“Perhaps, perhaps.” Edmund downed the last of his wine and motioned for a footman to refill the glass. “Although I suppose we should turn to the head of the table for a glimpse at the true villain.”
All eyes swiveled toward Mr. Lioncroft.
He lifted a dark brow and stared back without blinking. “What are you implying?”
“I’m not implying anything. I’m saying it.” Edmund wiped sweat from his lip with the back of one hand. “Where were you last night when Heatherbrook blew out his last breath?”
A silence descended.
“In my office.” A muscle twitched near Mr. Lioncroft’s temple. “I could call you out for suggesting otherwise.”
“Nobody will call anybody out,” Mr. Teasdale interrupted. He peeled the crust from his toast with trembling fingers. “One untimely death is enough for now.”
Francine sent a quelling gaze at Edmund. “No matter how much some people might deserve theirs.”
Edmund winked, as though the desirability of his demise was none of his concern.
“Where were you last night?” Evangeline asked him before she could stop herself. “In the library as you claimed?”
“Why, yes, you saucy thing. I was.” He toasted her with his empty wineglass. “I had a glass of port. Several of them. Spent hours there, just as I said I’d do.”
Evangeline frowned.
Susan, however, sucked in a loud gasp. She dropped her knife to the table with a clatter and turned wide blue eyes to Evangeline. “Didn’t you say—Ow! What the dickens, Evangeline. Did you just kick me?”
“Yes,” Evangeline hissed, half-tempted to kick her again. “Be quiet.”
Mr. Lioncroft stared at them both, but said nothing.
“Where were the rest of you?” Edmund asked as he swirled his newly filled glass. “Dancing into the wee hours?”
“In bed,” Benedict answered.
Francine nodded. “And I with him.”
“I retired as well,” Mr. Teasdale added, his voice cracking.
Liars, all. Evangeline could hardly believe her ears.
Susan’s jaw dropped. Evangeline gave her a preemptive kick beneath the table. No wonder they hadn’t been eager to summon the constabulary. They all had something to hide.
If the rest of them saw no need to admit their nocturnal wanderings, why should she? For all she knew, neither Lady Stanton nor Lady Heatherbrook nor Nancy Heatherbrook had been in their quarters, either.
“I was in my bedchamber,” she said aloud.
“As was I,” Susan added. “In my bedchamber, that is. Not Evangeline’s.”
Mr. Lioncroft shot Evangeline a quick, wry glance as if to say he would not have been opposed to spending the evening in Evangeline’s bedchamber rather than just a portion of it up against the wall outside his office. Arrogant blackguard. She should never have kissed him.
“I interviewed the servants,” he said calmly, as if he spent most mornings questioning his staff about inconvenient homicides. “They saw nothing.”
Edmund toyed with his silver flask. “Well, somebody strangled Heatherbrook.”
“Perhaps the marks on his neck have nothing to do with his death,” Mr. Lioncroft suggested softly. “Those could easily be a relic of an earlier altercation.”
“That’s true.” Evangeline glanced at him from the corner of her eye. She’d be willing to wager Mr. Lioncroft had been an active participant in any earlier altercations. “Lord Heatherbrook was also bandaged about the head. Perhaps that wound was the fatal injury.”
For some reason, Mr. Lioncroft appeared no happier with her alternate explanation. It was hard to think clearly when this unexpected death followed so soon after her own mother’s.
“Botheration.” Susan’s arms crossed below her bodice. “I suppose we shall never know the truth.”
Evangeline sipped her tea and wondered if Susan was right. Last night’s vision with Lady Heatherbrook had only shown what the lady herself had recounted.
“Convenient,” Edmund put in, with a sly glance toward Mr. Lioncroft. “Much like last time.”
Mr. Lioncroft leapt to his feet so fast Edmund started, spilling burgundy liquid down the front of his shirt and into his lap.
“The primary question,” came Mr. Teasdale’s quavering voice, “is why anyone would murder Heatherbrook in the first place. I can only imagine two motives.”
Still standing, Mr. Lioncroft slid his dark gaze to Mr. Teasdale. “Only two?”
“First, and no offense to the new earl, but any time a titleholder is killed, we must generally take a look at the next in line. The most obvious reason for bloodshed is personal gain.”
