“That we have to find out.”
Outside, a few clouds drifted across the sky. They blotted out the moon, the stygian darkness sinister. Somewhere in the distance, a fox barked. Guns cocked, he and Warren rounded the corner of the house.
Giles spun around, gun in hand. “Oh, it’s you again, milord.”
“Nothing stirring?”
“No. Nothing, milord.”
“Come with us. Someone hit Jerry over the head.”
“Thunder an’ turf! Is he all right?”
“He will be. But we’re dealing with a nasty rogue.”
The three ran toward the east wing of the house. Only a few hours until daylight, Nicholas thought with relief. Then they would have a better chance of finding this assailant, or assailants, and dealing with them.
Warren raised his head and sniffed. “I smell smoke.”
“Me, too. It’s coming from the east wing.”
They reached the corner. The footman, Alex, lay sprawled on the ground. His attacker had piled bushes up against the wall of the house and set them alight. As Warren ran toward the flames, the fire blazed high, already eating into the wooden window frame. Another few minutes, and it would be inside the house.
Warren and Giles set about shoving away the pile of blazing sticks and bushes from the wall while Nicholas knelt beside his footman. He, too, had been attacked from behind.
“Alex, can you hear me?”
He didn’t stir. Nicholas brought the lantern closer. Alex was dead, his skull savagely crushed.
Nicholas’s stomach roiled. He swore violently. Jumping up, he went to assist the two men fighting the fire. “Alex is dead,” he said grimly. The heat seared his skin as he pulled away a burning branch and stamped out the flames.
Warren turned to him, his eyes wide and appalled in the reflected reddish glow from the fire. “God, no!”
“I swear I’ll find this villain and pay him in kind if it’s the last thing I do.”
Once the last embers had died away, they carried Alex inside the house and laid him out in the lesser-used parlor. Tomorrow, he would send for the magistrate, Sir Henry Markham. He’d summon the parish constable, along with the vicar and the doctor for poor Jerry. He’d also have to write to Alex’s father. Deeply saddened, he bowed his head.
“Giles, go to bed. You get some rest, too, Michael.”
“But I’m perfectly all right, milord. Let me take this shift,” Warren protested.
Nicholas wouldn’t sleep until this man was caught. “Thank you, but no. You won’t get much sleep, either. We’ll go after this villain first thing in the morning.”
Nicholas left them and made his way outside. For the last remaining hours of the night, he grimly continued to circumnavigate the wings of the big house, his gun cocked and ready, willing the murderer to come and try to strike him down. Wanting him to make the attempt. But apart from the nightingale, whose sweet tune now stirred no joy in him, no sound or movement came from the gardens or the wood beyond.
The sky lightened to gray. Close to dawn, the temperature dropped. He shivered and rubbed his arms. His mind began playing cruel tricks on him, summoning up his failures.
Earlier, he’d been tempted to declare his feeling for Carrie. To go down on his knee and ask her to marry him. He was relieved now that he had resisted. The death of his young footman had shaken him and brought back with vivid clarity his failure to protect those he cared for. He swallowed on the raw pain of loss. How cruel fate could be. He did not deserve happiness.
After Sylvia’s death, he’d thought himself unworthy of living, but Max had helped him to get on with his life. And now, this. A young man’s life ended far too soon in a senseless manner. Nicholas groaned, and as the sun rose, casting its bright light over the trees, he went inside to write that letter to the boy’s father.
At his desk, he forced himself back to the present, his jaw tight, determined to banish everything else from his mind until these scum were found.
***
Two housemaids murmured together in the corridor when Carrie came down to breakfast. They bobbed and hurried away. In the breakfast room, the footman, Alex, who usually served breakfast, was absent. Instead, Abercrombie stood at the buffet.
“Good morning, Abercrombie. Where is Alex?”
