A Treasured Little Murder: A Violet Carlyle Cozy Historical Mystery (The Violet Carlyle Mysteries Bo

dying of heat in the summer like Kate.”
“The future, huh?” Rita’s smile was sly. When Vi didn’t react, Rita offered, “Ham is older than Jack.”
Vi paused. “He is older than Jack. That’s true.” Vi waited expectantly. Was it possible? Were Rita and Ham going to have a baby, too? She lifted her brows in question.
“Yes,” Rita answered. “A baby and all that.”
“Yes?” Vi squealed. She hugged Rita and then let her go immediately due to the heat.
“Yes,” Rita repeated. “I’m hoping for a solitary boy.”
“But all the girls,” Vi moaned, thinking a boy would be sad to be left out if they didn’t find ways to play together.
“I know,” Rita countered. “All of those options for him to fall in love with.”
Vi laughed. “He’s not even here, and you’re already marrying him off.”
“Well, Hamilton Barnes Jr. wouldn’t crush his mother and aunts by not deciding which of those daughters amongst us are the cleverest and funniest and then begging that girl to love him desperately.”
Vi lifted her brows and whispered, “You’ve just made the suggestion that one of them is the best. Those are fighting words, my friend.”
“I know,” she said with wicked humor. “It’ll be like Paris, the golden apple, and the goddesses.”
“It’ll be war,” Vi agreed.
“But first,” Rita countered, “it’ll be a party.”
Vi’s devilish grin made an appearance and then they started making a list of things they’d need to get in London.
“London?” Jack asked. He did it with the air of a man who was going to rearrange his schedule to dart up to the city with her even though she only wanted to get a few things from the London house, hire a fellow to serve ice cream at their party, and get a new party dress.
She also wanted to go to London to avoid the desire to meddle in whatever he was up to. The truth of the matter was that she’d start the new book—or perhaps a novella—to tease Victor, but that would hardly occupy her mind full-time.
What was she going to do next? Bother Jack? Plant roses? Redecorate another room? All of those things sounded terribly boring. Victor was occupied to an extent that Vi had to admit made her quite jealous. She had every intention of going over and bothering him often and knew he’d welcome her presence, but still—still, it was rather unsatisfactory, wasn’t it?
“London.” Vi pressed her hands to either of his cheeks, careful to keep their bodies separated due to the ridiculous heat, but she squished his face and told him, “Rita and I. A girls’ trip.”
Jack’s gaze narrowed and she could almost see the calculation in his head of whether he even thought that he wanted to disagree. Let alone disagree and argue.
“I am a grown woman, Jack,” she reminded him.
“And so very capable,” he agreed. “I think I’ve a bit of a nervous old aunt in me when it comes to you, Vi.”
“I’ll be fine,” she told him again, patting his cheek lightly. “The great risk will be that the heat melts me into nothing. My goodness, Jack.” She eyed him, knowing Rita was expecting and wondering if he knew and what he felt. “We might need to sail to the North Pole.”
“A bit of an overreaction, wouldn’t you say?”
“I would say no such thing, sirrah,” she told him with a laugh. “Time for my third cold bath of the day.”
Instead of bathing, however, they returned to the Roman-style swimming pool they’d added to the property and swam in the moonlight. The coolness of the water was such a relief that Vi didn’t even mind when Jack moved closer, or when the heat of the evening shifted into something else entirely.

Chapter 3
The auto windows were down, they were both wearing wet kerchiefs around their necks, and they had been wise enough to bring thermoses full of iced coffee, iced lemonade, and iced champagne. Even with the air blowing in from the opened windows, the car felt like an oven.
Vi groaned, “They’re going to find this auto on the side of the road with only two puddles left as evidence that we ever existed.”
Rita huffed as though she would have laughed but it was too hot to do so. They carried on the drive despite the heat and the creeping desire to turn back. By the time they stopped for lunch, they were out of the coffee and the lemonade.
Vi wanted nothing more than a vat of something cool, a refreshed wet kerchief, and a cool breeze. The only breeze they could get, however, was a hot one that felt as though the underworld was being aired out onto England.
“Do we have to get out?” Rita sighed and the friends eyed each other.
“I am regretting being independent,” Vi confessed. “Why did I care that Jack lectured me?”
“I am regretting leaving your poolside. Why didn’t we send a servant up to London to get what we wanted? We could have given them some sort of heat bonus.”
Vi’s answer was to prop her head against her hands gripping the steering wheel. “I dream of a world with ice buckets in the auto and with the movement of the air from the driving. What do you think? Would it work?”
Rita shook her head and rolled her eyes at the same time.
“There must be some way to cool an automobile on a hot day.”
“Sailing is the answer.”
“Time for a sailboat then, my friend. Something big enough for all of us. We can take a ship to somewhere cooler should it ever get this hot again.”
Rita’s expression said the idea of a yacht had merit.
“I’m too hot to eat,” Vi said, “but I need something more to drink.”
They finally went inside and the switch from blazing sun to thick walls and high ceilings was enough for both of them to collapse in the chairs of a table in the corner. In a moment, they had re-wet their kerchiefs, wound them around their necks, and ordered fruit and gazpacho.
“What do