A Brazen Curiosity, page 7
part #1 of Beatrice Hyde-Clare Series
Now for the risky aspect of the endeavor, she thought as she pressed her ear against the door. It wouldn’t do for anyone to see her sneaking out of Mr. Otley’s room. Hearing nothing in the corridor, she opened the door just a crack and listened again, her eyes closed as she tried to detect the sound of slippers on the carpeted floor. Still nothing.
Convinced that the passage was clear of fellow guests and servants, she opened the door wider and slipped into the hallway. She wanted to run to her room, but fearing that might look suspicious to the unexpected passerby, settled for walking as quickly as she could. By the time she passed over her own threshold, she was out of breath—from anxiety or exertion, she couldn’t say.
Her heart rate had only just returned to its normal speed when a knock sounded on her door and Aunt Vera strode in to discuss her expectations of her niece’s behavior during dinner.
“I trust you have had an appropriately reviving nap,” she said, although all evidence pointed to the contrary, such as a perfectly made bed that had not been touched. “Your conduct, as you know, has been unacceptable to both me and your uncle, who, though not physically present, is here enough in spirit to be mortified by how his brother’s daughter has comported herself. You were raised to know your place and not to question your betters. Naturally, I’m sympathetic to the fact that we have all found ourselves in a situation that’s highly irregular, for it’s an act of inconsideration that trumps even your own recent behavior to kill oneself in someone else’s house and can only speak to the depths of Mr. Otley’s despair. If there’s one thing in the world that should be confined to the privacy of one’s own home, it’s suicide. But even if Mr. Otley transgressed first, that does not excuse you.”
Beatrice, who had sat down at the escritoire to organize her thoughts—another indication for the observant bystander that she had yet to take a nap—kept her eyes down so that her aunt would not see her amusement. How decidedly unfair of Kesgrave to expose poor Mr. Otley to the severity of her aunt’s disapproval.
“Given that Amelia and her daughter will be in attendance, dinner will be a less formal affair than last night,” Aunt Vera continued. “Even so, you’re not to speak. You will sit at the table with your customary silence and the proper expression on your face. A smile isn’t suitable to the solemnity of the circumstance, but nor do I want to see your features twisted into a scowl. Do contrive to come up with something appropriately benign. You may, of course, respond if someone makes a comment directly to you, although I do not anticipate such a development. But you will offer no unsolicited opinions. Indeed, when at all possible, you will confine your answer to a single word such as yes, no or maybe.” Her aunt, well aware that these lectures to her niece ordinarily went the other way, wherein she chastised her for not being fulsome enough in her replies, shook her head in exasperation. “That you cannot see how your waywardness is adding to the strain under which I’m already suffering is deeply disappointing. I’d expect occasional obliviousness from Flora or Russell, for they are still young, but not you, my dear. You’ve always appeared to have such a solid grasp of understanding.”
Although her aunt was far from the ideal guardian for a young orphaned girl, frequently chafing at the idea that her emotional resources had to be divided among three children, rather than just her own wonderful offspring, she’d done the best she could with her limited faculties. In twenty years, Bea had never resented her for her inability to be a better person and she did not resent her now. “I’m sorry for the distress I’ve caused you and promise to do better.”
Aunt Vera smiled in relief. “Thank you, my dear. I must own, I’m especially anxious because I saw his grace in the hallway as the men returned from their fishing expedition and he asked if there was anything to be done about your outspokenness. I assured him of your habitual reticence, so it will be a great relief to have it restored. Now, before I go change for dinner, let’s practice your appropriately benign expression.”
Discovering that the duke sought to silence her through her aunt, Bea sneered.
“No, that’s not quite right,” Aunt Vera said. “It’s a touch too feral. Recall that you are in the dining room at a country estate, not a cockpit. Let’s try again.”
Bea’s second and third attempts weren’t much better, but her fourth showed improvement and by the time she’d hit a baker’s dozen, her aunt was delighted with her progress.
“Ah, yes, perfect,” she said enthusiastically. “That’s the bland, easy-to-overlook young lady your uncle and I know and kindly tolerate. Now just hold that expression through dinner and all will be well.” Bea agreed to this request with a nod, but the head movement altered her appearance just enough to alarm her aunt. “Buh-buh. I said hold it. Perhaps you should watch yourself in the mirror until Annie comes up to help you dress. She’s with Flora now and should be with you in forty-five minutes to an hour.”
“All right,” Bea said because there was no point in arguing with such an unreasonable request.
Aunt Vera, sincerely grateful to have an obedient niece, patted her gently on the cheek and said fondly, “We’ll show that duke what true maidenly reserve looks like.”
Again, Bea agreed, but as soon as her aunt left, her expression turned stormy as she imagined the smug satisfaction Kesgrave must have felt at her aunt’s eager assurances. Nothing must give him greater pleasure than watching lesser mortals genuflect before him. The amount of control he exerted over people, over the situation, over everything that had happened at Lakeview Hall in the past four-and-twenty hours, infuriated her. He’d muted Mr. Otley’s brutal and violent end by turning his death into a self-inflicted wound, and now he sought to mute her by manipulating her aunt.
