole time what was happening and pretend she didn’t. It’s also possible that your grandmother isn’t a fool and also isn’t helping.”
A message, Severine knew, for her to never trust Grandmère despite anything they found. Severine met Lisette’s gaze and nodded. She had received the message and found it wise. Sad, but wise.
Chapter Fourteen
“I don’t understand,” Severine said, frowning. “It’s obviously untouched.”
The little cabinet in the butler’s office was so covered in dust it was impossible it had been rifled through.
“Well that rules out one round of keys,” Lisette said.
The luncheon gong rang and Severine said, “I’ll be rifling through someone else’s drawers while you eat. Send my regrets. A headache or some such nonsense.”
“Reasonable, considering you were drugged only last night.”
Severine sniffed and passed by the kitchens. “Is my brother in the dining room?”
“Yes, miss,” one of the staff answered.
She openly made herself a sandwich and found a bottle of aspirin. After taking two, she poured herself a cup of coffee from the ready supply. “I’ll be dealing with my headache in my room.”
“Miss,” Cook said, “no one has been tampering with your food.”
“Something you established with my grandmother, of course,” Severine countered.
The woman flushed and repeated, “No one has been doctoring your food in my kitchens, ma’am. You can trust what I make for you.”
“And yet what I ate last evening was doctored,” Severine replied firmly. “Perhaps it wasn’t you. Perhaps it was someone else.”
“We’ve been here a long time, miss. There isn’t some rogue in the servant’s hall.”
Severine’s head tilted and her gaze moved among those who were carefully not watching the interaction. They were black and white, old and young, and none of them were loyal to this family. There wasn’t a generational thing here, and Severine didn’t buy into the mythos of loyalty to an employer. Not in the South, not when grandparents had been born slaves.
She let her gaze rove around the kitchens, meeting the eyes of those who dared to meet hers. “I’m sure you’re hearing tales of a hysterical young woman who has read too many novels.”
There was dead silence, but it strengthened in fierceness and Severine would have bet that at least one of the servants had been told that tale and it had been spreading like wildfire.
“I suppose the truth will out in the end.” She took her plate and coffee and then hurried up the steps. She found Mr. Brand on the landing, and he led the way to her brother’s room. His room had never changed. He’d received one of the nicest rooms at the back of the house on the opposite wing from her parents. Severine’s own room had been on the same side of the house as her parents’.
She had objected at first, because it had been so far away, but then Father had walked her up to the room, shown her the view, and the bath he’d added all the way up there. It had been something that even Marie Antoinette wouldn’t have turned her nose up at. Severine had a sitting room with pretty couches that had been chosen for her—not her mother. They hadn’t been pale pink and watercolor flowers, but deep blues and simple lines.
She had loved it when she’d seen all the thought put into it. Why, however, not the colors
