Beatrice

by King, Rebecca

  Ben chuckled and shook his head. “Be careful what you wish for.”

  “I know,” she sighed. In all of her life she had never thought that having someone like Ben in her life was possible, yet here he was; everything she had ever wished for in one tall, dark and handsome package.

  Before she could say anything else, his head started to lower toward hers. While she knew that it would be foolhardy to allow anything to happen between them on such a short acquaintance, curiosity kept her perfectly still.

  The soft brush of his lips against hers was barely more than a whisper. She felt his warm breath against her cheek as his lips swept tenderly against hers. The tender gesture was soon repeated, the second time more firmly, before his lips finally settled completely over hers.

  He hesitated for a moment and assessed her for any sign of reluctance or objection. To his relief, he saw nothing in her slightly dazed blue eyes other than acceptance and raw need. The passion that was etched on her face tested his powers of control to the point that he knew resistance was futile. His mouth settled over hers more fully when passion became too much for either of them to resist and he drew her tighter against him while his lips plundered.

  How long they savoured each other, Beatrice had no idea. Her head swam with the delightful sensations he brought forth within her. It was all she could do to cling to his shirt and allow him to plunder.

  The sudden knock on the door was loud, and so unexpected that they both jumped apart guiltily. Ben smothered a curse as he leaned away from the temptation of her curves. However, he couldn’t turn away, or remove his hands from her waist and sever all contact completely, and remained where he was while he tried to gather his scattered wits about him.

  “I am not going to apologise for that, Beatrice,” he declared harshly. He was prevented from saying anything more when the knocking sounded again.

  He threw her an apologetic look and yanked open the door to find Mark on the doorstep. It was only then that he realised he had been kissing Beatrice right in front of the window where any of the constables outside could have seen them. His eyes met and held Mark’s for a moment, and knew that the Detective Inspector had witnessed their embrace. However, professional to the core, Mark made no mention of it as he stepped into the kitchen.

  “The body has gone now. One of the men has found boot prints outside of the study window like you said, and they look like a match for the boots on the corpse.”

  “So he was most probably looking through the window to make sure we received the plant,” she gasped, and suddenly felt very sorry for him.

  To do something as innocuous as deliver a plant, and die for it, was something she couldn’t quite come to terms with. It seemed such a nonsensical waste of a life that she suddenly felt a wave of anger and disgust toward Hargraves for his bullying antics.

  “Are you alright?” Ben asked as he read the flash of something undefined in her eyes. Although she nodded, he wasn’t convinced and held an arm out to her.

  She moved closer to him and didn’t object when he slid a comforting arm around her waist. However, it did little to ease her burning anger toward her persistent visitor who seemed reluctant to take ‘no’ for an answer.

  “It looks like it,” Mark agreed. “Right now, we just don’t know what it is about that plant that makes is so sought after.”

  “We will continue to look through the books in Matthew’s study to see if we can identify it. However, we may need to contact one of the scholars at the university to get the words on the notes transcribed.” Ben lifted his brows at Mark hopefully. “Unless you know Latin?”

  Mark shook his head. “Look, I will arrange for one of my men to take the diagrams to one of the scholars. He can wait while it is transcribed and can send you a copy of the transcription once he has it. You can then check if it is as rare as we think it is. When Isaac and I get back from London, we can take a look at what we have found and decide if it is worth killing for.”

  Beatrice opened her mouth to object but really couldn’t come up with any argument. To do so could be construed as interfering with a police investigation. She wished now that she had taken the time to copy the notes because she really didn’t want to just hand them over. To her surprise, Ben seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

  “I will go and find them. Be back in a minute,” Ben announced and hurried out of the room. Once in the sitting room however, he grabbed the packaging paper and quickly sketched out a copy of the notes onto it, along with the names and addresses of the botanists. He then tucked the packaging paper out of sight, folded up the rest of the papers, and took them to Mark.

  Mark turned toward the door for the second time that afternoon. “Meantime, if you do identify the plant, just leave word at the station. The sergeant who is looking after the case while I am away will pick it up.”

  Beatrice nodded and watched him step outside.

  Once on the doorstep, he turned back to look at her. “By the way, Harriett said to remind you that you are hosting the Circle tomorrow night.”

  Beatrice put her hands on her cheeks and stared at him in horror. “Oh Lord, I completely forgot.”

  Mark grinned at Ben over her head. “You should stick around for that, it is an interesting group,” he declared with an unholy grin before he turned around, gave them a wave, and left.

  “The Circle?”

  “The remaining members of the Psychic Circle decided that they wanted to continue to meet on a regular basis. We are all interested in making things, so started up a sewing circle instead. We discuss all sorts of things while we make various items of clothing and household fripperies.”

  “I had heard that you were into philanthropy now,” Ben replied as he thought of the strange warning he had received from Mrs Underwick.

  “Philanthropy? Who on earth told you that?”

  Ben read the look on her face, and knew that he had said the wrong thing. “I had heard that you undertake charitable work now,” he corrected, but far too late to correct the damage.

  “Well we do, but it isn’t philanthropy,” she snapped defensively and turned to put a pot of water on to boil, effectively drawing an end to the conversation.

