Sweet Deception

by Heather Snow

  As they crested a gently sloping hill overlooking the creek, Derick pulled back on the reins. The tracks split, forking both north and northwest. Could two different people have come this way? He studied both paths. No. The path pointing toward the cliffs had branches snapped going and coming—the other’s foliage was bent only one way. Someone had gone north, come back, then departed to the northwest.

  Emma scrambled off his lap, turned and dangled her legs off the side of the horse before dropping to the ground.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

  “I’m being the warm body,” she said, taking the path to the north. She pointed to her left as she scurried up the trail. “You go that way.”

  Damn it. Derick knew the only way he was going to get Emma back on the horse was to bodily force her, and then he’d have to fight her all the way back to the castle. Or, he could take his horse northwest as fast as possible, and come right back for her.

  Emma’s retreating form was already yards away, disappearing behind the greenery.

  “Don’t leave the path, Pygmy,” he yelled.

  Her left hand shot up and she gave a short wave of acknowledgment. Or, knowing her, more likely dismissal.

  As he turned his mount northwest, her voice carried back to him.

  “Don’t call me Pygmy!”

  Derick didn’t bother to restrain his grin.

  Several minutes later, the trail he’d been following dead-ended into the bulging banks of St. William’s Creek.

  He’d never seen these waters so full, or so turbulent. They rushed past, carrying clumps of grass and earth, pushing branches that looked as if they’d been torn from their trees.

  If memory served, the bend where he used to build his dams was not far upstream. He’d loved that spot, as natural logjams regularly formed there, even when it wasn’t swollen with rain.

  Emma should be passing by there right about now. Derick’s stomach tightened as he looked at the raging water. He shouldn’t have let her go alone.

  He shook off his concern and hopped from his horse. He peered across the stream, looking to see if the tracks picked up on the other side. Nothing. If Molly had gone that way, she was beyond them now…at least for tonight. The last of the light dipped below the tree line. He was going to get back on his horse and fetch Emma straightaway. He’d drag her back to the castle if necessary.

  As he put his foot in the stirrup, an ungodly roar rent the air. His stallion whinnied and reared, knocking Derick onto his arse in the mud. He rolled, narrowly missing a hoof to the head, blinking in confusion as the horse shot away.

  Derick swiveled in time to see the wall of water just before it crashed over him.

  Pain exploded in his temple. He clamped down on the urge to gasp. A lungful of the frigid murky creek would do him in. He couldn’t tell whether his feet were above or below his head in the churning jumble, but he knew he was underwater.

  What the hell had hit him? A bloody log?

  He opened his eyes. A greenish gray haze filled his vision and bits of debris stung him. He squeezed his eyelids shut again and flailed his arms in the darkness, trying to create some resistance to the tumultuous jostling as the water dragged him along.

  Christ, his lungs burned. He had to get his head up. He scrabbled for traction on the muddy bed, finding none. In desperation, he jammed his feet down and pushed with all his might. His face broke the plane and he sucked in air—through his nose, through his mouth, however he could get it. But he still couldn’t gain his footing.

  I must relax…flow with the current. Yes, but first he’d need to get his legs out in front of him in case the water slammed him into any rocks. Better a broken leg than a broken neck.

  His heart hammered in his chest, reverberating in his ears like drums beaten underwater as he fought to keep at least his nose and mouth above the water level. He cast a rolling glance behind him. How far had he washed downstream?

  Something bumped his shoulder, sliding against his back as it moved past. Derick jerked his head around, thrashing to swim free of entanglement. He stilled as a red deer bobbed by, its large brown eyes open and unseeing, its neck twisted at a peculiar angle. Twigs and leaves were caught up like bedraggled birds’ nests in its majestic antlers. Its body floated fluidly, not stiff with death—it hadn’t been dead long. Poor beast must have been caught unawares upstream somewhere.

  A jolt like a hoof to the chest jarred Derick.

  Emma.

  Had she been in the line of the flood? He kicked hard toward the bank, his arms arcing in determined strokes. He had to get to her.

