“Yes,” she said decisively, covering his hand with hers.
They were silent for some time.Sleep beckoned.
Then April said, “I hope Edward is...”
***
DESPITE HIS DISTURBEDnight, Piers snapped into wakefulness at dawn.It bothered him that Edward might already be dead.And it bothered him that evidence on the ground where he was attacked might already have vanished under weather or passing traffic.
Before April’s pregnancy, he would have wakened her, and they would have gone together.He missed that, though not for the world would he disturb her now.She was sleeping so deeply and peacefully that he was distracted by inconvenient tenderness for his wife and their unborn child.
Forcing himself, he slipped out of bed, collecting boots and clothes on the way, and crept toward his own room.As he passed, he thought he heard a whisper from the direction of the chimney and veered closer.It was a very odd noise, like the buzzing from a distant beehive.Thoughtfully, he walked on to his chamber for a hasty wash before climbing into fresh clothes.
His view from the lightening window told him that last night’s cloud had not so far brought rain.Only the glistening of dew lay on the ground.
After pulling on his boots, he hesitated.His two quizzing glasses lay on the dressing table, unworn and unused since coming to Temperley House.The glasses had begun as an affectation of the viscount persona he had invented to get himself through the transition of what he had been to what he must become, part of the protective armour he had needed to face an alien world.There were different lenses in each glass so that he could use one for reading and the other for seeing into the distance.In fact, they had proved quite useful over the months, especially in their investigations.
It wasn’t until he had reunited with his friends that he had left the glasses off, eager to embrace his old world again.Foolish.They were both part of him now.
He snatched up the glasses, all but flung them around his neck and left by the door into the passage.There, he encountered the yawning Fosterson, about to retire back to his bed.
“Withy.I didn’t expect to see you so early.”
“How is your patient?”Piers asked.
“Still alive but unconscious.I’ve left the servants with instructions to keep an eye on him and fetch me if there is any change, but I don’t think there’s any point in anyone sitting with him all day.”
Piers nodded.“Thanks, Doctor Foster,” he said, using their old nickname from the nursery rhyme, which made his friend grin.
Piers, noting the candlesticks were still in place, hurried down to the kitchen, hoping no devoted maid had yet removed Edward’s clothes for laundering.Fortunately for his purpose, there was no sign of the maids he knew.Since Mrs.Riley was not fuming, he presumed they were busy elsewhere and not asleep.She had a different, much younger girl with her, fetching and carrying.
It struck Piers they were now down a manservant again.Though Edward had hardly been the most industrious of workers.
Mrs.Riley scowled when she saw Piers and began to dry her hands on her apron before advancing.Piers staved her off by means of a curt nod as he strode straight to the housekeeper’s sitting room, and through to the bedroom.
As Fosterson had said, there was little change in Edward.Bandaged and still, he looked very pale but peaceful enough.His clothes lay in a washing pile behind the door.There was blood on the coat collar and the top of the shirt, as he expected.It was the corduroy coat he was particularly interested in, for he remembered being struck by its weight as he wrestled it off the patient.
He found the key in the right-hand pocket—a large door key.He transferred it to his own coat and rummaged some more, but there was nothing else of interest.
Before he left, he made sure Edward was still breathing, then went out and exited the house by the kitchen door.
The morning was fresh, greeting him with a gentle wind and country scents that mingled most pleasantly with the smell of Mrs.Riley’s baking bread wafting from within.The footprints on the track to the summer house were no longer clear.His own and April’s had joined and sometimes obliterated Edward’s, both going and returning.He could make out his own boot soles, uneven as he had staggered under the footman’s weight.
When he looked at the grass on either side, searching for some larger sticks of the type that Edward might have fallen on, or that might have been used to strike him, he saw something else interesting.Although it was springing back, the grass looked as if it had been walked on, a faint but straight trail running parallel to the mud track.
The environs of Temper House seemed to be a busy place after dark.
Although he had a good look through his quizzing glass at the trampled grass, both from a distance and close up, it was impossible to tell the direction of the traveller.Could this be Edward’s trail?It was certainly on the side nearest the trees, so more likely to provide stout wooden sticks—and cover for an ambush.
Thoughtfully, he pressed onward to the point just over the rise where he and April had discovered Edward.The footprints had scuffed each other out on the track, and the grass had not yet sprung back where he had lain.There was blood in a small, dried puddle and in a couple of nearby spots, but no sign of a weapon, or an obstacle, whether stone or wood, that could have injured Edward to that degree.
Nor could he see any signs that the man had been dragged there from anywhere else.Interestingly, the depressed trail of grass on the other side of the track went on parallel to the path.
Keeping his eyes peeled for signs of either blood or weapon, Piers walked on toward the summer house.
The structure was built partly of brick, but mostly of wood, with a wide porch and large windows that could open to the fresh air.A perfect spot for a summer tryst, although a little chilly for an April night.Who was Edward’s tryst with?Whoever had walked the grassy trail?In which case, Edward would have appeared to ignore Piers’s instructions to leave the maidservants alone.
Unbidden, he remembered the furtive, flirtatious glance between Claudia and Edward at dinner.He blinked the vision away, for he couldn’t imagine Claudia lowering herself to consort with a servant.She was always aware of her status as a gentleman’s daughter.But then, she had smiled at said servant, and he hadn’t thought she would do that either.
