Chapter One
“Are… are you dead?” Cordelia asked, quite breathless, as she inched closer to the prone figure stretched rather ungracefully across the library chaise. “Because I do feel that would bemostinconvenient for everyone involved… especially me.”
There was, most unhelpfully, no response.
She hovered in the doorway, still clutching the brass poker that had so recently made contact with what she was now terribly afraid might be the Earl of Nettlebridge’s skull.
The weight of it felt unnatural in her hand. In fact, it was far too light. Because, if one had really committed manslaughter with it, shouldn’t it feel heavier? More… consequential?
“Well,” she huffed, pacing cautiously about the room, her slippers silent upon the Turkish rug. “If you did not wish to be struck, you should not have done what you did.”
The figure remained motionless.
Cordelia bit her lower lip, which trembled most inappropriately. She had always suspected that her life would end in scandal, but never once had she envisioned that scandal beginning with a corpse and ending with a frantic burial behind the rose garden.
“Truly, it wasyourfault,” she snapped though her voice cracked with guilt. “You emerged from the shadow like a villain in one of those dreadful gothic novels. Your face was so utterly… wicked! And it seemed as if you weren’t looking at me but at someone else entirely. And I, being of sound instinct and considerable nerve, did what any proper lady would do… I defended myself!”
Her fingers tightened around the poker as she edged closer. Lord Vernon was lying on his back, one arm flung across his chest, the other dangling off the edge of the chaise in the particular fashion of those with either great poetic sensibility or no pulse. She was fairly certain this was what her mother had once calledfemale hysteriathough her mother had used the term to describe any emotion more intense than passive smiling.
She looked about, wondering if there was a place she could… hide the body for the time being. She dropped the poker which clattered far too loudly on the hearth. She slid her hands underneath his armpits in a futile effort to lift him up.
“Ugh!” she exhaled without having moved the body a single inch.
She tried going around him, and pushing him off of the chaise lounge, but that didn’t work either.
“Oh, my father would most certainly disapprove of this,” she huffed nervously then she slapped the man’s hand angrily. “Shame on you! My father didn’t leave me in your care, so you could have your free rein over me! You were supposed to be my second father, and you were supposed to protect me from all this, and now, look at us!”
She started to pace, nervously shaking her head as she did so.
“I ought to flee. Yes, escape! I shall claim ignorance or madness or mistaken identity… though I daresay the poker-shaped bruise upon your forehead may weaken that claim.” Her eyes darted to the chaise. “I cannot possibly drag you anywhere. You’re rather large and heavy. That is most inconvenient for me.”
She twisted a lock of black hair around her finger in frantic rhythm. Her cheeks were flushed because the rising panic made her feel absurdly hot then chilled then hot again as a new, more dreadful thought struck her.
“I have committed murder,” she whispered, sinking onto a footstool as despair crashed in like a wave. “I have broken all expectations for a lady of good breeding. I shall never be received at tea again—not that I was often invited, but the principle remains.”
She looked up, pale blue eyes wild. “I cannot possibly go to prison. The living conditions there are deplorable. And I should not fare well in a cell; I am told I talk in my sleep and that I require at least three pillows or I wake most irritable.”
She groaned aloud and buried her face in her hands. Her skin felt clammy, her thoughts spinning like a top wound too tight. This was not her house. This was not her library. And that was not her chaise to stain with blood, should the situation deteriorate further.
But before she could formulate the next desperate step in what was fast becoming a tragic farce, the sound of a door creaking open sent fresh horror rattling down her spine.
She turned sharply and found a dark figure standing in the doorway.
“Oh!” she exclaimed at a pitch most unbecoming. “Oh no.”
The man paused, framed by the light of the corridor behind him. He was broad-shouldered, far too tall for comfort, and unmistakably well-bred. Cordelia’s breath hitched—mostly from alarm but a small, treacherous part of her from something else entirely.
He stepped inside, the firelight catching reddish-brown hair and sharp cheekbones, and Cordelia realized, with the slow-mounting horror of a woman in a very bad play, that she did not recognize him at all.
“Miss,” he said smoothly in a voice as rich as midnight brandy, “you appear… flushed. Is something amiss?”
“No,” she rushed to supply, but when his eyes hardened in suspicion, she changed her approach. “I mean, yes,” she replied too quickly. “Yes, I was, uhm… faint. A touch of lightheadedness. It was all too much, you know—too many syllables in the morning paper. One does one’s best to keep up, but the editor is terribly fond of compound words, and I simply collapsed.”
He raised a brow but said nothing.
Darn it,she cursed to herself.Make more sense, Cordelia!
Cordelia stepped in front of the chaise, arms spreading casually like a poorly trained valet attempting to hide an unsightly spill on the upholstery.
