Cruel Shame (Knights of Templar Academy #3) - Sofia Daniel Page 0,62

and Elizabeth’s bullshit will hang over you like a stink.”

“Crude but accurate,” he muttered.

A silence stretched between us, filled by the crack and pop of the fire. What was the bloody point of putting an old man through all this anguish, only to backtrack the moment he tried to fight back?

Mr. Burgh took a long sip of his drink. “There was one condition.”

“What was that?” I whispered.

“I must call off the lawyers and drop all charges of libel against the Liddells.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

I scowled into the flames and clenched my teeth. Angry, prickly heat flared across my cheeks, and my blood screamed for vengeance. Even when the archbishop seemed the most reasonable of his wretched family, he offered back everything they took from Mr. Burgh in exchange for a coverup?

Every fiber of my being thrummed with the desire to tell Mr. Burgh to reject the archbishop’s offer and crush the Liddells instead, but lawyers were expensive. Some of them could cost over a thousand pounds per hour. Billy Hancock always griped that they were bigger thieves than bank robbers, who at least targeted institutions with insurance.

One time after winning a case, the senior partner of his firm took Billy out for a champagne dinner up in the west end of London, complete with an evening in an exclusive gentlemen’s club, where a bunch of them smoked fat cigars and drank vintage brandy. In the following month’s invoice, everything the lawyer spent that evening was not only itemized with his and his colleagues’ hourly rate but inflated with twenty percent value-added tax.

I turned to Mr. Burgh and sighed. Teachers didn’t spew cash like cocaine barons. Not even headmasters at private boarding schools who got to save their money from the free food and accommodation. No wonder he was staring at the flames, looking like he was about to jump off the high tower of bankruptcy. The Liddells could fight his lawyers, sending them around in circles, until Mr. Burgh lost his last penny on legal fees.

Before I could ask what he would do next, the phone rang.

With a sigh, Mr. Burgh rose from the sofa and shifted to the armchair closest to the landline. “Yes?”

A deep, loud voice spoke back, but I couldn’t make out the words. Mr. Burgh frowned. “Yes, it is.”

For the next few minutes, whoever was at the other end of the line laughed and bellowed down the phone. Mr. Burgh’s mouth hung open, and he stared at me as though I was an apparition of granddaughters past. I clasped my hands and sat straighter in my seat. The caller couldn’t be talking about me.

A loud pop from the fireplace had me looking into the flames for answers. They just flickered and danced and released tiny sparks. It would have been a calming sight if not for the mystery caller.

“I don’t have the words,” Mr. Burgh said in a voice choked with emotion. “Thank you.”

By the time he hung up, every nerve ending in my body thrummed with curiosity. I was about to ask, when he downed the entire glass of whisky and shuddered. Scooting back along the sofa, I waited for him to return to his seat.

“Good news?” I asked.

Mr. Burgh turned to me with his eyes narrowed. “What were you doing this morning?”

I leaned into the firm backrest, casting my mind back to when Lady Liddell ambushed me at breakfast. “I went to the Board of Governors’ meeting, then Business Studies.” My mind went blank. “Why?”

“That was Hamish Nevis.” He raised his brows and gave me a meaningful stare.

I tried to mirror his expression but didn’t quite have the eyebrows. “Orlando’s grandfather?”

“Lady Liddell called him to say that young Mr. Nevis was engaged in an act of public lewdness with my granddaughter.”

I shook my head. “We were just kissing.”

“Apparently, you seemed to have a rousing effect on his grandson.”

I wrinkled my nose. “She’s a liar—” My mind rolled back to that kiss we shared in the garden. I’d pressed against Orlando and felt that glorious, thick erection against my belly. “Why would that collagen cow look at him down there?”

Mr. Burgh shook his head, as though removing the image from his mind. “Nevis is so pleased that you seduced his son straight that he’s willing to fund any civil lawsuits against the academy.”

I stared up at my grandfather, letting the words percolate in my mind. He seemed to be waiting for a reaction to what appeared to be the most bizarre act of generosity. It was great