“No,” Tierney said. “I’ve never seen him.”
“Nor have I,” Sutton added.
“Damn it,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair.
That would have been too easy, he reckoned.
Sutton whistled through his teeth, his gaze going to the healing knot on Trevor’s head. “That’s quite the knock you took to the old knowledge box, Ridgely. It doesn’t look new, either.”
“It isn’t new,” he admitted on a heavy sigh. “Nor is this the first attempt on my life.”
“What the devil, Ridgely?” Tierney shook his head. “Why didn’t you call for us after the first attempt?”
An excellent question. He’d been foolish to believe, he realized now, that a footpad would hit him over the head with such exuberance. Most pickpockets were skilled enough to merely jostle a victim and relieve them of their coin, without the target ever being aware of what had happened.
Another sigh. “Because I thought I’d merely been robbed. Considering what happened tonight, I’ve realized how wrong I was to make assumptions.”
“Given your state of dress, I take it you were in bed when you were attacked,” Tierney said.
He’d had the presence of mind to fetch a banyan as he waited for his friends to arrive and throw it over his nightshirt, but he was still in his bare feet.
“Yes,” he said, his mind returning to the moments in the darkness when he had first realized someone was in his room, his heart beginning to pound again. “I was asleep in my chamber when he came into my room. I’ve made some inquiries with the household, and from all accounts, nothing has been stolen, and nor was anyone else’s chamber entered.”
“The bastard knew where to find you then,” Sutton surmised.
“I cannot think otherwise,” he agreed. “Hunt House is not a small residence. He knew directly where to go.”
“Hunt House is a bloody castle,” Tierney said wryly.
It was obscenely large. Trevor couldn’t argue the point. His father had created a monument to his own vanity and wealth.
“Aye, the bastard would have been more concerned with the silver and anything he could easily transport that was of value if he were a cracksman,” Sutton agreed. “That nothing was missing, and he went straight to your chamber, is telling.”
“What became of his weapon?” Tierney asked, his manner businesslike and brusque.
As if it were every day that he dealt with matters such as attempted murders and dead bodies. But then, since Tierney had been the leader of the Guild, Christ only knew what he’d seen and done. Trevor had never asked.
Now didn’t seem the moment to begin, either.
“He had a knife,” he said, remembering the glint of the firelight on the blade as the man had raised it high. “Not a small affair, either. I was prepared for him and hit him with a candlestick, knocking it from his hand.”
Tierney nodded. “The knife fell, presumably to the floor. What happened then?”
It was a blur of sound and shadows, protective rage and shock and fear. Nothing seemed as clear and distinct as it had in the moment, when he’d been forced to defend himself. But then, that was rather the way of it with the mind. Violence and upheaval did strange things to the memory, rendering it hazy and confusing at times and at other times obscenely clear.
“He ran,” Trevor said, forcing himself to remember. “I chased after him, intent upon catching the scoundrel before he could do any further mischief. We rushed into the hall and through the picture gallery, and then reached the staircase.”
“Take us to your chamber,” Sutton said. “We’ll be needing to find that knife. It may give us some manner of clue.”
It was an excellent point. His mind had been so scattered earlier when he’d retrieved his banyan that he hadn’t even thought about the blade or finding it.
He inclined his head, grateful anew for the friendship of these two trusted men. “Follow me.”
They climbed the stone stairs that had proven the dead man’s downfall, Trevor leading them on the same path he and his assailant had traveled not long before. Now, the sconces in the halls were blazing, every corner of Hunt House filled with light from the efforts of diligent footmen, who had ventured past the body when housemaids were kept below stairs.
They were through the picture gallery and proceeding down the hall when a door popped open. And there stood Virtue, still clad in nothing more than a night rail, her dark hair a tangled mess around her lovely face. It shouldn’t have been at all endearing and yet, it somehow was.
“Ridgely, what is happening?” she asked, her gaze darting to the two men flanking him.
