Cook murmured into the phone until Vi crowed, “Johnny!”
The footman gasped and turned at Vi’s shout and she told him happily, “I remembered your name.”
A moment later, Cook rang off and requested another number. This time Vi heard Ham’s voice on the other end of the line. “Oh, it’s Ham! Do tell him to look for intruders. Someone must have realized Rita was naughty.”
“Did you get that, sir?” Cook asked.
Ham’s murmur carried over the wire and Vi leaned back with her coffee, waving off the chance to speak to him and curling up with her coffee. By the time she reached the end of her cup, Jack had returned, and she had gone from loud and giggly to repetitively yawning.
“Did you catch him?” she asked through a yawn.
“I did not,” he answered, staring at her.
“I forgot Johnny’s name.”
Jack followed her gaze to the footman and told her, “You’re rather drunk.”
“I am not. Things are just brighter and louder right now. In fact, my voice is very loud. I don’t know why.”
“You’re drunk,” Jack told her flatly and then leaned down to kiss her forehead. “I wasn’t able to find the man. What did he want?”
“I imagine the real goblet,” Vi said through a yawn. “Rita was naughty.”
“Naughty?”
“Well, Edward and Shelby were so demanding. And they kept bothering Beatrice even after they were threatened by Smith. Who ignores Smith’s threats? I bet he promised to remove body parts and empty bank accounts. Ruin reputations. Maybe shanghai the men to wherever people get shanghaied to. I bet it was scary.” Vi examined her husband and told him, again, through a yawn, “You’re handsome, but I think Smith is scarier.”
“Oh really?” Jack asked, taking her cup and pulling her up to lift her into his arms again. “Why is he so much scarier than I am?”
“Because!” Vi laid her head against his shoulder, but then forgot what she was saying. She snuggled into him and closed her eyes. “Tonight was fun.”
“Someone tried to rob us.”
“But,” Vi said softly, yawning hard. “No one died.”
Chapter 10
It was the headache that woke her. It was followed immediately by a roiling in her stomach that made her regret her life’s choices that had led her to that point. Slowly, very, very slowly, Vi turned onto her back and tried holding her head in place.
“It won’t work,” Jack practically shouted.
Vi gasped and then groaned.
“There’s aspirin and water next to you.”
Vi reached out blindly and he placed the pills in her hand. She put them in her mouth without opening her eyes and wasn’t surprised when Jack pressed the water into her hand next. She lifted her head enough to swallow the pills down and then collapsed, curling onto her side, pulling the blankets over her head.
“Do you want to know what we’ve found?”
“No,” Vi croaked and then groaned again. “Go away.”
Jack’s laughter followed him from the room.
She closed her eyes more tightly. Her brain, however, would not turn off. She whimpered lightly and turned from her side to her back, and then groaned as the thoughts assailed her.
First, she’d need to find poor Johnny and give him a bonus and a day off. Then, she’d have to find Cook and beg for another combination of ice cream and coffee because that was a stroke of brilliance that needed to be repeated.
A moment later, however, the thought of ice cream made her gag, and she rolled off the bed and rushed to the bath, making it just in time. When she was finished being sick, Vi started a hot bath and poured herself into it, hoping the scent of ice cream, coffee, and gin would leave and never return.
It took until the water cooled to feel as though she could move without losing her head and even longer before she realized that against all logic, she wanted a full breakfast with bacon, eggs, beans, sausages, and tomatoes. Vi put on the dress she’d been wise enough to lay out the night before. She ignored makeup and put her hair in a turban and left her bedroom with the air of a person who should not be spoken to.
“Vi!” Gerald shouted. He looked exhausted, and despite having a headache from Hades, she grinned wickedly at him. “You’re a devil,” he accused. “That freckled footman has been knocking on my door all morning.”
“Why?” Vi asked innocently, just catching Johnny in the doorway of the library. He must have been straightening it, paused to bother Gerald, and then returned to cleaning the mess the thief made. Vi winked at him and turned back to her brother.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know,” Gerald grumbled. “Lottie finally told me to leave so she could sleep.”
“Heartless,” Vi said, but her laugh gave her away.
“This is why Isolde likes me better than you.”
“She does not,” Vi protested. “She barely knows your face.”
“She adores me. And Lottie knows you’re a devil now.”
“Lottie must have figured that out when she saw me interact with our stepmother.” Violet grinned and bypassed him. “You asked for it with Hollands, and you know it. If your lovely wife knows what you did, she’d even agree.”
Gerald’s expression conveyed nothing and it was enough.
Vi’s eyes widened. “You told her!”
His gaze narrowed the slightest bit.
“She told you that you deserved it. Is that why she sent you away so she could sleep?”
Gerald didn’t answer, but Vi knew she was right by the way he avoided her gaze.
“You’re just like Victor,” Vi said, glancing at him sideways and knowing it would irritate him. Gerald loved Victor, but Gerald had the arrogance of an earl-to-be and opinions about Victor’s career as a novelist with Vi, his general laziness and lack of decorum, and it was rare for Gerald to realize how much there was to her twin beyond making cocktails.
“You’re a brat.”
“You started it.” Vi had entered the breakfast room by that point and