Personal gain? Evangeline stared at her toast. Maybe that seemed like a reasonable motive to sheltered rich folk who’d never met a man like Neal Pemberton. Where her stepfather was concerned, violence was sport, not strategy.
Benedict coughed, scowled, crossed his arms. “And the other reason?”
“Anger, of course. Rage makes us capable of the worst possible things.”
“Well, the old codger’s right,” Edmund drawled. “And nobody had more to gain than the new Lord Coughs-A-Lot.”
“Point your greasy finger at someone else, or I’ll—” Benedict began, but the rest of his warning was lost in a barrage of hacking coughs, which only served to send Edmund into a fit of drunken laughter. When Benedict regained control of himself, he took several sips of tea before speaking again. “Don’t you think I know a suspicious death would bode badly for me, precisely because of primogeniture? I’d rather never bear the title than to earn it through such catastrophic means. Rage, not the title, was the motivator in this instance.”
“Not only that,” Mr. Teasdale said after a moment, “in most cases where some dastardly cousin or unscrupulous younger brother sought to usurp his brother’s place, the death was made to look accidental. There’s nothing accidental about being clubbed on the head and strangled. Whoever did that was angry.”
Benedict and Francine Rutherford shot Mr. Lioncroft considering glances.
Evangeline bit her lip. Some powerful men indulged their rage and never owned up to their actions. Was their host one of them?
Lioncroft’s jaw flexed. “I. Did not. Kill him.”
“Right, right,” Edmund agreed with patronizing cheerfulness. “We believe you. Excuse me, there, old boy.” He gestured for a footman. “Splash a little more wine into my glass, would you?”
“I admit…” Francine slanted a glance toward Lioncroft. “You did look angry enough to throttle Heatherbrook.”
“I was angry enough,” Lioncroft admitted in a low growl. “But I let him live.”
With one hand cupped over her mouth, Susan leaned close to Evangeline. “He’s going to have to polish his alibi,” she stage-whispered. “Not very persuasive, as such things go.”
Evangeline silently agreed. “I could’ve, but didn’t,” was not the strongest defense.
“Heatherbrook slapped his wife, not Lioncroft.” Francine’s words were low, smooth, insidious. “Perhaps…”
“The countess did him in herself?” Edmund chuckled. “Of course. Who would suspect her?”
“Not me,” Susan said in awe. “She looks so timid. I say, you never can tell.”
Mr. Lioncroft’s gaze turned fierce. “The lady isn’t present to defend herself, and has suffered quite enough already without being judged a murderess in her absence.”
“To be honest,” Edmund said with a swish of his wine, “my money’s still on you.”
“Then you would do well,” Mr. Lioncroft bit out, “not to prick my temper further.”
A startled gasp sounded from the open door. All heads swiveled toward the entryway of the breakfast room, where Lady Stanton stood frozen. One pale hand clutched her throat.
“Did I just hear you confess your guilt?”
“I assure you, madam,” Mr. Lioncroft said. “You did not.”
“Why, good morning, Mother. We were just sayi
ng how unfortunate it was that we shall never know what—or who—perpetrated Lord Heatherbrook’s death.”
“Of course we shall.” Frost coated Lady Stanton’s tone as she glared at her daughter. After Susan dropped her gaze, Lady Stanton turned an arched brow to the rest of the table. “Just have Miss Pemberton feel him.”
“Feel him?” Benedict Rutherford echoed. “Why on earth would she do that?”
Lady Stanton blinked. “Why, because she’s a—”
“I’m a…religious person,” Evangeline interrupted, leaping to her feet. Her breathing sounded overloud. Rushing blood echoed in her ears. “As you may know, many religious people lay their hands upon each other for…religious reasons.”
As their expressions ranged from confused to suspicious, Evangeline half-wished she’d gone ahead and let Lady Stanton label her a witch. At least she wouldn’t have to fear a murderer on the loose if the aristocrats carted her off to Bedlam. Then again, she’d rather flee through the countryside on foot than be incarcerated in a small, windowless room for the rest of her life.
After a long disbelieving silence, Edmund was the first to find his voice. “What’s Miss Pemberton going to do, pray on him? Surely he’s a bit beyond the point where he’d rise from the dead.”
