‘Mr Kendrick will be here directly. He has invited you to wait in the blue salon.’ He held out a gloved hand, his demeanour once more phlegmatic as he led the way.
They had got no further than the first set of ornate doorways when Bea heard a familiar baritone voice.
‘You may leave us.’
Hugh had addressed his manservant from the top of the wide curving treads. Now he approached, hands plunged in pockets, a towel draped negligently about his shoulders.
Following a stiff bow the butler backed away, then turned towards the vestibule.
Bea raised her eyes, overwhelmed with embarrassment as Hugh came closer to her. No wonder his staff had acted as though she were a nuisance and a spectacle to behold. Nobody, let alone an unaccompanied young woman, should interrupt a gentleman in the middle of bathing. Why had he not just sent her away? she wailed inwardly as another wave of heat deepened her blush.
Hugh raised the cloth to his slick dark hair, drying it, and the more casually he took her intrusion the more acutely awkward Beatrice felt. He appeared to have dressed in a hurry, and his ruffled linen shirt was damp and clinging to his broad torso, exposing an expanse of tanned skin at his throat.
‘I’m so sorry...’ Bea croaked, finally forcing words past strangling embarrassment. ‘I shouldn’t have come. I’ll go...and leave you to finish your...umm...’ She turned to bolt towards the door.
Hugh had caught hold of her before she’d made it more than a yard or so.
‘No, you don’t,’ he said softly, turning her about. ‘You’ve found the courage to come here to see me so it must be on an urgent matter. I want to know what it is.’
‘It
is
an urgent matter...’ Bea blurted, finally forcing her gaze to his face.
His lashes were still heavy with water, fringing caramel-coloured eyes, and slick ribbons of jet hair adorned his temples. If he still hadn’t got a penny to his name Bea knew he could enslave her with his breathtaking good looks as easily as he had three years ago.
Then he hadn’t been able to afford even one residence to call his own. Now Hugh Kendrick, diamond magnate, had the wherewithal to support households and dependants at home and overseas. Bea knew there was so much more to discover than whether he’d revealed Colin’s renewed marriage proposal to Mrs Monk and Stella. But with startling clarity she realised that answer was more important to her than any other. If it transpired that he had done so then those other questions crowding her mind about his life in India would no longer be important. Love him maybe she would, till the day she died, but she could never see him again after tonight if he’d betrayed her trust to the vile Mrs Monk.
‘Come with me...’ Hugh extended a hand to her. ‘Let’s find somewhere comfortable to talk.
‘There’s no need for me to tarry.’ Bea ignored his beckoning fingers, pleased that her composure was strengthening and the wobble had gone from her voice. ‘It’s very wrong of me to be here, and I apologise for coming, but...but I have an important question to ask.’
‘Go ahead...’ Hugh’s mouth skewed as he sensed he was about to be accused of something. He could hazard a guess at what it was. But how Beatrice had found out that Mrs Monk had tried to solicit his protection for Stella Rawlings he could only guess. The woman was a mischief-maker and the girl was made in her image.
The vision he wanted to keep lodged in his mind was that of a tantalising temptress sharing his bath, her golden tresses floating on soapy water, her limbs entwined with his... A dry chuckle rasped in Hugh’s throat as his phantom lover brusquely interrupted his fantasy.
‘Did you tell Mrs Monk that Colin had again proposed to me?’
‘No.’
Bea moistened her mouth. She hadn’t anticipated such a concise response, nor that he would follow the single word with a steady, low-lashed stare. She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.
‘I see...’ she blurted. ‘And did you kiss Stella this afternoon?’
‘No.’
Again Beatrice shifted beneath his ruthless regard as the silence lengthened.
‘Are you accusing me of such behaviour?’
Bea hesitated just a moment too long before shaking her head so vigorously that her bonnet loosened on its ribbons, hanging at her nape on flaxen waves. Before she could carry on her interrogation masterful fingers manacled her wrist. Hugh forced her with him towards the nearest doorway, propelling her inside when she seemed unwilling to step over the threshold.
‘Sit down,’ he growled, standing with his back against the door.
‘Please don’t order me about,’ Bea returned haughtily. Nevertheless she perched obediently on the edge of a fireside chair in what appeared to be a small reading room. Newspapers were on a table and ceiling-high bookshelves flanked one wall.
