The admission did nothing to calm his frayed nerves.
“Well?” he said, when Miss Pemberton showed no signs of explaining further.
“Well,” she echoed softly. Her gaze slid toward the body on the bed. “He was definitely murdered. I don’t know about the blow to his head, but someone…someone smothered Lord Heatherbrook. With a pillow.” Her gaze snapped back to Gavin, her eyes round and huge. “He couldn’t breathe.”
Her breath hitched again, as if in remembrance. Her limbs twitched. Gavin pulled her closer, so that he leaned against the cold glass of the windowpane and she nestled atop the wrinkled linen of his shirt and the crumpled pillow of his cravat.
Was she insane? Washeinsane for half-believing her?
Half-believing her, hell. After what he had witnessed, he absolutely believed her. He remained unconvinced God whispered the secret into her ear, but no skill at playacting could slow her heart to a standstill, render her lungs incapable of motion, and leech the pallor of death into her cold skin.
Whatever had just happened with Miss Pemberton, he believed Heatherbrook had been asphyxiated. Gavin cast his own fleeting glance toward the bed. So much for his hopes of death by natural causes. Someone suffocated the sanctimonious bastard with his own pillow. Not a crime in Gavin’s book, except for one thing.
Gavin was still the primary suspect.
Chapter 14
Miss Pemberton’s breathing had calmed, her limbs were now warm and steady. Her gaze still fixed on his. She seemed to be awaiting a response.
“All I know,” Gavin said at last, “is that you didn’t get that news from God.”
She shoved his arms, knocking them from their loose hug.
“But I believe you,” he said softly.
She paused in the act of rising from his lap. The tight muscles of her bottom still perched on his thigh, as though she were one heartbeat from taking flight. She turned, slowly, her parted lips mere inches from his. “You do?”
“I do.”
Before he could say more, a gasp and a chuckle clashed in the corridor. Dread encasing his stomach, he dragged his gaze to the doorway at the source of the noise.
The gasp came from his sister, the chuckle from Edmund.
“Guess the Stanton chit was right, eh, Lioncroft?” Edmund wiggled thick eyebrows. “Reckon we should’ve sent up a chaperone after all. What happened to the army of maidservants? They defect?”
With a strangled cry, Miss Pemberton leapt from Gavin’s lap and staggered forward. She glared at Edmund over her shoulder as she found herself trapped between two pairs of curious eyes, a murder victim, and the suspected killer lounging across the window seat.
“Don’t be a bore, Edmund.” Lioncroft infused his voice with as much disinterest as he could affect. “As any young lady might do faced with mortality, Miss Pemberton merely fainted. I couldn’t very well lay her next to him until she recovered, so I made do with the window seat.”
Edmund snorted, retrieved a silver flask from his pocket, and saluted Gavin with it.
Rose shook her head. “Miss Pemberton, I’m not sure you realize…” She swallowed and pierced Gavin with her gaze. “I just came to see… to see that he was still dead. That I hadn’t imagined it.”
Edmund smirked. “And instead, we came across you. God impart any good gossip before you wound up in Lioncroft’s lap, Miss Pemberton?”
“Edmund!” Rose snapped, her face draining of color. “Enough.”
She pushed past him, striding forward until she reached the foot of the bed.
Miss Pemberton closed her eyes. She breathed slowly, deeply, as if to do so required every bit of her concentration. When her eyes reopened, she focused them on Edmund.
“Yes,” she answered, one hand on the mattress as if for balance. “He did.”
Edmund choked on a mouthful of whisky. From the shocked expression on his face, Gavin half-expected him to expire of apoplexy.
“What?” Edmund staggered against the doorframe. “What did He say?”
Miss Pemberton trembled slightly, as if her limbs were not quite ready to hold her upright again.
