He understood only too well. Like the earl, the countess reigned with an iron hand, but the lash of her tongue delivered the deadliest blow. The matron had banished her daughter. Had ripped the soul from the chest of a grieving boy. It wasn’t hard to believe she might hire cutthroats to get rid of the problem.
Sensing his disquiet, she said, “Do you want to continue?”
“No.” He wanted to jump ship and swim to shore. “But I have to tell you what happened.” He needed to confess, beg for forgiveness.
Silence ensued while Beatrice quickly made notes in her book, the sound like the faint scratching of mice trying to claw their way out of the darkness.
“And so you left London and journeyed to Hampshire,” she clarified. “It’s at least five hours to the common. Can you recall how many times you stopped en route?”
The simple question amounted to more than a desire to create a timeline. It acted like water, dousing his fiery emotions. Indeed, Beatrice Sands was perhaps the most skilled agent he’d ever met. Instinctively, she knew when to advance, when to retreat.
“I cannot recall. But my mother wanted to stay the night in Bagshot.” A year ago, Dante had ventured as far as the inn, had made enquiries about highway robberies in the area during the autumn and winter of 1805. “Your father wanted to leave, but said he would hire a horse.”
She swallowed deeply. “Evidently, you didn’t stay.”
“No.” Guilt churned in his stomach. If he could travel back in time, he would tan his own backside for being a brat. He’d drag himself from the carriage by the scruff of his coat, put himself to bed without supper. “I cried and complained until she agreed to go home.”
Beatrice said nothing. She stared at him, eyes glistening with unshed tears. The gravity of the decision was not lost on her.
“Had we stayed at the inn, we might—”
“Don’t!” She dabbed her eyes with her fingertips. “Don’t say you were to blame. Don’t torture yourself—”
“We should have stayed, should have made the journey during daylight, when there were more people on the road.”
“Whoever did this would have found another way to silence our parents. There’s every chance someone followed
them from London. Every chance the villain would have murdered you in your beds had you stayed at the inn.”
He wanted to believe her. “What if it amounts to nothing more than highway robbery? What then?” He did not give her an opportunity to answer. “I’m the reason they were on the road that night. I’m the reason they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
And while he’d spent years searching for a motive, searching for the fiend who fired the shots, part of him wanted to hide from the truth.
“Dante, the evidence suggests it has something to do with the man who visited Farthingdale. And if my uncle is correct, we must assume this man believes the countess is his mother. Vengeance seems a likely motive, as does the need for the countess to silence anyone who knew her secret.”
He reached for the brandy glass, cursed the dowager to the devil, and then downed the contents. “Then we must visit Mr Coulter as soon as we return to town. The man had items stolen from the scene, and so we could be looking at a conspiracy.”
They would have to visit the countess, too, though Dante had not spoken to the matron for ten years. Not since he’d run away to live with his Uncle Lorenzo.
“Yes,” she said softly. “There are many things we need to clarify. But what I know with all my heart is you had nothing to do with what happened to them. You need to stop fighting the world. Stop punishing yourself.”
His instinct was to mock, tell her she couldn’t possibly understand, and yet he said, “I don’t know how to be anything but angry.”
“Yes, you do.” She placed her notebook and pencil on the side table. “You know how to be a good friend, can show kindness and compassion. You went out of your way to purchase a letter opener so I might sleep easier at night.”
He shook his head. “Hatred lives inside me. Dark. Ugly. A living thing that grows more monstrous by the day.”
She shot off the chair, came to kneel beside him, captured his hand and gave a reassuring squeeze. “That’s not true. You care deeply for your friends. Love lives in your heart, I’m sure of it, and one day you will learn to share it with the world.”
His chest grew warm, a swirling heat that infused his whole being. It had nothing to do with the words spoken, everything to do with this angel of deliverance who knelt on the dusty boards, repenting on his behalf. The angel who had faced the devil in a coaching inn because she wished to rescue him from a living hell.
Dante pushed a lock of hair behind her ear with a tenderness he didn’t know he possessed. “I didn’t thank you for what you did tonight. This may sound strange, but I don’t think I have ever felt so proud.”
“Proud?”
“You faced your fears, though I know it came at a price.” Sore hands, eyes rimmed red from shed tears, nightmares that would plague every restful hour until dawn.
Beatrice glanced at the bed as if it were the rack or some other implement of torture. “I doubt I shall sleep tonight. No matter how hard I try, I shall see my uncle’s smug face, not a field full of sunflowers.”