by Clee, Adele
Bateson struggled to maintain his indifferent expression. “He is somewhat of a determined fellow, sir, rather excitable at times.”
Curiosity danced in Beatrice’s eyes.
Not wishing to ruin the surprise, Dante distracted her by guiding her towards the dining room. “Tell me you’re not really wearing trousers beneath that gown.”
“What, and spoil the suspense?”
Were it not for the fact his staff had gone to a tremendous effort at such short notice, he would have skipped dinner, set his mind on seduction. But they had the case to discuss, and he was desperate to see her reaction when he presented his gift.
She stepped into the room lit by thirty candles, positioned so the light was soft and warm, caressing the rich red walls with gentle strokes.
“Heavens, you must have purchased every candle in London.”
“Not quite.” He captured her gloved hand, pressed a tender kiss to her palm. “I’ve spent too long in the darkness, Beatrice.”
Her gaze slipped slowly over him. “Far too long.”
“I took the liberty of seating us close together.”
“So we might talk?”
“Yes, and the new footman has short legs.”
Confused, she looked at the strapping figure dressed in black and gold livery standing statue-still behind the chair. “He looks perfectly formed to me.”
Dante bit back a chuckle. “That’s Thomas. The new fellow is considerably smaller, but I’m confident he will grow into the position.”
Beatrice considered Dante through narrowed eyes. “You’re being rather mysterious. From the boyish glint in your eyes, I can tell you’re enjoying this game.”
“I enjoy teasing you and hope to earn a few gasps and sighs tonight.”
She arched a coy brow. “Will you be keeping a record?”
“I shall probably lose count rather quickly.”
“Mathematics not your strong point, or are you easily distracted?”
“In your company, I’m always distracted.” He led her to the table, and the footman pulled out her chair. Dante sat opposite, for he wanted to stare at her without gaining a stiff neck. “Thomas, perhaps it’s time to call your assistant.”
Thomas cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.”
The man tinkled his bell. The thud of hurried footsteps in the hall resulted in Bateson telling the boy to walk slowly, but the dining room door burst open and Scupper appeared.
The urchin had begged a penny from Dante almost every day for the last month. And yet it had been the boy’s innocent comments earlier this evening that made Dante stop and take notice.
You all right, guv’nor?
Dante had been so lost in thought he’d almost barged into the boy. For some reason, he told Scupper about his impending meeting with the dowager, that he’d not spoken to the matron in years.
When you’re hungry, best not to think about the pain in your belly.
They’d agreed Dante would think about a better day, when he might be so full he would struggle to breathe. And then the boy said something that took Dante’s breath away.
Happen you should keep your penny tonight, guv’nor. Spend it on a piece of plum cake at Mrs Gladwell’s bakery down near the timber yard. Go to bed with a full belly, then it don’t matter wot happens tomorrow.
“Beatrice, this is Scupper, who on rare occasions agrees we may call him David.” Dante gestured to the boy who looked younger than his eleven years now that Cook had washed his face and combed his hair. “But only when entertaining guests.”
Scupper managed a bow. “Good evenin’, miss.”
Beatrice seemed more surprised by the urchin than she had the thirty lit candles. “Good evening, Scupper. So, you’ve come to work for Mr D’Angelo.”
The boy nodded. “As a footboy, miss, though wot I’d really like is to work with horses.”
“Mr D’Angelo is remarkably flexible.” She threw Dante a mischievous grin. “I’m sure he needs a new groom.”
“As a man who is flexible, it would serve me well if you were trained in various duties.” More importantly, it would improve the boy’s prospects should he be inclined to leave.
The child’s excited eyes brightened the room more than the array of flickering candles. Dante felt the heat of it deep in his chest.
Thomas took the boy to collect the soup tureen. The second they left the room, Beatrice jumped out of the chair and rounded the table. She cupped Dante’s cheeks and captured his mouth in a searing kiss that had him hard in seconds.
