Page 99 of Girl Anonymous
“You could have driven!” Owen said.
“I could have!”
Maarja met Dante’s gaze. The little tiff had brought a relaxation to the crowd, and slowly movement returned as everyone returned to their tasks.
“And fallen asleep at the wheel! No, thank you!” Owen was clearly cranky.
Dante intervened in the quarrel. “So no?”
The couple stared at him blankly.
He expanded his question. “No more light on our little financial issues?”
“Not the main one.” Connor lifted his briefcase. “I’ll get on it right away. The good news is, two others have been revealed. One straight-out confession. One finger-pointer who when I advised him I’d be able to trace the money trail, admitted guilt. Before the week is out, I expect a few others to be called to my attention.” He smiled with every appearance of real enjoyment. “Good times.”
Octavia had returned. She waited for the end of the discussion, introduced herself to Connor and Owen, took them into the kitchen for refreshments, and came back alone. “Owen, the dear boy, observed the state Béatrice is in and assumed control of the kitchen. Tonight he’s calling out for pizza and he’ll create something for snacks for our worker bees. Connor commandeered a corner of the table and went right to work. What a lovely couple! Dante, I do like your family.”
“Wait until you meet the rest of them before you pass judgment,” Dante advised.
She laughed. “You can pick your nose but you can’t pick your relatives. Words to live by!”
“I do know.” His voice was compassionate as he asked, “How is Béatrice?”
Octavia sobered. “She’s in such a state. I never imagined a woman could collapse so completely. What in the past has happened to her? Is it what I think?”
“I’m afraid so.” He led her to chairs set against the wall, showed her the seat, and sat beside her. Maarja followed. “My father was not a man to admire. Not in any way.”
A confirmation of what Maarja had suspected.
“Your father? My poor dear Béatrice!” Octavia turned her face toward the kitchen. “You and Jack seem nothing alike.”
“Béatrice collapsed after he impregnated her. She had to be institutionalized, and he bitterly despised her for weakness, for making a fuss over something he considered his right.”
Octavia and Maarja shuddered in unison.
Dante continued, “He took the baby away from her, donated a huge sum to an orphanage, and placed Jack in their care.”
Maarja ventured a guess. “He dumped Jack because he was afraid his son would inherit her hysteria, and he didn’t want it to infect his life?”
Dante nodded, and for Octavia’s sake, he said aloud, “You sum it up well. He despised nothing as much as frailty, and frailty in a son could not be borne. It wasn’t until after my father was killed and my mother had regained her health that she brought Jack back into the family, and we saw how very much he resembled Benoit.”
Maarja’s memory flashed with a glimpse of Brat Benoit, he with the golden mane of hair and cold green eyes. “Your father would never have made a scene the way Jack did.”
“You remember my father?” Dante asked in surprise.
“Not…really. Only that he sat so still, like a figure frozen in ice. Except for his eyes, and they burned like…” Maarja stared at nothing.
“Like golden coals, alive with the hate that fed his soul,” Dante said.
She glanced at him, startled at how well he knew her thoughts.“Yes. I only looked at him once. I wanted to run, but Mama said…” she closed her eyes “…to stay…” Her eyes snapped open again, and she repeated, “Dante, your father would never have made a scene the way Jack did.”
“No.” Dante’s expression mirrored the one he’d worn as Jack marched out. “Perhaps there’s more of Béatrice in him than we realized.” But Maarja could tell he doubted that.
Octavia patted his arm to get his attention. “Béatrice is afraid to ask, because it goes against your order as the Arundel leader, but she wants to leave before the wedding. To escape what’s coming. She fears…what’s coming.” She didn’t approve of Dante’s patriarchal position and she couldn’t comprehend, this fierce woman who’d faced so much, why Béatrice feared this plan to out their villain. But Octavia didn’t judge Béatrice; she understood not all people were warriors.
Dante granted permission. “Of course, she can go. Perhaps back to British Columbia?”
“She’d like that, I think. She has spoken with such rapture about the whales and the wildlife!” Octavia’s face took on a wistful cast. “She describes them so well I can almost see them.”
