“I cannot apologize for the vastness of my estate,” he said softly, sitting on the settee and pulling her down next to him so that he could lay a delicate kiss on her lips.
“You can but you won’t,” she pointed out.
He acknowledged this as true but remained adamantly convinced that she would eventually find something to appreciate in his situation. “Even if it is only my library.”
“Which I have still yet to visit,” she said, sounding genuinely surprised by that development. There she was, mistress of Kesgrave House for almost forty-eight hours and she had yet to hide herself away.
“We must rectify that immediately,” he said, “for I have an absurd desire to see you trembling there.”
And now she blushed, for she had failed to realize not only the various locations in which one could conduct marital relations but also that he had been considering them so thoroughly.
Obviously, a newly married man could not be expected to resist so charming a response in his bride and the second delicate kiss quickly turned passionate.
But even as Bea began to contemplate the advantages of the settee, Kesgrave drew back, shifted uncomfortably and moved several inches away from her on the cushion.
“Mrs. Mayhew,” he said.
Her thoughts still muddled, she stared at him in confusion.
“You said she found the meeting productive,” he explained, a pleased smile hovering on his lips. “Did you as well?”
Oh, he liked that, didn’t he, corrupting her ability to think clearly. “Yes and no. She had no recollection whatsoever of Gertrude Vickers threatening Monsieur Alphonse with a cleaver, which is why I have summoned Mrs. Blewitt to confirm it. However, she did provide one vital piece of information. The reason she met with Mrs. Blewitt and Mr. Réjane to finalize the menu on Thursday was her husband was called away at the last minute for a meeting with a new investor called Mr. Bayne.”
Kesgrave raised an eyebrow in a particularly refined manner. “Oh, did he?”
“Indeed, yes,” she replied firmly.
“And I trust she explained to the company why her husband was absent from the meeting,” he said.
“I think we may safely assume she did,” Bea confirmed, “which is why Mr. Réjane went haring off to the bank the next morning to meet with his own Mr. Bayne and discovered promptly enough that the clerk did not exist. He then returned to Berkeley Square and confronted Mr. Mayhew, who admitted that he never had any intention of providing the loan. In response, he resigned his post and rifled through his employer’s dressing room until he found something of value to compensate him for what he felt he was owed.”
The duke regarded her thoughtfully for a long moment and then said, “It is, I agree, an important piece of information, but I am not sure it adds anything to the case against Mayhew. Knowing why Réjane chose to go to the bank on the morning of the dinner party doesn’t incriminate him further.”
Bea knew this was true: Just because every one of Mr. Réjane’s actions on the last day of his life traced back to his visit to the bank did not mean his murderer’s did as well. The chef’s anger had cascading effects. His outrage over Mr. Mayhew’s lies, for example, led to his searching his employer’s dressing room and the vicious argument with Stebbings. In the same way, his theft of the coins led to his visit to Mrs. Wallace, which caused the quails to dry out and Gertrude’s public drubbing at the hands of her employer.
These resentments were engendered by the visit to the bank but not directly caused by it.
Cascading effects, she thought again.
But as plausible as these sequences of events were, they felt slightly too tortuous to Bea, as if she were rummaging around for a more complicated solution when a simple one was right before her. If the bank was somehow central to the explanation, then surely Mr. Mayhew himself was central to the explanation. He was, after all, the one who had grasped on to the butler’s benign explanation and ordered the immediate destruction of the evidence. And he had tried to coolly manipulate her every movement from the moment she’d stepped into his drawing room.
There was a cold-blooded shrewdness about Mr. Mayhew she simply could not dismiss, which she tried to explain to the duke by citing the example of the skewer.
“The skewer?” he said.
“Yes,” she affirmed, “the skewer. Subtly, he indicated that he did not know what a cleaver was by calling it a skewer. It is that clear-headed attention to detail that makes him dangerous. He’s awake to the game and playing it at all times.”
Kesgrave looked doubtful, and before he could make a counterargument, she allowed that it was all a bit of a speculative stretch.
“Obviously, Gertrude Vickers’s immoderate temperament makes her a much better suspect, which is why we are waiting on Mrs. Blewitt’s pleasure,” she said.
Joseph returned then with additional tea cakes for the plate and a silver teapot that gleamed brightly in the light.
“Perfect,” Bea said happily as he rearranged the tray. “Mrs. Blewitt will be so overwhelmed by the magnificence she will immediately tell us everything we wish to know.”
But Mr. Mayhew’s housekeeper was definitely not as easily intimidated as his valet, and she stood stiffly near the doorway, refusing either to take a seat or accept a refreshment.
“Mr. and Mrs. Mayhew are my employers,” she said with rigid determination, “and they have treated me with respect and consideration for more than a dozen years. I will not say one word against them. I am sorry if that creates a problem for you, your grace, but I must abide by my conscience.”
Bea darted a look at the duke, for it was unexpected that the unsavory banker had managed to inspire loyalty in at least one member of his staff, then
