All About Love (2 page)

This was Martha’s garden.

Martha was Horatio’s late wife; she’d been the anchor around which the Lake District household had revolved. Martha had loved gardening, striving through all weathers to create glorious displays—just like this. Lucifer studied the plantings. The layout was similar to the garden in the Lake District. But Martha had been dead for three years.

Outside of his mother and aunts, Lucifer had felt closer to Martha than any other older woman—she’d occupied a special place in his life. He’d often listened to her lectures, whereas to his mother he’d been deaf. Martha had not been related—it had always been easier to hear the truth from her lips. It was Martha’s death that had lessened his enthusiasm for visiting Horatio at home. Too many memories; too acute a sense of shared loss.

Seeing Martha’s garden here felt odd, like a hand on his sleeve when there was no one there. He frowned—he could almost hear Martha whispering in her soft, gentle voice.

Abruptly turning, he entered the portico. The front door was half open; he pushed it wide. The hall was empty.

“Hello! Is anyone about?”

No response. All he could hear was the summer buzz outside. He stepped over the threshold and paused. The house was cool, quiet, still . . . waiting. Frowning more definitely, he strode forward, bootheels clacking on black-and-white tiles. He headed for the first door on the right. It stood open, pushed wide.

He smelled blood before he reached the door. After Waterloo, it was one scent he’d never mistake. The hairs at his nape lifted; he slowed.

At his back, the sun glowed bright and warm—the cold quiet of the house intensified. It drew him on.

He halted in the doorway, his gaze drawn down to the body sprawled a few feet inside the room.

His skin turned cold. After an instant’s hiatus, he forced his gaze to travel the old, lined face, the straggly white hair covered by a tasseled cap. In a long white nightshirt with a knitted shawl wound around heavy shoulders, twisted onto his back with one arm outflung, bare feet poking out toward the door, the dead man looked as if he might be asleep, here in his drawing room surrounded by his antique tomes.

But he wasn’t asleep—he hadn’t even collapsed. Blood still seeped from a small cut on his left side, directly beneath his heart.

Lucifer dragged in a breath. “
Horatio
!”

On his knees, he searched for a pulse at wrist and throat, and found none. Hand on Horatio’s chest, he felt a lingering warmth; slight color still graced the old man’s cheeks. Mind reeling, Lucifer sat back on his heels.

Horatio had been murdered—minutes ago.

He felt numb, detached; some part of his brain continued cataloguing facts, like the experienced cavalry officer he’d once been.

The single killing stroke had been an upward thrust into the heart—like a bayonet wound. Not much blood, just a little . . . oddly little. Frowning, he checked. There was more blood beneath the body. Horatio had been turned onto his back later—originally he’d fallen facedown. Catching a glimpse of gilt under the shawl, Lucifer searched with fingers that shook—and drew out a long, thin letter knife.

His fingers curled around the ornate hilt. He scanned the immediate area but could see no sign of any struggle. The rug wasn’t rumpled; the table between the body and the rug appeared correctly aligned in its normal place.

The numbness was wearing off. Emotions welled; Lucifer’s senses flickered, then flared to life.

He was cursing beneath his breath; he felt like he’d been kicked in the gut. After the serenity outside, finding Horatio like this seemed obscene—a nightmare he knew there’d be no waking from. Deadening loss engulfed him; his earlier anticipation lay like bitter ashes on his tongue. Pressing his lips tight, he drew in a deep breath—

He wasn’t alone.

In the instant he sensed it, he heard a sound. Then came a clunk and a scuffle behind him.

He sprang to his feet, gripping the letter knife—

A heavy weight crashed down on his skull.

It hurt like hell.

He lay slumped on the floor. He must have gone down like a sack of bricks, but he couldn’t remember the impact. He had no idea whether he’d lost consciousness and only just regained it, or whether he’d only just reached the floor. Exerting every last ounce of his will, he cracked open his lids. Horatio’s face swam into—and out of—focus. Closing his eyes, he bit back a groan. With luck, the murderer would think he was insensate. He almost was. The black tide of unconsciousness surged and dragged, trying to suck him under. Grimly, he resisted its pull.