‘Now I have some questions to ask,’ Hugh dulcetly drawled as he strolled to ram a foot against the fender. ‘Did you have a
tête-à
-
tête
with Mrs Monk or Stella after you left me?’
‘Not by choice!’ Bea answered hotly, shooting to her feet. She could tell from his attitude that he thought she’d been secretly checking up on him. ‘I’ve no wish for anything to do with either woman.’
‘No more have I.’
‘That’s not what Mrs Monk says!’ Bea retorted frostily.
‘So...tell me what Mrs Monk says...’ Hugh quit the fireplace, stationing himself in front of her. ‘Come, I answered you a moment ago—I’d like the courtesy returned, Beatrice,’ he needled her, his expression impenetrable. ‘If I’m to be charged with something at least provide your evidence.’
‘Mrs Monk loitered outside the viscount’s house till I went out to speak to her.’
Bea nibbled her lower lip, sensing that behind Hugh’s cool exterior lay a simmering fury...directed at
her
. Of the two of them, Bea judged she had more right to feel angry and ill-used. Fearing she was within a hair’s breadth of shouting that opinion at him, she took a deep, calming breath.
‘Mrs Monk said you’d told her that Colin had returned to me with his tail between his legs after Stella jilted him.’ She glanced up to find a pair of tawny eyes preying on her face. ‘The woman warned me to stay away from you because you and your brother were competing for Stella’s favours and Stella had chosen you. She said if I didn’t heed her she’d broadcast that I’d been caught kissing you in broad daylight.’
‘That’s it?’ Hugh asked with an amount of ennui.
‘No...indeed it is not!’ Bea exploded. She’d not expected a fulsome denial, but had anticipated more of a reaction than she’d just got. ‘Mrs Monk added that you’d all had a fine time this afternoon and hinted that you and Stella had flirted and kissed.’
‘Was anything else mentioned about my lecherous intentions towards that damned minx?’
‘What more might have been said?’ Bea stormed, dreading to hear the answer, yet desperate to have it too.
‘The meddlesome witch might have told you that I took them home immediately and declined an invitation to take refreshment; she might have told you that I refused the girl’s services as a paramour when they were offered to me...for the second time,’ Hugh clipped out.
‘What?’ Bea asked faintly. She’d imagined that Mrs Monk was after a husband for Stella.
‘So have you anything else to say to me?’ Hugh asked, taking her chin in strong fingers and tilting her face up to his so she couldn’t avoid his black-eyed stare.
Bea felt the words jumbling in her mind before clogging her throat. During the journey to his house she had rehearsed how she’d demand to know if he’d fathered a child with an Indian woman and then left them both behind when he’d returned to England. Now, when she needed them most, she realised her impetuous nature and quick tongue seemed to have deserted her.
‘Perhaps you might like to apologise and admit you were wrong to accuse me of having designs on that chit’s virtue.’
Bea bristled beneath his arrogant drawl. It spurred her on, firing her indignation. ‘I accused you of nothing. I merely asked questions. Even had I assumed you guilty it would have been an easy mistake to make.’ She stepped back from him, her blue gaze adopting a glacial hardness. ‘When trying to warn me about your womanising, Colin said you had a mistress at either end of town and wondered where you might position another.’ Bea tilted her head to a challenging angle, forcing her eyes to meet his squarely. ‘If only I had known then what I know now I might have been able to tell him. India is the answer, is it not?’
Chapter Twenty-One
S
he watched carefully, and, yes, there was an unmistakable flicker of cynical acceptance that something hidden had been unearthed.
‘Mrs Monk told you about that too?’
‘She did...’ Beatrice croaked, gripping at a chair-rail to steady herself. ‘And I’m sorry that she was mean enough to do so. I’m certain you’d not reveal anything so personal to her, and don’t know how she found out about your Indian mistress and the little boy.’
‘Toby probably told her; from what you’ve said it sounds as though they’ve been in touch,’ Hugh said tonelessly.
‘I’m sorry if your brother has betrayed you...it is a very personal matter,’ Bea repeated in a voice roughened by emotion. ‘It was none of that woman’s business...just as it is none of mine...’ She gulped in a shaky breath. ‘I must go now, but first will again apologise for intruding like this.’
She’d reached the door and half opened it before he spoke.
‘Don’t you want to know more about the affair?’
