No, but it did not exonerate him either.
Of all the people she had interviewed so far, he was the most likely suspect, for he had already revealed himself to be deeply immoral and devious.
Coolly, she said, “As we both know, Mr. Mayhew, my lineage trumps yours, so I see no reason to continue this discussion. Kesgrave will clarify the situation with the constable, and I will consult directly with him on my investigation.”
As it was not an idle threat, she leaned forward to rise to her feet but her movements were forestalled by Mr. Mayhew’s riotous laughter.
“I would hate to have to tell a newly married woman that she doesn’t know her husband, but you do not know your husband, my dear,” he said with indulgent condescension. “It is understandable given the length of your courtship, which was necessarily brief. You had to snap the parson’s mouse trap closed before your quarry could wrangle free. No, please, your grace, do not get all tight in the shoulders as if I am criticizing you. I am not, for I possess a great appreciation for expedience. I do not know how you managed to compromise the duke on the terrace during Lord Larkwell’s ball, but I can only assume you were in league with Taunton. Perhaps you promised to use your settlement to pay his gambling debts?”
He paused here as if in expectation of her confirmation, and Bea, her back indeed rigid, struggled to keep her features neutral as he doled out insult after insult. Save for the introduction of the murderous marquess as her conspirator, he said nothing she had not heard a dozen times before. Her own aunt had expressed a similar understanding of the situation and remained baffled still by Kesgrave’s disinclination to save himself from her clutches.
When she had first discovered that most of society shared this view of her engagement, she’d been deeply mortified and imagined tongues wagging everywhere she went: at the theater, at dinner parties, at routs, balls and musicales. She could almost hear them whispering behind her back about the dowdy spinster who nabbed the ton’s most glittering prize through hideously deceitful means.
Her fears, however, proved unfounded, for everyone stated it plainly to her face: Mrs. Norton, Lord Tavistock, Lord Wem.
Mr. Mayhew, she thought, in amusement.
Realizing that his guest would not honor him with a confession, Mr. Mayhew continued, “Regardless, let me do you the invaluable service of explaining your husband to you. He is sneering, contemptuous, arrogant, imperious, chilly, snide and generally indifferent to the opinions of others. He is interested in only his own comfort and will not bestir himself to satisfy the whim of anyone, let alone the insignificant nobody who ensnared him in a marriage he neither wanted nor sought. Now I understand that you are trying to style yourself as a lady Runner to create something distinctive about yourself, which I agree is necessary as you are extraordinarily unremarkable otherwise, and I am more than happy to assist you in that endeavor by allowing you access to my staff and home. But I have made my terms clear and am unwilling to compromise. Do we have an agreement?”
“You forgot pedantic,” Bea said.
“Excuse me?” he asked jeeringly, clearly peeved by the implication that he had overlooked anything.
“My husband is pedantic,” she explained matter-of-factly. “He is sneering, contemptuous, arrogant, imperious, chilly, snide, generally indifferent to the opinions of others and pedantic. If you are going to comprehensively list his character traits, then you cannot leave off his most enduring one.”
Mr. Mayhew’s color rose sharply as he stared at Beatrice, his fingers dancing across the chair’s arms with increasing speed and vigor.
Determinedly, he tried to make sense of her unanticipated response and decided that his insightful understanding of her husband’s character had unsettled her.
“Oh, yes, I have quite unnerved you,” he said smugly. “By revealing to you the truth about your own husband I have forced you to come to terms to the limitations of your own ingenuity. You thought you were so very clever, and now you realize you’re not shrewd enough to outmaneuver me. You are trying to brazen it out with empty threats so I won’t realize the truth, which is that you have no position from which to negotiate. I am a banker, you see, and understand exactly what you are doing. Next, you will stand up stiffly and announce it is time you returned to Kesgrave House. You will say something to the effect of: My husband will notice I am gone soon and wonder where I am.”
The flush in his cheeks subsided as he grew increasingly confident in his understanding of the situation. His lips pursed, he rubbed the generous whiskers lining his jaw with his left hand and considered her silently for several moments. “I find I am reluctant to allow that. Having come closer than I ever thought possible to attaining a long-sought goal, I cannot let you to leave without making another attempt to arrive at a satisfying bargain. Although I vowed not to compromise, I will demonstrate how reasonable I am by offering to eliminate the weekend in the country at Helston Park. Furthermore, you do not have to convince the duke to move any portion of his deposits to Mayhew & Co., only the money he settled upon you for your marriage. A husband cannot object if a wife takes an interest in her own investments, can he? You see how fair-minded I am being? Now come, your grace, agree to meet me in the middle, and we may settle this transaction amicably. To be candid, you have no other option than to accede to my requests if you are to have any hope of scrutinizing Monsieur Alphonse’s death. But if you would rather leave than grace us with your presence.…”
He trailed off enticingly, entirely convinced in the strength of his argument and his ability to overcome her resistance.
As amused as she was by the confidence of his pose, Bea could