The letter knife was still in his fist, but his right arm was trapped beneath his body. He couldn’t move. His body felt like a lead weight he was trapped within; he couldn’t defend himself. He should have checked the room first, but the sight of Horatio, lying there still bleeding . . .
damn
!

He waited, oddly detached, wondering if the murderer would stop to finish him off or just flee. He hadn’t heard anyone leave, but he wasn’t sure he could hear at all.

How long had he been lying there?

From behind the door, Phyllida Tallent stared wide-eyed at the gentleman now stretched lifeless beside Horatio Welham’s body. A squeak of dismay escaped her—the ridiculous sound prodded her into action. Dragging in a breath, she stepped forward, bent, and wrapped both hands around the pole of the halberd now lying across the fallen man.

Bracing, she counted to three, then hauled. The heavy head of the halberd rose. She staggered, boots shuffling as she fought to swing the unwieldy weapon aside.

She hadn’t meant it to fall.

Having only just walked in and discovered Horatio’s body, she hadn’t been thinking at all clearly when the stranger’s footsteps had sounded on the gravel outside. She’d panicked, thinking him the murderer returning to remove the body. With all the village in church, she couldn’t imagine who else it could have been.

He’d called a “Hello,” but so might a murderer checking to see if anyone else had come upon the scene. She’d frantically searched for a hiding place, but the long drawing room was lined with bookcases—the only gap that would have hidden her from the door had been too far away for her to reach in time. Desperate, she’d secreted herself in the only available spot—in the shadows behind the open door, between the frame and the last bookshelf, squeezing in alongside the halberd.

The hiding place had served, but once she’d realized from his actions and his muttered expletives that this man was no murderer, and after she’d debated the wisdom of showing herself—the daughter of the local magistrate and quite old enough to know better than to slip into other peoples’ houses dressed in breeches to search for still other peoples’ misplaced personal belongings—once she’d got past all that and realized that this was murder and she’d gone to step forward to make herself known, her shoulder had nudged the halberd.

Its descent had been inexorable.

She’d grabbed it and fought vainly to halt it or deflect it; in the end, all she’d been able to do was twist it enough so that the heavy blade had not struck the man’s head. If it had, he’d have died. As it was, the hemisphere at the side of the iron axe-head had connected with a sickening thud.

With the halberd finally angled to the side, she lowered it to the floor. Only then did she realize she’d been repeating a breathless litany:
Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!

Wiping her palms on her breeches, sick to her stomach, she looked at her innocent victim. The sound of the halberd connecting with his skull echoed in her ears. It hadn’t helped that he’d chosen that precise moment to leap to his feet. He’d come up propelled like a spring, only to meet the halberd going down.

He’d hit the floor with a sickening thud, too. He hadn’t moved since.

Steeling herself, she stepped over the pole. “Oh, God—
please
don’t let me have killed him!” Horatio had been murdererd, and now she’d murdered a stranger. What was her world coming to?

Panic gnawing at her nerves, she sank to her knees; the gentleman lay slumped forward, facing Horatio. . . .

Lucifer sensed a presence approaching. He couldn’t hear, he couldn’t see, but he knew when they knelt at his back. The murderer. He had to assume that. If only he could gather enough strength, even to lift his lids. He tried, but nothing happened. Unconsciousness welled, lapping about him—he refused to let go and sink under. There was a roaring in his head. Even through it he knew when the murderer reached out. The roaring in his head escalated—

Fingers—
small
fingers—touched his cheek gently, hesitantly.

The touch blazed across his brain.

Not the murderer
. Relief swept through him, and relentlessly carried him into the black.

Phyllida traced the fallen man’s cheek, mesmerized by the stark beauty of his face. He looked like a fallen angel—such classically pure lines could not possibly be found on mortal men. His brow was wide, his nose patrician, his thick hair very dark, sable black. His eyes were large under arched black brows. His lids didn’t flicker; her stomach clenched tight. Then she saw his lips, lean and mobile, ease, softening as if he’d exhaled.

“Please, please, don’t die!”

Frantically, she searched for a pulse at his throat, ruining his cravat in the process. She nearly fainted with relief when she found the throbbing beat, steady and strong.
“Thank God!”
She sagged. Without thinking, she carefully rearranged his cravat, smoothing the folds—he was so beautiful and she hadn’t killed him.

