by Clee, Adele
“We must focus on the case,” she said, eager to leave the inn before the serving wench came to remind them they had drinks waiting. “We must discuss what I’ve learnt tonight and how we might proceed with the investigation.”
Mr Ashwood nodded. “Pursuing Mr Sands may rid you of this pent-up anger, D’Angelo, but Miss Sands has suffered enough and wishes to be away from here, free of the devil.”
Dante glanced at her, his black eyes softening.
“Please, Dante. Let us leave now.”
He glanced once more at the open road and sighed. “Very well.”
A brief conversation ensued where Mr Ashwood informed them he’d found nothing of interest in her uncle’s house. Dante muttered his frustration as he climbed into Mr Ashwood’s coach. Beatrice hurried to the inn, paid for their drinks, and explained that the family’s coachman had arrived to take her to Chatham.
A shudder of relief passed through her when she settled into her seat and Mr Ashwood’s carriage pulled away from the Falstaff inn. But a few minutes spent amid the heavy silence had tension coiling its way around every muscle.
Dante sat rigid, staring out at the sprawling darkness, at the never-ending void, the vast emptiness that daylight merely masked. He had heard every word spoken in the inn and knew to add at least one member of his family to the suspect list. Yet she had so much more to tell him, but didn’t know where to begin.
Mr Ashwood watched his friend intently, his frown softening when he glanced at Beatrice.
At this time of night, it would take the best part of four hours to reach London. Amid the bleak silence, it would feel more like a day.
Dante must have found the atmosphere unbearable, too, must have seen the lanterns lighting the entrance to the hostelry yards ahead, for he suddenly thumped the carriage roof and called for the coachman to stop at the inn.
“I shall spend the night here.” Dante fixed his gaze on Mr Ashwood. “See Miss Sands safely home and we will reconvene in Hart Street tomorrow afternoon to discuss the investigation. Send word to Sharp, have him come for me in the morning.”
Beatrice knew what troubled him. He didn’t want to return home, not to an empty house, not to sit alone and relive past events. But if he stayed here, a mere five miles from the Falstaff inn, would he visit her uncle in the dead of night, take his vengeance too far.
She shuffled to the edge of the seat. “If they’ve rooms available, I shall stay too. We can dine together, discuss the things you wish to avoid.”
He looked at her. “I doubt I shall be good company.”
“You were dreadful company when I arrived at Fitzroy Square the other night. Look how quickly your mood changed.” It was unwise to allude to their passionate exchange, but she knew of no other way to drag him from the doldrums.
“Then I shall stay, too,” Mr Ashwood said, taking her by surprise. “D’Angelo, if we’re to catch the villain who killed your parents, you need to stop running. You need to hear the facts, deal with them, and then give Miss Sands your statement.”
“I have done everything you’ve asked of me, Dante.” Indeed, she had pushed all fears of her uncle aside, and was just as worried how she might react once she closed her bedchamber door and found herself alone with her memories.
Dante nodded. “What’s the odds we’ll find three vacant rooms?”
“Based on your winning streak at the White Boar,” Mr Ashwood began with some amusement, “I’d say they’re favourable.”
Chapter 12
Dante splashed cold water over his face, grabbed the linen towel from the washstand and dried the rivulets running down his neck and chest. He glanced at the poster bed he’d have to share with Noah Ashwood and decided he’d sleep in the wingback chair instead.
Beatrice and Ashwood had remained downstairs in the private parlour, discussing everything she had learnt this evening. No doubt it was a sensible conversation, two intelligent people plotting, making wise assumptions, not two people so attracted to one another they often used the case as a means to grow close.
That wasn’t why Dante suggested he sit in Beatrice’s chamber to give his statement. But something happened when they were alone. She chased away the ghosts, unlocked the chains shackling him to the past, made him feel unburdened. Free.