Just as quickly, she tore her lips from his, hurried back to her seat and gasped a breath. “Heavens. It’s rather hot in here.”
Hot? It was so damn hot he needed to loosen his cravat.
“So, you do find benevolence an attractive quality in a man.”
She arched a brow. “Your act of kindness makes me want to rip your clothes from your body and kiss every inch of you.”
“Then tomorrow, you may find me scouring the streets looking for urchins to save.” Though if it was a matter of trading kindness for kisses, he’d have to buy a bigger house.
“Perhaps I might reward you for your good intentions.”
Damn. He couldn’t wait to get her alone upstairs, feel those soft thighs gripping his hips as he plunged slow and deep.
“Shall we forget dinner and go to bed?”
She trailed her fingers across her decolletage. “While I find the thought more than appealing, there are a few things we should discuss. Namely how you intend to deal with your grandmother.”
Like an Arctic blizzard, the comment cooled his heated blood. “Tomorrow, I shall submit the letters as evidence at Bow Street, have Sir Malcolm read them before I take them to Berkeley Square and confront the countess.”
Thomas and Scupper returned, and the boy watched the footman serve vermicelli soup.
“You intend to go alone?”
“I think it’s for the best.” He would not put her through the torture of hearing the dowager’s vile diatribe. “She will use you against me. Insult you to the point I will lose all rationale.” And yet he needed her there, needed her calming influence. Did not want to deal with things alone anymore.
“Dante, words are the weapons of the weak. Drunken men have called me despicable things. I’m more than capable of dealing with a verbal assault, and as your colleague, I must insist on accompanying you tomorrow.”
Scupper made an odd retching noise. “Tell me they ain’t worms?”
Beatrice glanced at her dish and laughed. “They’re noodles.”
The boy raised his chin in acknowledgement, but seemed oblivious to the footman’s fierce glare and gesticulation instructing him to keep his young mouth shut.
“The lady’s right, milord. There’s no tongue as foul as that of a man wot’s downed three quarts of liquor.”
Dante couldn’t help but smile, though Thomas looked ready to murder the boy. “I’m not a lord, Scupper, but I thank you for your counsel.”
They continued the conversation while sipping their soup, and despite Dante admitting he feared the countess would exact revenge on them both, he eventually agreed Beatrice could accompany him.
“Old Bateson said the lady’s got a pocket pistol,” Scupper announced while removing her dish. “Said she’ll shoot me in the arse if I drop the plates.” He laughed. “I bet she ain’t scared of a few threats.”
Beatrice beamed. “Exactly so, Scupper.”
Thomas took the boy aside and told him not to speak while serving.
“He reminds me of you,” Beatrice said when Scupper withdrew.
“Because of his dark hair and mischievous grin?”
“No, because he says what he wants regardless of the consequences. And he is remarkably astute. How did you come to hire him?”
Dante told her about his conversation with Scupper. “Lucius Daventry saved me. I realised I have the power to save someone, too.”
“Have I told you I find your benevolence
arousing?” she said just before the help returned with the serving platters.
“Yes, but hold that thought for another thirty minutes.”
Upon Beatrice’s request, Thomas described the dishes in the vast bill of fare. “Pork à la Boisseau, lamb cutlets in piquant sauce.” He gestured to the sumptuous array of food. “Sirloin of beef.”
Scupper’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. “Wot’s that green thing wot looks like a spear?”
“Asparagus,” Dante said.
Scupper scrunched his nose, but his gaze turned ravenous at the mention of pigeon pie. “Will you eat heverythin’?”
“Not everything. Cook will find a use for the rest.”
“Why make so much?”
Beatrice grinned. “Scupper makes an excellent point.”
“Sometimes a man doesn’t know what he wants, what will satiate him, make him happy, until it’s thrust before him in all its tempting glory.”