Wheels crunched heavily on the gravel drive.

Phyllida jerked upright. Her eyes flew wide. The murderer?

Her panicky wits calmed enough for her to distinguish voices as the conveyance rolled on around the house. Not the murderer—the Manor staff. She looked at the unconscious stranger.

For the first time in her life, she found it difficult to think. Her heart was still racing; she felt light-headed. Dragging in a breath, she fought to concentrate. Horatio was dead; she couldn’t change that. Indeed, she knew nothing of any relevance. His friend was unconscious and would remain so for some time—she should make sure he was well tended. That was the least she should do.

But here she was in Horatio’s drawing room, in breeches, instead of being laid down on her bed at the Grange with a sick headache. And she couldn’t explain why, not without revealing her reason for being here—those misplaced personal belongings. Worse, they weren’t hers. She didn’t actually know why they were so important, why their revelation was to be avoided at all costs, which made it all the more incumbent on her not to reveal their existence. Aside from anything else, she’d been sworn to secrecy.

Damn!
She was going to be discovered any minute. Mrs. Hemmings, the Manor housekeeper, would even now be entering the kitchen.

Think!

What if, instead of waiting here and landing herself in a morass of impossible explanations, she left, cut home through the wood, changed, and returned? She could easily think of an errand. She could be back in ten minutes. Then she could make sure Horatio’s body had been discovered, and oversee the tending of the stranger.

That
was a sensible plan.

Phyllida clambered to her feet. Her legs wobbled; she still felt woozy. She was about to turn away when the hat on the table beyond Horatio’s body caught her eye.

Had the stranger carried a hat when he’d entered? She hadn’t noticed it, but he was so large, he could have reached forward and put it on the table without her seeing.

Gentlemen’s hats often had their owners’ names embroidered on the inside band. Stepping around Horatio’s body, Phyllida reached for the brown hat—

“I’ll just go up and check on the master. Keep an eye on that pot, will you?”

Phyllida forgot about the hat. She shot through the hall, out of the front door, then raced across the side lawn and dove into the shrubbery.

“Juggs, open this door.”

The words, uttered in a tone Lucifer usually associated with his mother, jerked him back to consciousness.

“Nah—can’t do that,” a heavy male voice answered. “Mightn’t be wise.”

“Wise?” The woman’s tone had risen. After a pause, during which Lucifer could almost hear her rein in her temper, she asked, “Has he regained consciousness at all since you picked him up from the Manor?”

So he was no longer at the Manor. Where the hell was he?

“Nah! Out like a light, he is.”

He wasn’t, but he might as well have been. Beyond hearing, his senses weren’t functioning well—he couldn’t feel much beyond the massive ache in his head. He was lying on his side on some very hard surface. The air was cool and held a hint of musty dust. He couldn’t lift his lids—even that much movement was still beyond him.

He was helpless.

“How do you know he’s still alive?” The woman’s imperious tone left little doubt she was a lady.

“Alive? ’Course he’s alive—why wouldn’t he be? Just swooned, that’s all.”

“
Swooned
? Juggs, you’re an innkeeper. For how long do swooned men stay swooned, especially if they’re jolted about in a cart in the fresh air?”

Juggs snorted. “He’s a swell—who knows how long they stay swooned for? Right liverish lot, they are.”

“They found him slumped by Mr. Welham’s body. What if he hasn’t swooned but sustained some injury?”

“How could he have sus—got any injury?”

“Maybe he fought with the murderer, trying to save Mr. Welham.”

“Nah! That way, we’d have his nibs here and someone else the murderer—that’d make two people coming in separate from outside in one day with no one seeing either of ’em, and that just plain doesn’t happen.”

The lady lost all patience. “Juggs—
open this door
! What if the gentleman dies, all because you decided he’d swooned when that wasn’t so at all? We have to check.”

“He’s
swooned
, I tell you—not a mark on him that Thompson or I could see.”

Lucifer gathered every last shred of his strength. If he wanted help, he was going to have to assist the lady; he didn’t want her going away defeated, leaving him with the uncaring innkeeper. He lifted one hand—his arm shook . . . he forced the hand to his head. He heard a groan, then realized it was his.