She fled.
Chapter 10
Before Evangeline could complete the mere half dozen steps between the dressing room door and her looming bed, the narrow door opposite the smoldering fireplace flew open and Susan Stanton burst into the room.
“There you are,” she announced, flashing a delighted smile before crossing directly to the rack of brass stokers next to the fireplace. “Were you lost? You took so long returning, I thought Lionkiller had perhaps struck again.”
Susan laughed at her own jest. She might not have done so had she been aware Mr. Lioncroft had in fact been up to wickedness—although not in the sense Susan intended.
Belated guilt frosted over the warmth of remembered passion as Evangeline stared at her companion in horror.
Heaven help her. She was supposed to be entrapping him with Susan, not rubbing her belly against—well. Evangeline’s cheeks burned, and she hoped when Susan turned from the flames, she’d attribute any flush of her face to heat from the now-crackling fire, rather than shame.
Only a wanton trollop kissed another woman’s intended in shadowed passageways. When had Evangeline turned into a wanton trollop?
After a final jab with the poker, Susan returned the brass instrument to the rack and flopped into the sole wingback chair. “Well?” she demanded, arms crossed and feet outstretched. “Where did you go? I’ve been ever so bored without you. Pacing up and down one’s room is no fun by oneself.”
“I…” Evangeline began, and then faltered. She glanced around her room for inspiration. Her gaze lit on the row of hip-high bookcases along the rear wall. “I went to the library,” she finished truthfully, “and picked out a novel.”
At least, she thought it was a novel. As dark as the library had been, she might have grabbed a treatise on the history of mercantilism in India. And…oh, no. She’d left the book lying on the floor in the middle of the hallway, forgotten because of an exquisite forbidden kiss.
Susan’s eyes widened with interest. “What book did you select?”
Evangeline started, broke eye contact, and turned to the bookcases. She lifted a hand to the closest set, intending to tug a volume free at random, and almost groaned when every book on the top shelf proved immobile. Only the twisted mind who’d designed her bedchamber’s nightmare-inspired décor would display something so diabolical as a row of false books.
She rested an elbow atop the bookcase as she fished for an alternate avenue of conversation. “Do you read?” she settled on, when a better topic failed to present itself.
“Of course. But real life is ever so much more interesting. Some people might think nothing could be stranger than attending the house party of a reclusive blackguard like Lioncroft, wouldn’t you agree? Yet, every guest here is equally odd in his or her own way. Except, perhaps, for Mr. Teasdale. He’s just old. I wasn’t at all surprised when he left the music room in favor of his bedchamber.”
“Except, he didn’t,” Evangeline mused, forcing thoughts of Mr. Lioncroft’s delicious heat aside as she recalled the fury distorting Mr. Teasdale’s wrinkled face. “I saw him hobbling down a corridor with his cane. His leg seemed to trouble him something awful, no doubt due to all that dancing.”
“Or worse,” Susan intoned darkly.
“Worse than what? Dancing?”
Susan rolled her eyes. “Of course, worse than dancing. He lied about going to sleep, didn’t he? He might be up to evil after all.”
“You said you were going to sleep, but here you are in my bedchamber, seated before my fire.”
“I never sleep, so if I say so, then of course, I’m lying. Old men sleep all the time. I would’ve thought I could at least take Teasdale at his word.” She shrugged deeper into the chair. “Well, there’s still Heatherbrook’s worthless cousin, Edmund Rutherford. He’s an easy enough sort to read, wastrel that he is. I imagine he’s still in the men’s after-dinner room, drinking Lioncroft out of port.”
Evangeline shook her head. “The men’s after-dinner room was the library, which was absent of both port and Mr. Rutherford. The footman refilling the decanter said they’d cleared up the glasses as the men left to rejoin us.”
“I knew it,” Susan cried, jerking upright in the chair as she clapped her hands together. “Scandal is afoot!”
“It is?” Evangeline fought another blush. It most certainly was, but she had no intention of discussing her scandalous behavior. She hadn’t even meant to come upon the sinfully handsome man, let alone shiver against him as he devoured her with kisses.