  A small voice warned her not to lose her temper with him. After all, he had been more than helpful to her over the last day or so. It would be very bad tempered of her to chastise him for a throw-away comment. Still, it galled her to think that people we gossiping about her back.

  Curiosity made her turn back to face him. “Who have you been speaking to?”

  Ben had the good grace to look a little evasive. “Oh, I just heard on the grapevine that you were working for charitable causes now.”

  She threw him a dark look but remained quiet.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The slightly uncomfortable silence remained between them while she made the tea. As soon as it was ready, Ben carried the tray into the sitting room and they both took their usual seats on the sofa. Beatrice poured and they sat back to savour the silence for a moment before she reluctantly raised the issue she least wanted to discuss: the Circle. It was awful to think that she had to defend the activities of such an innocuous group, but it was important that Ben understood the truth, if only so that she could ensure he didn’t believe the rubbish he had heard from the gossips.

  “When the clairvoyants were arrested, we decided to disband the Psychic Circle. Nobody wanted to sit in the dark anymore, especially after what had happened and, to be honest with you, none of us had the will to try and find a more reputable clairvoyant. I think that we all lost confidence in them. However, we still wanted to get together because we quite enjoyed our little meetings. Harriett’s aunt, Babette, has made good friends with Hetty, Mark’s mum, and wanted to meet up more often,” she glanced at Ben. “This was before Mark and Harriett married, you understand?"

  Ben nodded but remained quiet.

  “Well, we were all in the process of making various things. Hetty was crocheting a blanket, a
lthough remarked that she had no idea what she was actually making one for given that she didn’t need one. Babette was embroidering some napkins, and Harriett was knitting a tea-cosy. The other members were making all sorts of things, most of which they didn’t have a need for. We agreed to meet up, but also decided to work while we chatted. To begin with, we just had a cup of tea while we talked. Harriett then started to bring cake. Then Mrs Dalrymple brought yet more cake. Then someone brought sandwiches. One day, for some reason, we couldn’t get everyone together in an afternoon and so decided to meet up one evening. I put on a supper for everyone and it has gone from there really. Each week, we all meet up at someone’s house and whoever plays host provides a buffet type meal. You know, cakes, sandwiches, pigs in blankets, that kind of thing.”

  “You eat and drink tea while you socialise.”

  Beatrice nodded. “Exactly. Anyway, over time, we gradually made a pile of things that we didn’t want or know what to do with, so we decided to give them away. At first we used our contacts; friends and the like. Then word got round and we started to get requests from some of the elderly members of the community. Mrs Ambleton cannot knit anymore because of her arthritis so offered to buy the wool for a new shawl if someone could make it for her. Tuppence took that one on. Then Mrs Dentworthy’s son put a hole in his jumper. The Dentworthy’s don’t have much money and couldn’t even afford a second-hand replacement, so Hetty made him one from some odds and ends. Unfortunately, Mrs Dentworthy is rather proud and we knew she wasn’t likely to accept it as a gift, so we held a raffle. We sold tickets for ha’penny a strip and put the jumper, as well as the unwanted items, up as prizes. Harriett sold the tickets in her shop, and Hetty and Mrs Dalrymple went knocking door-to-door. The tickets all sold out and the prizes went.” She smiled at Ben conspiratorially. “Mrs Dentworthy won a prize and picked out the jumper Hetty had made for her son.”

  Ben fought a smile, and lost. “You are really a very sneaky group of ladies, aren’t you?”

  Beatrice laughed aloud.

  The way her eyes sparkled gave her a look of such vibrancy that she appeared more beautiful than ever, if that was at all possible. He struggled not to draw her closer for a kiss and merely shook his head in disbelief at just how ingenious their plan was. Those who were too proud to accept charity got what they needed, and felt as though they were giving something back to society by buying raffle tickets.

  “What charitable cause did you cite to sell your tickets? I mean, you just didn’t raffle everything off to make a profit, did you?” For some reason, Ben seriously struggled to contain his laughter.

  Beatrice beamed up at him but didn’t hear his swift intake of breath, or notice the stunned look of surprise that suddenly appeared on his face.

  “We used some of the money to purchase some of the yarn and things we needed to make another set of items. However, we made more money than we needed to spend, so donated the rest to the orphanage in Great Tipton. They said they were going to use it to purchase new toys and clothing for the children.”

  She named a sum of money that made Ben’s brows rise in shock, and he turned toward her with such a look of admiration on his face that, for a moment, left her speechless.

  “Heavens above, you really are quite ingenious,” he declared in wonder. He took a sip of his tea and thought about the waspish comments Mrs Underwick had made about the Circle’s endeavours, and suspected that the old woman was jealous at just how successful the enterprising group of women were.

  It annoyed the hell out of him to think that someone like Mrs Underwick could quite deliberately attempt to discredit the hard work of anyone else, no matter what they tried to achieve. It seemed extremely narrow-minded, judgemental, and completely unfair. After all, people were just people. What appealed to one person might not appeal to another, but that was just the way that life was. People were different and, while everyone had a right to voice an opinion, nobody had the right to judgementally condemn someone else’s work in the cruellest of ways just because they could.

