The Mysterious Point of Deceit by Beth Byers

Author:Beth Byers [Byers, Beth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-07-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

The letter from Mrs. Grantley was a demand for action. It contained the location of a key at the Grantley mansion and an even more stringent order for a presence in the house that very evening.

I haven’t slept for days, Mrs. Grantley had written. The haunting has been taken to another level as though whoever is behind this madness has changed tactics entirely. Before the last party, there was some activity near the witching hour which faded within the hour.

“It’s not good,” Mr. Thorne said, “that tactics have changed. The more casual haunting could have been an idiotic grandchild having a hoax on Grandmama. Leaving an old woman sleepless day after day would speed an already dying woman to the grave.”

Severine bit at her bottom lip for a moment. “Before I decided to return home, I was sleepless for days. It turned me into a bumbling idiot.”

“Are you saying that someone is doing that to Mrs. Grantley purposefully?” Lisette breathed in shock. Her eyes moved from person to person and then she mumbled about the privileged rich.

Mr. Brand rose and paced before the fire as Severine answered, “I just couldn’t help but remember how it felt.”

“It’s possible that someone is wanting to make her look incompetent,” Mr. Brand said, facing them from near the fire and then letting his hand rest on Anubis. He sighed. “The Grantleys, along with several others, are part of a business investment scheme. Your father was part of it, and you still are.”

“So?” Severine demanded.

“So,” Mr. Brand replied. “Her children are part of it too. If someone were wanting her vote to be curtailed, that might be a reason to drive her into seeming incapable.”

“Or it could be her evil grandchildren,” Lisette said, seeming to like that idea. “It’s good to know that the super-rich aren’t any happier than those of us who worry for our pennies.”

“Sister Sophie used to say happiness is directly related to the state of our souls, I think,” Severine replied. “Gratitude and the like more than anything else.”

“Sister Sophie is my favorite,” Mr. Brand told Severine.

“I like Sister Bernadette,” Lisette announced.

“I met that one,” Mr. Brand told Lisette with a bit of a twinkle in his eye and a grin on his face. “She was cantankerous.”

Severine chuckled. Sister Bernadette appealed to Lisette because the nun redefined ornery. Well that, and because Sister Bernadette liked to play in the garden with anything that was dangerous. Severine rubbed her chest at the ache of missing her nuns. If only they weren’t so very far away.

Mr. Thorne had reread the letter and he said, “She’s demanding both of us, Miss DuNoir.”

The return to formal names continued to be painful.

“I don’t like the idea of you going,” Mr. Brand told her, “especially after this afternoon. Even with Mr. Thorne, it’s just—we don’t know why that man wanted to bring you somewhere or to whom he was supposed to bring you.”

“You can’t trust anything he said. Not even that he was supposed to bring her somewhere else.

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