by Lynn Messina
She trailed off expectantly and he obligingly supplied his name. “Dupasquier,” he said.
“Ah, Monsieur Dupasquier, you are French like me,” Bea said with satisfaction as she let her shoulders sag with relief. Then, realizing the movement made the already revealing dress a little more indecent, she straightened her back. “You are sympathetic to ze cause. You don’t want to see a fellow countrywoman tossed out on ze street like ze littlest urchin child, unloved and forsaken. ’Ow will you sleep at night knowing I am ze cold and starving?”
“Really, mademoiselle, I hardly think your plight is my—”
“No!” she screeched, making the snuff dealer jump, “don’t think. If you think, you will turn cold and rigidly indifferent like all zeez Englishmen around me. It is as if they care nothing for love! How heartless they are. But you aren’t like that, are you?” The cajoling, she noted, made him particularly uncomfortable, which was a good thing. The more uneasy he felt, the more inclined he would be to acquiesce to her request just to free himself of her presence. “No, you are kind and ze French. You understand ’ow the ’eart works. You will ’elp me find the man who gave my mistress ze gift. It is a little thing. Just provide me with ze names of all ze gentlemen who bought this snuff in the past two weeks and I will recognize ze name of her suitor.” She snapped her fingers as if to demonstrate how easily her problem could be resolved. “You will do it, no? Zen it will not matter that ze card is in the horse extract.”
Fiddling with the key that hung from his neck, Dupasquier coughed nervously and stared fiercely at the canister of snuff on the counter, as if fearful of making eye contact. “I do not think…” He trailed off as the sound of the door opened and seemed visibly relieved by the presence of another shopper, as if that would force her to be more circumspect. “It is against my store’s policy to provide that information. I cannot help you.”
Bea, who felt sufficiently disguised both because she was dressed as a maid and because she was a nonentity in society, had no reservations about making a scene. The prospect of embarrassing him in front of one of his loyal customers emboldened her, and she raised her voice as she said, “You dare speak of policies when my life it at stake? You are a most unfeeling creature.” Now more than ever, she regretted her inability to produce tears upon demand, for she felt positive a little waterworks before the paying customer would convince Monsieur Dupasquier to help her in any way possible. “But you cannot be, for you are ze French, like me. I cannot believe—”
“All right, then, Miss Hyde-Clare,” said a cool voice behind her. “I think you’ve tortured poor Mr. Dupasquier enough for the day.”
As strong as the desire was to whip her head around and confront the Duke of Kesgrave with sneering anger, Bea held her position against the counter. She took several deep breaths, hurled a few silent insults at his head, and clenched her hands into fists for several irate seconds. Then smoothly, as if only minorly interested in what he had to say, she turned to look at him, his amused expression already seared into her brain before she even encountered it. Determined to meet his nonchalant omniscience with her own, she said calmly, “It took you long enough, your grace. I expected you to be here ten minutes ago.”
He laughed with delight, which was even more galling, and shook his head, so unimpressed with her empty boast he didn’t even feel the need to refute it. Rather, he walked up to the counter and laid a slip of paper on the darkened wood. “Here you go, Mr. Dupasquier, an order from Prinny, just as I promised. It is, I assure you, entirely on the level and you may feel free to amend your sign to say ‘purveyors of snuff to the royal family.’ I trust you will hold to your end of the bargain, as well, and say nothing of this encounter to anyone?”
As Kesgrave smugly and complacently settled the details of his arrangement with the shop owner, Bea tried to piece together what had happened. The most obvious fact was undeniable: The duke knew that she was engaged in an investigation. Unless Mr. Skeffington bizarrely and inexplicably confessed everything to him, he could not know the particulars of the situation. Rather, he had figured out the broad outline of her scheme last night when she had questioned him about tobacco dealers.
Naturally, she was offended by his suspicion, for it was not entirely outside the realm of possibility that she would want to buy a birthday gift for Uncle Horace. Kesgrave could not know that his birthday was in fact eight months away, and it would have served him right if he had walked in on a scene of quiet, dignified commerce.