It was intolerable, and she could not let it stand.
The Duke of Kesgrave might be used to controlling everything in his orbit, but he could not control her. She wasn’t hopeful for his approval or impressed by his stature or infatuated with his money or intimidated by his bearing. Indeed, he’d been the one last night to cower, so terrified at the thought of being compelled by circumstance to marry a plain-faced nobody. If poor Mr. Otley hadn’t been lying there with his brain cracked open and his blood splattered on the curtains, it would have been funny—although it was precisely the fact that Mr. Otley was lying there with his brain cracked open and his blood splattered on the curtains that would have made it funny. She still couldn’t conceive of anyone making scandal broth from such incongruous ingredients.
But the important thing, she realized, was that Kesgrave could. A dozen years dodging the machinations of matchmaking mamas and aspiring duchesses had put him on high alert. Everywhere he looked, he saw the jaws of the parson’s mousetrap threatening to snap shut. Although she couldn’t believe there were quite as many people out to ensnare him as he imagined, she was grateful for his distrust, for it provided her with the advantage she needed to get answers.
For the second time that afternoon, she listened at the door for fellow houseguests, then stepped into the empty hallway. Kesgrave’s rooms were on the other side of the building, at the far end of the east wing of the elegant residence. She knew his location for the same reason she knew where the Otleys were situated—because her aunt made it her business to know who was staying where so she could compare the relative levels of comfort, style and convenience. The Yellow Room, to which Mrs. Hyde-Clare had been assigned, was more spacious than Mrs. Otley’s Blue Room but was twice as far from the staircase. The Hunting Room, which Kesgrave was given, was in the older part of the house, which was more elegant in its details but prone to draughts.
At the end of the passage, Bea turned right, traipsed down the stairs and immediately felt the air temperature drop a few degrees. It was indeed cooler in this section.
Although she had a story mapped out should someone require her to explain her presence—a button lost when Lady Skeffington had led them on the grand tour of the house—she was relieved to find the corridor empty. Knowing that could change at any moment, she scurried down the hallway to Kesgrave’s door and opened it slowly, fearful that his valet was already within.
It took her only a moment to confirm that the room was vacant.
Perfect, she thought, slipping inside.
Fortunately, Aunt Vera was not with her to see how much late-afternoon sunlight the Hunting Room afforded its guest or the expansive view of the lake from its windows. Her aunt’s view, like her niece’s, was impeded by great oak trees with sprawling branches.
The room was large and comfortable, and having successfully completed a secret perusal of Mr. Otley’s belongings, Bea was tempted to look through Kesgrave’s as well. She resisted the urge, however, as her position was precarious enough without adding snooping to her sins. She was there for one purpose and one purpose only: to press Kesgrave for the reason he lied about the spice trader’s death and to threaten ruination if he resisted providing satisfactory answers.
And yet, despite her firm resolve, she couldn’t resist peering at the stack of books at his bedside. He’d claimed to be in the library looking for a specific book. Was it among these titles….
Ah, yes, there it was: The Defense of Poesy.
Her initial response was relief, for it meant that the duke had spoken the truth last night when he said he had come to the library in search of the book. At least that much of his story was accurate. The emotion was quickly superseded by horror, however, for what kind of monster had the presence of mind to look for a book after discovering a dead body? And when did he find the opportunity to retrieve it? Before alerting Skeffington to the scene in his library? After watching the constable examine the body? During its removal? Did it really matter? Wasn’t one moment as horrendous as the other?
At once another notion occurred to her: Perhaps it was Kesgrave’s own copy and the reason the title sprang so easily to mind was he already had it on hand. If that was the case, then the duke had lied about why he was in the library.
Why lie?
There was only one answer: The Duke of Kesgrave wielded the candlestick. He was the one who struck Mr. Otley on the head until his skull caved in and he ceased to live.
“I see you’re prying again, Miss. Hyde-Clare, despite my insistence that you leave matters alone,” said a voice disconcertingly close to her shoulder. “Now, what in the world are we going to do with you?”
CHAPTER FIVE
To say that every muscle in Beatrice Hyde-Clare’s body froze would be to wildly understate the case, for it felt as if all her bones and even her skin had turned to stone at the sound of the duke’s voice. She was like a statue in a garden—vulnerable, exposed, powerless to defend itself against the elements that threatened it.
If Kesgrave had a candlestick in his hand, he could bash her over the head with it and she would submit without a word.
Was this what it had been like for Otley? Did he, too, find terror so debilitating that he barely put up a fight when his life was about to end?
No, no, she thought, recalling the chilling scene in the library. Mr. Otley had no idea what was coming until it was too late—if he ever knew at all—and he certainly did not stand as still as a marble sculpture of a Roman statesman and wait for his executioner to strike the fatal blow.
She tried to remember her plan for coming to his rooms, but fear made her thoughts fuzzy and all she could do was think of death and statuary.
And her aunt.
With what agony Aunt Vera would greet the news that her niece, usually so docile and yet suddenly so recalcitrant, had been found prying in the Duke of Kesgrave’s rooms. The egregious invasion of privacy would be secondary to the gross betrayal of her particular request to leave his grace alone.
