Page 33 of A Vocation of Violence
I had no doubt the fair Vivienne could embody such ruthlessness if crossed.
As could our actual monarch, Queen Victoria.
Strange that she would present herself to someone who thought nothing of her at all.
Stranger still that I was lending those silly cards any credence.
And yet… Hadn’t I only just discussed Albert Victor with Croft? His position as the Duke of Clarence afforded him immense privilege and protection. I shuddered to imagine the wrath that could be brought down upon me for prying into his affairs.
The whispers of his possible involvement in Mary Kelly’s murder had haunted me since that fateful day when Vivienne Bloomfield-Smythe’s lifeless body had been found. It was my determination to bring justice for my dear friend that had ledme down this twisted path, but I couldn’t deny the dread that now coiled within me. If the Queen of Swords represented the consequences of investigating Albert Victor, then her wrath was not something to be taken lightly.
Yet the prince was but one player in this mystery. Jorah, Tunstall, the baroness, Claudia, even Darcy—all were tangled in Vivienne’s web of secrets. And I could not forget the specter of Jack the Ripper, who Iknewstill lurked in London’s shadows.
The morning sunhad barely begun to streak the sky with crimson when I found myself standing before the modest house where Night Horse had informed me that Claudia, Vivienne’s maid, was staying with a relative. A hand-painted sign advertised the cluttered stoop as “The Harringtons.”
The quiet of Lambeth High street masked the turmoil within me, my determination at odds with the unease that gnawed at my insides. I rapped sharply on the door, and it was opened by a tired-looking woman I took to be the cousin. She regarded me warily.
“Good morning. I’ve come to call upon Claudia,” I said briskly. “It concerns her late mistress.”
The woman’s eyes widened in understanding, and she ushered me inside. “Please wait here a moment.”
I stood in the narrow foyer, listening to her footsteps fade down the hall. Then came the creak of a door opening, the murmur of voices.
After a few minutes Claudia appeared, clad in a rumpled black dress, her eyes rimmed red. She looked as if she had not slept in days. Wordlessly she led me to the kitchen, where we could speak privately. Her hair, once neatly coiled atop her head,now hung in loose tendrils around her sallow cheeks. Her grief clung to her like a shroud, making her seem even more fragile than she already was.
“Miss Mahoney,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “What brings you here so early?”
“Forgive the intrusion, but I have some questions about Vivienne,” I said softly, trying to mask the urgency of my mission beneath a veil of sympathy. “I’ve been asked to assist with the inquiry into her death.” I knew I made it sound more official than it actually was, but…needs must.
“Vivienne meant the world to me,” she confessed, fresh tears welling up in her eyes. “I would have done anything for her.”
“Which is precisely why I’ve come to you, Claudia,” I said, leaning forward. “I believe there are still secrets surrounding Vivienne’s murder, and I need your help to uncover them.”
“Secrets?” she echoed, her eyes widening with a mix of fear and curiosity. “What more could there be to discover? She’s already gone.”
“Her past, Claudia. There are still unanswered questions about her past, and I believe the answers may lie in her private scheduling diary?”
“Her diary?” She hesitated, twisting her fingers in her lap. “I thought the inspectors looked at it already.”
“Yes, I checked with the constable collecting the evidence and was told it’s missing from her effects… Please, Claudia,” I implored, my voice soft but insistent as I reached across the table and took her rough hands in mine. “Vivienne deserves justice, and we must do everything we can to ensure it is served.”
A moment of silence hung between us, fraught with tension and uncertainty. Finally, Claudia let out a shaky breath and nodded.
“All right,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “But you must promise me that whatever you find will be used only to bring justice to Vivienne. Not to tarnish her memory.”
“I promise,” I vowed solemnly, doing my best not to give away my triumph that this hunch had borne fruit.
Her face crumpled. “Oh, miss, I would do anything for my lady. She was so very good to me…” Her voice broke off in a sob as she fled the room.
If Claudia truly thought so, I was not the one to disabuse her of the notion, but I’d not seen Vivienne treat her well at all.
Upon her return, Claudia was carrying a box rather than a book, which she settled on the table with a heavy clunk. “I save all our keepsakes in here,” she huffed, lifting the lid as if the knotted pine held the holy grail.
My stomach roiled as she touched the treasures within.
First, she uncovered a lock of gold hair wrapped in a faded ribbon, then an old, tarnished tooth with a hole drilled through it. “Vivienne always had a weakness for sweets,” Claudia explained, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
It took everything inside of me to hide my revulsion before, finally, she gently laid out some obvious costume jewelry and then set a worn leather diary beside the glittering “jewels.”