She would have loved to have seen the expression on his face then.
Not so smug, are we? she thought.
But of course that wasn’t the scene he’d walked in on, and no doubt he felt very clever at how well he’d arranged the affair. She could not have possibly done anything more mortifying than dressing in her maid’s dress and affecting an outrageously bad French accent to argue with a snuff dealer over the release of his private records. It was the epitome of humiliation.
And yet Bea did not feel humiliated. She was too angry to feel anything but fury at the supercilious and maddeningly superior Duke of Kesgrave.
How dare he move her around London as if she were a piece on a chessboard!
Either as part of his original deal with the merchant or as an additional act of generosity, Kesgrave placed a personal order of snuff and asked that it be delivered to his town house later that day. Then he thanked the man again for his discretion and turned to leave.
Although Bea wanted to snarl at the shopkeeper, who had shown no reaction whatsoever to the strange events unfolding in his store, she would give neither him nor the duke the satisfaction of seeing a strong reaction. Instead, she picked up the canister, dipped her head in acknowledgment and said, “There are many vulnerable young women in this city who are at the mercy of their employers’ whim, and I hope to God none of them ever has cause to walk into your shop to plead for help, for all they will meet is the cruel, hard visage of a businessman with policies. Good day, sir!”
Bea strode to the door, stepped outside and walked several feet down Haymarket in hopes of soothing her anger. But the temerity and arrogance of the duke’s presumption was more than she could bear and she spun around, marched up to him until they were toe to toe and said, “You lied to me!”
Astoundingly, Kesgrave’s audacity knowing no bounds, he said the same words to her at the same moment.
Even more outraged, she tried again. “No, you lied to me.”
But the duke, feeling himself to be the injured party, made that claim too.
Bea was so frustrated she wanted to scream.
Kesgrave appeared merely amused by the circumstance and calmly suggested that they have a quiet, reasonable discussion somewhere private.
Oh, how she loathed that air of condescending equanimity he wore like a suit of armor, impervious to the opinions of other people and wholly confident in the quality of his own. This was what he had been like in the dining room at Lakeview Hall in the fall when she fantasized about throwing fish patties and stuffed tomatoes and fillets of salmon at his head.
Monstrously arrogant!
“I don’t want to go anywhere with you,” Bea declared peevishly. “If you would like to discuss the matter of how you lied to me, I’m happy to do so here. If you are not amenable to that arrangement, then we will have to take this up at another time, for I cannot linger. As you apparently know, I have an investigation to attend, which is now half a day behind schedule, thanks to your interference.”
“We cannot talk here, on a public street,” he said as if explaining the obvious to a particularly dense child.
But Bea was not so easily maneuvered. “Why not? Only a few weeks ago, we spoke quite freely on a public street. And the Strand was far more crowded than this,” she said as she gestured to the dozens of pedestrians who strolled by.
“On that occasion you were dressed like your cousin Russell. Now, however, you are dressed like a woman,” he explained. “It’s not appropriate for me to be see
n arguing with a woman on a public street—and a servant, at that!”
The fact that he was arguing with her on a public street about arguing with her on a public street appealed to her sense of the absurd and she started to laugh.
This sound—perhaps because it was so unexpected, perhaps because it was inappropriate for a public street as well—startled him, and he stared at her with an arrested look.
“We must talk,” he said, his voice surprisingly deep.
Bea sighed with annoyance and looked around for his carriage, which she knew had to be somewhere nearby. She spotted it across the road. “Oh, very well,” she said with an impatient huff.
The duke’s groom rushed to open the door to the coach and congratulated Bea on recovering fully from her bruises. “They were mighty nasty, but ye look as fresh as a parcel of spring flowers, miss.”
“All right, Jenkins,” Kesgrave said. “Stop your courting and drive us to Clarges Street.”
