Dark Angel (Gentlemen of the Order 4)

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.”