Murder With Mayhem, page 1
MURDER WITH MAYHEM
BLYTHE BAKER
Copyright © 2023 by Blythe Baker
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
CONTENTS
Description
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
About the Author
As Sylvia and Miles prepare for their wedding day, tragedy threatens. With the life of a member of the wedding party in danger, can Sylvia catch a murderer and get to the bottom of one final mystery?
1
That April brought the warmest weather that I could remember. In all my years living in New York, I always witnessed the entrance of the month of April with baited breath, knowing that without fail we would have to endure at least one more winter storm, perhaps even two. I never trusted the singing songbirds in the trees, nor the buds on the branches in the parks or out in our back garden along the East River. I noticed when the first sprouts of the daffodils peeked out of the flowerbeds, but I did not usually allow myself to hope.
This year, however, felt different.
“I can hardly believe it is the tenth of April and we have yet to see a single drop of rain,” Mrs. Riley said as she fussed over my hair for the third time that morning.
“Perhaps we can hope the winter has gone to bed until October,” I said with a glance at her through the reflection of my vanity mirror. “Though I do wonder if we will be in for an earlier snow to make up for it.”
“Oh, do not say such things,” she said, turning my head from side to side to examine the soft curls she had just arranged from all angles. “There, now, doesn’t this look nice?”
“Well, of course it does,” I said. “But you have yet to explain to me why, precisely, you are spending so much time helping me get ready for the day.”
She let out a small laugh. “Well, you are an engaged woman now. You must carry yourself differently. I am merely doing my best to help you.”
I smiled at her. “Yet this is how you used to treat me as a young girl,” I said.
Mrs. Riley met my gaze in the mirror, and I was surprised to find her eyes looking a little misty. “I hope you know that we will miss you terribly when you are gone, Miss Sylvia. All of the servants will.”
“I will not be entirely gone, you know,” I said. “I am quite certain that Miles and I will be here for dinner regularly, and lunches, and not to mention any other social engagements that my mother will wish for me to attend – ”
“You must not worry too much about your mother,” Mrs. Riley said. “She may struggle with your departure, but she will be perfectly all right. You can trust me to see to that.”
I smiled at her. “I appreciate that. Are you certain I cannot convince you to come and work for me in my new household?”
Mrs. Riley laughed, reaching over to my jewelry box beside the window. “Only if I were ten years younger. I think that once you and your sister have been married and moved on, I will likely retire.”
“Oh, I am sorry to hear that,” I said. “Mother will be devastated.”
“Yes, well, my poor husband is getting on in years…” she said. “I must make the effort to care for him. Though he would never ask me to leave your family, it is necessary.”
“I can understand that, I suppose,” I said.
“Do not worry, I shall not leave your parents in a lurch,” she said. “I will do as your fiancé has chosen to do, and find someone who would be a good fit for the family. It is the least I can do.”
“I suppose it will not come as a complete shock to Mother,” I said. “She is bound to realize that she couldn’t keep you forever.”
Mrs. Riley smiled sadly. “Yes, well… If I had it my way, I would never leave.” She cleared her throat, draping a simple, teardrop pendant around my neck, clasping it for me. “There we are. You look so wonderfully smart, Miss Sylvia.”
I thanked her and rose from my seat. “Then I suppose I can join my sister and mother for breakfast?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Riley said, standing aside. “I do hope that you will enjoy your day.”
I gave her a wary look as I departed the room. She certainly has been acting rather strange this morning…I thought. She met me at my door before I even had a chance to leave, insisting that I change into the new gown Mother had made for me, and then spent the last hour curling and arranging my hair.
I reached the top of the stairs, staring down over the banister…voices drifting up to me from down below. Were they coming from the dining room?
Our cook, Gibbins, hurried by as I reached the foyer, his eyes growing wide as he saw me, his arm arching up to cover whatever it was that he carried on a silver platter.
What is going on? I wondered.
I reached the dining room, the doors cracked slightly, light and voices pouring through the narrow slit.
I drew in a breath, and pushed open the doors –
“Surprise!!”
The shouts and exclamations assailed me as I stepped inside. Nearly a dozen faces beamed at me from around the dining room table, and my mother and sister sat near the end.
“My – my word,” I said, laying a hand against my chest. “What is all this?”
“Congratulations!” Joan cried.
“We are so happy for you, my dear,” Mother said, fanning herself with her favorite paper fan.
Applause erupted around the room from the other guests who were there, all of whom I hardly had the chance to see properly. As I turned to look, my cheeks burning with mingled embarrassment and delight, I found the faces of several of my dearest friends.
“Oh, Penelope, Christine, Margaret…Torrie, Anna, Hannah, and even Lily! How pleased I am to see you!”
