Was he really the head of a successful banking concern?
It seemed inconceivable to her, and even if she were interested in making a bargain with him, she would not agree to deposit any portion of her settlement at Mayhew and Co. because she did not believe it would be secure.
Unlike her host, Bea was aware of the futility of her efforts and decided she had wasted enough time talking to him. The more efficient course was to return to Kesgrave House and ask Jenkins to drive her to the constable’s office. Although she still found it a difficult idea to digest, the truth was she no longer needed to borrow the duke’s consequence, for she possessed her own now and if there was any advantage in being the Duchess of Kesgrave, it was the ability to browbeat public servants.
“I will pursue this matter without your assistance,” she said, rising from her chair as she thanked her host for his time. “I will tell the duke of your interest to dine at Kesgrave House. I am sure he will be most gratified.”
Her confidence seemed to infuriate him, and Mr. Mayhew lunged to his feet, took two swift steps toward her and grabbed her arm by the elbow. “Sit down! I am not done.”
Although one did not have to be a duchess to know that his action was a strict violation of all rules governing civility, the breach somehow seemed more striking in light of her new rank. Perhaps it was merely that as the spinsterish Miss Hyde-Clare she had learned not to expect displays of basic courtesies. Or maybe it was because it required more impudence to grab a ducal arm.
Regardless of its cause, she was genuinely shocked to see his tightened fingers grasping her bare flesh.
It is the bank, Bea thought.
Every day Mr. Mayhew went to the bank, where his name was carved in stone above the doorway, and he ordered people about, quelled dissent and had his opinions affirmed. There could be no other explanation for his inexplicable faith in his own proficiency and his inability to deal with her refusal. Only a sense of entitlement nurtured for generations could produce such overweening incompetence.
He was a fatuous man who deserved none of her attention, and as she stared up at him whilst simultaneously looking down upon him, she wondered if this feeling of exasperated contempt was how Kesgrave felt most of the time. It had to grow exhausting, people always demanding your attention, desiring your largess, attracting your interest any way they could.
Making no move to free her arm from his grasp, Bea said calmly and firmly, almost as if addressing a small child, “You will release me, Mr. Mayhew.”
The unearned confidence of privileged sons, however, ran deep. “I will not.”
“Oh, but you will,” said a voice silkily from the door.
Chapter Eight
Startled by the Duke of Kesgrave’s unexpected presence in his drawing room—why hadn’t that wretched butler or one of the footmen announced him—Mr. Mayhew convulsed his hand, momentarily tightening his grip on Bea’s elbow to a painful degree, before dropping it as if burned and taking several steps backward into his chair.
As her host struggled to regain his equilibrium, she looked at her husband and said, “We were just discussing you, Kesgrave. Mr. Mayhew would like to come to dinner.”
“Would he?” he asked with easy curiosity, but his stance was rigid and Bea wondered how long he had been standing outside the door listening. Entrances as perfect as his simply did not just happen; they were contrived.
Mr. Mayhew, perceiving a grievous faux pas, hastily clarified his position by stammering “no” several times in rapid succession.
It was a humiliating display of weakness from a man who had just gone out of his way to demonstrate his strength, Bea thought. “He is also desirous of using your box at Covent Garden. And there was some talk about a weekend stay at your estate in Cambridgeshire and… Oh, dear, there were so many items on his list of demands, I am afraid I simply cannot remember them all. Would you be so kind as to catalogue them for the duke, Mr. Mayhew?”
“No, no, no,” he said again, his smile oily as little droplets of sweat began to form at his temples. “You must have misunderstood me, your grace. I made no list of demands. Those were wants…requests…desires, rather.”
Bea nodded thoughtfully as she followed the progression. “Ah, so then Mr. Mayhew desires—”
Here, she broke off her speech to smile sweetly at the banker and ask if she got it right.
Wiping the perspiration from his forehead with a cream-colored handkerchief, he amended it slightly to devoutly wishes.
“Very good. Mr. Mayhew devoutly wishes you to move a portion of your deposits to his bank. He is not pleased with your keeping all your filthy lucre at—”
“I never said filthy,” Mr. Mayhew protested loudly with an anxious look at the duke, whose expression revealed none of his thoughts.
Bea promptly conceded the point. “I was editorializing. Forgive me. Mr. Mayhew is not pleased with your keeping all your lovely money”—another sweet smile, another glance seeking confirmation—“at Coutts. He did not state the nature of his objection, but I can only assume he is disgruntled by the higher quality of the other bank’s clientele and seeks to emulate it. More dukes, fewer army agents and Cornish businessmen?”
“We are delighted with the quality of our clientele, and I made the gentle suggestion only out of concern for his grace. Coutts is a large establishment and as such is not quite capable of providing the duke with all the attention he deserves,” Mr. Mayhew insisted, twisting the handkerchief between his fingers as his eyes darted from Kesgrave to Beatrice and then Beatrice
