Vi wasn’t sure if it was the excess of ginger wine—her comfort drink—or if it was the fact that the woman had spread dislike and upset, but she wasn’t able to draw up any semblance of grief. In fact, she only just held back the comment that Jane, Ann, and Tobias deserved a life free of that woman.
Rather than revealing her thoughts, Vi asked, “Did you meet the fiancé?”
Smith, Jack, and Ham nodded.
“Is he really kind and good?”
Smith paused and then slowly replied, “I think so.”
“We’ll have to kill him if he isn’t.” Vi laid her head against Jack’s shoulder, ignoring the reaction of the two Scotland Yard detectives who weren’t nearly as amused as Smith. The disgust on their faces hadn’t faded, and Vi thought they’d have been smarter than what she was seeing.
“We need Miss Sinclair,” the first detective demanded.
“She’s sleeping,” Vi said, lifting a brow.
“We’ll have to wake her.” The man looked at his partner and added, “We’ll get her statement, and we’ll be able to go home.”
“Jack,” Vi told him flatly. “Throw them out. Victor, help.”
Jack slowly rose, followed by Victor, and then Ham. “Out.”
“You know we need to do our job here, Jack,” the first replied as though appealing to Jack’s better sense. “Are you really such a puppet to your heiress?”
Jack ignored the last part and said, “Miss Sinclair’s statement can wait until she wakes.”
“She could forget details.”
“She was just beaten by her father after acquiring the confession for you at the price of her blood and pain.” Rita rose from the chesterfield and approached, hands fisted, the personification of divine retribution on her face. “We won’t be waking her to answer questions you could ask Vi and Smith. They were there and they weren’t being beaten.”
The detective held up his hands, but the look on his face said that he was about to wring Rita’s neck. Rita placed both of her hands against him and shoved. “Get out!”
“Barnes! Get ahold of your wife, or I will.” The second detective gave Ham a look of loathing as he shouted.
Lila gasped and jumped to her feet. She leaned in and hissed, “If you think we won’t murder you first, you’re wrong.”
Both detectives laughed sardonically.
“I shouldn’t be surprised that the woman who drove her father to murder fell in with this lot of devil’s shrews,” the first detective muttered and his partner snorted. “The only surprise is Wakefield and Barnes did.”
“First,” Beatrice said, rising to join Lila and Rita, “we’d garrote you. Then we’d bury you in the back garden and plant cherry trees over you, and then we’d throw picnics for our children, never losing a night of sleep.”
“What is this madness?” the detective demanded. “Are you all drunk? We’ll take the lot of you in.”
“Only mostly drunk,” Denny answered seriously.
Vi rose next, joining the row of mostly zozzled and fully furious friends. She pushed past Jack to face the detectives and gently said, “We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot here, so let me help you.”
“Help me?” the detective snapped. “Please. You reek of wine and spoilt housewife.”
“Help,” Vi countered in a low, smooth voice. “The young woman you need to interview is currently unavailable. She’s sleeping under the influence of morphine with broken ribs, a cracked cheek bone, and severe bruising. If you take one solitary step nearer to her and expect to ask her questions, we won’t murder you. Obviously that was hyperbole.”
“It was in poor taste.” The detective adjusted his suit jacket. “We are just doing our job here.”
“Your job?” Kate snapped.
Vi, however, smiled slowly, feeling her fury start to break free. “Your job is not to blame the woman who courageously did your job for you, facing off with the man who terrorized her the whole of her life, showing incalculable courage in both living her life on her own terms and then sacrificing herself for justice.”
The detective might have intended to snort sarcastically, but Vi was channeling all the generations of ingrained arrogance that came from being the daughter of an earl. Both detectives froze like birds when the cat was near.
“So, let me be clear,” Vi continued, “should you proceed on your current course, I will ruin your careers and watch you return to your days on the worst beats that London has to offer.”
“Barnes isn’t at the Yard anymore, and he doesn’t have that kind of power. You don’t have that kind of power.” The tone wasn’t so convinced as it had been before.
“Tell that to my father, the earl,” Vi said. “You see, my father finds the idea of a woman being beaten and threatened by the man who should have protected and loved her appalling. You can be assured that whatever lack of patience we might have for you will seem like endurance beyond belief when you watch him appear at his club and ruin you over a glass of port. He’d do it no matter the reason if I asked, given you’re nothing to him. But he’d do it without my request if he were to hear of this complete malarky.”
The two detectives eyed each other and then stepped back.
“We’ll be back tomorrow,” one tried carefully.
“Send someone else,” Vi countered with a silky, steely tone. She lifted a brow and waited as though bored.
“Ah,” the detective started.
“I’ll make some telephone calls,” Ham said. The banked fury was the finishing touch, and the two detectives fled.
“What a day,” Vi muttered the moment the door closed. She turned to face her friends and sniffed her kimono. “So that’s what spoilt housewife smells like.”
“Vi,” Denny laughed, “you’re my hero. Lila, it is moments like these when I know why I adore everything about you.”
Rita gaped and then laughed, taking Vi’s cheeks in her hand and squeezing lightly. A moment later, her mood shifted like lightning and she asked, “Can I cry now?”
They all paused and then Vi wrapped her arms around Rita. “Of course you can.”
“I don’t