  At last the banks of the creek gave way, allowing the wall of water to disperse over the land. The flood slowed.

  Limbs shaking and out of breath, Derick pulled himself from the water. But he was on the bloody wrong side of the creek. He stepped cautiously into the rushing swell and was nearly knocked from his feet…he couldn’t risk crossing here. He’d be damned if he’d go farther south, farther from Emma. He’d just have to find a better spot farther upstream to ford.

  Soggy undergrowth and bared roots exposed by the sudden flood grabbed at his feet like tentacles, but he shook free of them.

  “Emma?” he called out, shocked at his own hoarse rasp. Damn it. He’d told her he’d be looking for two missing women if she didn’t stay with him.

  That’s not fair, he chided himself. If she had been with him, she’d have washed away with him, too.

  “Emma!” he yelled again, listening for any sign of her, but little could be heard above the angry creek and his squelching footfalls. He had to be closing in on where he’d been knocked off his feet. His eyes scanned ahead. Blessedly the clouds had passed, allowing some moonlight to penetrate the canopy. The greens of the forest and the murky water blurred together in what little light filtered through. He could barely differentiate the dark edges of even the trees anymore. How would he ever—

  A flash of something pale caught his eye in the moonlight, about four or five yards ahead. Derick’s stomach clenched. He squinted in an effort to make it out. It was almost like alabaster—could that be skin?

  His heart kicked. Whatever it was, it was unmoving. A rush of sensation flowed through him very much as it had when he’d been a spy, about to uncover a crucial piece of information from within a target’s stronghold. Yet rather than the familiar excitement of the hunt, this was a terrible dread that filled his mouth with the sour taste of bile.

  It could be anything, he reasoned—the clean white surface of a newly shaved rock broken open by the flooding waters, or the underbelly of a dead trout, caught up in debris.

  Yet he ran, as much as the sucking mud would allow. As he drew closer, a shape took form. Feet? Yes, and legs, arms, darkish hair floating erratically in the lapping water…a green dress.

  “Emma!” he roared, leaping from the bank to reach her. She floated facedown, caught against a log. His mouth went utterly dry. Good Christ, she wasn’t moving. She wasn’t moving!

  Derick dropped to his knees, grabbing Emma by the shoulders and yanking her around. He must get her face above water. Then he could force the water from her lungs.

  Her body seemed so stiff beneath his hands. Her hair had wrapped around her head as he’d turned her, obscuring her face. His hand shook as he reached to brush the straggling mess aside. Oh God, Emma. This was his fault.

  His consciousness plummeted when her face came into view, slack in death. Her neck was twisted, much like that of the deer from before. Her eyes were open wide, clouded over and…blue?

  Derick sucked in the breath that had been squeezed from him. It wasn’t her.

  His shoulders went slack. Derick concentrated on breathing, on stilling his pulse.

  “Derick?”

  He snapped his head up, turning to the voice.

  Emma. Straddling his horse, safe on the far side of the creek. Safe.

  Relief swamped him, crashing over his body more fiercely than the raging creek he’d
just survived. His eyes devoured her—every living, breathing inch. Her skirts were ruched high up on her milky thighs, allowing her to sit astride the saddle, and those ridiculous boots dangled precariously on her feet.

  Smudges of mud marred the pale skin of her face and her chestnut hair hung disheveled about her, but good Christ, he’d never seen such a beautiful sight in his life.

  Her brilliant eyes were wide, fixed not on him but on what he held in his arms.

  “Molly!” she cried, scrambling to bring her leg around to dismount. Derick’s horse whinnied and stamped in protest. Emma’s eyes flared and she nearly toppled from her perch. If Pygmy didn’t settle down, she would fall and break her neck as well.

  “Stay put, Emma,” Derick barked, then softened his voice. “She’s gone. There’s nothing you can do for her now.”

  Emma stilled. Her shoulders slumped and some of the luster left her golden eyes as they filled with tears.