  However, he knew from personal experience that the most negative and spiteful of people usually had the biggest mouths, and were habitually the quickest to condemn the work of others. It galled him to think that he had given Mrs Underwick the time of day because, as far as he could see, everyone had benefitted from the Circle’s endeavours. Those who had purchased raffle tickets, and hadn’t won anything, had received the satisfaction of knowing that they had at least contributed to an extremely worthwhile charitable cause. Who on earth could possibly object to that?

  Mrs Underwick, Ben thought ruefully and realised then that Beatrice had already finished her tea and was rifling through another of the books.

  An hour later, the grandfather clock in the hallway chimed noon. Beatrice realised then that she had not had any breakfast, and grimaced when her stomach rumbled loudly. She dropped the last book onto the pile at her feet and sat back to wait for Ben to finish trawling through his book.

  “Nothing.”

  “Not for me either.”

  “I don’t know about you,” Beatrice sighed. “But I really don’t think that we are going to find what we are looking for in these books.”

  Ben had to admit that he agreed with her. “Where do we look though? I hope you don’t plan to go through all of the papers in your uncle’s study?”

  She turned such a look of horror on him that he grinned at her. “I am not that foolish,” she retorted flatly. “No, I think that we need to wait for those translated cultivation notes, and then go and visit at least one person on the list.” She sighed when she read the look of wariness on his face. “I know that Mark said to stay out of it, but if we had taken the notes to the scholar at the university first thing this morning as we planned to do, we could have at least asked him if he knew the people on that list my uncle made. After all, if they are botanists, and experts in their field, it isn’t inconceivable that they have close ties to someone at the university. Someone there might know everything about that plant, and be able to tell us everything we need to know so we don’t need to visit anyone else.”

  Ben had to admit that he agreed with her. He thought about it for a moment and really knew that she was right. If the people on the list did all turn out to be botanists, and could be vouched for by someone at the university, then surely there would be no risk involved with calling by any of their houses – could there?

  He really couldn’t see any botanist resorting to murder to get his hands on a plant he most probably had the skills to cultivate in the first place. No, whoever killed the man at the end of the garden had to be someone else. But who?

  “I have no idea what is going on with that plant, Beatrice, but I cannot help but feel that Hargraves has nothing to do with botany. I rather suspect that he is working for someone.”

  Beatrice was already nodding. “I agree with you, and I would much rather leave that part of the investigation to Mark to deal with. However, I have to know what is in my house. If it is just someone’s work that is of no real importance, and merely someone’s possession they want back, I have no qualms about handing it over to Hargraves, or anyone else for that matter. I would be happy to get the horrible stench out of the house and be rid of all of the problems it brings us. However if, for some strange reason, it turns out to be a rare plant, and one of its kind that is incredibly expensive, then I think we need to decide what to do with it. I am not altogether sure that I want to be guardian of the wretched thing, especially with the likes of Hargraves sniffing around.”

  “It is hardly something you can just plant outside in the borders,” Ben replied quietly.

  The more he thought about her suggestion, the more he could see absolutely nothing wrong with what she was suggesting. He was glad now that he had taken the time to copy the notes before he had given them to Mark, and took a moment to lean under the couch to retrieve it.

  Once he had carefully unfolded it and smoothed out the crumples once again, he showed B
eatrice his drawings. He felt rather pleased with himself when he saw the delight on her face, and was even more rewarded when she suddenly gave him a fierce hug.

  “You clever man,” she beamed.

  He couldn’t prevent himself from dropping a quick kiss at the base of her neck, and leaned back to smile at her. They were so close that their noses almost touched, but neither of them made any attempt to move away. She knew from the look in his eye that he was thinking about the kiss they had shared earlier, and was nothing short of thrilled when his head lowered toward hers. This time though she knew what to expect, and sighed happily when his lips settled firmly over hers.

  His hair really is as soft as it looks, she thought to herself as she slid her fingers in the short strands at the back of his neck.

  At first, the faint noise in the hallway didn’t register through the thick cloud of wondrous sensation that had settled over them. However, when the door squeaked, Ben suddenly leaned back at the same time that Maud appeared, fully dressed, in the doorway. Beatrice was left to right her clothing and tuck her hair back into the bun at the back of her neck.

  “There you are,” she croaked. “I have the luncheon ready, if you are able to carry it through into the dining room?”

  “Maud,” Beatrice gasped, a little stunned that she had been so ensnared by Ben and his kisses that she hadn’t even heard the housekeeper rattling around in the kitchen. “You should be in bed. You are not well enough to be up and about, much less making anything for anyone,” she scolded. “We are perfectly capable of preparing our own food, thank you. Now get yourself back to bed.”

  When Maud opened her mouth to object, Beatrice speared her with a determined look that was enough to make the housekeeper shuffle off toward her rooms with an affronted huff.

  She tried to ignore the hand that visibly trembled when she swept it along her hair and, for some reason, couldn’t bring herself to meet Ben’s gaze. Before Maud had interrupted them, Beatrice had felt so close to him that she was certain nothing could separate them. Now, she felt awkward and off-balance, and wasn’t quite sure what to make of what had just happened.