Francine grimaced. “Pardon my rudeness, but that is a bit ridiculous.”
Lady Stanton sniffed. “I hadn’t wished to divulge the shocking truth, but she claims to—”
“Hear voices from God,” Evangeline blurted out. She nodded vigorously when several doubtful faces gazed her way. “Heavenly conversation is not at all the sort of thing one brags about. Isn’t that right, Lady Stanton?”
She fixed Lady Stanton with a desperate stare. The lady was unmoved.
“If I say yes, will you ‘pray’ about it?”
“Yes!”
“Then, yes.” Lady Stanton waved a disdainful hand in Evangeline’s direction. “She hears voices from God. Shall she go touch Heatherbrook now?”
Evangeline closed her eyes, but not before she saw the baffled expressions bounce from her, to Lady Stanton, back to her again, then on to Mr. Lioncroft.
Of all the times for Lady Stanton to start hinting at her secret, why volunteer her to touch a corpse during breakfast? The way things were going, at least if she got sent to Bedlam, Lady Stanton would be coming with her. Angels above. Perhaps Evangeline ought to get religious.
“Fine,” Mr. Lioncroft said at last.
Evangeline opened her eyes. His level stare contained more mistrust than curiosity. Splendid. As her mother before her, Evangeline strived to keep mistrust out of other people’s eyes. Especially since such an emotion tended to accompany threats of violence or demands to perform on command. In the case of her stepfather, she’d suffered both.
“F-fine?” she croaked. The last thing she wanted to do was touch the earl’s dead body. Her mother had been the first and last victim of violence Evangeline had touched with her bare hands, and that episode—that episode was one she had no desire to relive. She still bore the marks of that folly. “Truly,” she managed, “I don’t mind not touching him. In fact, should I be given the choice, I’d have to say I—”
Mr. Lioncroft pinned her with the intensity of his gaze. “Far be it for me to prevent the good Lord from speaking to devout disciples like yourself, Miss Pemberton. And since I didn’t kill him, what do I have to lose?” He glared around the table. Evangeline gulped. No one spoke. “In fact,” he said, “I’ll take you there myself. Right now.”
Susan jumped up, eyes shining. “I’ll go, too.”
Lady Stanton snapped open a painted fan. “You’ll do no such thing, young lady. You’re coming to my quarters with me, where we’ll have a nice chat about appropriate decorum.”
“I thought you wanted me to take advantage of any opportunity to—”
“Not now, Susan. Use your head for once.”
“But, Mother…” Susan glanced about the breakfast room as though searching for a logical reason to revisit the late earl. “I—I don’t want to leave Evangeline alone. Like you always say, proper young ladies cannot gad about unchaperoned. And with Lioncroft, at that. Who knows what could happen?”
Mr. Lioncroft’s voice tightened. “I am not going to kill her.”
“Plenty else you can do with an unchaperoned chit,” Edmund said with a grin.
“For the love of God,” Mr. Lioncroft exploded. “I’m not going to kill her and I’m not going to ravish her in the same bed as my dead brother-in-law.”
Edmund snorted. “Some other bed, perhaps?”
Despite herself, Evangeline blushed. And dared not meet Mr. Lioncroft’s eyes. If only he hadn’t touched her.
“Most ladies,” Francine Rutherford put in as she got to her feet, “don’t go about feeling corpses, chaperoned or otherwise. The very thought makes me nauseated.”
“Nauseated a lot lately, isn’t she,” Susan muttered to Evangeline.
“Susan!” Lady Stanton snapped. “Come now. This conversation is not for your ears.”
With a groan, Susan pushed away from the table and reluctantly followed her mother out the door.
Francine touched her throat. “I, for one, have no wish to lay eyes upon Heatherbrook again.”
“Nor I,” Benedict said with a shiver, rising to join his wife. “True gentlemen are equally as averse to such morbidity as the ladies.”
“Agreed,” Mr. Teasdale quavered. “Besides, servants crawl over every inch of the property. We’re never truly alone, nor would Lioncroft and Miss Pemberton be. Surely a maid or two could be present?”
Mr. Lioncroft nodded. “Of course. An army of them.”
