VIOLET DAWN

Chapter 7

An Ottoman name. The private detective she had hired with her meagre wages had discovered that Ismail was an Ottoman name. Violet couldn't get her mind around it. If Ismail was Ottoman, then what on earth had he been doing in the Scottish Highlands? What could he have wanted from her father?

"Miss, can I help you?"

Startled at the sound, Violet turned towards the elderly voice and brushed at the skirts of the dress she had borrowed from Sarah. The chiffon fabric felt odd to her fingers, the little ruffles at her wrists were irritating, but Sarah had assured her that she looked 'positively respectable' in the green day gown.  Positively respectable was a good thing, Violet supposed, as she cleared her throat.

"I heard there was a lecture on Ottoman art here today?"

"Why yes miss, right this way please. The museum is honoured to have Professor Tutskin do this series of lectures, he is a highly reputable scholar..."

Violet ignored the man's chatter and concentrated on following his scent. She had never been to a museum before, it had never crossed her mind to go when she couldn't see the works on display. It came as a surprise that the smells in these hallways reminded her of her childhood. Oil paints, pastels, acrylics, she had walked up and down hallways that smelled just like these, hallways lined with portraits of her mothers family and the greek and roman statues they collected.   

It was a strange feeling to be surrounded by those scents again. Although her mother had ordered the servants in the mansion to throw her out onto the streets, Violet remembered her home with a strange fondness. Perhaps it was because her mother was absent from most all of her memories of the place. Running through the rose gardens, reading in the musky library, playing in the attic... perhaps she thought of her home with an odd sense of yearning because it was the only place she had ever known. Intricately carved oak doors, her four poster bed, the white sheepskin rug beside her mohagony desk... the rooms were the last things she had seen before she went blind.   

"Here we go miss, you may take any of the empty seats."

"Thank you," Violet smiled before moving forward. She could hear the soft buzz of voices coming from up ahead. Her spine stiffened with every step she took.

She had come to this public lecture on Ottoman History to gain some insight into the psyche of her father's killer. Perhaps if she heard more about the people of the eastern empire, it would be easier to find him had been her thought.  Now that she was here, however, Violet wondered if she was about to meet her father's killer. Stupidly, she hadn't considered the possibility before...it really was pure luck that she had her dagger strapped to her leg under her skirts.

If the blood drinker was here, she would slit his throat. 

She took a deep breath as she neared the gathering. Eleven... no twelve people, but not one blood drinker among them.

"Damn!"

"That was my reaction precisely when I first saw the pompous professors sitting in the front row. Not a single woman among them. No wonder history is so skewed."

Violet shifted towards the female voice, a little surprised at the outburst.

"So sorry," the woman continued from a southernly direction. "Where are my manners? My name is Angelica, how about yours?"

"Violet," she replied slowly.  Angelica seemed to be sitting on a seat an arms length away , but no one else was nearby. 

"It's a pleasure, Violet. Won't you take a seat?"

"I...sure." Figuring it wouldn't do her any harm to sit beside the woman, Violet used the smell of wood polish emanating from the museum chairs to find an empty one to the left of the woman.