Bea twisted about, eyes blazing. ‘What possible interest would I have in your family abroad?’
‘I have no family abroad...’
‘You are a very callous man to say so,’ Bea whispered. ‘What else are the mother of your child and a son...even a bastard son...but members of your family?’
Bea’s fists clenched at her sides in rage and frustration. She had been wrong about him all along; despite his arrogance and philandering she had harboured a hope—a hope that had soared this afternoon—that he was an inherently decent man. He’d not denied the little boy’s birth, yet had easily dismissed him.
‘Have you finished?’
‘Utterly finished... I’ve no wish to say or hear more on the subject. Good evening...’ Bea had her fingers on the door, pulling it fully open, when his dark fist hit the panel overhead, slamming it again shut.
‘I don’t think you mean that, do you, Beatrice?’ he said quietly. ‘I think you’re keen for every detail about Rani and Shay.’
Bea spun about, her back pressed into the door. She gazed up at him with glittering eyes, hating him for understanding her turmoil and for making real people of the ghosts in her mind.
‘You’re wrong!’ she spat. ‘I’ve had enough proof that your lechery causes hurt to innocent people. You will never hurt me in that way.’ Tears trickled down her cheeks. ‘How can you abandon your own flesh and blood in a distant land?’
‘Shay isn’t my flesh and blood...’
‘What?’ Bea whispered. ‘Are you now going to lie—?’
‘It’s not a lie,’ Hugh interrupted harshly. ‘He’s not my flesh and blood and, much as I want the best for him, I’m content to let Rani care for his welfare.’
Hugh pressed thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose, as though to ease strain.
‘I want to tell you, Beatrice...let me tell you... And then, if you want nothing more to do with me, I’ll try and accept your wishes and stay away.’
His hoarse words held a note of authority, and Bea realised he’d force her to listen whether she chose to or not.
‘Sit down...please...’ Hugh abruptly strode away from her, thrusting hands that ached to touch her in his pockets. One was withdrawn to gesture at the chair she’d previously used.
Slowly Bea approached the seat, perching again on its very edge, as though she might flee if the details of his foreign affair were too unbearable.
‘Rani became my mistress shortly after I arrived in Hyderabad,’ Hugh started without preamble. ‘She’d had an arranged marriage when little more than a girl. Her husband was much older and they had no offspring. She craved a child to love...’
Bea’s slender fingers gripped the chair-arm as though she would use its support to rise.
‘Let me finish, Bea!’ Hugh ordered with a note of pleading. He quickly resumed. ‘There were many English families in the area connected to the East Indies trade. I became friendly with one fellow, Keith Wheeler, who had his wife and only daughter with him. They’d planned to return to England so the girl could make her come-out. Then they found out Louise was pregnant by a married Indian potentate.’
Hugh’s mouth hardened at the memory.
‘Once the seduction was done the fellow distanced himself, and there would have been a diplomatic incident and a scandal if he’d been pursued over the matter.’
Bea relaxed her tight grip on the chair, returned her fingers to her lap. She gazed at Hugh’s profile, her mind racing ahead. But she remained quiet, breathlessly waiting for him to continue.
‘Louise’s parents were understandably distraught and keen to keep the matter concealed. When Rani discovered that a baby was to be born in secret and then given away she wanted it. She pleaded with me to make the necessary arrangements. I refused, so behind my back she spoke to the expectant mother and the parents...offered to pay them for the child. The Wheelers wanted nothing other than that the whole affair be dealt with as discreetly as possible.’
Hugh paused, threw his head back to sightlessly stare at the ceiling.
‘The Wheelers begged me to put it right for them if I could. I resisted, and tried to dissuade Rani too, but her obsession with being a mother overrode all else and eventually I agreed to help them all obtain the longed-for outcome.’ He gestured briefly. ‘My liaison with Rani was in the open, and accepted by the locals as a practical arrangement. Rani’s elderly husband didn’t object to his wife sleeping with me. They were not peasants, but neither were they wealthy people, and the family welcomed my friendship and financial assistance.’
Hugh shifted position, lowering his moody features to the empty fire grate.
‘Louise concealed her weight gain; Rani padded out her clothes and begged me to claim the child as mine. She didn’t want to be vilified as a trollop, unable to name her baby’s father, and a fair-skinned sire would be required as the baby was sure to look of mixed race. As indeed he does...’