She would get the tongue-lashing of her life.
But, no, she would get nothing and her aunt would never know of the violation, for if the duke was the killer he would dispose of her body without anyone being the wiser.
Without a murmur of complaint, she would disappear from her family’s life.
The thought of dying with the same reticence with which she’d lived horrified Beatrice, and at once she recalled her scheme to compromise him.
“I will scream,” she said softly, her voice barely a whisper. How feeble it sounded to her own ears—as if she were almost asking permission to speak. Determinedly, she turned around and forced herself to confront him face-to-face as she said with more vigor, “I will scream.”
“Naturally, Miss Hyde-Clare,” Kesgrave said, his expression as amused as his tone. “I’d expect nothing less from so middling a young lady. Do you write your own material or are you following one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s scripts?”
It was a scathing remark, to be sure, for it cut to the heart of who she was: unimpressive, ordinary, prosaic, banal. But it also revealed his failure to understand the threat she posed, as it was precisely her mediocrity that presented the greatest risk.
“I will scream,” she announced again, pleased by the strength and smoothness of her voice. There was nothing like reaffirming one’s true inconsequentiality to make a young lady feel calm in the face of danger. “I will scream and someone will come running, for at this hour the house is filled with guests changing for dinner and servants helping them. I will scream and you will find yourself compromised beyond all hope and forced to marry me. Think of it, your grace, leg-shackled to middling Beatrice Hyde-Clare for the rest of your life: bland looks, insipid conversation, dull children. Surely, you have something better in mind for yourself—a diamond of the first water, a paragon of elegance and intelligence: clever, obedient, poised, virtuous, capable of conversing with equal graciousness with a king and a chimney sweep.”
Bea didn’t think such a creature of perfection actually existed—and if she did, she would certainly be insufferable—but she wholeheartedly believed that the duke lived in expectation of meeting his womanly ideal only a day or two after deciding to set up his nursery. No doubt he thought women came made to order like topcoats and boots.
“Take a step toward me, and I will scream,” she said, examining his face for an indication of how he felt and finding nothing but mild good humor, “and the glorious tableau you’ve always imagined for yourself—the beautiful wife and the cherubic children as lovely as porcelain figurines on the mantle above the fireplace—will vanish into the air like smoke.”
Inconceivably, he smiled. “I’m not sure the description of middling is apt, Miss Hyde-Clare, as you have me sufficiently cowed, a feat nobody else has ever managed to accomplish. Please do tell me how you would like to proceed, so that I may readily comply and avoid the fate so chilling that even the great Horace Walpole never conceived it.”
Although the teasing note in his voice belied his words, she was grateful that her threat was daunting enough to make him at least feign apprehension. “Let’s sit down and have a chat.”
The duke pointed to two wingback chairs next to the bay window overlooking the lake, which seemed to glimmer with gold in the late-afternoon sun. “If these do not satisfy your requirements, there are a pair of Egyptian-style klismos chairs in the dressing room. They’re a trifle ostentatious for my comfort, but they might suit your middling taste.”
The unabashed mockery in his tone was distracting, but she refused to let herself be provoked by his taunts. “Those chairs are fine, thank you.”
Kesgrave, determined to display yet more contempt, bowed slightly before walking across the room to the window. He indicated the chair on the left, as if seeking her permission to claim it, and Bea, seeing no difference between the two pieces of furniture, nodded impatiently. As soon as she did, she wondered if she’d thoughtlessly given him an unknown advantage.
She told herself to stop being absurd. Both chairs were exactly the same, and he could not have anticipated her presence by, for example, securing a knife underneath the cushion of one.
And yet she worried that she’d fallen into a trap by agreeing to sit down, even though it was she who’d made the suggestion.
Although she was no devotee of the Gothic, she’d read enough to know that no heroine ever benefited from indulging a fanciful imagination. Bea took a deep breath and focused on discovering whether or not the Duke of Kesgrave was a merciless killer. She began by putting the question directly to him. “Did you murder Mr. Otley?”
Kesgrave heaved a theatrical sigh and shook his head with exaggerated disappointment, as if playing to the farthest row at Drury Lane. “Did I say middling, Miss Hyde-Clare? Let me revise my assessment of your character, for your least appealing trait as a potential wife is your utter lack of trust. It would be wearying unto death to be bracketed with a young lady who was always suspecting me of one gross depravity or another. No, I did not murder Mr. Otley. Did we not address this matter sufficiently last night? I acquitted you of any wrongdoing, and you returned the courtesy by acquitting me. Do let the record show that I remain convinced of your innocence even though I discovered you in my rooms inspecting my belongings in my absence, an act that most people would consider to be highly suspicious at the very least.”
She ignored his nonsensical preening. “Explain the book.”
The question, a seeming non sequitur, genuinely confused him, and for the first time since he’d found her in his room, he looked surprised. “What book?”
“The Defense of Poesy,” she said, “which is on your bedside table. If you recall, you cited it last night as the reason you were in the library. Its presence here strikes me as problematic, as I cannot believe that even you would be so ghoulish as to remember to select reading material from the library after the victim’s bloody body had been removed.”