Christine, a petite young woman with long dark hair, beamed at me. “How could we possibly miss a party for your engagement?” she crooned. “I certainly could not imagine it.”
“Nor I,” chimed in Penelope, a tall, slender young woman with freckled cheeks and hair as red as a summer sunset. She smiled. “We were all so delighted to hear the exciting news.”
“We always knew that you would be one of the first among us to find someone,” Victoria, or Torrie as we called her, said with a warm grin.
“Here, come and sit,” Mother said. “Everyone is excited to hear your story about Miles. They all can hardly believe that you are marrying the butler.”
“Yes, please, come and tell us,” said Lily, pulling my chair out. It seemed they had chosen a seat in the midst of them all at the middle of the table.
“And Gibbins made all your favorites,” said Joan, gesturing to the elaborate spread across the tabletop as I took my seat.
I smiled. “That would explain why he was trying to hide what he was carrying when I spotted him out in the hall just a few moments ago.”
A murmur of laughs passed through the room.
“So? Tell us everything!” Hannah exclaimed.
Joan passed me a cup of lemonade decorated with a few sprigs of lavender.
“Sylvia?”
I looked down the table to see Anna looking rather sheepish all of a sudden. The room fell silent as she started toward the middle of the table. She stopped just beside my chair, looking apologetic.
“Whatever is the matter?” I asked.
Anna blushed furiously. “Oh, Sylvia, I said all those intolerable things at the welcome home party for you, about Miles. I had no idea that you and he were in love with each other. If I had known, I never would have opened my mouth and said anything. I likely never would have taken an interest in him, had I known you already had.”
“Oh, Anna…” I said, smiling at her. “It’s quite all right. Think nothing more of it.”
Anna offered a relieved smile, and embraced me before returning to her seat.
“So this man truly is – or was – your butler?” Torrie asked, resting her chin on her fist, her elbow on the arm of her chair. “How could this possibly happen?”
“Have you seen him?” asked Hannah playfully. “There is a reason why Anna became so infatuated with him.”
“Is he here?” asked Lily. “It would be wonderful to meet him.”
“No, he is in London at the moment,” I said. “Or perhaps he is on his way back by now. He was going to fetch some of his family to come to New York for the wedding in a few weeks, including some elderly relatives.”
“He is quite handsome, you will all see at the wedding,” Mother said, pointing down at me with the ladle she was using to mix the punch. “And as soon as he laid eyes on Sylvia, he fell deeply in love.”
“As well he should have,” Joan commented. “Who could help loving our Sylvia?”
“It sounds terribly romantic…” murmured Lily.
“Yes, but we would like to know what happened, and how this all came about,” said Christine. “From what your mother has said, he is not a butler after all?”
“No,” I said. I looked over at Joan. We had discussed this at length som e days before, wondering whether or not I should tell them the whole truth. At first, I thought it would be better to come up with some sort of story that had nothing to do with the murder of Miles’ previous wife. Joan agreed that would be wise, though we both thought we should tell as much of the truth as we could.
Go on, Joan’s eyes seemed to encourage me.
“I happened to stumble upon some of Miles’ personal affects several months ago, which told me that he was on the run from something he had been falsely accused of,” I said.
“Oh, my,” said Christine.
“What was he accused of?” Hannah asked.
“That is not all together important anymore,” I said. “It would have affected his inheritance, which his cousin was attempting to steal from him. He came here to New York to try and find the means of clearing his name. Even his family did not believe him.”
“How tragic…” said Lily.
“And so your family hired him as a means of helping him?” Torrie asked.
“No,” I said. “We hired him without knowing who he was.”
“It wasn’t until Sylvia later returned from visiting London with him that the rest of us learned the facts,” Mother said. “He worried that it would put us all in danger if we knew everything.”
“I had accompanied him to London to help prove the truth, which we did,” I said. “Which is when he proposed to me, as well.”
“My goodness!” said Anna.
“Yes, but that doesn’t answer the question of when you fell in love with him, or he you,” Torrie said. “When did you know?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but I found I had no immediate answer.
Joan spoke up for me. “I knew she was in love with him just a short while after we hired him,” she said. “The pair of them worked together to solve the mystery of our uncle’s death. Miles drove Sylvia around everywhere and they were always finding time to meet and talk with each other.”
“I suppose I fell in love with him along the way,” I said.
“I think she never wanted to admit it, given his position,” Joan said. “But as soon as she found out that he was, in fact, heir to an enormous horse breeding farm in England and a man of great wealth, her opinion of him entirely changed.”
“You make me sound rather greedy,” I said with a laugh. “It truly wasn’t as shallow as all that. I simply took awhile to know my feelings. It helped when I found out that he was innocent of what he had been accused of.”