But Dante knew exactly what he wanted, and it wasn’t piquant sauce. He wanted to make love to Beatrice daily. He wanted to dine with her every evening, take strolls in the park, laugh at her amusing stories, feed her confectionery.
“Roasted rat would make you happy if you ain’t eaten for a week.”
The boy’s comment brought Dante crashing back to reality. There were always people in worse predicaments, and despite his harrowing experiences, he lived a privileged life.
“Would you care to serve me lamb cutlets?” Beatrice said to the boy. “It doesn’t matter if you spill any.”
“I’ve been practising with my spoons,” Scupper said proudly.
For the next fifteen minutes, they ate their meal and discussed all aspects of the case, everything that had happened thus far.
Beatrice dabbed her lips with her napkin. “May I ask you something?”
“You can ask me anything.”
She paused. “During our journey from Rochester, when you finished giving your statement, you said one man relished the prospect of killing people, while the other appeared nervous.”
After a night of passion, it had been easier to give his account.
“Yes. One man had no conscience. One wavered on the cusp between good and evil. I’d be dead if he’d not argued to save me.”
“And the local magistrate recorded it as a highway robbery?”
“Yes.”
She frowned. “Correct me if I am wrong, but the rogue shot my father without asking for his purse. Either they knew he was armed and shot him before he drew a weapon, or he was of no consequence to them.”
“My parents were robbed before they were murdered.” The cold-eyed devil had taken pleasure ripping the ring from his father’s finger, from fondling his mother while— “Wait. The villain molested my mother before shooting her. I assumed it was part of their evil game, but perhaps he was only interested in finding the letters.”
“Did they say they were looking for the letters?”
“No. They said very little. The nervous one rummaged through the luggage, which is why the magistrate believed it was a robbery.” Dante recalled seeing clothes strewn about the muddy thoroughfare.
“Did you hear an accent? Did they sound similar?”
Dante shrugged.
“Were the coves the same age?” Scupper added while clearing away the serving platters. “One might ’ave been his son.”
“No, I got the impression they were both in their twenties.”
“Wot about their horses? You can tell a lot from a man’s horse.”
It was not something Dante had considered, and he rarely thought with a logical mind when reliving the tragedy.
“It was dark.” He didn’t want to close his eyes and picture the men astride their mounts, but he did. “One horse seemed of good stock, the other a shabby beast hired from a cheap post-house. Both men were competent riders.”
“Dante, if they followed your carriage from London and changed horses en route, surely they’d have the same quality mounts.”
“Unless one was a gent with more blunt to spend,” came Scupper’s sensible reply. “Then he might have paid for the better horse.”
“Well, it’s something to think about.” Beatrice informed Scupper she would like the compote of pears and dessert biscuits. “I know you’re reluctant to visit the earl without proof Mr Coulter’s letters are genuine, but he may hold vital clues to the case.”
She meant the heir to the earldom might have hired a middle-class cutthroat eighteen years ago to destroy any evidence naming him as Summers’ bastard.
“Let’s see what my grandmother has to say when we visit tomorrow. I’m confident she is the one to blame.” Dante paused to inform Thomas he fancied a slice of nougat and almond cake. “On second thoughts, I’ll take the letters to Bow Street once we’ve seen the countess. I suspect we will need them as leverage, and there’s a chance Sir Malcolm will insist on keeping them.”
Beatrice licked compote from her spoon while lost in thought.
Dante watched her tongue slip over the silver metal, and while he imagined them flinging off their clothes and jumping into bed, he knew she was plagued by questions about the case.
“You said my father gave Alessandro his pistol. Did Alessandro not fire at the assailants?”
“He tried to fire, but the mechanism jammed. I believe there was a fault with the weapon.”
“A fault?” Her soft voice trembled. “A fault?”
Dante dismissed the servants, but Scupper lingered at the door. “I hope you catch ’em, sir, give ’em a right old punch on the muzzler.”
“He means mouth,” Beatrice said, swallowing rapidly as if she might cry.
