Beatrice curtseyed to the dowager. “Good morning, my lady. Thank you for agreeing to see us.”

The servant—with skin stretched so tight over her cheekbones it would be impossible to smile—said, “My lady says you left her with little choice. She asks me

to remind you that blackmail is a crime.”

“A crime?” Dante sneered at the dowager, hatred in his eyes.

“Help me move the chairs closer, Mr D’Angelo. Lady Deighton must be hard of hearing, which is why her maid speaks on her behalf.”

“Who is this?” The dowager pointed at Beatrice. There was to be no greeting for her grandson, no questions about his health or where he’d been these last ten years.

“Miss Sands,” Dante replied coldly. “She is an enquiry agent working with Sir Malcolm Langley to solve the murder of George Babington and the murder of my parents eighteen years ago.”

The dowager pursed her lips as if she had caught a whiff of something foul. “Well, you’ve your mother’s blood and clearly like frolicking with riffraff.”

Sensing Dante was about to explode like a firework at Vauxhall, Beatrice gripped his forearm. “The chairs, Mr D’Angelo. Please help me move them.”

“You’ll leave them there, gel,” came the dowager’s harsh command.

Beatrice inhaled a calming breath. “No. I am going to move the chairs so you can hear my questions and deliver your response. Or we can leave, give the letters to the relevant authorities.”

The dowager’s pale face positively glowed with rage. “You impudent creature.”

Dante suddenly woke from his trance. The hurt child and the angry man gave way to the skilled enquiry agent.

“Insult her again, and I shall ensure our next line of enquiry involves proving Lord Summers fathered your children.” Dante grabbed a chair and slammed it down closer to the countess. “You will answer our questions, madam, else I shall tell the world Benjamin Coulter is the son you abandoned.”

The dowager made no reply but gripped the arm of a nearby chair as if it were a chicken’s neck and she was about to wring it dead.

The servant looked at her mistress, confused. Her script only went as far as relaying the dowager’s disdain.

Dante moved the second chair and invited Beatrice to sit.

They dropped into the padded seats. Dante fixed his gaze on his grandmother while Beatrice found her notebook and flicked to the relevant page.

After mumbling her annoyance, the dowager had her servant help her into the chair closest to the hearth. Ah, now she deigned to play the frail widow.

“Pour me a small sherry, will you, Mabel.” It wasn’t a question.

Beatrice forced a smile. “Let us know when you’re ready, my lady, and we shall begin.”

“Begin?”

“With our questions relating to the death of my parents and George Babington,” Dante countered. “And the death of Henry Watson.”

“I don’t see what any of it has to do with me.”

“Which is why we will ask questions, present evidence.”

“Yes, you’re a boy who likes to play in the gutter.” The dowager peered at Dante. “A boy with tainted blood. A boy who works as an agent because he lacks what it takes to be a gentleman.”

“If being a gentleman means I sire children with my mistress and discard them without thought, then I’d rather be a dock worker.”

Beatrice couldn’t help but jump to Dante’s defence too. “If I may, it doesn’t matter what the world thinks of us. All that truly matters is what we think of ourselves. Mr D’Angelo knows he is superior to most men of the ton.”

The dowager’s laugh revealed her contempt. “Ah, your strumpet fights your corner. How long before she is with child and your bloodline is as foul as sewage water?”

Shocked at the depth of the woman’s vehemence and having to grip her notebook for fear of lashing out, Beatrice was beginning to understand how the dowager used insults as weapons.

Tags: Adele Clee Gentlemen of the Order Historical
Source: readsnovelonline.net