Piers lit a couple of candles from the lamp and passed one to April.Then he turned down the lamp, and they left the bedchamber together.As one, they turned not toward the main staircase, but toward the attic staircase, where April had encountered Edward last night.
But when she eased the door open, they heard nothing more sinister than Mrs.Riley’s gentle snoring.She closed the door again and they crept down the servants’ stairs to leave the house by the kitchen door, which was locked and bolted as it should be.
Piers found a lantern there and lit it from his candle which he then blew out.April pinched hers and abandoned it too.
The hinges of the door creaked enough to set April’s teeth on edge, and then they were outside in the night chill.There was no tavern or even a cottage close to the house, so if the strange noises were permeating the chimneys from outside, it could surely only be passing people, birds, or animals.Poachers, perhaps?Or amorous villagers?
Or servants like Edward.
Piers took her hand, and they walked together in a circuit around the house.The lantern showed them nothing but two rabbits sprinting for cover.Until they came to the locked side door.Piers paused as the lantern showed what looked like fresh footprints.
There was no gravel here, just an old mud track leading to the gravel drive on one side, and off into the distance on the other.April wished she’d had time to explore further.
Piers’s lips touched her ear.“The track leads to a summer house.We noticed it yesterday during our ride.”He adjusted the lantern’s direction, showing further footprints.
On impulse, since someone seemed to have come out of the house this way, April tried the door.It was still locked.
Silently, she and Piers followed the footprints along the track and up the gentle rise until a small, wooden structure could be seen silhouetted in the lantern light.There were no more obvious footprints on the path.
Piers paused and swung the lantern in an arc around him.
“Piers,” April said hoarsely.
But he had already seen it.A heap of clothes in the grass, a few feet to the right of the track.They moved toward it, April with a deep sense of foreboding.Piers released her hand, and she used it to cover her stinging stomach.
Hush, we are fine, you and I...
But the heap on the grass was not fine.It was a man in a corduroy coat, lying on his front, unmoving.The back of his head looked wet.Piers bent and touched his shoulder, and then, when the figure still didn’t stir, he gripped his shoulder and turned him.
Edward lay staring up at the sky.
Chapter Six
“Is he dead?”Aprilwhispered.
In her young life, she had seen death in all its forms, many of them violent.In truth, she was more used to such things than Piers and took them in her stride.Except she stood shivering beside the body, both arms around her abdomen.
