Edmund searches his pockets with shaking fingers and pulls out a crumpled, white handkerchief. He wraps his makeshift bandage around Lord Heatherbrook’s head and drags the limp body toward the bed.
Lord Heatherbrook doesn’t stir.
The sudden headache sliced through Evangeline’s skull like thick shards of broken glass. She clapped her hands to her aching head, gritting her teeth against the familiar pain. It was worth any discomfort to have found the murderer at last. She massaged her temples until her brain once again could form coherent thoughts, then cracked her eyes open enough to squint at the man she’d just slapped.
He’d apparently already forgotten the act, for he was slumped against the wall drinking whatever he carried in his silver flask. When he turned to face her, a cruel sneer twisted his face.
“You may not have known this,” he said as he pushed off from the wall, “but I like a woman with a little fire in her. I like her even better whenI’min her, too.”
Evangeline backed against the other side of the hall. “Touch me and I’ll scream.”
“Touch her,” came a low voice from behind them, “and I will kill you here and now.”
“Lioncroft.” Edmund stumbled backward a few steps. “Should’ve known you wouldn’t be too far behind this one’s skirts.”
Gavin lunged for him and managed to blacken his eye before Evangeline could tug him away.
“Stop.” She threw her arms around his waist, laid her cheek on his chest, hugged him tight. “He didn’t touch me. I’m all right.”
“Bitch touchedme,” Edmund spat, eyes flashing.
“Say that word again and I’ll—”
“No!” Evangeline tightened her hold around Gavin’s torso. “I already slapped him.”
He practically snarled. “Why did you have to?”
“That’s not important right now. I need to tell you—”
Nancy and Lady Heatherbrook glided around the corner and stumbled to a stop.
Evangeline dropped her arms from around Gavin’s waist. His hand found hers, squeezed, let go.
“What’s going on?” Lady Heatherbrook asked, brows arched.
Edmund covered his rapidly bruising eye with one hand and glared at them with the other. “Besides the Pemberton chit clinging to Lioncroft, as usual? You can’t trust him when she’s around, and you can’t trust her even when he’s not. She’s a menace.”
“No more than you,” Evangeline countered. “Considering you killed Lord Heatherbrook.”
“Considering Iwhat?”
All gazes swiveled toward Evangeline, who took a deep breath and prayed she was right. “You were, ah,seenthat night. Sneaking into his bedchamber. Stealing papers, money, a snuffbox.”
His hand fell from his eye. “I wasseen?”
Lady Heatherbrook swayed back against the wall, upsetting the balance of a framed landscape. “You killed my husband, and then stole from him?”
“Other way around,” Evangeline put in once it was clear Edmund planned to continue glaring rather than defend himself. “He had just finished stuffing his pockets when your husband caught him unawares. He clubbed him with a swordstick.”
“You can’t prove it,” Edmund muttered.
“Can’t I? You assert that if we perform a search of your chamber, we won’t find the papers, the change purse, and the snuffbox?”
“Proves nothing,” Edmund insisted. “You might’ve planted those items in my room yourself.”
Evangeline crossed her arms. “Did I plant the handkerchief tied around the wound to his head?”
He blanched. “Er…”