“I’m familiar with the term.” The bare-knuckle boxers at the White Boar used it frequently. “I give you my word, I’ll do a damn sight more than that.” Dante smiled at the boy. “Run along and finish your duties, and then Cook will give you supper.”
The boy left them alone, though the tension in the room was palpable.
Dante thought he understood Beatrice’s dilemma. “I doubt your father knew there was a problem with the weapon.”
She winced as if she’d swallowed something foul. “Dante, I fear my loyalty to my father is misplaced. I fear the crime had nothing to do with the countess, and my father sought to plan a robbery and use the money to pay his debts. A robbery that went horribly wrong when his accomplices turned traitor.”
The first tear fell, then another, and she covered her face with her hands.
Dante stood. He threw his napkin down, rounded the table and drew her out of the chair. “Beatrice, please don’t cry.” The sight tore at his heart. “Lorenzo said my father was an excellent judge of character. Alessandro would not have hired a man without references.”
“There m-must be a way we can check with Mr M-Manning.” She choked on a sob. “Check to see if he lent my father money. Oh, Dante, why would my father want to hire a horse if not to ensure he wasn’t in the carriage when the villains stopped it on the road?”
Dante wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. “So he might return home to you.”
“What if that’s why he climbed down from the coach first?” She clutched the lapels of his coat, ignoring his reasoning. “Because he knew the men aiming the pistols. What if he paid the coachman to stop at the common?”
Yes, there was a slim possibility Henry Watson had betrayed his employers, but the evidence against the countess was insurmountable.
“If it’s true, Dante, I would have to resign my position. Mr Daventry won’t want a murderer’s daughter in his employ.” Through red-rimmed eyes, she met his gaze. “And you, you will come to despise me, come to see me as a physical reminder of your pain. I’d have no choice but to leave, leave London.”
Leave!
It seemed blind panic was contagious.
The mere thought of her abandoning him, of being alone again, had his heart pounding so hard it might burst from his chest. Then he started ruminating about how much
it would hurt to lose her, feeling the agonising ache as if he’d woken one morning to find her gone.
“Your father is innocent.” He felt the truth of it deep in his gut.
“I’m not so sure.” She cupped his cheek. “Whatever happens, being with you has made me happier than I’ve been in my entire life. You must go forward, Dante, with hope in your eyes and gratitude in your heart.”
Why the hell was she talking like she’d packed her valise, like she clutched a mail coach ticket destined for Plymouth? Like this was goodbye?
He wanted to tell her to stop being irrational, but he did the only thing he could to ease his sudden wave of insecurity.
He kissed the salty taste of her tears from her lips—a chaste melding of mouths meant to lower their racing pulses. A gentle caress meant to chase away their doubts and fears. But the kiss only served to heighten their need for each other, to rouse lust from its slumber, to leave them desperate to pour every inexplicable emotion into a physical act that would prove how good they were together.
She tore her mouth from his on a gasp. “Quick, Dante, lock the door.”
Hell, this woman drove him wild. “Let’s go upstairs, love. Take our time,” he said, though his body ached to take her now.
From the urgent way she pushed his coat off his shoulders, from her roaming hands and aroused pants, she needed to feel him push inside her body.
“I can wait no longer.” She reached down and tugged the buttons on his breeches. “I need to ease this craving for you before I go out of my mind.”
He glanced over her shoulder, contemplating how a rampant coupling in a dining room might play out. “On the table it will be quick, rough, not the slow writhing or the sensual tangle of limbs you enjoyed, not making love.”
“I may lack experience, but is it not always making love when two people care for each other?” Her hand slipped lower, gliding over his erection. “Make love to me quickly, here on the table. We can go upstairs later.”
Damn, he was fit to burst and had never received such a tempting proposal. Indeed, he was at the door in seconds, turning the key in the lock, racing back to continue this wildly erotic liaison.