Free A Suspicious Affair by Bárbara Metzger Page A

things all that black and white, I’d be plumb out of a job.”
    *
    There was no way she could get out of the room before he got to her. Heavens, there was no way she could get out of this chair in that amount of time. Unless the floor should open and swallow her up, she’d have to face the man she’d slapped. He’d deserved it, of course, barging into her drawing room like some ravening beast, but a lady should never lower herself to acting the fishwife, no matter the provocation. And then turning into a watering pot in front of a perfect stranger! At least he’d been gentleman enough to hand over his handkerchief and then leave before she disgraced herself further. Why did the barbarian have to show his second effort at proper conduct on this of all days?
    He even looked more civilized. His clothes were well tailored if not absolutely bang up to the mark, without a single crease, spatter, or scent of the stables. His hair was combed, his eyes weren’t shooting sparks, and his hands were wrapped around a wineglass instead of her throat. She should be safe.
    *
    “Marisol, have you met the Earl of Kimbrough?” Foster asked, eagerly drawing Carlinn closer to the little grouping.
    “We’ve never been formally introduced,” Kimbrough said before she could reply. “How do you do, Your Grace? May I take this opportunity to express my deepest regrets?”
    Foster looked at him in astonishment and even Aunt Tess wondered aloud, “What’s that? Did he say he was sorry Arvid was dead?”
    He hadn’t. He’d correctly apologized for their last meeting, Marisol understood. She nodded her head. “Thank you. This is a difficult time for all of us.”
    “Too kind,” he murmured. There was more he wished to say, but not in front of her family and the Bow Street Runner. Dimm must have some skill in detection, for he winked at the earl and drew Laughton to the side with a question about one of Boynton’s set.
    “What’s that?” Aunt Tess asked. “I hope they bring back some of those grilled oysters.”
    Speaking softly for once, and with a smile that quite transformed his face from passably attractive to positively stunning, he amazed Marisol further by apologizing more fully. Arvid had never apologized for anything, ever.
    “I have no excuse for my actions,” Kimbrough was saying, “except that I am used to being in control, Your Grace—of my circumstances, of my tongue, of my temper. Mostly of my privacy. But everything had gone beyond my control that day. I was thrust willy-nilly into a public spectacle of the type I most deplore. Still, I should never have taken my frustrations out on you. I sincerely apologize.”
    “And I am sure I would never have subjected you to such an ill-mannered, emotional display were I not suffering the same upset. So I believe we are even, my lord, unless, of course, you were the one who murdered my husband.”
    “Witch,” he muttered even lower.
    “What’s that? They’re playing whist? In a house of mourning? Why, I never!”
    *
    A proper twenty minutes later, the earl and the investigator took their leave.
    While they waited for his curricle to be brought ’round Carlinn asked, “Did you discover anything new?”
    Dimm pondered a moment. “Not much, less’n you count a partiality for lobster patties.”

Chapter Seven
    His nibs at Bow Street wasn’t happy. No fresh scandal had rocked London, so the newspapers were still gnawing on the Denning case. With the principals out of town and no new facts coming to light, the editors were crying privileged treatment for the privileged class. Whitewash, they called it, with no one being brought to account. More like no vulgar headlines to sell more newspapers.
    The reporters would lose interest soon enough, soon as there was some war news or a new sensation in the ton, some marchioness running off with her footman or something. Till then, his nibs wasn’t happy. And when the boss wasn’t happy, no one was happy, least of all