Good Earl Gone Bad (10 page)

Ophelia and Hermione grinned at their friend. It was the best news Hermione had heard in a long time. She was aware that Leonora had been afraid that she might not be able to conceive, so she knew how much of a relief it was to learn she'd been wrong.

“Besides,” Leonora continued, “I wouldn't miss this for the world. Once the baby comes we will be sorely lacking in opportunity for adventure.”

“A baby will be an adventure in itself,” Ophelia said with a misty smile.

The carriage rolled to a stop then, breaking the festive mood.

“We're here,” Hermione said with relish. If truth were told she was looking forward to confronting Lord Saintcrow. He'd been quite unpleasant to take possession of her horses in the park for all to see. And though she was rather afraid he'd not be easily persuaded as she hoped, she had to try at the very least.

Taking the hat and dark veil that sat on the seat opposite, she plopped it atop her head and pulled the black netting down over her face. “Well, how do I look?”

“Like a lady in deep mourning,” said Leonora with a grin as she took her own hat and veil from the seat.

All three ladies had donned their darkest gowns for the outing. And Hermione was pleased to note that Leonora, too, looked like a woman in deep mourning.

“Now me,” Ophelia said, donning her own headgear. “Well? Can you see who I am?”

“I can assure you that even your mama would not be able to recognize you beneath your veil,” Hermione said, adjusting her own veil.

It was perhaps unusual for three ladies wearing such headdress to walk about together, but they had already decided to explain that they were sisters in mourning for their recently deceased father. And no one with any sort of decency would press them for more information in the face of such an explanation. At least that was their hope.

“Here we go,” she said to Ophelia as the door of the carriage opened and the coachman handed them down.

Lord Saintcrow's home was in an older, if still respectable, neighborhood and there was nothing to distinguish the front entrance of his house from any of the others on this row.

Wordlessly the ladies ascended the few steps leading to the door, and taking a deep breath, Hermione lifted the brass knocker and rapped. But almost as soon as she came into contact with the door, it swung forward.

“What is it?” Ophelia asked in puzzlement as Hermione gasped.

“The door is already open,” said Hermione, giving the door a gentle push and watching as it swung inward.

Ophelia lifted her veil, as if it had deceived her eyes. But it was clear from her alarmed expression that she saw the same thing as her friend.

“I do not like this,” Leonora said.

Hermione didn't like it either, but she stepped into the gap between the door and the frame.

“Hello?” she called, pushing the door open wider. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

 

Seven

“I don't like this,” Ophelia said, echoing Leonora as she followed Hermione, who stepped into the entranceway.

“Nor do I,” said Hermione. “But it's possible that Lord Saintcrow's servants have the day off. Or perhaps he hasn't got any. After all, he is a notorious gambler. I know well enough what it is for a nobleman to be forced to retrench.”

“Even so,” Ophelia said, stepping inside, followed by Leonora, “it is not sensible to enter the man's house entirely unannounced. He is a man and you know what sorts of things they get up to.” She lowered her voice and whispered, “Mistresses and the like.”

At her friend's words Hermione paused. “Hm. I hadn't thought of that. But it's broad daylight. You know very well nobody gets up to that sort of thing during the day.”

“Patently false,” Leonora said, lifting her veil and securing it so that her face was free. “Men like to engage in that sort of thing at any time of day. Ladies do too, if we're being honest.”

For a moment Hermione and Ophelia forgot that they were in Lord Saintcrow's house, and stared at their friend.

“It's true,” Leonora said defensively. “But I don't hear anything so it's unlikely Lord Saintcrow is entertaining his mistress right now.”

“What if Lord Saintcrow is lying injured somewhere?” Hermione asked. “I don't know about you, but I would feel quite bad if I were to learn we were here and might have helped while his lordship was in need of assistance.”

“But the person who injured him could still be here,” Ophelia argued. “Waiting to harm us as well.”

“Where is your concern for your fellow man, Ophelia?” asked Leonora, moving closer to the staircase.