Joan smirked at me. “You knew that he was innocent the whole time,” she said.
I smiled. “I suppose I did…”
Gibbins entered the room then, carrying two heavy trays laden with fresh sandwiches and pitchers of lemonade. “You have hardly eaten,” he said. “Come now, my dear ladies. Do not delay, as I have pies and cakes baking as we speak that will be best if they are enjoyed warm.”
He sent a few servants in to help serve us our meals, and the guests all settled in to eat and speak with one another.
“Before we get too involved in our meals,” Joan said. “Sylvia gave me a list last week when we were discussing wedding plans, and each of your names was on it. There is something that she would like to ask you.”
“Yes,” I said, setting my lemonade back down. “I intended to telephone each of you, but this is preferable. I was hoping you would all do me the honor of standing beside me on my wedding day as my bridesmaids.”
“Oh, of course!” exclaimed Hannah.
“We would be elated to!” cheered Lily.
“What an honor,” said Christine.
I smiled at them all. “Thank you.”
“This is part of the reason that Mother and I wished to have this party for you,” Joan said. “We knew you would never ask to have one, and we thought it would be a good way for you to celebrate.”
“Well, thank you,” I said. “Truly.”
Joan grinned as she took the seat beside me. Everyone else resumed their meals, and a cheerful hum spread around the room.
I smiled as I looked around. This really was a wonderful way to spend the morning.
“Elizabeth sent me a letter, saying she wished she could have attended,” Joan said. “But as you know, her wedding is only two weeks from now.”
“Elizabeth is a kind friend,” I said. “And you are a good sister. Thank you, Joan. Thank you for doing this for me.”
Joan leaned over to give me a warm hug.
“I would have loved to have Elizabeth join us, but I am glad I was at least able to visit her for some time in London before her wedding,” I said.
“She wanted me to tell you that she might have expected you and Miles to end up getting married, even before he proposed to you while you were there,” Joan went on. “She said she told you as much when you were together.”
I nodded. “Yes, she certainly did. Which is why she was not at all surprised when I told her that he had proposed.”
“I am glad she could at least share in your joy then, even if she cannot make it for the wedding,” Joan said.
“As am I,” I said.
We settled into a nice meal, filled with laughter and good stories. Everyone wanted to tell me about all the times they had seen Miles and me together, telling me how they had suspected his affections, or my own.
The time flew by until our meal eventually wrapped up, and some of the guests were ready to leave.
“I have had a lovely time, and I cannot wait to join your wedding party,” said Christine with a wave from the front doorway. “I have a gallery opening this afternoon, you understand.”
“Thank you for coming,” I said.
“And I have another social obligation this afternoon, for my niece who is turning one today,” said Lily. “Oh, what a wonderful, happy day I have had thus far.”
Nearly all of them had departed, as I turned to head back to the dining room to see if there were any more of those fruit tarts left. That was when I found Torrie coming through the doors with her bag and her coat over her arm.
“Oh, there you are,” she said. “I had hoped to find you.”
“I thought maybe you managed to sneak out before I had the chance to say goodbye,” I said, smiling at her. “I am glad that isn’t the case.”
She returned my smile, but it seemed strained.
“Is everything all right?” I asked.
“Well…” she said. Then she shook her head, holding her arm out. “No. No, not today. I will not bother you with my silly troubles on your special day.”
She sidestepped around me, and started toward the door.
“Wait just a moment, Victoria,” I said, catching up to her and taking hold of her arm. “What happened? What’s the matter?”
She shook her head again. “No, it is just fine. You do not need to worry. I am probably only being foolish. I think I just need a few moments to rest, if I am honest.”
I could see the strain at the corners of her eyes, and I took a closer look at her for the first time since she had sat down at the table for the party. The dark circles beneath her eyes seemed prominent now, as well as the bloodshot streaks in her gaze.
I didn’t know what to think, but I did know that I could recognize a hurting friend when I saw one. “Do you have anywhere that you need to be?” I asked. “If you want, you can come and join me in the drawing room and we can have a chat.”
Her face lit up, but the expression quickly faded. “I…I do not want to put you out if you have other plans for the day.”
I took her hand and started down the hall. “Nonsense. I will have Mrs. Riley bring us over whatever was left from the party, and leave the cleaning up to my mother and sister. We shall not be disturbed.”
She pulled her hand from mine, shaking her head. “No, not here,” she said. “I have only just recalled, I do have a prior engagement.”
I frowned at her. “Torrie, if you wanted to discuss – ”
“I do,” she said. “At least…I think I do.” She took a step away, toward the front doors. “I do not want to be a bother, but I – I’m a bit frightened that someone may be following me.”
