Page 29 of The Lady Confesses
It was for those reasons that Joss knew precisely where to find him. Like clockwork, the door to number 47 Bedford Court opened and Bates appeared. He looked pristine. So pristine that Joss was hard pressed to believe the man had spent the past three quarters of an hour swiving some randy widow. But there was a looseness in the way Bates moved, a relaxation that normally was never seen in the man. Maybe, Joss thought, if the bastard visited the widow a little more frequently, he’d be less of an arse.
“Bates,” he called out and saw the other man look up. Whatever looseness or relaxation had suffused him prior simply vanished. Instantly, his chin came up, shoulders back, spine ramrod straight—but it was the derision on Bates’ face that truly marked his disdain for his former coworker.
Joss didn’t give a rat’s ass if Bates liked him, respected him, or wished him to the devil on a regular basis. “I need a word with you, Bates,” Joss insisted.
“You can make an appointment and see me at Bow Street,” Bates replied.
“I don’t think so. I’m here to talk to you about Lady Ernsdale.”
Bates’s expression shifted into a grim smile. “Ah, the murderess. I take it her brother-in-law sent you. Always the Hound’s errand boy. What do you get out of that arrangement with him, Ettinger? A pat on the head? A nice juicy bone? Or does he toss you scraps like the cur you are?”
He refused to let the man get a rise out of him. “Lady Ernsdale is no murderer. And if you try to make her look like one, it’ll be the end of the career you prize so greatly. If you are wise, you will heed this and turn your investigation in a different direction. The person who had the most to gain from Arthur Dagliesh’s death is his nephew Simon.”
“His own nephew cut him down in the street?”
“It’s as sensible an explanation as his wife doing so,” Joss pointed out. “Simon Dagliesh is in deep with the worst moneylenders in all of England. He owes his fucking soul to Ardmore.”
Bates paused. “Ardmore?”
“Yes. Ardmore. Look, investigate as you will. But do not be so single-minded in proving that Lady Ernsdale is a murderer that you let an actual one go free.”
“Bring me proof. I need more than just your word, after all. You’re not exactly the most trustworthy sort, are you? The entire time you were working for Bow Street, you were in the Hound’s pocket. Feeding him intel and misdirecting us so we wouldn’t catch him in the act.”
That hadn’t exactly been the way of it. Yes, he’d turned a blind eye to what the Hound did in many instances. But the Hound had also helped them to put some of the worst criminals in a noose or on a ship bound for distant lands. It had been a mutually beneficial arrangement, and the London streets were safer for what they had done. Even if it had required bending a few rules. But Bates wouldn’t give a damn about that. He was all about the glory.
“I’ll bring you proof. In the meantime, leave her the hell alone,” Joss warned.
“Or what? The Hound will make me disappear? His teeth have been pulled and his claws clipped... he made that choice when he walked away from his criminal enterprise for nothing but a skirt.”
Joss looked Bates dead in the eye. “It’s not the Hound you have to worry about. Not when it comes to her. Do we understand one another, Bates, or do I need to spell it out for you more clearly than that?”
“A murderess and an adulteress. It hardly makes her look less guilty.”
“Don’t make an enemy of me, Bates. Don’t put me in a position where I’ll have to show you which of us is the better man. I’m not asking you to ignore a crime. I’m asking you to be certain you have the right of it before you lay something that ugly at her door.”
Bates looked at him. Then he shrugged. “Forty-eight hours. I’ll give you forty-eight hours to prove it. And at that time, I’ll take her into custody, and I’ll get a confession from her one way or another.”
Joss knew then that it didn’t really matter. Bates wanted her to be guilty because getting her arrested, getting her convicted, would be the way to make a name for himself. “You won’t build your career by putting a noose around her neck. I’ll see to that.”
Walking away from Bates, he headed for Vincent’s and Honoria’s home. His home, at least temporarily.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Dinner was adecidedly awkward affair. The foursome seated around the table spoke of the mundane and the inane. No one touched upon the dangerous and tenuous situation that faced them. There was no talk of Arthur’s murder, of Simon’s plots, or Inspector Bates’s apparent vendetta against all of womankind. In short, it was like so many society events. Nothing of consequence or substance was discussed, and everyone pretended to be completely unaware of the tension that existed between the parties present.
For Hettie, it was a relief when it finally came to an end. She and Honoria retreated to the drawing room while Vincent and Joss went to his study. Not a one of them cared that it was the proper or done thing. They all simply wanted to be away from one another for a moment.
“You must talk with him, Hettie,” Honoria said as she perched on the edge of the settee. “The two of you have to reach some sort of understanding. The sooner the better. Or, if you should decide to marry, do you really want to face the scrutiny of everyone attempting to determine whether or not you are with child? And of course, this child will be born far less than nine months from the date of the marriage. Which means that everyone will be wondering whether the child is his or Arthur’s.”
“Do you honestly imagine that I’ve thought of anything else? But I cannot make decisions about marriage until we’ve donesomething to deter Inspector Bates. If he gets his way, he’ll see me hang, and then it won’t matter, will it? None of it will matter then.”
“That will not happen,” Honoria insisted. “If I have to put you on a ship to Italy to myself, you will not see the inside of a cell. Wretched places.”
Hettie laughed. There she was, an adulteress carrying her lover’s child, while her sister—who was always proper and circumspect and moral—was the only one of them who had spent any time under arrest. “I will happily take your word for the conditions. I have no wish to ever gain firsthand knowledge of what those facilities offer.”
Honoria shuddered. “I pray that your wish to remain ignorant is granted. What will you do, Hettie? Mr. Ettinger—Joss—had his reasons for whatever transpired between you after.”
He did. And he’d touched on them briefly. It rang true for her that he would do something out of some misguided sense of nobility. He might cast himself as the villain, but he was anything but. “I know that he had his reasons. I simply have to decide if they are enough. And it isn’t—I am tired of being at the whim of a man. First with father, then with Arthur. I never had any power of my own. I existed solely at their mercy. I will not be with another man who feels he has the right to make all of my decisions for me. And as a widow, I’ve earned that right. Haven’t I?”