“Oh, I have plenty of concern,” Ophelia answered wryly. “But I have more concern for my skin should Lord Saintcrow find us here bickering in his front entrance hall. He's not the most understanding of gentlemen by all accounts. And I do not think he would care overmuch that we were worried for his well-being. In fact, it now occurs to me that he might think that Hermione is here to steal her horses back.”

“From inside his house?” Hermione asked ironically. “The man is odd but even he is not so foolish as to keep horses in his guest bedchamber.”

“That's not what I meant,” Ophelia said in a huff.

“Ladies,” Leonora said sharply. “We need to make a decision. I, for one, think we should go upstairs and see if Lord Saintcrow is injured. It is highly unusual for his door to be open as we found it. And if you will listen, the house is as quiet as a tomb.”

“I say we go upstairs,” Hermione said, turning to see what Ophelia's vote would be.

Ophelia looked from one of her friends to the other before sighing. “Fine. I vote we go upstairs, too. But if I get killed I will haunt you both with every fiber of my undead being.”

Silently the ladies made their way up the stairs and into the upper hall. “Lord Saintcrow,” Hermione called out as they made their way to the first door. “Are you here?”

But the house was silent. So silent that she felt a little chill run through her. A nervous sweat broke out on her brow, and she used the handkerchief she'd clutched in her hand to complete her mourning disguise to delicately dab at it. She steeled herself as she opened the door, but it was merely a storage closet. Her sigh of relief was loud to her own ears.

“I don't like this one bit,” Ophelia hissed even as she opened the next door and peered inside. “Just an empty parlor.”

“We will only look in this hallway and if he's not here, we'll leave,” Hermione assured her friend. “I admit now that I am simply curious to see if there is anything unusual here. So far it has been depressingly conventional. I thought perhaps a gentleman of Lord Saintcrow's reputation would have a more interesting house than this.”

“He's hardly going to have a gaming hall hidden away in a corner of his house,” Leonora said with a nervous laugh.

“I know,” Hermione said as she turned the knob of the next door. “But … oh, this is his study.”

To her surprise, there was a lamp burning in this room. “Lord Saintcrow,” she called as she stepped inside. But a quick scan of the room revealed it to be empty.

“He's not here,” Ophelia said from behind her. “I must confess, however, that I do love a good library. Something about the smell of books.”

“There is another odor in here as well,” Leonora said with a frown from the doorway. “If you don't mind I'll just stay out here. My stomach cannot take foul odors at the moment.”

“It's quite unpleasant,” Hermione agreed, stepping farther into the room. “I wonder he doesn't do something about—”

She broke off with a little scream as she looked down at the carpet on the far side of the massive desk. “Dear God!” She brought her hand up to cover her gaping mouth.

“What?” Ophelia asked sharply from where she'd been perusing the shelves. “What is it?”

“We have to get out of here,” Hermione said, hurrying forward to tow Ophelia from the room with her, almost knocking down Leonora who was standing just outside the room “Come on!”

Neither of the other ladies argued as they hurried down the stairs and to the floor below.

They'd just reached the ground floor when the creak of the front door made them all look up in alarm.

Her heart beating a sharp tattoo in her breast, Hermione nearly cried out in relief to see that it was Lord Mainwaring.

“Hermione!” he said sharply as he saw her. “What the devil are you doing here?”

“There's no time to argue just now,” she said, pulling him into the entrance hall and out of sight of the door. “We must leave without being seen. Which means we'll need to go one at a time.”

“Mrs. Lisle,” Mainwaring said, with a slight bow for Leonora before turning to Ophelia. “Miss Dauntry.”

“I am glad to see you have a chaperone at least,” he said to Hermione, “but what the devil are the three of you doing here? Especially since it would appear there are no servants around.”

But Hermione had no time for his scold. “I don't give a hang about the proprieties, Mainwaring,” she snapped. “Lord Saintcrow is dead and we have to leave before someone suspects we had something to do with it!”

