“I will see your proof of power first.” She held out one hand, the rings on her fingers heavy with jewels and gold.
Brant showed her the papers. The way her hands tightened on them, her knuckles whitening, made him pleased he had asked for two copies for himself. There was a good chance this copy would soon be in shreds. Nevertheless, the moment her grip eased on the papers, he took them away from her.
“I do not recognize that name,” she said.
He was not sure how but he knew she was lying. “You do not need to know him. The only thing that matters is that he is higher up the ladder than the man you used to usurp my place in this family. He is also incorruptible.”
“No one is.”
“Except perhaps a man who had his woman’s child stolen and placed in Dobbin House by you.” He noticed she did not even attempt to deny her part in the evil of that house. “I would like to see Agatha now.”
“That will have to wait. She is out for her morning ride with her friends.”
He wanted to question that but decided he had pressed her enough for now. “Then tell her when she returns that I will come calling on her at three.”
“As you wish.”
That bland acceptance sent a chill down his spine, but Brant again decided it would be wise not to push. His mother was not completely sane and he did not want to cause Agatha any more trouble. He had no doubt his mother would make Agatha suffer in her anger at her loss of the house and her power over the girl. Brant could see the coldness Olympia and Artemis had talked about in the gray eyes fixed upon him now. If his mother had had a weapon he knew he would have been fighting for his life.
“I will leave you to plan your retirement to the country now,” he said and, after giving her a bow that was so shallow and quick it was equal to a slap in the face, he started out of the room. He could not resist pausing just within her sight one last time and smiling at her. “I approve of this room and am certain I shall enjoy it to its fullest when I move in after you are gone.”
He heard the first crash of something breaking before he shut the door behind him and smiled. There was no one near her that she could hurt so her anger could be enjoyed for now. The footman who had been at his mother’s feet slipped past him, obviously hurrying back to her side. Brant was eager to return to the Warren so that he could share his good news with Olympia and, pushing all thought of his mother’s fury from his mind, he hurried back to his waiting carriage.
Chapter 16
“Bastard!” Letitia picked up the small pot of flowers she had set on the table and hurled them across the room. “He thinks he has won? He thinks he can do this to me?” She found another pot, a little bigger than the first and hurled that as well but the sound of the destruction did nothing to cool the fury burning within her. “We shall see who holds the power.”
“M’lady?”
She turned to see the big man she had taken as a lover standing a few feet away watching her as if he expected her to do more than throw pottery around. “Has he gone?”
“Aye, m’lady.”
Letitia took a deep breath and carefully pushed the hot fury down until it simmered just below her skin. She had learned at a young age that anger should be kept cold. Hot rage made one make mistakes. She needed to plan now. Brant had found a way to take away her power and that could not be tolerated.
She looked around at the room she had built. Such places required a lot of money to build, were a new fashion just beginning to take hold and so expensive that few could really afford them even amongst the most prosperous of the aristocracy. To her it was a sign that she had succeeded, that she had the fortune and the power to do as she pleased. That she did not need a man to become a person one feared. She could not allow Brant to place her back in that position where her only power came from the man who was her husband, father, or, in this case, son.
It was going to take time to reverse this setback, however. Her son had already cost her too much and she had lost a number of her most useful people. With the fall of Dobbin House, the raid on the ship, and even the rescue of the marquis’s son, she had suffered too many losses to recover too quickly. Worse, the ones she dealt with were now wary of doing business with her, afraid that somehow her son had discovered all of her dealings and would soon be coming for them.