“Yet another liar,” Susan crowed. “Edmund must have known there was neither port nor glass to drink it in, and invented his mission back to the library as a cover for some other, more dastardly deed.”
“Maybe he simply tired of dancing,” Evangeline suggested.
“Ha. A reprobate like him? No doubt he was en route to or from an assignation. Besides dancing, assignations are house parties’ primary allure.”
“What is?”
“Love-making with other guests,” Susan clarified matter-of-factly. “Secretly, of course.”
This time Evangeline couldn’t staunch the sudden rush of blood to her cheeks and neck. Had she been a baser sort of woman—or Mr. Lioncroft a less considerate sort of man—she herself might’ve been one of that number earlier tonight.
“Bah, don’t be missish,” Susan scoffed, thankfully misinterpreting Evangeline’s blush as something other than guilt. “Assignations are a ton staple. I only wonder who was lonely enough to rut with a rotter like Edmund. A servant, perhaps? Surely not a guest. Did you see where he got off to?”
“I never saw him at all. I didn’t actually see Benedict Rutherford, either, but I heard him coughing down one of the halls.”
“Aargh,” Susan groaned, startling Evangeline from her perch against the useless bookshelf. “If it’s to be my house, too, can’t I skulk about like everyone else? The only person I saw up to any mischief was Nancy, trying to sneak into her bedchamber and being laughably noisy about it. Although I suppose stealth hardly matters if she plans to marry a deaf old mummer like Teasdale.” Her shoulders shook in a dramatic shudder. “Next time you wander the corridors alone, you absolutely must invite me to accompany you. Where was Francine? By her husband’s side, as she claimed?”
“No, she was…” Evangeline thought back. “She was outside Mr. Lioncroft’s office, I think. I’m not quite sure.”
“Yet another assignation,” Susan breathed, eyes alight behind her spectacles. “I suspected as much.”
Evangeline’s stomach twisted. “Another…what?”
“Assignation. If you recall, I mentioned the Rutherfords and I have some unfortunate history. Trust me when I say I am not the least bit surprised to discover Francine taking her pleasure with Lioncroft. She can’t resist the scent of power, and Lioncroft positively reeks of it.”
Ice slid beneath Evangeline’s skin, covering her arms with gooseflesh. Had Mr. Lioncroft left the hallway where they’d kissed, only to make love to an over-rouged Francine Rutherford? Or, worse, had he already done so before she’d unwittingly entered his office in the first place?
Gagging, Evangeline thrust a fist to her lips and shuddered. She was the worst kind of fool. Her initial suspicion that Mr. Lioncroft was no better than her philandering sot of a stepfather was correct after all.
“Oh!” Susan leapt from the chair and rushed to Evangeline’s side. “You look like you’re going to be ill. Truly, you must learn not to be so missish about who does what with whom. I’m not upset she’s the secret paramour of my fiancé-to-be. He can keep her as his mistress even after we marry, as far as I’m concerned. The less he forces his husbandly attention upon me, the better.”
Evangeline bit at the knuckle of her first finger until she drew blood. How could she have been so stupid?
She’d liked his attention. Encouraged him. Hadn’t she learned from her mother’s example that just because a woman was unable to experience visions of a man’s misd
eeds in no way implied the man in question was absent of them?
“Truly…” Susan patted Evangeline’s shoulder, her voice uncharacteristically concerned. “Are you quite all right? Mother says I never know when to curb my tongue. I should like to be friends with you, not send you into a fit of the vapors after only a minute or two of my conversation.”
Evangeline dropped her fists to her sides and forced a wan smile. She opened her mouth to assure Susan of their continued friendship when a series of loud staccato screams ripped across the silent mansion and echoed through the chambers.
“Aaahh!” Susan bounced on her heels like a pony itching to race across a field. “Something’s happening! Come, come, I shan’t miss it!”
“Go without me.” Evangeline backed up until the bookcase dug into her spine. Screams were never good. They brought back too many memories better left buried.
Susan gaped at her, as if staying put was hardly an option. “What did I just say? If we skulk, we skulk together. Whyever would I leave without you?”