*   *   *

When Jasper arrived at Hermione's house that morning, it was to learn that rather than waiting to hear his proposal as he'd hoped her father would have instructed her to do—which, thinking about it now, was indeed a foolish pipedream on his part—she was instead off somewhere with Leonora and Ophelia. At least that is what Greentree, the Upperton butler, told him.

Thanking the man, he climbed back onto his horse, Hector, and set him in the direction of Lord Saintcrow's town house.

The conversation he and Hermione had overheard last night between Lord Payne and his fellow Lords of Anarchy had been unusual to say the least. It was clear from what Payne had said that there had been some sort of understanding that Hermione's two horses were to go to some other buyer. But somehow—perhaps by mistake—they'd been sold to Hermione's man of business, and before Payne could get them back Lord Upperton had lost them to Saintcrow.

The Home Office had known about a ring of horse thieves. But these weren't ordinary horses. They were expensive enough to merit the sort of payoff that men like Payne and his ilk would demand before they became embroiled in illegality.

And it was clear from what the men had said last night that Saintcrow wasn't an innocent bystander in this.

When he got to Saintcrow's town house, however, it was to find the door ajar. And when he stepped inside, who should he see but Hermione with Ophelia on one side and Leonora on the other.

He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting from her, but the declaration that Lord Saintcrow was dead had certainly not been among the possibilities.

“Are you sure?” he demanded, taking her by the shoulders so that he could look her full in the face. “How do you know?”

But Hermione wasn't going to be manhandled by anyone. “I am not blind, my lord,” she said, pulling herself from his grip. “He … his…”

For the first time in his acquaintance with her, Lady Hermione Upperton was speechless.

Guessing that her reticence meant that there was some sort of fatal wound that was visible, Jasper nodded, and this time when he touched her shoulder it was to comfort. “You needn't explain. I get the idea. But why were you here in the first place? I needn't tell you that visiting a gentleman's home is highly unusual behavior even if you are accompanied by another young lady and a matron.”

“Do not bother her with details,” Ophelia said fiercely, linking her arm with Hermione's and glaring at him. Jasper, who had previously found Miss Dauntry to be rather bland, was surprised by the vehemence in her tone. “She had her reasons, and since Leonora and I were with her, there can be no objection. But now we must leave here at once.”

“I have little doubt she had her reasons, Miss Dauntry,” said Jasper with a trace of annoyance. Hermione would always have some reason or other for going her own way. But this time she'd put herself and her friends in danger. “Let me go see Saintcrow for myself and then I will see you three safely home.”

For once, Hermione did not argue. She swallowed and gestured for him to go upstairs. “He is in the study. Second door on the left. Behind the desk.”

With a brief glance at her distraught expression, Jasper took the stairs two at a time. He smelled the foul odor of death as soon as he reached the hallway. He hadn't been to war as his friend the Duke of Trent had, but he'd seen plenty of death in his time working behind the scenes for the Home Office. The sort of things that concerned the government were by their nature dangerous, and faced with the choice between a traitor's death and death by their own hand many of those who worked against king and country chose the latter.

When he stepped into the library, he saw that just as Hermione had said, the body of Saintcrow was on the floor behind the desk, so that it wasn't visible when one first entered the room. Kneeling, he saw that the man's throat had been cut. Not the sort of injury that could be mistaken for a suicide. And there was no sign of a weapon on the floor around him. He would have lifted the body to see if it was perhaps beneath him, but it would not do to muddle the scene overmuch. The authorities would already be alarmed at the fact a peer had been killed in his own home, and any sign that someone else had been here before them would only raise their suspicions further.

A quick glance through the papers on the man's desk showed that they were a mess as well. Whether that was from Saintcrow's lack of tidiness, however, or the killer's search for something was difficult to determine.

He strode around the other side of the desk when a flash of white near the leg of a nearby chair caught his eye. Leaning down to pick it up, he saw that it was a ladies' handkerchief. Lady Hermione's if one were to go by the delicately embroidered initials. Sending up a brief prayer of thanks that he'd been the one to find it instead of the authorities, he hurried back down the stairs and found the three ladies waiting where he'd left them.