If his sister and Virtue awoke and emerged from their chambers, there was no telling what would happen.
There was a flurry of movement from the other side of the bed as the would-be murderer began running from the room.
Trevor started forward, rounding the bed, determined to give chase. If he could catch the fellow, tackle him perhaps, he could see him subdued until Bow Street was called. But the villain was hasty on his feet, running down the hall as Trevor stormed after him. There was a terrible crash as the man ran into a familial bust and sent it to the floor in the gallery.
On he chased, determined. His own bare feet made a distinctly different sound landing on the stone stairs than the man he pursued, whose leather soles made a clacking sound that cut through the darkness and stillness of the night. The bastard had paraded through his home to kill him, wearing a fine pair of boots. For some reason, this outrage occurred to Trevor, seemingly of utmost importance, in his shock at his brush with death. Beneath his feet, the stone was cold and unforgiving as ever, slippery too. He took care to keep from tripping over his own blasted feet and breaking his neck, his thoughts moving faster than the rest of him. The urge to apprehend the man who had attempted to stab him pumped to the fore,catch him, catch him, catch him, almost in time to the beat of his heart.
When they made it halfway down the Grecian staircase that twisted through the heart of Hunt House, the assailant lost his footing on the slick stone. With a cry of terror, the man pitched down the stairs. Trevor raced down the staircase to the din of the sickening crunch of bones and thumps of the other man falling down the stairs, flesh connecting with the cantilevered stone stairway in merciless fashion.
The man he had been chasing reached the bottom first and slumped, motionless on the floor. Trevor carried on to the base of the staircase and the cold marble in the hall below.
The startled voices of servants were emerging from their quarters below stairs, apparently awakened by the shouts and thuds. His butler Ames, dressed in banyan and nightcap, strode forth, raising a candle to illuminate the bottom of the staircase.
“Your Grace, what is the matter?” Ames asked, alarm tingeing his ordinarily august and unflappable tones.
“There was an intruder,” Trevor managed, breathless from the frenzy of his reaction to the danger, not taking his eyes from the seemingly lifeless body of the villain he had just barely thwarted. “This man. I believe he intended to kill me. A weapon—someone find me a weapon.”
“A weapon, Your Grace?”
“A fire iron,” he said, his gaze never wavering. He had pistols locked away, but there wasn’t sufficient time for them to be retrieved now. The prone figure didn’t appear to be breathing, his head at a strange angle, blood beginning to pool on the marble. “Someone fetch me a fire iron.”
On the odd chance the bastard hadn’t managed to break his own neck in his tumble, Trevor intended to defend himself and his household against the man however he must. And in this moment, nothing would feel more satisfying than taking a fire iron to the villain’s skull.
Curious as to the man’s identity, Trevor used his foot to nudge the lifeless body, rolling him over. Blood and bruising from the impact of his fall down the stairs made it difficult to discern the features, but he could see well enough to know there was nothing familiar about the man. He was a stranger to Trevor. Why would a stranger be intent upon killing him? If his interest had been in thieving some Hunt family heirlooms, surely he would have made away with the silver or some paintings or a vase.
It made no sense. The man’s sole aim appeared to have been stabbing Trevor.
“Good heavens, Ridgely, what is all this commotion about?” Pamela demanded suddenly from above, intruding on his mind’s attempt to make sense of this muddle. “What has happened?”
He glanced up for a moment to see his sister’s worried face illuminated by the glow of yet another taper from above, the open, circular staircase giving her an unimpeded view of the base of the stairs.
Blast.
She screamed, the shrill sound echoing off the stone and marble.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, his attention returning to the felled stranger as he winced at the sharpness of his sister’s alarm.
Quite the lungs Pamela possessed.
Her lady’s maid pushed to the vanguard of the collection of worried servants. “May I attend her ladyship, Your Grace?”
The would-be murderer had neither, as yet, moved nor taken breath that Trevor had seen. An eerie calm had settled over him that he recognized well from his days as a spy. There was always first the action, then the shock, followed by an odd surge of the need to take command of the situation. To see the traitor captured, the revolutionary caught in his trap, the murderer felled. And then afterward, to clean up the mess of it, literally and figuratively.
He nodded to the lady’s maid. “Please do attend to Lady Deering, and my ward as well.”
Certainly, Virtue would have been awakened by this dreadful affair. If nothing else by Pamela’s scream. Unless…
New fear rose within him, sudden and jarring, swelling like an uncontrollable tide. His heart clenched, his mouth going dry. If the bastard had dared to harm a hair on her head, he would… Christ, whatwouldhe do? He didn’t want to contemplate it. Couldn’t bear it.
He had to make certain she was safe.
“What is happening?”
Virtue’s confused voice cut through his wild thoughts, filling him with relief. Another glance up confirmed she was safe. And by God, wearing some sort of diaphanous night rail which ought to be outlawed. Where the devil was her dressing gown?
“Return to your chambers, ladies,” he called sharply, his voice echoing in the eerie stillness which had fallen in the hall. “I have this matter firmly under control.”
“Who is that man?” Pamela was demanding, hand over her heart.
