His own face became deathly pale as he now stared at Francesca Latham in horror. ‘You are “darling Frank”?’
She bared her teeth in a humourless smile. ‘So Felicity liked to refer to me as, yes.’
‘The two of you were lovers?’
‘For many months.’ Francesca Latham nodded with satisfaction.
‘Francesca!’
‘Oh, do be quiet, Walter,’ his wife snapped dismissively as she gave him a contemptuous glance. ‘We have not shared a bed for years, and now you know the reason why. I have always preferred my own sex,’ she continued conversationally. ‘Of course, Felicity did become a tad over-possessive and demanding, forcing me to end our association, but whoever would have thought the little ninny would have drowned herself for love of me? Quite tedious, I do assure you.’ She gave an irritated shake of her head.
Bea had not been able to take her eyes off Griffin since her aunt had announced her past intimate relationship with his late wife.
Or to wonder if, as Seaton had implied yesterday, she had been mistaken in believing that the happiness Griffin had known in his marriage was the reason he had never remarried. He might have loved his wife, certainly, but he also seemed to have known that his wife’s love had not belonged to him.
‘But we digress,’ Lady Francesca continued pleasantly. ‘I take it the two other gentlemen here also wish to see justice done? As I thought.’ She nodded at the silence that greeted her question. ‘What happens next? Am I to be dragged away in shackles and tortured until I tell you everything I know?’
Griffin roused himself from the shock of hearing the truth of Felicity’s betrayal, of their marriage bed and of him. Of learning that his wife’s lover, Frank, had not been a man at all, but a woman. Francesca Latham, in truth.
At the same time as he could not help but feel a certain lightening of his heart at learning it had not been him in particular whom Felicity had found so physically repellent. That her sexual preference would have made her feel disgust at the idea of a physical relationship with any man.
That her suicide, by drowning herself in the lake at Stonehurst Park, had not been as a way of escaping him and their marriage, but because the woman she loved had rejected her.
Strange to experience such a sense of euphoria in the midst of such chaos. And yet that was exactly how Griffin now felt. As if a heavy weight of guilt and self-loathing had been lifted from his shoulders.
As if that truth had now freed him to try to win Bea’s heart for himself.
Were it not for the existence of Michael, of course.
‘Was that not what you did to Bea?’ Griffin now accused hardly. ‘Are you not the one responsible for beating Bea, with the help of your associate Jacob Harker?’
‘What is he talking about, Francesca?’ Sir Walter seemed to have deflated into being a shell of himself in the past few minutes, his rosy cheeks now a sickly shade of grey.
‘Do not tax your brain about it, Latham,’ his wife dismissed mockingly. ‘You would be far better to attend to your horses and your hounds.’
Latham attempted to rouse himself. ‘You will answer me, madam. Who is this man Harker? What have you done that Rotherham now accuses you of being a traitor? It is something to do with that worthless half brother of yours, is it not?’ He puffed angrily. ‘I always knew he would be nothing but trouble.’
‘Be silent, Latham!’ His wife turned on him angrily, cheeks flushed. ‘You are not fit to so much as speak my brother’s name.’
&
nbsp; ‘Half brother,’ Sir Walter rallied defiantly. ‘Sir Rupert Colville is only your half brother. A weak, lily-livered anarchist bent on bringing down the Crown.’
‘I said be quiet!’ Lady Francesca flew at him, hands raised, fingers bent into talons, her face an ugly mask.
Christian was closest to the couple, managing to grasp Francesca Latham about her waist and pull her back before she could reach her husband with those talons. Once she was in his grasp, he secured her more tightly by pulling her arms down and also holding them captive within his grasp as he stood behind her.
Bea had found herself unable to move or speak as the horror of this scene was played out before her.
The revelations about Griffin’s wife and Francesca Latham.
The knowledge that it had in all possibility been Francesca Latham herself who had administered Bea’s beatings during her week of captivity. Hence the reason she had never spoken in Bea’s presence?
As the events of that weekend she had spent with her aunt at the home of Sir Rupert Colville now came back to her. ‘You were completely mistaken in your suspicions towards me at your half brother’s home, madam.’ She got up to stand in front of Francesca Latham. ‘At the time I did not understand any of the conversation I overheard between you and Sir Rupert. How could I, when I did not know then that an eight-year-old boy had been cruelly taken from his parents and was being used as blackmail against his influential grandfather?’ She gave a shake of her head before turning to Aubrey Maystone. ‘My Lord, I think you will find your grandson is being held prisoner at Sir Rupert Colville’s home in Worcestershire.’
‘Why, you little—’
‘Have a care, madam!’ Christian warned through gritted teeth as his prisoner would have made a lunge for Bea. ‘You have seriously wronged two gentlemen who are close friends of mine, and you have caused great distress and pain to a lady wholly undeserving of such treatment. As such I will have no compunction in taking steps to silence you if you should give me reason to do so.’