Well, offered was understating her intentions.
Taking advantage of his momentary confusion, she turned sideways and slipped past him into the house. The entry hall was modest and pleasant, with a vase of pink roses resting next to a silver tray on a narrow table. An assortment of elegant calling cards filled the salver, and Bea was able to read the top few names before the footman stepped stiffly in front of her.
“I beg your pardon!” he said forcefully.
His meaning could not have been any clearer, for it was apparent in every rigid line of his body, but Bea chose to misunderstand him and kindly accept his apology. “Your agitation is understandable given the troubling events of this morning. Nobody can rest easily whilst there is a killer afoot, which is precisely why I am here. Now please take me to the room where Monsieur Alphonse was found. I prefer to examine the scene before conducting my interviews.”
Bea spoke with pragmatic blandness, shying away from euphemisms like “met his end,” to imbue her words with a credible expertise, as if she had a method she traditionally followed and from which she would not allow herself to be diverted.
Her settled approach did little to calm the footman, who was practically trembling at her audacity. “You cannot believe, miss, that I—”
Bea interrupted to do something she never thought she would do in her entire life. “Your grace,” she corrected.
His manner altered at once, the anger sweeping from his body with such vigor he seemed almost incapable of standing without it. He tugged his shoulders back, as if to regain his balance, and gracious civility overtook his features. With smooth deference, he said, “Your grace.”
The transformation, the heartbeat-quick change, as fleeting as lightning, from outraged to tranquil, was stunning. It would astound anyone, the unqualified affirmation in their superiority, but it had a particularly strong effect on Bea, a drab spinster, a plain wallflower, a poor relation beneath the ton’s notice. She could barely breathe from the sense of authority that pulsed through her.
Now, abruptly, unresistingly, the footman stood before her, awaiting her instruction.
It was another jolt, a startlingly sharp one, to discover she could control a person’s movements as if he were a puppet in a street performance of Punch and Judy.
No wonder Kesgrave had grown so accustomed to the sound his own voice—for years, it had been the only one he’d heard. ’Twas not just footmen who fell silent at his command but marquesses and prime ministers as well.
How heady that must be.
Here, she had got a taste, only a very small sample, of the power he had exerted his whole life, and already she could feel its influence. Why bother trying to reason someone into submission when you could simply cow them with your consequence?
It was not a path strewn with rose petals but rather rose petals as far as the eye could see in every direction.
The revelation made Kesgrave even more of a remarkable anomaly, for despite the ease and genuflection that permeated every aspect of his life he had somehow acquired the ability to laugh at himself.
She recalled the moment at Lakeview Hall when her heart began its long, slow tumble to his feet. With seeming earnestness, after climbing through her bedchamber window to discuss Mr. Otley’s murder, he had drawn attention to a display of humility because he thought she did not credit him with enough modesty. Thoroughly entertained, she’d asked if he was now boasting about not boasting.
“It’s the depth to which you have driven me, Miss Hyde-Clare,” he’d declared.
And it was this response—this easygoing reply that bore no trace of resentment or offense—that actually displayed his modesty. He had been teasing her, yes, by implying that her treatment had eroded his confidence, but also acknowledging an essential truth: He had been brought low by a nonentity at a backwater house party in the Lake District, and he had no quarrel with the situation.
His vanity could withstand the demotion.
Decidedly, Bea resolved to display the same grace and humility even as she used her coronet to browbeat the poor footman who had the misfortune to answer her knock. “To be sure, the circumstance is highly irregular,” she said briskly, “but I cannot see how keeping someone of my stature waiting in the hallway will do anything to mitigate it.”
Someone of my stature? she thought in astonishment, appalled at how easily the words had come to her but also amused by their tenor, for she sounded like a villain in a Minerva Press novel.
“Do go inform your employer of my presence,” she added, with a dismissive flick of her hand. “I trust he is home?”
“Yes, your grace,” he said without equivocating.
“Very good. While you’re informing Mr. Mayhew that the Duchess of Kesgrave is here—that is, K-E-S-G-R-A-V-E—I will examine the room where Monsieur Alphonse’s body was found,” she said. “If you would indicate the correct direction?”
It was a tactical mistake, she could see that right away, for a real duchess would demand an escort, not wander around a strange and possibly sinister establishment on her own.
The footman’s expression lost some of its awe, replaced by confusion as he struggled to respond to the unusual request. “I don’t know…”
Bea allowed him no time to gather his wits. “That’s all right, my good man, I do know and very well, for, as I said previously, this is my milieu. You have no reason to be anxious. Mr. Mayhew will be grateful to have the Duchess of Kesgrave’s help; I am sure of it. You don’t need me to spell my name again, do you? It’s so very vexing not having my cards yet.”
It was a rhetorical question, but he answered as if she were waiting with bated breath for his response. “No, your grace, that is not necessary.”
She dipped her head with the same imperious condescension she had seen Kesgrave employ countless times and said, “I am ready to go now or do you intend to keep me waiting in