“Because I don’t want to go. Besides, I’m in my nightclothes.”
“We’re all in our nightclothes, goose. It’s well after midnight.” Susan heaved on Evangeline’s linen-swathed arm, hauling her toward the door with the exaggerated force of a circus strongman. “What if someone needs our help? What if—what if—” She gasped, managing to look simultaneously thrilled and horrified. “What if Lioncroft has killed again?”
Chapter 11
Icy sweat froze the tiny hairs on the back of Gavin’s neck as he raced through the hidden passageways to the bedchamber his sister shared with her husband.
“Rose?” he shouted as he burst from behind a concealed access panel and into the deserted corridor. “Rose?”
He slammed into the closed chamber door and fumbled with the handle. The door swung open from within. Rose stood silent and bloodless. She didn’t move. She didn’t speak.
“What happened? Are you all right?” With trepidation doubling the rhythm of his already-pounding heart, Gavin fought the urge to reach out for her, to touch her. If she’d had a bad dream or saw a spider, he was not one she’d turn to for comfort. Over a decade had passed since the last time he and his sister had embraced, and he was not yet ready to accept more rejection.
His sister’s dull, sightless eyes stared right through him.
“Heatherbrook.” The hollowness in Rose’s voice sent chills rippling along the muscles of Gavin’s back. “He’s dead.”
Gavin staggered against the doorframe. “He’s what?”
“Dead.” She stepped backward, away from the hallway, away from him, granting him access to the chamber’s shadowy interior. “See for yourself.”
Not entirely certain he wanted to see for himself, Gavin inched further into the darkness until he could make out a motionless lump beneath a pile of blankets.
Heatherbrook, all right. Not that he’d expected to encounter anyone else in his sister’s bed. Gavin edged closer. No sound. No movement. Not a good sign. He leaned over the prone body until his ear brushed against the earl’s cold, parted lips.
One second passed in silence. Two seconds. Three. After a long moment, Gavin stopped waiting. He straightened, ripped his gaze from Heatherbrook’s waxy face, and turned to his sister.
“I’m sorry, Rose. He—he’s not breathing.”
She nodded, her head jerking like a marionette on a string. “He’s dead.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again, involuntarily transported back in time to another dark autumn night, another pale motionless figure, another face forever frozen in death. An irreversible horror for which he could never be forgiven. He took a halting step toward his sister. Had he ever apologized for what he’d done to their parents? He hadn’t seen her, hadn’t spoken to her…until now. “Forgive me, Rose. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for—”
A chorus of gasps crackled from the corridor.
Gavin whirled to find the rest of the house party, in various stages of undress, stacked in the doorway. They tumbled into the room like bone dice from an overturned cup, their faces pallid, their manner frightened, their eyes judging.
Edmund clutched a glass of whisky with pale fingers, the stench of alcohol on his breath overpowering in the close quarters. His cousin Benedict stood to the left with one hand clapped to his mouth, although whether to hold back coughs or bile, Gavin couldn’t guess. Benedict’s wife Francine hovered behind him, still coiffed and over-rouged. With both spotted hands balancing his weight atop his gold-tipped cane, Mr. Teasdale stared past Rose to the figure half-covered with blankets. Nancy swayed next to him, her eyes closed and her lip quivering. Miss Stanton, right beside her, stared wide-eyed and slack-jawed, not at Heatherbrook’s corpse, but at Gavin, as though half-expecting to find him drenched in blood. Her mother stood behind her, one blue-veined hand fluttering at her throat.
The only one paying more attention to his sister than the body on the bed was Miss Pemberton. She stood next to Rose, one gloveless hand upon her arm. After a moment, she lifted her fingers and turned to face Gavin. Gone was the heightened color her cheeks had held less than an hour earlier, replaced now by a vast and horrible emptiness. She met his gaze, unblinking, unmoving, unspeaking.
He swallowed, unaccountably feeling like he owed her an explanation for the tableau before them, even though he had no better idea than anyone else what caused Lord Heatherbrook’s demise. Or whom.
Edmund Rutherford broke both the silence and the stillness by downing the rest of his whisky in one gulp and drawling, “Caught with another body, eh, Lioncroft?”