  His intense joy and relief at seeing Emma alive dimmed when so juxtaposed to her grief.

  He hadn’t even considered the possibility that she and the maid might have been friends. After fourteen years living behind enemy lines, always on his guard, Derick had nearly forgotten that genuine relationships with other people were even possible.

  He glanced down at the poor soul he cradled. She looked nothing like Emma, did she? How the hell had he thought otherwise?

  The moment he’d seen Emma safe on that horse, his panicked haze had lifted. Now he could see what he should have from the first. Molly was fine-featured like Emma, but taller, fuller-bodied. The dress she wore was green, but well faded. And she wasn’t wearing an overcoat.

  Mistakes like that were completely unlike him and would have meant death in his other life. Unforgivable.

  Gently he ran his palm over the maid’s face, closing eyes that saw no more. How had poor Molly Simms gotten to this place?

  And more importantly, was she an unfortunate victim of the flood, or of something more nefarious?

  A splashing noise jerked his attention to the stream. Hooves sloshed through water as Emma urged the horse into the elevated water. The steed’s eyes and nostrils flared but Derick could see that Emma gripped the horse tightly with her knees and had a firm grasp on the reins. She cooed something low to the animal.

  Damned disobedient woman. “I told you to stay put.”

  “And I might have listened had your dictate made any sense,” she retorted. “However, we have to get Molly back to the castle somehow, and this horse has a better chance of crossing these waters than you would. Particularly whilst carrying her…body.”

  Derick bit his tongue on an ungentlemanly response.

  Emma never looked away from the water sluicing around the horse’s legs, her teeth tugging on her lower lip with calm focus.

  While his bloody heart was in his bloody throat. And if she made it across safely, he might bloody well thrash her.

  He didn’t breathe again until Emma pulled the horse up onto the bank.

  As she dismounted, Derick lifted Molly from the water, laying her out on the bank. As he knelt beside the maid, Emma’s cumbersome boots came into view across from him. His gaze traveled up her as he rose to his feet.

  Emma seemed unusually pale. Her fist balled in front of her middle and deep brackets appeared on either side of her mouth. Poor Pygmy must be turning in knots, as she wouldn’t be used to such things.

  She circled Molly, flinching when her gaze met the maid’s face.

  “You needn’t look,” he murmured. “I will carry the mai—Molly on horseback, if you’ll walk beside.” He reached out his hand, moved with the desire to touch Emma, to comfort her.

  She gave a little shake of her head, and Derick snatched his arm back. He clasped his hands behind him. Just as well—he didn’t see himself as the comforting sort anyway.

  “Do you think her”—Emma cleared her throat—“her neck was broken prior to her washing downriver, or as a result of the flood?”

  “I’m not certain we can tell. We might attempt to estimate how long ago she died by the stiffness of her joints,” he suggested. “But in this situation it might not tell us much.”

  “Because of the cold water,” she said, nodding.

  Derick raised a brow, looking at her with curiosity. He waited for her to fill the expectant silence, but she didn’t. She just stared at him. Odd. Finally, he had to ask. “And how would you know that?”

  Emma winced, and nodded. “This is hardly the first death that I’ve seen,” she replied. “I’ve…assisted my brother in his duties as magistrate for quite some time, and my father before him, so I am familiar with rigor mortis and how to calculate a person’s passing from it.”

  Derick gaped. Pygmy was full of surprises, wasn’t she?

  “However,” she said, “a few years ago, twin boys from the village went missing. Their…bodies were found in a spring-fed pond several days later. When they were pulled from the water, they were quite unrecognizable.” Emma shifted on her feet, clearly uncomfortable with whatever she’d seen that day. “But though they’d been dead for days, I noticed rigor didn’t set in until they’d warmed.” She raised a chestnut brow of her own. “How did you know cold water could affect rigor mortis?”

  He wasn’t about to tell her that he’d been trained by both the French and the English in myriad ways to dispose of a body while throwing off suspicion as to what truly had befallen it.