Having spent a third of his life surrounded by love and being too young to appreciate the majesty, a third living in a mire of hatred and distrust, he’d struggled to make sense of the world. Had latched on to the hope that solving the crime would bring absolution. Now he was another step closer to finding the villain, yet something else, someone else, held his attention.
A light knock on the door brought Ashwood. “Miss Sands is waiting for you when you’re ready, and I’ll be here if you need me.” An uncomfortable pause ensued. “D’Angelo, about Miss Sands.”
Dante grabbed his shirt and dragged it over his head. “She’s a good friend, kind and selfless, and I would not hurt her for the world.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Ashwood laughed as if recalling something she’d said earlier. “Miss Sands is excellent company, amusing, witty, not afraid to voice her opinion.”
“She’s exceptional in every regard.” Dante remembered her sitting on the floor in her silly trousers, swigging brandy as she tried to pull him out of his dark mood. “And she deserves better than this.”
“This?”
Dante shrugged. He meant she deserved better than working for a living, better than having to risk her life in the pursuit of justice. Better than him.
“She shouldn’t have to live in fear.”
“No.” Ashwood watched Dante quickly knot his cravat. “Like you, I pray it won’t be long before someone notices her worth. I know her options are limited, but I’m not sure I agree with the idea of female enquiry agents. At least not when they’re working alone in dangerous parts of town.”
The thought of Beatrice out scouring the rookeries at night, questioning unscrupulous villains, made Dante feel sick to the pit of his stomach.
“You should speak to Daventry,” he said, for someone had to. “Suggest he thinks carefully about the cases he gives his female agents.” And yet Beatrice would argue that chasing criminals was a respectable way for a woman without means to earn money. And considering Dante was her current case, he had no gripe with Daventry. “I should go and give my statement.”
The thought left him cold to his bones.
When Dante made to leave, Ashwood caught his arm. “We will find the person responsible. You might not think it now, but you will go on to live a happy and meaningful life.”
Dante appreciated the sentiment, even though it was a stretch too far for his imagination. “Perhaps I might take up poetry when this is all over,” he teased, for his friend had published a book of erotic verse. “Write a humorous poem about a man who shunned love.”
But Ashwood didn’t laugh. “It sounds like a tragedy to me.”
* * *
Ashwood’s words rebounded in Dante’s head as he crept across the landing, careful there were no witnesses to his late-night rendezvous. He let himself into Beatrice’s room and found her sitting in a chair by the hearth, gazing at her notebook and tapping the tip of a pencil to her lips.
She looked up, her blue eyes twinkling like sapphires against the firelight, her hair hanging loose like locks of spun gold. Her brown, high-necked dress posed a stark contradiction. Plain. Dull. Yet her inner beauty shone as if she were draped in diamonds.
He almost chuckled upon noting the two glasses of brandy positioned on the small table next to her chair. He’d need a damn sight more—a quart at least—to tell the tale buried beneath a weight of guilt and pain.
“Dante,” she uttered in a tone that said she welcomed his company. “Please, come and sit by the fire. It’s so cold tonight I cannot get warm.”
He could solve her problem in seconds. They could forget about the case for a few hours, do something to calm this damnable attraction.
“Perhap
s it’s not the weather affecting you.” He came to sit in the chair opposite hers, stretched his legs and crossed his ankles. “Perhaps it’s the chill of fear, the distress you hid so well while extracting information from your uncle.”
She’d gone to her chamber to wash before dinner. But Dante had taken one look at her hands beneath the light in the private parlour and knew she’d spent an age scrubbing them raw.
“How is it possible?” She shook her head. “I lived with him all these years, and not once did he make me feel uncomfortable. Yes, he was always aloof, disinterested, but it’s as if he woke up one morning a different man.”
“You said things changed when your aunt died.”
“Drastically so.”
“Having heard your uncle speak tonight, it’s evident he thrives on power. After your aunt’s death, he needed someone to control.” Dante wished he’d thumped the devil. “You should have let me chase after him, warn him never to darken your door again, give him a reason to stay away.”