Gavin growled and stepped forward.
“Ai!” Edmund leapt backward and bumped into Francine Rutherford. “I’m just pointing out the coincidence.”
“Get off me, you oaf.” She gave him a shove and he stumbled forward a few feet. “Don’t touch me.”
Benedict Rutherford doubled over with a coughing fit and smothered his face in the crook of his elbow. When he straightened, his face was even whiter than before. With a small shudder, he turned to Rose and asked, “What happened?”
She didn’t respond.
All the nervous gazes returned to Gavin. Miss Pemberton was the first to speak.
“Did somebody…hurt him?” she asked, her voice soft but steady. “Or did he just pass?”
A choking laugh escaped Rose’s throat, startling everyone.
“When I came in,” she said, the words as dull and lifeless as her expression, “I thought he was sleeping. After dismissing my maid, I crawled into bed next to him. I bid my husband good night. He said nothing. I thought he was ignoring me again, to be cruel.” The tips of her fingers rubbed idly against her still-bruised cheek. “I hadn’t forgiven him for striking me, nor for the cause of our argument. So I poked his arm with my finger. When that had no effect, I shook his shoulder. When that had no effect”—her voice trembled—“I slapped him like he slapped me.” She turned her wild gaze from her husband to the houseguests. “He deserved it! But he didn’t feel it. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t even breathe, because he was dead. Dead.” Her fingers clutched at her elbows. “So help me, I slapped a dead man. When I realized…When I—”
Rose fell in a sudden faint. Miss Pemberton’s arms flew forward to catch her. She grimaced, her eyes squinting as though blinded by a bright light. She staggered to one side. Gavin stepped forward to take his sister from her. Benedict intercepted the move, slipping his hands under Rose’s flaccid arms and taking her from Miss Pemberton. With Rose’s dead weight clutched to his chest, he half-carried, half-dragged her toward the bed.
“You can’t put her on a pillow right next to her dead husband,” came Miss Pemberton’s pained voice, stopping Benedict in his tracks. “She’ll faint again the moment she comes to.”
Benedict froze, frowned, coughed.
Gavin rescued his sister’s limp body from the wheezing man. With little effort, he scooped her into his arms and stalked right into the throng of h
orrified faces. His houseguests parted like the Red Sea, melting against the walls to allow him passage.
“Where are you taking her?” came Teasdale’s quavering voice.
“I don’t know,” Gavin muttered, his footsteps halting. “Away.”
“Put Mother in my room,” Nancy said, her eyes glassy with shock. “I don’t want to sleep alone tonight.”
Gavin nodded and continued his path down the dim corridor. Sconces scattered shadows across old paintings and nervous footmen. The procession of houseguests and servants followed him like rats behind the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
He laid his sister in his niece’s bed and instructed a handful of maids to keep an eye on them both. With a final glance at Rose’s ashen complexion, he strode back through the crowded hallway to the Heatherbrook guest chambers.
As before, the guests followed.
“What now?” Francine asked, once they came upon Heatherbrook lying precisely as they’d left him.
“I don’t know,” Gavin said.
“Now,” said Miss Pemberton as she stepped forward, “We’re going to take a closer look at Lord Heatherbrook.”
Lady Stanton ducked behind a painted fan. “Why?”
“Because Lady Heatherbrook was unable to…tell me,” Miss Pemberton answered, “whether or not she thought his death was accidental.” All gazes locked on Gavin’s. Miss Pemberton’s was the only countenance tinged with something other than suspicion and fear. Her methodical, cool-tempered responses made her seem oddly capable and eerily resigned, like a surgeon approaching a blood-soaked battlefield. “That is, if we may?”
Gavin inclined his head in acknowledgement.
“You think foul play is a possibility?” Francine asked.
“Foul play is a probability,” Edmund corrected. “I’d wager someone in this very room offed the arrogant fop.”
From the weight of so many stares, Gavin wagered he could suppose who his guests assumed had done the killing. “I’d like to prove that false.”
Too Wicked to Kiss: Gothic Love Stories #1 Page 8