  He cleared his throat and dropped his gaze to the maid, deflecting the question. “Well, if she did die elsewhere, the flood would have washed away any evidence of it,” he said. “And her body may have been carried in from anywhere upstream. We may never be able to tell whether her death was an accident or not.”

  Emma squatted, and reached her hand out to take Molly’s chin. She turned the maid’s head slowly, squinting in the low light. “I wouldn’t say never,” she murmured.

  Derick came around, squatting down beside Emma.

  Even in the feeble moonlight, ugly purple bruises that resembled nothing more than long fingers stood out on the maid’s neck.

  “Damn,” Derick uttered.

  It seemed he wouldn’t be leaving upper Derbyshire until he’d uncovered both a traitor and a murderer.

  Chapter Four

  Early the following afternoon, Derick stood at the door of Wallingford Manor. He tugged the fine linen of his cuff so that it emerged from the sleeve of his burgundy Bath coating jacket just so and then rapped three swift clangs with the massive knocker. As he waited, he wiped damp palms against his buff pantaloons. His hands felt empty, as if he should be bearing flowers or some other pleasing gift for the lady of the house.

  Good Lord. Where had that thought come from? By the time he was of an age to call on young ladies, he’d been well ensconced behind enemy lines and the only thing he’d been interested in wooing was sensitive information. That most of that information had come from wooing ladies, young and otherwise, was another matter entirely. Besides, he wasn’t here to see Emma—indeed, hoped not to see her again at all. Emma disturbed him, unbalanced him. And he couldn’t afford the distraction.

  No, he needed to focus solely on the task at hand. It was unlikely that poor Molly Simms’ murder had anything to do with his mission. But tragic though it was, it did gave Derick a legitimate reason to work directly with the magistrate himself and leave Emma out of his investigation altogether.

  An annoying pang of disappointment twinged in his chest. He pushed it aside. This remained a mission like any other, a chess match of sorts, and Emma just a pawn. Not his opponent.

  If anyone played the white king to his black one, it was her brother. Once Derick’s fellow agent at the War Department, Thaddeus Farnsworth, had pinpointed a leak of military secrets to a source in upper Derbyshire, Wallingford immediately became the most likely suspect. A decorated war hero with vast military experience, he was one of the few people known to reside in the area who had the kind of knowledge that had been sold
to the French. Wallingford hadn’t presented himself at Aveline Castle either last night or this morning—which was odd, given the man’s duties as magistrate. So Derick had come to him. It was time to get a good look across the board at his potential adversary.

  The door cracked and Derick was met by the polite stare of the butler.

  “Lord Scarsdale to see Lord Wallingford.” He whipped out his calling card. A bit much for the country, he knew, but it was all part of the affectation.

  The servant’s eyes widened as he stared at the stark but finely engraved card. Derick raised a brow, and finally the butler reached out and took the offering with his bare hand rather than the customary silver tray. This being a country manor, Derick supposed the man didn’t keep a salver at the ready. But being in the country did not excuse keeping a viscount waiting on the front stoop.

  Derick cleared his throat, acting his part. “Lord Wallingford?” he drawled. “I have magistratorial business to discuss with him.”

  The statement seemed to shake the butler from his stupor. The door opened wide and Derick stepped into the marbled entry.

  “If you’ll come this way, my lord, I’ll fetch…the magistrate.” The butler ushered Derick into a spacious sitting room and bowed out the door.

  When the door clicked shut, Derick made a quick turn about the room, taking stock. Nothing of any obvious evidentiary value lay about, but he hadn’t expected it would. However, one could learn many beneficial tidbits about a home’s owner just by small observations.

  Derick removed to the far corner, taking in the space as a whole. While it was grand, it was sparsely decorated. There were no trappings of wealth anywhere in the room. In fact, the Aubusson rug, woven in the Oriental style, was thin in spots, the colors badly faded. The warm leather of the wingback chairs near the open fireplace showed signs of heavy use and little balls of fabric clung to the worn chintz of the settees.