“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 killedagain?”
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?”