“No, Jenkins,” Bea said firmly. “We will stay right here. Our conversation will be brief.”
As much respect as the groom had for her, she was in no way his employer and he merely shook his head. A few moments later, the carriage lurched and pulled into the road.
Bea gave the duke several minutes to say something and when he remained determined to look out the window, she said with admirable calm, “Very well, I will go first. You lied to me.”
Kesgrave shook his head and said, “No, Bea, no.”
Although she was angry and it could make no difference, she allowed herself a moment to enjoy the maudlin pleasure of hearing the sound of her name on his lips. He’d called her Beatrice before but never Bea, and even as her heart fluttered accordingly, she cursed the constraints of her situation. The whole point of investigating Mr. Wilson’s death was to have an occupation that had nothing to do with the Duke of Kesgrave. And yet somehow it had landed her in his own carriage en route to Clarges Street.
’Twas not fair.
The drive to Clarges was short, and less than ten minutes later they arrived at an imposing white town house with a portico. Uncertain where they were, Bea climbed out of the carriage with great reluctance and followed the duke up the stairs. It could not be his home, for he lived in Berkeley Square, and it was far too fashionable a neighborhood for it to be the house where a gentleman would keep his mistress.
Kesgrave rapped on the door, which was opened immediately by a light-haired butler with a welcoming expression, and entered the house with curt familiarity.
“Tell my grandmother we’re in the drawing room,” he added briskly, strolling down the hallway without checking to see if Bea followed, “and do bring tea. Thank you!”
Although Bea faltered slightly on discovering where they were, she trailed closely on Kesgrave’s heels, and as soon as the door to the room was shut, she shrieked with all the anxiety and confusion she felt, “Your grandmother!”
But in the seclusion of the private home, the duke felt free to give unrestricted rein to his anger, as well, and bit out angrily, “You have betrayed my trust!”
“Why are we here at your grandmother’s house?” she asked, unable to smother her apprehension. She was nothing to him, a slight agitation at best, a thing that bothered him every once in a while like a pebble in his shoe, and yet she was standing in the middle of his grandmother’s drawing room, the grandmother his soon-to-be-affianced bride had met only the night before.
It made no sense.
“You gave me your word you would stop investigating murders,” he said with alarming heat, as he stalked across the room to the mantel.
“What will your grandmother think?” she asked with a wild glance around, as if afraid the esteemed personage was somehow already there, hiding behind the elegant settee or the beautifully tailored velvet curtains.
“You promised,” he said forcefully.
“What will we tell her?” she said more softly now, as her mind began to focus on the challenging task of concocting a believable story that would account for her presence. Last night, she’d invented a twisted ankle. Perhaps she could use that now. After all, she was dressed like a maid and—
By all that was holy, she thought, her face going white. She was dressed like a maid. She couldn’t meet the Dowager Duchess of Kesgrave wearing Annie’s frock. Her gaze flew to the curtains as she wondered if she could slip through the window and escape.
Suddenly, the duke was in front of her, his hands on her shoulders and his blue eyes blazing with fury. “For God’s sake, Bea, tell me what you are doing! I swear, you will drive me mad.”
Truly taken aback by his vehemence and unnervingly aware of his closeness, she said, “I was trying to ascertain if I could climb through the window before your grandmother came in.”
His look of astonishment was decidedly comical, and as if perceiving that fact himself, he began to laugh. At once, his face lightened and his blue eyes sparkled and a blond curl fell onto his forehead, adding an element of endearing boyishness to his already handsome visage. Bea, who was only a few inches away and could feel the heat from his hands through the fabric on her dress, stared at him in bemusement, for it seemed impossible to her that someone, anyone, could be so appealing. He already had everything—wealth, status, intelligence—and yet if he had only this, his open demeanor, his amiable appearance, it would have been more than enough.