She exhaled deeply, the sound like a form of cleansing. “By hurting him, you would have hurt yourself, and I couldn’t let that happen.”
“You placed my welfare above your own?”
A bubble of emotion rose to his throat. It had no name he could place, not respect, not admiration, though he could think of no woman he respected or admired more.
She gave a half shrug and glanced at the notebook resting in her lap. “Helping you has become a passion of mine. Alice said kindness rids us of negative emotions. Acts of kindness leave us warm inside, and I’m tired of feeling cold.”
“Alice is a fountain of wisdom, by all accounts.”
She laughed, and he couldn’t help but laugh, too.
“Alice speaks her mind. Nothing is left festering inside. You get to hear her opinion whether you can handle it or not.”
“Perhaps we should adopt her attitude,” he said, yet fear raised its head, warning him he would likely lose this friendship if he spoke openly. Like all good things, he would likely lose it anyway. So shouldn’t he make the most of every moment?
“I thought we’d already agreed to be honest,” she said.
“Honest about the case, not honest about the reason you think about me more than you should. Or why I feel at peace when I’m with you. Why I’m thinking about the night I kissed you instead of the dreadful task ahead.”
A blush touched her cheeks. “We’re attracted to each other. There’s no secret there. Perhaps it’s my inexperience, but the merest touch of your lips has a profound effect.”
A sense of masculine pride reached around and gave him a hearty pat on the back. “Passion can be overwhelming.” His mind conjured an erotic fantasy, a host of wicked things he would do to her given a chance.
“I wouldn’t know. Passion is not something I’ve encountered before.”
And therein lay the crux of the problem. She needed someone who could make love to her, hold her close and chase away the darkness. She needed a man who could love her with all his heart, not a rake seeking the euphoria of sexual release.
“Perhaps you should take my statement before this conversation reaches a point where our desires take command of our senses,” he teased.
Her gaze drifted over his white shirt and poorly tied cravat, came to settle on his mouth. “You seem calm now, unfazed by the fact your grandfather or uncle may have had a hand in your parents’ murder.”
“I’m always calm when I’m with you,” he said, yet he felt the stab of familial betrayal deep in his gut. “Let’s begin before I change my mind. We can discuss my family’s treachery and our mutual affection later.”
Devil take it!
He’d said affection, not attraction.
Oblivious to his mistake, Beatrice took hold of her pencil and scribbled something at the top of the page. “Would you care for a sip of brandy before we start?”
“No. I’ll wait until the beast needs sedating.”
She smiled, though seemed nervous. “Do you remember where you were, what you were doing before you journeyed through Hampshire that night?”
Dante relaxed back in the chair and stared at the flames dancing in the hearth. Some people closed their eyes to recall memories, but he could not bear to watch the disturbing scene.
“We rarely ventured to London, but my father took me to a book shop in New Bond Street, then to Gunter’s in Berkeley Square. My mother and Mr Watson met us there.” His mother had been flustered, had tried to listen when he rambled on about eating a lemon ice when it was so cold outside, but couldn’t focus. “She seemed agitated. When she sat down, they all spoke in whispers.”
“Do you know where she’d been?”
“To visit my grandmother, the countess.” Dante had begged to go, was desperate to meet the sweet woman with whom he was estranged. Experience had altered his opinion, poisoned his fantasy. Sweet was no longer a word he associated with the Dowager Countess of Deighton.
“Of course, the earl has a house in Berkeley Square,” she said.
“It belongs to my uncle, but my grandmother lives there.”
“And you say my father accompanied Daphne?” She sounded surprised. “Why would an enquiry agent meet with a countess?”
After what he had learned tonight, the meeting clearly had some relevance to the case, had some bearing on the unfolding tragedy.
“I thought Watson was a steward or man of business and always assumed the meeting had something to do with inheritance or some other legal matter.”
