Page 20 of The Lady Confesses
“Could be worse,” Joss remarked. “A fortnight ago it was Hamstead and Carlisle. Over some insult to Carlisle’s wife, I believe?”
“Daughter. Insult to the man’s daughter,” Vincent replied absently. “Hamstead said it was a damn good thing she’s rich because her face won’t catch her a husband; it’d barely catch flies.”
Joss blinked. “Oh. I suppose that might be worth a fight, after all.”
Vincent shrugged. “Hamstead is an ass, but he’s not wrong. Poor girl... but none of that tells me why you are here, Joss. And you wouldn’t be here without a reason. Not when you’ve been avoiding me since my return so you wouldn’t have to answer the question I posed to you before I left.”
He’d considered more than a dozen different ways to relay it all. But simply, matter of factly and with a minimum of detail seemed best. “Ernsdale was murdered, Maurice Bates wants to pin it on Henrietta, and she’s with child... my child.”
The Hound stared at him. Then after the longest moment of very uncomfortable silence, he uttered a single vulgarity that summed it all up perfectly.
“Yes,” Joss replied. “That is generally how conception occurs.”
“Christ, you’ve really cocked it all up.”
Joss just shrugged. He wasn’t wrong. “I’m aware. But I can’t very well uncock it, so let’s do what we can to manage it. Starting with Bates. I need to find out who did actually murder Ernsdale. Hettie has her theories, and she’s likely correct. But I don’t wantto miss something by being so singularly focused. Ernsdale was a very hated man, after all. Most people are murdered for money, love, or revenge—and there is an entire city full of people who would have happily avenged themselves against that shite.”
Vincent moved past him and sat down at his desk. There were several ledgers spread across the desktop, most of them chocked full of secrets and scandals that would set the whole of London on its ears. “So why are you here? Just to tell me that you did the absolute one thing you should not have done when charged with rescuing a woman?”
It goaded Joss to admit it. “I’m here because I need your help to do this. And because you once offered me a position managing this club... as your partner.”
“Ah... so you can support the wee Ettinger? You may want to rethink that. Henrietta is a lady. Ladies do not marry men who run textile mills or shipping businesses... or even very successful gaming hells.” Vincent leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands. “You’re going to have to become something you look down your slightly misshapen nose at: a man of leisure.”
Joss felt everything inside him recoil at the prospect. He had little respect for men who did no work, honest or otherwise. The idea of joining their ranks, of being a kept man, living off of a woman rather than supporting himself—it was anathema to him. “Bite your tongue. I’ll do this my own way.”
“You have already. That’s why Hettie’s with child and without husband.”
Joss uttered a curse that mirrored Vincent’s earlier one, prompting a bark of laughter from the other man. But the laughter died away when the door opened and Stavers appeared. The very unlikely butler was, to put it mildly, rough around the edges. “Pardon the intrusion, but Lady Ernsdale has arrived at the house and wishes to speak with you.”
Vincent kept his eyes trained on him, and Joss, despite the fact that he had a good two stone in weight and nearly four inches in height on him, had to fight the urge to squirm and fidget beneath that penetrating gaze.
“This should be interesting,” Vincent mused. “Care to join me?”
He wasn’t about to remain behind. Not when he hadn’t seen Hettie since she had come to his office the day prior. They needed to talk. But they couldn’t do that with Vincent and Honoria hovering about them as they tried to fix all their problems for them.
Getting up from the chair he’d occupied, Joss reached for his coat. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Seventeen
Hettie stared upat her sister, who was still gaping at her. “Ernsdale is dead,” she repeated, sounding somewhat dazed by it. “The thing I’ve prayed and hoped for has come to pass and all it’s done is make my life more difficult rather than less. And... oh, God... I sound like a horrible person. Praying for his death. Who asks God, quite literally, to strike someone dead?”
“Any woman who has had to bear the brunt of a man’s temper and rage when the law is on his side,” Honoria answered. “Wishing him dead did not make him dead. If it did, then I’d have been widowed on the very day I became a bride.”
Despite the truly terrible position she was currently in, Hettie had to smile at that. Honoria could always manage to make her laugh even in the most dire of situations. “Have I told you how incredibly happy I am that you are my sister? If I have not, I’ve been terribly remiss.”
Honoria stepped deeper into the room and perched on the arm of Hettie’s chair, wrapping her arm about her sister’s shoulders. “The feeling is quite mutual.”
“It may not be for very long,” Hettie said. “It’s naught but one scandal after another. As if your marriage to a somewhat questionable character, my abduction, my miserly husband, now the murder of that same miserly husband weren’t enough... now, I am—” She broke off, not quite able to say the words aloud.
“What is it, Hettie? You know there is nothing you cannot tell me.”
“I’m going to have a child... and obviously, Ernsdale was not the one who fathered this child.”
Honoria’s eyebrows lifted and she blinked rapidly for several seconds. “Well, that was certainly efficient. The first time, Hettie? Really?”
Hettie fixed a baleful stare in her sister’s direction. “That is not helpful, Honoria.”
“No. No, I don’t suppose it is. What will you do? About Mr. Ettinger, that is. Have you told him?”