Edmund slammed his empty wineglass to the breakfast table and lumbered to his feet. He clutched the back of his chair with both hands.
“It’s settled, then,” he said, swaying slightly. “You two run along, feel Heatherbrook’s dead body all you like, and meet us later to fill us in on God’s message.”
Evangeline stared weakly as the breakfast room emptied of its last few occupants, save for she and Mr. Lioncroft.
“Well, Miss Pemberton?” came his low, deep voice.
She turned to face him, but words failed her. For a moment, the tortured expression darkening his eyes was so fierce, she could believe him innocent of the crime. But wasn’t that what she wanted to believe?
Her stepfather had mastered the art of appearing blameless despite his culpability. Her mother had married him and lived to regret it. No matter how much Evangeline hoped Mr. Lioncroft had not murdered his brother-in-law, his innocence had yet to be proven.
Mr. Lioncroft’s gaze was equally unreadable as he said, “I must admit the truth.”
Evangeline blinked. He would admit to killing Lord Heatherbrook?
“I don’t believe for one second that any celestial deities speak to you. In fact, I don’t even believe that you believe it.”
He rose and held out a palm, as though to assist her to her feet. Although for the first time in her life she could touch and be touched without being overcome with visions, she did not place her hand in his.
Falling for him would be far too dangerous.
Chapter 13
“Are you ready?” Gavin asked once he and the reluctant Miss Pemberton reached Heatherbrook’s guest quarters. He paused, one hand on the brass doorknob, and waited for her reply.
Miss Pemberton hesitated, neither nodding nor shaking her head, careful not to meet his eyes.
Why? Because touching Heatherbrook’s dead body was an elaborate ruse designed to—to—to what, exactly? Gavin could think of no good reason—or even a bad reason—for a young lady to lay her hands upon a corpse. Reasons for Lady Stanton to suggest such a charade likewise escaped him. Whatever her agenda might be, Gavin doubted Miss Pemberton heard voices from God.
There was no God.
Or if there were, He was a capricious, vengeful God, delighting in sending loved ones to the grave before their time, and destroying the
lives of those who remained behind. If such a God could speak to them through Heatherbrook’s cold body, Gavin had no wish to hear the message. He already knew he was damned.
Without waiting for Miss Pemberton to decide whether or not she would enter or flee, Gavin twisted the handle and thrust open the door.
The guest chamber looked much like it did when they’d gathered there a few hours before. Same oil-on-canvas landscapes, same rotting furniture, same stiff body stretched across the mattress.
A few items, however, were different.
The smell, for one. Gavin’s lungs seized in protest. The cluster of crimson roses decaying on the nightstand couldn’t mask the unmistakable stench of death pervading the still bedchamber. He would have to remove Heatherbrook soon before the entire mansion stank of his corpse.
Fewer candles flickered now than in the middle of the night, but Heatherbrook’s prone form was clearly visible. The thick scarlet curtains had been pulled back and tied with frayed golden ropes, allowing warm shafts of sunlight to fall upon the bed. Dust motes glittered in the stale air above the big bay windows, casting a sheen across the lumpy cushions and an unnatural glow across Heatherbrook’s sunken cheeks.
No fire burned behind the cold grate, just as no blood pulsed beneath the dead man’s waxy skin.
Gavin strode into the room, into the patch of shimmering dust. His back blocked the sun, blocked the light, sending his odd, elongated shadow scuttling across the untouched bed.
Miss Pemberton remained in the doorway, eyes tightly closed.
He couldn’t blame her. As much as he’d despised the earl’s company when Heatherbrook was still alive, spending the morning with his corpse was even less appealing.
The mottled handprints stretched around the earl’s pale neck stood out bold and incriminatory against skin the color of snow and ash, announcing Gavin’s infamous inability to control his temper. He stared at the marks his hands had bruised into the earl’s skin. To tell the truth, Gavin hadn’t wanted to control his cursed temper. He’d wanted to wring the earl’s bloody neck.
Miss Pemberton stood in the doorway, dark lashes fanning against pale cheeks, arms clutched tightly beneath her bodice, curls springing from their pins as if they, too, would rather flee than enter.
Too Wicked to Kiss: Gothic Love Stories #1 Page 10
