Queen of my Hart - Emily Royal Page 0,90

the place where Dexter hoped he’d find all the answers.

Alderley must have spotted him coming. Before he reached the main doors, they opened, and a heavily-built footman stood in the doorway.

“The master’s not at home.”

“Did he tell you to say that?” Dexter asked.

The man’s eye twitched, and Dexter laughed. “If you’re going to serve your master properly, you need to be a damn sight better at lying.” He pushed past the footman. “Alderley!” he roared. “Come out, you bloody coward!”

“Sir, I hardly think that’s proper,” the footman said.

“Do I look like I care for propriety?” Dexter demanded. He gestured to a door. “Is that the morning room? I’ll wait in there. If your master prefers to remain not at home, I shall return to London straight away and issue proceedings to foreclose on his debts. The next visitors to Alderley Hall will be the bailiffs.”

Without waiting for a response, Dexter strode into the morning room. The colors looked faded, the curtains frayed, and a distinct smell of damp lingered in the air. A decanter, almost empty, sat on the bureau at the far end of the room. He lifted it up, pulled out the stopper, and sniffed.

Brandy—a cheap one, at that. He set it down, leaving fingerprints on the glass body. He rubbed them together. A thin layer of dust covered his skin, and he wiped his hands on his jacket.

Was this what his old enemy had been reduced to? A crumbling house and a single, thuggish servant?

He approached a chair beside the empty fireplace, then thought better of it when he spotted a dark stain on the seat.

“What do you want?” a voice asked.

Alderley stood in the doorway. He seemed to have aged since Dexter had last seen him. His jacket hung on his frame, and his skin had a grayish pallor as if the evil from within had finally surfaced to rot his body. He leaned on a cane, claw-like fingers curling round the tip.

“Is that how you address family?” Dexter sneered.

Alderley gestured to the chair. “Won’t you sit?”

“I’d rather not,” Dexter said. “I’m not here for tea. Or…” he glanced at the decanter, “...whatever you have which attempts to pass for brandy.”

“Then, why are you here?”

“I’m here about the child,” Dexter said.

Alderley’s eyes narrowed. “What child?”

“Your grandson.”

“I have no grandson.”

Dexter folded his arms. “Must we continue this game?” he asked. “I refer to my wife’s child. The one you took from her.”

Alderley sighed, then shuffled into the room and sat on the stained chair. Dexter could almost hear his joints creak.

“How should I remember what I did?” Alderley asked. “It was nearly ten years ago.”

“So, you did take her child away from her.”

“I did not…”

“Come, come,” Dexter said. “You’ve as good as confessed. You profess to be a man of honor—why not do the honorable thing and tell me the truth?”

“The truth!” Alderley scoffed. “Why should I give the likes of you such favor?”

Dexter folded his arms. “I shan’t leave until I have satisfaction,” he said. “If you don’t tell me what I want to hear, I shall return tomorrow and the day after—and the day after that, until you do.”

“Is everything all right, sir?” The footman appeared in the doorway. Alderley glanced from him to Dexter, then his shoulders slumped, and he sighed.

“Yes, Wilkes,” he said. “Now, leave us.”

Dexter waited until the footman had closed the door behind him, then he raised his eyebrows and waited.

“I gave the child to the cook,” he said. “She had a sister in the next county, who took it off my hands. At considerable expense to myself, I might add, but it paid for her silence. And a waste of money it was, too, for the cook told me the brat died shortly afterward.” He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Bloody bastard cost me a fortune from the day she was born.”

Dexter gritted his teeth. Was that all Alderley had seen Meggie as—a financial burden? And her child—a waste of money?

“What did the child die of?” he asked.

“Damned if I know. Does it matter?”

“It matters to his mother.”

“That disobedient little slut!” Alderley spat. “After all I did for her, she spread her legs for the first man who came along.”

“And you took Meggie’s child as punishment for her disobedience?”

“It was my right!” Alderley said. “She was bought and paid for—by me.”

“Why did you pay for Meggie’s upkeep if you hate her so much?”

“Her slut of a mother threatened to tell my wife if I didn’t pay for her upkeep,” Alderley