“Dante,” Beatrice said, prompting him to look at her. “Based on the fact neither of us believe in coincidence, and until we prove the countess had nothing to do with the murder of her daughter, we have to consider her a suspect.”
“I understand.”
He understood only too well. Like the earl, the countess reigned with an iron hand, but the lash of her tongue delivered the deadliest blow. The matron had banished her daughter. Had ripped the soul from the chest of a grieving boy. It wasn’t hard to believe she might hire cutthroats to get rid of the problem.
Sensing his disquiet, she said, “Do you want to continue?”
“No.” He wanted to jump ship and swim to shore. “But I have to tell you what happened.” He needed to confess, beg for forgiveness.
Silence ensued while Beatrice quickly made notes in her book, the sound like the faint scratching of mice trying to claw their way out of the darkness.
“And so you left London and journeyed to Hampshire,” she clarified. “It’s at least five hours to the common. Can you recall how many times you stopped en route?”
The simple question amounted to more than a desire to create a timeline. It acted like water, dousing his fiery emotions. Indeed, Beatrice Sands was perhaps the most skilled agent he’d ever met. Instinctively, she knew when to advance, when to retreat.
“I cannot recall. But my mother wanted to stay the night in Bagshot.” A year ago, Dante had ventured as far as the inn, had made enquiries about highway robberies in the area during the autumn and winter of 1805. “Your father wanted to leave, but said he would hire a horse.”
She swallowed deeply. “Evidently, you didn’t stay.”
“No.” Guilt churned in his stomach. If he could travel back in time, he would tan his own backside for being a brat. He’d drag himself from the carriage by the scruff of his coat, put himself to bed without supper. “I cried and complained until she agreed to go home.”
Beatrice said nothing. She stared at him, eyes glistening with unshed tears. The gravity of the decision was not lost on her.
“Had we stayed at the inn, we might—”
“Don’t!” She dabbed her eyes with her fingertips. “Don’t say you were to blame. Don’t torture yourself—”
“We should have stayed, should have made the journey during daylight, when there were more people on the road.”
“Whoever did this would have found another way to silence our parents. There’s every chance someone followed
them from London. Every chance the villain would have murdered you in your beds had you stayed at the inn.”
He wanted to believe her. “What if it amounts to nothing more than highway robbery? What then?” He did not give her an opportunity to answer. “I’m the reason they were on the road that night. I’m the reason they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
And while he’d spent years searching for a motive, searching for the fiend who fired the shots, part of him wanted to hide from the truth.
“Dante, the evidence suggests it has something to do with the man who visited Farthingdale. And if my uncle is correct, we must assume this man believes the countess is his mother. Vengeance seems a likely motive, as does the need for the countess to silence anyone who knew her secret.”
He reached for the brandy glass, cursed the dowager to the devil, and then downed the contents. “Then we must visit Mr Coulter as soon as we return to town. The man had items stolen from the scene, and so we could be looking at a conspiracy.”
They would have to visit the countess, too, though Dante had not spoken to the matron for ten years. Not since he’d run away to live with his Uncle Lorenzo.
“Yes,” she said softly. “There are many things we need to clarify. But what I know with all my heart is you had nothing to do with what happened to them. You need to stop fighting the world. Stop punishing yourself.”
His instinct was to mock, tell her she couldn’t possibly understand, and yet he said, “I don’t know how to be anything but angry.”
“Yes, you do.” She placed her notebook and pencil on the side table. “You know how to be a good friend, can show kindness and compassion. You went out of your way to purchase a letter opener so I might sleep easier at night.”
He shook his head. “Hatred lives inside me. Dark. Ugly. A living thing that grows more monstrous by the day.”
She shot off the chair, came to kneel beside him, captured his hand and gave a reassuring squeeze. “That’s not true. You care deeply for your friends. Love lives in your heart, I’m sure of it, and one day you will learn to share it with the world.”