Gradually, his mirth subsided and he shook his head as he regarded her regarding him. “Bea,” he said deeply, “you are—”
But he didn’t finish his thought, merely shaking his head again, as if in wonder, and continuing to look at her intently.
Bea’s heart began to race.
She had no experience with romantic liaisons, had never stood so close to a man that she could fell his breath on her skin, but she knew what it was. She could feel what it was, and she was surprised to discover how much she craved what it was. It was powerful and unsettling, and its ferocity made her feel like someone else. Beatrice Hyde-Clare had certainly never felt the blindingly overwhelming desire to kiss a man. Dizzy with it, she bent her head forward only a fraction of an inch, as if to see what he would do.
Ah, he liked that, she noted, for his eyes seemed to flash and he pressed closer. Slowly, she closed her eyes and, blooding pounding, allowed herself to succumb to the unbearable anticipation of feeling the duke’s lips against hers.…
CHAPTER NINE
The door banged as a petulant voice growled, “I said I’ve got it, Sutton!”
Gasping in horror, Bea dashed to the other side of the room, to the window she had so recently contemplated squeezing through, and watched the Dowager Duchess of Kesgrave walk in carrying a tea tray.
Kesgrave, recovering his wits so quickly Bea wondered if she’d imagined the kiss that had almost happened, sauntered—oh, yes, he sauntered while she had scurried—over to the entry to relieve his grandmother of her burden. She promptly twisted away and said testily, “Did you not just hear me tell Sutton I can do it? I may be closer to cocking up my toes than kicking up my heels, but I can still manage a tray with a few cups on it.”
“I did not come over here to assist you, my dear, because you are feeble,” the duke said mildly, “but because you are female. I believe the last time you berated me was for letting my cousin Josephine hold a parcel while I remained empty-handed.”
“That’s because your cousin Josephine is blunderous and bumbling. I wouldn’t let her hold my hat if I had any desire to ever wear it again,” the dowager said as she crossed to the table. “The lesson there was don’t let clumsy people carry parcels, not women. You are a fool, Kesgrave, and I’m not sure why I put up with you.”
Although her tone was just as harsh as her words, the duke took no offense at this criticism and even bowed as if receiving a compliment. “A weakness I’m sure you’ll overcome soon enough. In the meantime, do put the tray down before you drop it. I know you like to boast of your strength and Sutton and I are agog at your impressive vigo
r, but you suffer from the rheumatic complaint and your doctor strictly advised against unnecessarily straining your joints.”
At the mention of her doctor, her grace let forth a string of invectives, and Bea, standing by the window, regretted the fact that she was in no state to appreciate the scene. How heartily ridiculous it all was—the august Duke of Kesgrave getting his ear cuffed like a schoolboy and she too horrified to do anything but stare blankly, her mind trying to understand exactly what had happened before the septuagenarian had burst into the room.
He had intended to kiss her, that much was clear, even if his insouciance immediately after belied the intensity of the moment. She even thought she understood why, for she had felt the same tug of attraction as he, the same undeniable awareness as he, the same inability to break the connection. It was as if they were magnets, drawn together by an incontrovertible force, and what she didn’t know was if that was what happened when all women and men stood too close together or just she and the duke.
On one hand, the answer didn’t matter, for it would change nothing about the circumstance. Even if the power of their attraction spoke to the depth of their bond, it wouldn’t have any bearing on his future. She was no hothouse orchid and never would be.
And yet knowing it was endemic to them would alter everything, for it would justify the intensity of her feelings and make her feel less like a gullible schoolgirl. Lady Abercrombie said it couldn’t be love if it wasn’t requited, and maybe she was right. But maybe she was wrong as well.
As engrossing as her confusion was, Bea never for a moment forgot where she was and how she was dressed and the unlikeliness of sneaking out without anyone in the room noticing. Although Kesgrave continued to bicker with the dowager, energetically detailing the many accomplishments of her insufferably qualified doctor—because, of course, he had a list at the ready; ’twas his raison d’être—he knew exactly where she was.